What's the appeal in cape comics?

[FanboyStranger]

But sparkly vampire books don't make up 90% of the shelves at Barnes & Noble. If I went onto a book forum and said I loved books I don't think everyone would assume I meant I loved the Twilight series specifically.

The funny thing is that I was in a Barnes and Noble yesterday, and they had a five stack section devoted to "Teen Paranormal Romance", which I guess is a thing now. By comparison, the Philosophy, Crime, and Humor sections had two stacks each, and History had four stacks. (And this is in a B&N adjacent to a university.)

[Gothos]

I'm not entirely sure I understand exactly what you were saying, but really I don't think your statement is in anyway more accurate at all really, not in the book stores nor in the direct market. I don't have the data from 1993 so I don't know if Out from Boneville sold gangbusters back then with sales that rivaled anything put out by the big two or not, but I do know it certainly didn't last year. In 2011 Out From Boneville sold 32,931 units through bookscan and another 3,300 in the direct market, in contrast to that Batman moved an estimated 188,420 units in the month of September alone.

So while it's true that in bookstores the cape comics don't crack the top ten(DC's top book Watchmen sold 21,000 and it's second best Batman Year One sold just 900 less than that) the numbers of those non-cape books are still dwarfed overall by their caped counterparts.

And again, that's nothing to do with quality it's just a representative of what people buy.

I wasn't interested in stating definitively that BONE has consistently outsold X-MEN or any other superhero comic; they're just examples of tendencies in the marketplace. As you point out "sales success" depends on what period you're talking about. One would expect BONE to sell better when it's a new product;a decade later, it's likely new issues of BATMAN may do better than reprints of BONE.

I've heard BONE touted as being one of the non-superhero books that the industry ought to produce more of because it was so profitable. The trouble with that POV is that no one can determine what's going to hit big, be it BONE or HARRY POTTER. It's possible that the comics industry could be more venturesome, but I get weary of seeing the implication that all they have to do is throw open their checkbooks to the "quality creators" and comics would be revolutionized (a POV I see on THE BEAT with tedious regularity). If that theory had any validity, one might have expected Fantagraphics to be a much richer company than it is.

[FanboyStranger]

I'm not entirely sure I understand exactly what you were saying, but really I don't think your statement is in anyway more accurate at all really, not in the book stores nor in the direct market. I don't have the data from 1993 so I don't know if Out from Boneville sold gangbusters back then with sales that rivaled anything put out by the big two or not, but I do know it certainly didn't last year. In 2011 Out From Boneville sold 32,931 units through bookscan and another 3,300 in the direct market, in contrast to that Batman moved an estimated 188,420 units in the month of September alone.

So while it's true that in bookstores the cape comics don't crack the top ten(DC's top book Watchmen sold 21,000 and it's second best Batman Year One sold just 900 less than that) the numbers of those non-cape books are still dwarfed overall by their caped counterparts.

And again, that's nothing to do with quality it's just a representative of what people buy.

I'm confused about your comparison: are you saying that an individual issue of Batman in September outsold the entire amount of Bone, vol. 1 for an entire year, or are you saying that an individual collected edition for a specific Batman storyline released in Sept outsold Bone, v. 1? Because the first is sort of comparing two very different kinds of apples, and the second makes a certain amount of sense considering that the Batman volume was just released and that particular volume of Bone has been widely available for over a decade now. (I suppose a third option is that the 188,420 represents the total amount of Batman tpbs across all titles sold in September, which, again, doesn't seem like a very apt comparison considering you have a great number of Bat tpbs in print and only one Bone, v.1.)

[Alex Scott]

Are the Batman numbers for actual sell-through to customers, or of direct sales to retailers?

[transvestitegod]

There is no appeal, that's why they've had the same dwindling consumer base for over 30 years.

[thwhtGuardian]

Keep in mind that Bone has sold a butt-ton of books through Scholastic school book orders that don't go through bookscan. Same with Owly and a number of other "kid comics."

True, I should have perhaps pointed that out, still it's a fair number to look at as it collects data from most major retailers.

I wasn't interested in stating definitively that BONE has consistently outsold X-MEN or any other superhero comic; they're just examples of tendencies in the marketplace. As you point out "sales success" depends on what period you're talking about. One would expect BONE to sell better when it's a new product;a decade later, it's likely new issues of BATMAN may do better than reprints of BONE.

