It took longer than I had intended to get the January 2011 comics sales estimates online; it was a busy month on the other side of my business, with my first novel, Star Wars: Knight Errant, releasing. (In a sense, I was still paying attention to sales charts — just of a non-comics kind!) But … Read more
The Top 100 comics and trade paperback lists for January 2011 are out, along with Diamond Comic Distributors’ aggregate month-to-month and year-to-year comparisons. Sales are off considerably against January 2010 and against last month, with double-digit declines for comics dollar sales and trade paperback dollar sales. There’s not enough data inside the lists to say … Read more
Still running more numbers on January 2009 — my process takes a few extra steps — but it is looking like the predicted losses will be reflected in the final data. Now is a good time, then, to take another look at Dead Quarters past, and what the typical January performances are. The dropoffs from … Read more
The release of Amazing Spider-Man #583 with the Barack Obama appearance and its attendant press is old news by now — and while presidents in appearing comics isn’t new (as many including myself have observed), the timing of the press push and the historic nature of the inauguration have already paid off for comics retailers. … Read more
Following up on the last post about January in comics, I ran a quick check on something we don’t always look at. I focus mostly on year-over-year changes — this December versus last December, that sort of thing — because there tends to be a lot of volatility from month to month with books that … Read more
In the vein of a similar report from California earlier, a report of a comics and games store citing the overall recession as its reason for closure. Torrance, Calif. store Third Planet Comics & Games closes Monday, according to the Contra Costa Times. “The deciding factor in this decision is that sales have fallen to … Read more