|
Hey folks! I’ve got a kind of a weird question. I can’t go into too much detail because it’s kind of confidential but the long and short of it is my store is going to try to move more Image comics soon. The assistant manager asked me if I had any ideas on what we should make sure to have on the shelves, but, as I told her, I’m really more of a manga guy. I told her I’d ask around. So… here I am! Asking you folks! What Image comics should we try to stock up on? Ideally these are comics that someone who’s browsing our comics section would want to get should we be doing any sort of sale. Here’s the titles we already know we should have: Invincible The Walking Dead Saga Titles we think might sell: Monstress The Wicked and The Divine Jupiter’s Legacy (I’m not super sure on this one but hey it had a Netflix show) Are there any notable titles that I’m missing? Should I order Spawn? Do people still care about Spawn in the year of our lord 2023?
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2023 08:33
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 10:52 |
|
|
I am unfortunately unable to order Sex Criminals. It’s not available at the warehouse my store orders from. We already have Paper Girls on the shelves, thanks to the Amazon series. Nothing gets a book reprinted like an adaptation thetoughestbean fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Jan 15, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2023 21:57
|
|
|
Hey folks, Barnes and Noble is doing a sale on Image comics for the month of February. All Image comics you buy in the store are buy one get one free. It’s a pretty good deal if you want to buy the last few Saga books
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2023 19:29
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/jenskstyve/status/1633520527720554536?s=46&t=X6-Ut4Z5gjBZ_q10eeG_mg Oof
|
|
#
¿
Mar 9, 2023 18:46
|
|
|
By American comics do you mean all American comics, including webcomics, or just the stuff tied to a major publisher? Because I think there’s a good deal of riffs on foreign influences happening in the webcomic space, even if it’s, at least in my opinion, a lot less vibrant than it was, say, fifteen years ago
|
|
#
¿
Mar 21, 2023 02:50
|
|
|
And good luck getting discovered on Webtoon. Even moderately popular stuff on there has a hard time attracting a bigger audience.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 21, 2023 06:38
|
|
|
Frog Act posted:I am going to drive myself to complete madness trying to locate a copy of Corto Maltese: The Secret Rose. I just spent a completely absurd $200 buying The Golden House of Samarkand and Tango which leaves me with only one missing. I feel like they might be the best adventure/"real world" comics ever written and it is just so frustrating how difficult they are to find. While I'm at it, it is completely bonkers that Lone Wolf and Cub has a 28 volume reprint from 2016 and the only ones actually available anymore are 1-10. I don't understand why so many important classic historical comics are so utterly neglected Classic manga unfortunately doesn’t sell anywhere near enough to justify better availability, although in Lone Wolf and Cub’s case it’s because Dark Horse is really garbage at re-printing manga that aren’t Berserk or (to a much lesser extent) Blade of the Immortal. The vast majority of the manga-buying audience wants whatever’s got a hit anime recently or what they read in middle school.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 31, 2023 08:44
|
|
|
Gripweed posted:Berserk and Gantz apparently always sell, because those are the only series Dark Horse consistently keeps in print. Gantz doesn’t sell that well, at least not anymore.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 31, 2023 19:10
|
|
|
I thought this was pretty interesting—here’s an analysis of comic book sales as reported to The NPD Group. A note: these are all physical sales, although the person writing up the report says that digital sales only make up around a single digit percentage of all sales, and The NPD Group itself says it gets at best 85% of American bookstores reporting to it. There’s some points I found particularly interesting, so I’ll post them here. The first is that kid’s comics reign supreme. The top four (by volume) comic books sold this year were all by Dav Pilkey. The fifth? A Five Nights at Freddies book. Dav Pilkey himself sold 9 of the top 20 books, and that’s without being able to count what was sold directly from the publisher via things like a Scholastic book fair. comics beat posted:Depending on your exact definitions of intended audiences, it appears that fifteen of the Top Twenty is intended for children or middle readers. The other five of the Top Twenty are Manga, and if you are looking for a “Marvel / DC-style superhero” comic, you are not even in the top two hundred-and-fifty! In fact, the first DC superhero comic to appear is at #257 with Batman: Year One. Jinkies! As for Marvel? Their very first appearance isn’t until all the way down at #483 with Moon Knight by Lemire & Smallwood. Ultimately this means that a comic that started as an homage/parody of Frank Miller’s writing (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) skunked their master (The Last Ronin came in at #115), and that Scholastic’s license of Marvel trounced anything that Marvel published natively (Miles Morales: Shock Waves came in at #204) Also interesting: just over ten percent of all unit sales reported where generated by the top twenty books. comics beat posted:American comics aimed at adults are a small minority at the top of the charts – of the top 100, fifty-three are manga, forty-one are kids books, and a mere six are American comics aimed at adults: three versions of Maus and three volumes of Lore Olympus. For the second year in a row, manga sells the greatest number of copies overall: of the 52 million graphic novels sold via BookScan in 2022, 29m are manga (roughly 56%) Speaking of Maus, Maus is the first title in the top 25 (Maus volume 1 is number 25) that isn’t published by Scholastic or Viz. Looking at authors, Dav Pilkey obviously reigns supreme, selling nearly double the amount of copies than the number two author, Tatsuki Fujimoti, and 4.5x the amount of the number ten place, Kentaro Miura. Of the top ten selling authors, only three aren’t Japanese—Pilkey, Raina Telgermeier, author of Teeth (and more), and Tui T. Sutherland, author of the Wings of Fire series (and, therefore, the author listed on the Wings of Fire graphic novels). 89 creators sold over 100,000 copies of their work, which made up 62% of all sales. So, uh, don’t expect your comic to be a big seller. The industry seems to be built around a relatively few hits compared to the vast amount of what gets published.  Scholastic sells four times more than DC and Marvel combined. Some other interesting bits: Dark Horse is one of the few publishers to move fewer units but make more money (they also make the most money per unit sold in the manga side of publishing). IDW had more books hit the top 750 than Marvel did (the only Marvel book that hit the top 750 was Moon Knight by Lemire & Smallwood, although other Marvel properties published by different publishers sell well), DC’s top sellers that aren’t Sandman or Batman tend to be either Alan Moore or YA/Middle School books. Marvel comics just kind of aren’t selling outside of the direct market—at least, they aren’t selling when they’re published by Marvel. This is a long post but I’d recommend reading the full article. There’s lots of good stuff in there!
