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Underground > Comic Books >

Sales, Sales Charts, and the Business of Comics

  
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:17 / 03.02.03
Hello darlings,

As you have probably twigged by now, I know nothing at all about the business end of comics, and my curiosity was sparked by the discussion in the X-Statix #7 thread about how X-Statix sales were going, and whether it was likely to be cancelled.

So...first up, hoew do you find out how much a comic is selling, and how much relative to other comicsw/ Do you have to buy a publication (Wizard, Comics Journal, sort of thing). What sort of numbers does a "successful" comic shift? How much of the cover price of a comic is actually bottom-line profit, how much does the writer/artist receive (presumably people are generally on salaries rather than percentages, but you know what I mean....), and so on....How do the business models of, say DC and Marvel (whom I understand are to an extent now concerned with generating or maintaining copyrights for TV and film projects) function, and how do they compare to, say, Oni or Dark Horse? And how does the comic shop at the end maintain viability (I know we have a few owners or former owners of comic shops - experienced opinions welcome).

I'm interested ina bunch of tangling threads here - there was Runce and his runcevulsion at the mass collector, and Jack F's response that these people keep comics as an industry afloat, essentially, and also the "rock star" lifestyle EVS identified as a feature in MM's columns, and....well, also curiosity about the whole business model, really. I mean, there are half a dozen comic shops or so in central London, which means comics are probably a more pervasive mass industry than Gamelan, but less than ex-rental DVDs, say, but four of those exist within walking distance of each other, which suggests that some sort of branding or market targeting must be going on...

Anyway, all thoguhts welcomed, really.
 
 
sleazenation
10:22 / 03.02.03
As an industry, comics is *very* strange... Sales records exist recording sales from publishers to comicshops and are available in publications such as comics international and here on icv2.com, but obviously since the lack of sale or return these charts reflect only what publishers can foist on comic shop owners rather than what comic consumers actually buy. The top 10 books from north America new xmen and the like regularly shift about 100,000 units a month.
 
 
Jack Fear
12:30 / 03.02.03
The people behind the excellent comics webzine Ninth Art maintain a forum on Delphi: Chris Ekman has been posting a series of thread with the header "FUN WITH NUMBERS" that, taken in toto, go a long way towards explaining how sales are measured, what they measure, and how things trend out.

It's fascinating stuff, if, as Sleaze points out, deeply screwed-up. The numbers, remember, don't measure the number of copies actually bought by consumers, but rather the number of copies ordered by stores—and those copies, once bought by the store, are generally non-returnable, so something may look like a huge hit when in fact it's (a) sitting on the shelf, (b) being sold at a deep discount in an effort to shift those units, or (c) been written off entirely by the retailer.

Add in the odd fact that the huge secondary market in comics is also (mostly) handled by the same retailers who handle the primary market—which is sort of like being able to buy antique furniture at your local Ikea—and that very few real numbers exist to quantify trends in that secondary market (I'll admit that I have no idea how Overstreet or Wizard compile their back-issue price guides), and you've got a weird situation indeed.
 
 
Chubby P
13:34 / 03.02.03
Heres a graph I built up for my own interest of sales of X Titles from the month before the X-Men revamp to now. Not all X-Titles are included since I missed some. X-Statix is now selling the same numbers as pre-revamp and New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men are selling less.

X-Titles Graph 04/01 - 02/03
 
 
sleazenation
15:07 / 03.02.03
Remember of course that these figures are also unrepriesentative of whatever sales the reprints are pulling in. There are apparently a few low selling titles from cross gen that are kept alive because of their success in the book trade...
 
 
some guy
13:02 / 05.02.03
There are apparently a few low selling titles from cross gen that are kept alive because of their success in the book trade

This is how much of the Vertigo line stays afloat, from my understanding. In some cases the TPB versions outsell the original issues. When talent and production costs are factored in, some books end up working as loss leaders for the collection. This week's Lying in the Gutters suggests that an active TPB program is what's keeping top talent at Marvel - more than inital page rates or sales figures.

The money issue is a bizarre one - Chris Claremont legendarily bought his mother an airplane with the royalties from X-Men at its peak. On the other hand, I know that some Slave Labor Graphics artists never see a dime from their work as sales barely recoup production costs. I think the generally accepted break-even figure for printing a B&W book is 1,000 copies (obviously this doesn't cover talent fees etc).
 
 
grant
14:39 / 18.11.05
I'd like to steer this conversation into a specific part of the business of comics based on Cameron Stewart's gracious answers to impertinent questions in this thread.

When asked about the kinds of salaries comic creators earn, Cameron said his royalty check for Guardian #1 was enough to take care of two months' rent.

