So, anyone check out the recently released December comic book sales? Some interesting things in it. If you forgot, Ultimates 3.1 and the final part of One More Day were released in December. Care to hazard a guess as to where they placed on the chart? That's right, the two worst books in all of 2007, maybe even the last decade, were the top two selling books for the month of December.
This, my friends, is why we can't have nice things. Why do we support these books when quality titles lanquish at the bottom of the charts. This just tells Marvel and DC to keep throwing this rubbish at as and to reward people like Jeph Loeb, Rob Liefeld or numerous other "top" creators with bigger salaries and lots of high profile books that they just continue to drive into the ground. More after the jump.
I just can't figure out why people always buy these books. Something like Onslaught Reborn was pure shit vomitted onto paper and shipped to shops and it sold insanely well. Let me list off some comics that are outsold by books like that on a routine basis:
Nova - mid-80's sales rank
Black Adam - mid-80's
Annihilation Conquest - high-70's
Immortal Iron Fist - mid-70's
Fables - 100's
Checkmate - did not rank
Blue Beetle - did not rank
Catwoman - did not rank
All of those books and more were outsold by the likes of X-Men: Emperor Vulcan, Death of the New Gods, Search for Ray Palmer Specials, Exiles, Countdown, Supergirl and so on. I'm sorry if you like some of these books, I know I've loved the occasional clunker, but the ones listed above are much better than these, regardless of how much you like them, and many more in the upper echelons of these sales rankings.
I'm not exactly innocent here, as I bought Ultimates 3, Countdown and its many tie-ins and so on, but at least I do my best to pick up as many of these lower tier titles as I can afford. I also know that not everyone can afford to be as liberal as I am with my purchases. I can't really expect someone to drop titles and pick up random ones he's never read before, possibly wasting their money if they don't like it. It's hard to get around these constraints and I think both Marvel and DC have set it up that way when they go about their scheduling. Not sure where I was going with all this, but was good to blow some steam over something that really annoys me about the comic world.
This, my friends, is why we can't have nice things. Why do we support these books when quality titles lanquish at the bottom of the charts. This just tells Marvel and DC to keep throwing this rubbish at as and to reward people like Jeph Loeb, Rob Liefeld or numerous other "top" creators with bigger salaries and lots of high profile books that they just continue to drive into the ground. More after the jump.
I just can't figure out why people always buy these books. Something like Onslaught Reborn was pure shit vomitted onto paper and shipped to shops and it sold insanely well. Let me list off some comics that are outsold by books like that on a routine basis:
Nova - mid-80's sales rank
Black Adam - mid-80's
Annihilation Conquest - high-70's
Immortal Iron Fist - mid-70's
Fables - 100's
Checkmate - did not rank
Blue Beetle - did not rank
Catwoman - did not rank
All of those books and more were outsold by the likes of X-Men: Emperor Vulcan, Death of the New Gods, Search for Ray Palmer Specials, Exiles, Countdown, Supergirl and so on. I'm sorry if you like some of these books, I know I've loved the occasional clunker, but the ones listed above are much better than these, regardless of how much you like them, and many more in the upper echelons of these sales rankings.
I'm not exactly innocent here, as I bought Ultimates 3, Countdown and its many tie-ins and so on, but at least I do my best to pick up as many of these lower tier titles as I can afford. I also know that not everyone can afford to be as liberal as I am with my purchases. I can't really expect someone to drop titles and pick up random ones he's never read before, possibly wasting their money if they don't like it. It's hard to get around these constraints and I think both Marvel and DC have set it up that way when they go about their scheduling. Not sure where I was going with all this, but was good to blow some steam over something that really annoys me about the comic world.
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15 comments:
I bought Ultimates 3, but only because I didn't notice it was in the stack of books I was buying. I've since dropped that pile of garbage like it had the plague.
I bought Amazing because I was interested in all the hub-bub and my Amazing Spider-Man collection is probably the largest one I have, next to my Uncanny or Avengers. I wanted to keep buying it for that reason.
Hopefully sales will drop off of Ultimates 3 fast enough to show it for what it is, pure garbage.
There will always be those titles that are good that no one will buy. Its the way things work in the comic business. The general public will always buy the books that have the most hype. Ultimates 3 and OMD had the most hype in the month of December and they sold the most. I wish the small books with good stories got the attention that the Loeb stories get, but the hype machine sells crap
This doesn't apply only to lower selling titles, but things like Green Lantern #25, which came out that month. The end to the, hands down, best story / event of last year and it was outsold by multiple books, finishing like 9th or so (it was top 10, I just can't be bothered getting the numbers again). Yes, it's still damn respectable, but to be beaten out by some very questionable titles is still a saddening thing to see.
