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Past the point of diminishing returns? Higher and higher priced comics to a smaller and smaller audience?? The people running the companies have no idea what they're doing?? Oh, dear...let's go to the chart:
Man, that is bad...look at those year-to-year drops!! Clearly a death-knell for the industry!!Oh, wait, I left the years off that chart, didn't I? Let's try that again:
Yeah, the industry will never survive those sales numbers, especially at a 35¢ price point. It's a (very) slow motion death spiral!!
Yes, there are always reasons to be concerned over the health of the industry. But the next time someone panics and proclaims that the sky is falling, take a deep breath and remember we've been hearing that...well, since before Skylab fell.Unintentional perspective provided by Joe Brancatelli is Vampirella #72 (1978).
If anything, those '74 sales reports make the current comic biz seem even MORE pathetic than usual! When an issue of a low profile horror title like Witching Hour sold as much (or more) than today's "monster hits", it shows you just how far the audience has dwindled. Of course, there are dozens of reasons for the fall-off...chief among them the tsunami of alternate sources of entertainment...but "cocooning" ourselves within the Direct Market, while a Godsend in the short run, hasn't worked out well as a long-term strategy.
ReplyDeleteSo, no, the sky isn't falling....but there's a heck of a lot less head room now than there was back in '74.
Well, sometimes the emphasis on raw sales numbers ignores some of the real differences twixt then and now.
ReplyDeleteThere's still lots of $ coming from the publishing despite the dreaded lower sales (eg 1977's JLA 152,000 X 35¢ is essentially the same as 2010's 62,000 X $2.99 when you account for inflation). Plus there are revenue streams undreamed of in 1978: trades and DVDs and video games and digital (OK, DC's way behind there) and increased licensing and...
I'm an ignoramus on business matters, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that a honest accounting would show that comics are making far more money now than they did in 1978.
I still don't think so. The visibility and availability of comics are a fraction of what they used to be during the 1970's. Hell, I even remember going to a campground with my family and buying a new issue of Amazing Spider-Man #149 in their little campground office-thingie. They were everywhere in various retail environments....but these days they're mostly confined to the "comic shop ghetto" and sold at prices many times beyond the rate of inflation for other products. So, yeah.....an honest accounting may determine that raw dollar amounts aren't galaxies away....but the business model today's market is built upon is far less stable and sustainable than it was in the mid-70's.
ReplyDeletePerhaps. But in other ways you could argue that the business model is far more sustainable.
ReplyDeleteDespite being available in fewer retail environments, I would wager that a poll taken today would show far greater public awareness of most of these characters than ever existed before. In 1977, what percentage of the population would have been familiar with Iron Man, versus now? (or even Jonah Hex...). Regardless of the number of individual issues sold, the industry is far more entrenched in popular culture now than ever before. And some would argue that does far more to ensure the long-term sustainability of the industry than the ability of the Jericho Grocery to put a couple of dozen comics into a spinner rack, only to return 80% of them next month.
And some major retailers are bucking the "comic shop ghetto" idea...
Well, believe me, nobody's hoping the industry can stick it out more than an old comic book guy like me, so however it happens, let's hope these clowns can figure out how to keep publishing far into the future.
ReplyDeleteIf not, there's always back issues (which I find myself increasingly enamored with).
Oh, that doom and gloom in 1978 was wholly justified: if something wasn't done, comics would die slowly as they sold too little for the newsstands to deal with.
ReplyDeleteWhat of course happened was, and which was still in its infancy in '78 was the direct market, which only a few years later would revitalise the industry, at least for a while. Marvel would be the company best placed to profit from it and a lot of what DC did in the late seventies and eighties should be seen as trying to get out of that death spiral, up to and including Crisis on Infinite Earths. Check e.g. sales numbers of Action in the early eighties; iirc they dip under 100,000 issues sold. Crisis changed that for the better.