Ultimate Sales Discussions

[Balfro]

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/11/...g-51-of-sales/

Assumption based off words your friend said, not real statistics.

Yeah, but considering he's an actual retailer and not just some comic book fan like you and I, I think he knows just a little bit more than we do about where his sales are heading. The overall market may show increased sales, but it's worlds different when looking at each individual shop on their own. If one shop can show a decline in sales, trust me when I say that it happen elsewhere as well.

[Drz]

Your claiming that the retailer is clearly wrong about selling less because the sales at Diamond increased leaves me unconvinced.

They're Canadians, ofcourse i trust Diamond more.

[Peter Wisdom]

Even when Diamond's info is on a different type of sales than those the retailer is talking about?

I'm sorry, but at this point I'm really not sure if you're just kidding, or you simply don't have a clue and think you're funny but actually are not.

[Drz]

It's irrelevant what one store is saying when the overall sales have increased as more orders have been made. Samething with the Newsarama article, they had one with October being the one where "less sales" and yet the sales took a jump.

[Balfro]

It's irrelevant what one store is saying when the overall sales have increased

It may be irrelevant now. But if and when that same pang hits other retailers DC is going to head downward in sales again. Like I said if it can happen to one store, it can happen to them all.


Anyway, we should be discussing the UU digital releases.

I wonder if the digital version will have the "FREE DIGITAL COPY" text one it

[boyhangover]

DC comics have also been critically more favoured. Fear Itself was a major shitfestival of an event followed by spamming the market more with Fear Itself comics because "its important!!!!!"

Digital sales are ruled by price, people forget that, thats why DC's "1 month goes by, the comic goes cheaper digitally" is a clever tactic, because the new audience truly does care about the price.

Yeah and DC didn't do that with Blackest Night, Flash Point, or Coutdown.

[Drz]

Flashpoint was followed by the relaunch. :p Blackest Night was criticially acclaimed and praised by the fans, you don't see the same level of fan love for Fear Itself at all whatsoever.

[Chaos_Alfa]

Flashpoint was followed by the relaunch. :p Blackest Night was criticially acclaimed and praised by the fans, you don't see the same level of fan love for Fear Itself at all whatsoever.

You do see it with Spider Island.

[Plawsky]

Great, if he "knows" X is better than Y he is a returning customer and would be smart enough to not make the mistakes that caused him to quit comics, if we're talking generic movie fans who wanna try things out, then he will definately wonder why Marvel charges so much, so why on earth would be pay more for less?

You don't have to be a comic reader to know what you might like. When I started to read comics, I picked up Ultimate Spider-man and Ultimates because of the movies. I wanted to read something similar to the films I had seen. When we're talking about some of the most exposed properties in the world - Batman, Superman, Spider-man, X-Men, etc - then most people will have opinions before they even get to the comic shop. The same goes for DC, of course. If someone grew up loving Batman TAS, then they're more likely to go for a Batman book.

Either way, they are going to look for their favorite character on the cover before they look at the price. When they see "$3.99," they might be a little bummed at the price, but that doesn't mean they're going to buy a book about a character that they don't know/like just because it will save them a buck.

Oh, the site that had retailers claim that sales we're dropping in October but took a 7% increase.

It means the retailers we're wrong, simple.

As several people have pointed out, the retailers didn't say they ordered less, they said they sold less. There's a huge difference, as only the first is reflected in the Diamond numbers. But if retailers' sales went down in October, it will show in the November numbers, because they will have dropped their orders; and that's what the article was saying.

Yeah lol have you been to their blog? "EVERYBODY'S TALKING!" Really DC? Everybody? Why am I not seeing it then?

You know Marvel does that too, right? As does every company in every industry. If you're not hyping your product, you're not going to get mainstream attention.

here it's already showing signs of complete failure on DC's part.

I'm not sure I would call it a failure, really. Even when sales level out again (and they will; we just don't know where they'll level out), they still created a lot of hype for their books and for comics as a whole. And that's a great thing. Whether or not it meets their expectations isn't something we'll likely ever know.

Flashpoint was followed by the relaunch. :p Blackest Night was criticially acclaimed and praised by the fans, you don't see the same level of fan love for Fear Itself at all whatsoever.

Do you realize how biased you are? You're looking at such a small picture, here.

Yes, Fear Itself wasn't as well received as some other books. But it was a better seller until the final issue of Flashpoint, which got a boost for obvious reasons. And even still, Flashpoint wasn't well received either. So instead of comparing that to Flashpoint, you chose a story from last year, when that's not exactly a proper comparison.

You're also ignoring the fact that Marvel does have critically acclaimed books. As Chaos_Alfa pointed out, Spider-Island has been extremely well liked. Uncanny X-Force and FF have been ongoing with similar enthusiasm from fans, and Wolverine and the X-Men started off with a bang. And claiming that DC's sales are the reason that it and Incredible Hulk got off to a good start is completely biased as well.

I'm not denying that DC has done a good thing for the industry, because I really think they have. But everyone needs to have some perspective. All this bias towards either company is way over the top.