I'm curious about how this works in a real-world way, though. I don't want to know specifics about who makes what for what, but I'd really like to know a few things about the financial lives of comics creators.

Evidently, they're not salaried... are they paid per contract (you write 50 issues of Batman, we'll give you sixty DCmoleons per issue) or per sales (you'll get this percent of this property so long as it shall sell)? Or both?

Does DC or Marvel offer health benefits? Is there a union?

Are ALL creators independent contractors, or are some work-for-hire and some chained to the bullpen?

Are creators more like musicians (who make invidual deals with labels) or more like magazine freelancers (shopping stories around and/or coming in for dayrate work as it's available)?
 
 
CameronStewart
18:12 / 20.11.05
>>>Evidently, they're not salaried... are they paid per contract (you write 50 issues of Batman, we'll give you sixty DCmoleons per issue) or per sales (you'll get this percent of this property so long as it shall sell)? Or both?<<<

Comics creators are usually paid by the page. In most cases, writers, artists, letterers, colourists, etc, receive a fee for each completed page of the comic they produce. Pencillers tend to receive the highest rate. Writers generally receive a lower page rate than pencillers (unless you're a superstar writer like Gaiman, Moore, etc) but can compensate for that by writing several titles simultaneously. I pencil and ink my work, so I receive payment for both duties.

In addition to the per-page rate, there is a royalty system in effect - if the book you produce sells in excess of x amount of copies, you receive an additional percentage of each copy sold above the watermark. Usually, though, with the comics biz being what it is, the monthly pamphlet comics rarely sell enough to generate royalties. The cheque for Guardian I mentioned is the first royalty cheque I've had for a pamphlet comic (I have, however, received many royalty payments for trade paperback collections containing my work).
 
 
CameronStewart
18:19 / 20.11.05
>>>Does DC or Marvel offer health benefits? Is there a union?<<<

No union that I'm aware of, but usually when a creator signs one of those "Exclusive" contracts you hear about, they are compensated with benefits such as health insurance, etc (at least, those that are in America. I'm not actually sure how it works for creators signed to Marvel or DC but living in other countries).

>>>Are ALL creators independent contractors, or are some work-for-hire and some chained to the bullpen?<<<

Most are work-for-hire freelancers but there are some contracted employees. I know Wildstorm has their own in-house colour studio, and I would guess - only a guess, mind - that they are salaried, rather than working for a per-page fee.
 
 
Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo
00:16 / 21.11.05
I know that Marvel used to have a bunch of artists who worked on art corrections, advertising art and things like that in the 70's and 80's, but if my faulty memory is correct, they were disbanded back in the 90's when Marvel was under bankruptsy.

The last time artists were "on salary" in the US was CrossGen, and while some people liked it, some people felt that it was horrible and stifled creativity. I think that if you don't have to worry about paying medical bills, your work might be better.

Hard to say, tho.
 
 
grant
16:04 / 21.11.05
I'm really surprised, based on that summary, that there aren't a whole lot more indie comics out there.

That distribution bottleneck must be amazing. How hard could it be to start another distributor?
 
 
sleazenation
16:15 / 21.11.05
Starting the distributer isn't the problem as much as making it an attractive proposition for comic shop retailers, a group who, to put it charitablely, are comic fans first and business men second, if at all...

Put it this way - the more stock you order from Diamond, the defacto monopoly of distribution to comic shops, the greater the discount on that order and consequent lower the cost of stock to the comic retailer makes Diamond quite attractive, over and above the exclusive distribution deals the have running with various publishers. These deals mean that if you want to order stock from lots of major publishers (including Marvel and DC iirc) you have to deal with Diamond.

Of course, none of this applies to the rapidly expanding book trade market... and I heard a lot of interesting information about a number of mainstream publishers planning to launch their own graphic nevel lines...
 
 
CameronStewart
17:02 / 21.11.05
I should point out that the payment structures I outlined above are for the major comic publishers (Marvel, DC, Dark Horse). Image, I believe, has an arrangement similar to a record contract - the creators do the book with no up front payment, and receive money on the back end. After the intial publishing costs have been recouped by Image, the profits are split between the publisher and the creator. If your book sells terribly, you potentially could end up owing Image money, but if it's a hit, you can make a solid chunk of change. The problem is that with the current comics climate, it's a rare thing that an Image book (or any indie) is a runaway smash hit.

There are other publishers, each with their own payment structures.
 
 
Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo
16:36 / 24.11.05
That distribution bottleneck must be amazing. How hard could it be to start another distributor?

There are a lot of things in the way of becoming a distributor, and Cold Cut comics is learning that. They are issuing press releases a few times a year that feel like they are Whos shouting "We are here, we are here, WE ARE HERE!" to an uncaring retail world.