I've heard BONE touted as being one of the non-superhero books that the industry ought to produce more of because it was so profitable. The trouble with that POV is that no one can determine what's going to hit big, be it BONE or HARRY POTTER. It's possible that the comics industry could be more venturesome, but I get weary of seeing the implication that all they have to do is throw open their checkbooks to the "quality creators" and comics would be revolutionized (a POV I see on THE BEAT with tedious regularity). If that theory had any validity, one might have expected Fantagraphics to be a much richer company than it is.

It doesn't really matter if it's Bone or the Walking Dead or anything else new or old, they don't sell as much and aren't read by as many people as the top cape comics.

I'm confused about your comparison: are you saying that an individual issue of Batman in September outsold the entire amount of Bone, vol. 1 for an entire year, or are you saying that an individual collected edition for a specific Batman storyline released in Sept outsold Bone, v. 1? Because the first is sort of comparing two very different kinds of apples, and the second makes a certain amount of sense considering that the Batman volume was just released and that particular volume of Bone has been widely available for over a decade now. (I suppose a third option is that the 188,420 represents the total amount of Batman tpbs across all titles sold in September, which, again, doesn't seem like a very apt comparison considering you have a great number of Bat tpbs in print and only one Bone, v.1.)

It's not apples to apples, but it's not so irrelevant as to be an apples to oranges comparison either. We don't have the data on Bone for its whole life span, but we do have the data for the last 6 years available to us and even when you add up all the copies of Bone v1 sold through out that period you still get a smaller number than the average monthly audience for Batman. Now, because we don't have all the numbers that's not definitive but its one that hints towards the audience size of a non caped book in comparison to a caped book, a hint that is further supported by looking at the sales of monthly comics.

Frankly,as I said in the beginning, the topic seems silly to me as different things simply just appeal to different people. Personally, I like a number of different titles ranging from across the publishing spectrum and as far as I can tell every publisher whether it be Marvel, DC, Darkhorse, Image, IDW or Archaia all publish their fair share of winners and losers as far as quality goes.

[thwhtGuardian]

There is no appeal, that's why they've had the same dwindling consumer base for over 30 years.

This is patently false and is not supported by the sales numbers at all, which is where this whole branch of the discussion stemmed from.

[Michael P]

Are the Batman numbers for actual sell-through to customers, or of direct sales to retailers?

The former.

[transvestitegod]

This is patently false and is not supported by the sales numbers at all, which is where this whole branch of the discussion stemmed from.

The sales numbers indicate that there is no new blood coming to the superhero comics readership.

[thwhtGuardian]

The sales numbers indicate that there is no new blood coming to the superhero comics readership.

Again this is a terrible misnomer with no absolutely no basis in reality. The reality is this:

I'm not entirely sure what the differences in production costs has to do with the discussion, nor do I really understand what the erroneous beliefs of a segment of the fan community who have incorrectly been predicting the demise of comics for 30 years now have to do with the lasting interest in cape comics either, but hey at least in regards to the second issue I'll bite.

The facts are this, as I've said sales have been stable since the late 70's onward to this very day. In 1979 DC's top selling book(Action Comics) sold 86,000 copies, in 1985 the top book(Crisis) moved 79,000 units, in 1997 JLA sold 78,394 comics, in 2005 the top seller sold 116,000 copies, Pre NU52 reboot last year Green Lantern sold 71,517, post reboot Justice League sold 142,248 in December and just last month Batman sold 134,605 issues...It's clear from all that data that super heroes have sold consistently well all along, and there's nothing to say they won't for the foreseeable future.

They are a commodity that continually attracts new readers, despite the false views that nobody reads superhero comics anymore and the market is dieing.

When you think about it the shape of the market is pretty staggering, what other products stay so regular? Sure there have been peaks and trows(due largely in part to speculation) but the average number of readers has been fairly consistent for a while now, so while it's not the booming product it was in its heyday it's found a very healthy and sustainable niche audience with a variety of products that cater to the tastes of many.

[FanboyStranger]

Not to mention that Marvel's and DC's sales have been up over the past two years, which suggests that someone new is picking up their books.

[thwhtGuardian]

Not to mention that Marvel's and DC's sales have been up over the past two years, which suggests that someone new is picking up their books.

Indeed, things are going pretty well these days and not just for capes either.

[transvestitegod]

sales have been stable since the late 70's onward to this very day.

they've had the same dwindling consumer base for over 30 years

Not to mention that Marvel's and DC's sales have been up over the past two years, which suggests that someone new is picking up their books

There's been a lot of lapsed readers, especially since the relaunch.

[stelok]

There's been a lot of lapsed readers, especially since the relaunch.

The comics readership is as constant as the wind. The lapses come from the bad economic crisis, the readers' financial woes or lack of interest, but not from the quality of comics.