{"id":3465,"date":"2020-03-13T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-07-30T15:30:35","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T20:30:35","slug":"comics-market-strong-prior-to-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/13\/comics-market-strong-prior-to-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Comics market strong prior to COVID-19 impact, with February sales up 7%; Wolverine #1 dominates"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Over the last 80+ years, the comics industry has been subject to a variety of shocks that were external in nature. The ones that had the greatest lasting effects were the ones that struck directly at how publishers did business: the juvenile delinquency panic of the 1950s winnowed out their numbers, while the inflation crises of the 1970s made the newsstand untenable as a delivery system.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, some external shocks that related more generally to the U.S. economy have had less impact. The comics industry didn’t slow down until well after 2008 financial crisis was past, for example, and the 1990-91 recession ended up being no impediment to the record early 1990s comics market at all. The month of 9\/11<\/a><\/b> was, in fact, a turning point in the industry’s fortunes, as the comic book that kickstarted the post-1990s recovery, Wolverine: The Origin<\/em> #1<\/a><\/strong>, had already hit shelves on Sept. 5, 2001.<\/p>\n

Historians always want to look at the “before” and “after” situation in the market to see how things were doing just before the shock took place. When it comes to the COVID-19 or Coronavirus pandemic, we can say that the “before” situation in comics looked excellent in the book channel, and relatively strong (as winters go) in the Direct Market,<\/b> according to data just released by Diamond Comic Distributors<\/a><\/b>. Retailers bought $37.27 million in comic books, graphic novels, and magazines from Diamond in February 2020, an increase of $2.4 million or 7% over the same month the year before. Every subcategory was positive. Look for our\u00a0estimated sales charts here<\/a><\/b> next week.<\/p>\n

\"<\/span>Marvel<\/b> and DC<\/b>‘s dollar sales were both up for the month, year-over-year, and both by more than the market was overall, 12% and 8% respectively. February 2020 marks the seventh growth month in nine, and is the best February performance in three years. With these results, the Direct Market’s first two months are up 1.35% in dollars over the same period in 2019.<\/p>\n

Orders of individual comic books were also up: orders rose year-over-year by 3%, or around 167,000 copies, to 5.94 million units. Wolverine<\/i> #1<\/a><\/b>, a $7.99 comic, led the periodical charts. Marvel had eight of the Top 10 comics, including the top seven. Gwen Stacy<\/i> #1<\/a><\/b> debuted in fourth.<\/p>\n

A major part of the difference in sales is that February 2019<\/a><\/b> saw DC still amid its new-title austerity initiative; it only released 59 new comic books that month. This February, Diamond says DC released 102, which is probably more like 86 when the cardstock covers are merged. Publishers outside the Top 10 also significantly boosted their offerings, leading to a slate that was about 18% larger.<\/p>\n

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The greatest jump, however, was in the number of graphic novel units sold: that’s because Marvel had a major sale on Star Wars<\/em> collected editions in February, resulting in the unusual situation that no less than six titles from 2015 and 2016 made the Top 10 Graphic Novels list.<\/p>\n

There have been many other months over the years where discounted titles impacted the charts, but never have so many made the Top 10. The dollar rankings chart is thus probably worth more attention this time around. Both charts were led by the Harleen<\/a><\/strong><\/em> hardcover. It doesn’t appear that the sale added overmuch to Marvel’s market share \u2014 dollars are computed against what retailers paid in, and individual graphic novels sell many fewer copies than comic books do.<\/p>\n

Batman<\/i> #88<\/a> <\/b>and #89<\/a><\/b> both had cardstock variants; look for them to possibly move from their eighth- and tenth-place showings when the cardstock and regular variants are merged.<\/p>\n

The comparative sales statistics<\/strong> are here:<\/p>\n