Yeah I agree. There will always be those books that are near and dear to our hopes that don't sell well. The only thing to do is to enjoy the story and hope it doesn't sell low enough to get canceled.
Throwing some fire on the flames;
The Order has been canceled with #10.
I also bought Ultimates 3. I liked Ultimates 2 and at no point paid attention enough to realise the cover art for 3 was the same as the interior. Large blocky art better fit for a cover, and a quick story that could be summed up as
1. Magneto's children are into incest.
2. We have to do something about Magneto's children.
3. Someone killed Scarlt witch.
Kirk,
This is a great rant...but alas its the state of the world we live in today. Crap always seems to drown out quality. Think about your favorite TV shows that no one watches because they lose out to reality tv like Idol and Dancing with the Stars? As a hip hop fan, it drives me crazy that rappers with no talent and superficial content routinely outsell quality lyricists. I love the quality stuff, but I too am guilty of buying "mainstream" books and reading a series out of habit. How many countless issues of Spider-Man, X-Men, Superman, and Batman have we all bought over the years because they were popular and still are. As bad as the One More Day storyline is, people will still buy Brand New Day (including me) because they love Spidey no matter hwo much they protests on blogs or to anyone who will listen. Again its human nature to get on the bandwagon and people are less likely to back an underdog even though we all have our personal faves...
Totally random question: when and why was Heroes for Hire cancelled?
To be fair regarding GL#25 - it was a $5 book, so selling 90,000 or so copies (or so the estimate was), was actually pretty fantastic.
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/11941.html
That being said, it does bother me. Admittedly, many of the criticisms of these books have been online, a specific segment of the buying population, but it still comes down to some bad books getting bought while other good ones (like the now cancelled The Order :() getting the shaft. It's possible that people's tastes simply run that way, but I doubt it.
@brother129 - Which one? The most recent? It's been cancelled a bunch of times. The 90's one was actually pretty good along with Kazaar at the time and both ended due to sales as far as I could tell. The most recent one was a tie-in book that probably couldn't support itself when it wasn't in Civil War or WWH and got the pre-emptive axe. However, I don't have any sales data on it, so I can't verify that.
@disgruntledfan - Ya, I forgot about the higher price tag. I think I'm just a little bitter at how well the other two books did.
Also, I always wonder about the whole internet community. Comics are a very niche hobby. We do not enjoy the kind of acceptance video games or movies about comic books receive. Hell, comic book cartoons are more popular than actual comics.
So, I just assume all comic fans, with some few exceptions, keep up with the online community in some fashion. Where else would they hear about new comics or events or get previews or anything? Wizard doesn't sell that many copies. I guess I just use the net so much, I assume everyone else does. Maybe there's this huge comic buying population out there that never checks Newsarama, CBR, etc and just pick up the prettiest covers and big name books, like Spider-Man and Batman, regardless of how good or bad they may be.
already mentioned, the order was canceled.
this kind of thing happens all over the place though. good tv shows, video game sequels, movie sequels, unrecognized music, all get screwed and flashy big name stuff gets undeserved attention and money thrown at it.
just gotta continue to support the good stuff and the walking deads, fables, runaways, booster gold - will pop up and get attention. unfortunately even when a series, like the order, is cheered, it lacks the sales and will sometimes still get canceled.
you are trying with this site to spread the word of good titles.
Kirk,
I'm referring to the most recent volume. I haven't seen a solicit in any of the previews and the last issue I have is the World War Hulk fallout and Sang Chi kills Humbug....
brother129, Heroes For Hire has been canceled for some time. #15 was the last issue.
I do agree that Green Lantern #25 was a much better book than Ultimates or Spiderman - I think it unfortunately further illustrates that quantity (sold) is not representative of quality.
As to the online community being representative or not - I do tend to agree that comic fandom probably is pretty active online, there's always the idea that the less passionate fans (i.e. happy with it but not ecstatic, or just along for the ride) probably won't speak up. Then, there are probably fans who said they hated the books but bought them anyway, people who collect even what they dislike (lifelong Spidey fans, etc.).
It's tough to get a handle on exact numbers, unfortunately, but I wish we could so I could get some of the people buying Ultimates or Countdown or OMD to buy Thunderbolts or The Order or Checkmate.
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