First, one thing to remember is that most comic shops only order Marvel, DC, a few Image books and the Dark Horse licenced books. There was a sales report I read back in 2004 that showed that the main sales for indy comics (and DC's Vertigo line) were on the coasts and in major cities along the Canadian border, meaning that if you want to read Hellblazer, get thee to a blue state.

Second, Diamond has exclusive deals with Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, Wizard, Gemstone, Alias and a few others, meaning that they have to top five publishers who account for over 90% of all comics sales sewn up.

Third, with the pricing structure, the more you order from Diamond, the bigger your discount. Most comic shops are hand to mouth, and need that extra half percent off and exclusive cover to sell at $15 to survive. They won't say "I should just my Marvels and DCs from Diamond and everything else from XYZ Distributor" because they want to put everything on one order and get the biggest discount. The comic shop I consult at only uses Cold Cut for re-orders on things that Diamond is sold out of, because he needs the extra discount.

With Marvel and DC exclusive to Diamond, I don't think we'll ever see another big comics distributor.
 
 
diz
06:41 / 28.11.05
First, one thing to remember is that most comic shops only order Marvel, DC, a few Image books and the Dark Horse licenced books. There was a sales report I read back in 2004 that showed that the main sales for indy comics (and DC's Vertigo line) were on the coasts and in major cities along the Canadian border, meaning that if you want to read Hellblazer, get thee to a blue state.

Having lived in blue states all my life, I had assumed that this disparity was exaggerated. Having recently returned from three weeks in Baton Rouge, LA, I am stunned by how true it seems to be.

I found only one comics store in all my travels through the eastern portion of the state during my time there, and that one store simply did not seem to stock indie titles or even Vertigo stuff at all. With some degree of optimism and naivete, I thought it might be a temporary, Katrina-related thing, but my conversations with the staff helped relieve me of the burden of that particular illusion. Superhero comics from the Big Two, and nothing else.

Needless to say, I nearly kissed the ground on my first trip back to my usual comic shop in San Diego, and I don't even read that many indie books.
 
 
diz
06:43 / 28.11.05
Oh, and I also want to thank Cameron Stewart for the aforementioned gracious answer to my very impertinent question.
 
 
boychild
01:13 / 29.11.05
As to distribution, here's a little contribution:

My own Boychild productions works with Diamond, Cold cut and FM international in the USA - and it will come as little surprise that Diamond normally accounts for between 60 - 80% of our sales, even though we are a very indie publisher. I have no personal complaints so far against Diamond, despite the criticism they come under from others - they've been fine to me up to this point. Though I do wish that the other distributors could sell more and have an easier time of it. In fact Cold cut decided not to take our last book at all, much as they liked it artistically. This is no criticism on them, they are decent people who are honest and helpful. Its just a reflection on the poor state of demand for indie books, that they thought it was not worth their while financially.

I dont mind it being known that the basic level these graphic novels of ours need to get to is to sell about 700 or 800 copies to break even financially. I mean production costs, there is no profit at that level. Our break even figure is a little lower than the aforementioned 1000 sales mark because of lower running/overhead costs we have compared with publishers like Slave labour etc.

Also, distribution wise, in the UK there is Redroute distribution, based in West London and run by the Knockabout publishing people. They have no website as a distributor so they need to be contacted directly. The people who run it have 25 years or more of experience in indie comics. They have been supportive of my Boychild books, anyway.

They of course can not sell many copies of indie books normally, but every little helps, and they are one alternative route in the UK other than diamond. One thing they do though is make a definite effort at putting their books in mainstream book shops. They offer the same rate to publishers as Diamonds basic level.

On an even more indie level in the UK there is Smallzone distribution - which operates as a distributor for small press comics. They only take about 20% to 30% of the cover price from you I think. Again, its all small sales, but Shane who runs it, is a real diamond - very supportive of indie books. He attends most of the comic conventions here, with a smile for all.

Their website is: www.smallzone.co.uk

The only one I am not familar with yet is Last Gasp in the US - anyone got info on them for me?

And one more general point - as the comics industry is so low at the moment, my own approach over the last few years has been to look beyond it to attempt to get funding/commissions from the wider world. So far this has been quite successful - I got an UK arts council grant of a considerable sum, funding for a manga book from a Japanese cultural organsation, and am now doing a 100 page historical comic book for a museum in the south of England, fully funded by them.

So that has been MY alternative way of surving money-wise while making comic books.
 
 
sleazenation
17:27 / 29.11.05
I'd definitely give a shout-out to Shane at Smallzone... top bloke.
 
  
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