|
|
#
¿
Apr 6, 2023 10:49
|
|
|
StumblyWumbly posted:That's interesting, I thought Marvel had been outselling DC for a while, but I guess I haven't paid attention to that in years. Scholastic books are in color and on good paper! And, yeah, keep in mind that this isn’t including the direct market, just book stores. Telgermeier hasn’t come out with a new book in a couple years so that’s slowed her sales down but she’s still in the top ten of creators by sales. Jordan7hm posted:The direct market is a big portion of the comic sale market in NA, so that’s missing a big piece of the pie. In 2020 it was something like 60% of the more traditional book market. Even if that’s gone down, it’s a huge number for Marvel and DC in particular. I admit I’m a bit ignorant here; does the direct market include trade paperbacks or is it just single issues?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 7, 2023 00:35
|
|
|
How Wonderful! posted:Oh, rad. I want to become more conversant with manga and I like Shonen Jump's platform, I just don't think shonen is for me. I'm assuming this has a wider spread of genres? There’s a large selection of different genres. There’s also stuff that’s published in Shonen Sunday, which is technically Shonen because that’s the demographic the magazine is primarily aiming for, but has a whole different feel than what’s published in Shonen Jump. I really recommend Cross Game and Frieren: Beyond Journey’s end as examples of manga that are technically shonen but are very different from something like Naruto
|
|
#
¿
May 14, 2023 03:52
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/comixace/status/1658891236973899776?s=46&t=X6-Ut4Z5gjBZ_q10eeG_mg The Eisner nominations have been announced! What comic do you think was snubbed? Why does Tom King have so many nominations? Why can’t the Eisners find better webcomics than Lore Olympus? I think Look Back should have been nominated for Best Oneshot. It’s a phenomenal comic.
|
|
#
¿
May 18, 2023 00:13
|
|
|
I think people really liked Godzilla in Hell There’s also Kaijumax is you want Oz, the show, mixed with kaiju
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2023 00:09
|
|
|
Swimmers are muscular but not beefy. Very different body type than the current Hollywood action hero
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2023 23:26
|
|
|
AvesPKS posted:The story is fine in issue 1vol 1, but the character designs are just taking me back to the mid-late 90s where everything is exxxxxtrrrrreeeeemmmmeeeeeee and why does that guy have a random ponytail and why does that lady look like a Silverhawk and of course they have a big giant guy on the team. Issue 1 of 3.0 grabbed me a little bit more but I'd just feel remiss if I didn't read Moore's run first. Do people in the 90s need to explain having a ponytail? It was a common hairstyle. What’s the general opinion on comics reporting/reviewing? My second-hand view is that it’s hard to find good comics writing/criticism because most outlets are either simple cheerleaders for the Big 2 or angry chuds, but it’s worth asking people actually in the hobby
|
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2023 04:02
|
|
|
Air Skwirl posted:I'm just gonna say Spider-Man. Batman and Superman have had constant redesigns (they also did premiere 25ish year earlier than Spider-Man) where Spider-Man's costume has been pretty constant beyond losing the weird armpit webs in the first few years and the times he's worn black. Spider-Man’s costumes look indistinguishably similar to each other most of the time but somehow Spider fans argue a lot about which one is the best. Also your other costume opinions are correct
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2023 01:55
|
|
|
My introduction to the X-Men was one of those big series encyclopedias that Marvel and DC put out. It worked well enough for child me!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 24, 2023 00:21
|
|
|
I dunno, it is competing with at least three Final Fantasy games
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2023 08:13
|
|
|
YKK rules, I really like it. It’s an extremely specific vibe that you rarely see in American comics
|
|
#
¿
Nov 10, 2023 03:22
|
|
|
He’s the orange on at the top
|
|
#
¿
Nov 20, 2023 03:51
|
|
|
Minister of Sound posted:I'm on volume 15, and I'm afraid those trends continue. More backstories, more worldbuilding, etc. I think it's the best book on the shelves, but I can see why one would be frustrated by the shifting focus. I need to read the most recent volume but the fight in volume 14 was the closest I’ve ever seen a comic get to an honest to god JRPG boss battle. It ruled
|
|
#
¿
Dec 26, 2023 22:39
|
|
|
Air Skwirl posted:Is Carano even a big draw, she hasn't been in Star wars stuff for years and she wasn't in it that much before she got poo poo canned and no one has likely watched the lovely movies she's been doing for Daily Wire's studio. Legitimately the only people who want to see her nowadays are chuds
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2024 00:39
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 10:52 |
|
|
The annual Comics Beat analysis of graphic novel sales for 2023 has been posted. The main takeaways: goddamn, Dav Pilkey makes money.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 13, 2024 00:08
|
|