[Plawsky]

Based on comixology's best sellers of the week, it looks like Ultimate books are performing pretty well digitally.

Ultimates takes the #10 spot, with X-Men at #16 and last week's Spider-man at #19.

Just a peek at some of the books that all three Ultimate titles are outselling on comixology:

Walking Dead
FF
Wonder Woman
Nightwing
X-Men: Legacy
Invincible

Now, this data is obviously not perfect. There are no numbers whatsoever, so it's difficult to compare against books that are from before this week. However, when you consider the Ultimate books are $3.99, yet still selling as well (or better) than many other titles, it's hard not to call them a success. Even if the digital market is still relatively small, it has become a major part of Marvel and DC's strategy, so strong performance is obviously important.

[VRaptorX]

Just a question...why is everyone impressed with these sales and calling it good? I mean...Kirkman did those numbers and everyone was calling it the end, that it was selling so low that the line will get cancelled. Well....if this is doing Kirkman's numbers....than either Kirkman's sales were fine....or this line is doing bad. You can't call Kirkman's numbers bad and these good when they are exactly the same number.

It's like a gaming war between fanboys. Oh the 3DS is selling BETTER than the original DS, flop. Oh the Vita sold less than half of the 3DS, success. Sorry, logic not compute.

[Drz]

The Kirkman sales we're lower than the norm back then, but nowdays the top 50 range is all Ultimate Comics is doing really ever since post-Ultimatum.

[MarvelMaster616]

Just a question...why is everyone impressed with these sales and calling it good? I mean...Kirkman did those numbers and everyone was calling it the end, that it was selling so low that the line will get cancelled. Well....if this is doing Kirkman's numbers....than either Kirkman's sales were fine....or this line is doing bad. You can't call Kirkman's numbers bad and these good when they are exactly the same number.

It's like a gaming war between fanboys. Oh the 3DS is selling BETTER than the original DS, flop. Oh the Vita sold less than half of the 3DS, success. Sorry, logic not compute.

That's a fair point. But while I think fans were quick to call Kirkman a flop, the whole novelty of the relaunched line is still fresh. Keep in mind Kirkman's run began long after the 50th issue of this series. Relaunches have a way of skewing the numbers as we've seen with DC's new 52.

But I find it odd that Ultimate really isn't selling much more than it was before Ultimatum or Death of Spider-Man. It got temporary boosts, but that's about it. I'm starting to think that Marvel really doesn't consider Ultimate as important as it once was. It seems to be more focused on what 616 is capable of and rightfully so. 616 is outselling Ultimate both commercially and critically.

As for the sales figures, I don't like to argue with numbers because they speak for themselves. But if Marvel is content with the current sales figures with Ultimate, then there's really nothing left for us to say. So long as it turns a profit, they'll continue. But if they drop, they'll throw in another gimmick. That's pretty much what Ultimate has done since Ultimatum. Until it stops having that effect, it will continue for better or for worse.

[VRaptorX]

Yeah, I would have expected about 80K still since the first arc isn't even over. As far as relaunches go, I think these numbers are low. I think numbers would be higher if MAINLINE DC didn't reboot itself. Alt universe vs the "real" universe....yeah....it happens.

But the line that Marvel cancels stuff flat out (as in not renaming or renumbering but flat out GONE) is under 25K. As long as we don't dip below that, the line will stay.

I say if we hit around 30K standard we'll get a few revivals. And if it stays there, maybe they'll reboot the whole line, like day one of the line with all 100% versions of Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops, Peter, etc and it would be earth 1611 or whatever. Then after that....good luck people.


I doubt we'll ever get a standard above 55K regularly. Loeb pulled a Vince Russo on WCW. That reputation is never going away.

[Plawsky]

Just a question...why is everyone impressed with these sales and calling it good? I mean...Kirkman did those numbers and everyone was calling it the end, that it was selling so low that the line will get cancelled. Well....if this is doing Kirkman's numbers....than either Kirkman's sales were fine....or this line is doing bad. You can't call Kirkman's numbers bad and these good when they are exactly the same number.

Sales numbers in 2007 are not the same thing as sales numbers in 2011. Even more, the comic industry in 2011 is not the same as it was in 2007.

Yeah, I would have expected about 80K still since the first arc isn't even over. As far as relaunches go, I think these numbers are low.

You expected 80k based on what? The highest selling Marvel ongoing of November (that wasn't in its first 3 issues or an anniversary issue) was Amazing Spider-man at 58k. If you really thought the relaunch of alternate universe titles was going to outperform Amazing Spider-man, then you really are not very good at estimating.

But the line that Marvel cancels stuff flat out (as in not renaming or renumbering but flat out GONE) is under 25K. As long as we don't dip below that, the line will stay.

Marvel puts out roughly 50 ongoing titles. Ultimate Spider-man was #9 among those in sales for November; UXM and Ultimates were #18 and 19 respectively. Not only that, but they are still the most successful alternate universe titles on the market. Kick Ass 2 is the only book that doesn't take place in mainstream Marvel or DC that sells better than the Ultimate ongoings. Regardless of the fact that they are no longer of the same prominence that they once were, they are still, by definition, successful.