It Come Down To It... The BEGINNING and the END of the Copper Age!

[Jamie Coville]

Oy! Sorry for derailing the thread everybody.

 

This is going to be long so I'm breaking it up into two posts.

 

Anyways, I'll address Kevin:

 

>>Obviously WHERE you market your books has some impact. But up until the rise of the direct market, all comics were sold at the same types of locations - book sellers, corner stores, supermarkets, etc. But those locations rejected comics because of poor unit sales in comparison to regular magazine. By the late 1980's that is pretty much the case again, the only real venue for comics is in direct market comic shops where the core buying audience is obsessed with super-heroes.<<

 

That we agree on.

 

>>Yes, the direct market allowed for more low-selling vanity projects because the threshhold for profitability on these books was much lower. Distributors in the direct market were supportive of this material, as were shop owners, but please Jamie, cite me some examples of a best-selling non-superhero title that dominated the sales charts at any time from the conception of the direct market. Please don't mistake CRITICAL acclaim with sales acclaim.<<

 

I don't think I claimed there were any best selling non-superhero titles since the beginning of the direct market. Although, GI Joe and Transformers from early 2000 may apply.

 

>>Perhaps they could have. But one example does not make up a market or, truly, a popular genre. Even if you were to include Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Uncle Scrooge... you have a small group of anomalous best-sellers that are selling to a specific group of children. Mad Magazine is another anomaly, continually published as a magazine, but no similar product has maintained an audience for as long.<<

 

If we are talking about the Golden/Atom age, I don't consider the sales of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Uncle Scrooge selling to million+ kids to be anomaly, much less any of the other licensed comics that Dell had. Especially when compared to superhero comics. I'm not sure what you mean when you say 'a specific group of children' either, at that time kids were the main market.

 

>>Yes, I mentioned that. They were top sellers during the late 1940's and 1950's. They actually surpassed what few superhero titles there were - although I don't have any sales data to suggest they were outselling Batman/Detective/Superman/Action. Perhaps if you do have sales data from the 1950's you could pass that source along?<<

 

Yes, it's just below...

 

>>the "Atom Age" came about larger because Gaines and his crew of creatives started pushing boundaries and found an audience that loved the material. Superman and Batman however, were not low-selling titles supported by licensing and creator contracts! The only applicable one there was Wonder Woman, where the contract would have gone back to Marston if publication had ceased (another reason for the continuation of WW which has never been a big seller, aside from the occasional reboot). Certainly the Superman tv show helped keep the character in the public eye, but Superman and Batman were about as much the backbone of comics publishing as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck during that time period and were in no danger of disappearing like their 1940's counterparts.<<

 

I think you've got your history a bit wrong there. Come 1946, publishers stopped producing new superhero titles (with one exception of Marvel's The Blonde Phantom, and Superboy a couple years later). Instead they did Romance, Crime and Westerns. It would be a few more years before Gaines was doing anything exciting with Horror books. Even Simon and Kirby knew the writing was on the wall with Superhero books, which is why they came up with Young Romance.

 

I don't believe Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman would have gone away in the 50, with the exception of Superman (thanks to the TV show), I don't believe they were anywhere near the top sellers either. If they were only selling roughly half a million in 1944 and according to Mike Benson's The Comic Book in America they all dropped in sales in 1947. The top selling superhero title Captain Marvel lost 2.5 million in annual circulation between 1945 and 1947 (a drop of roughly 200,000+ in monthly sales).

 

Come 1948, Crime Does Not Pay and Crime and Punishment was selling a combined 1.5 million copies a month. Fawcetts Hopalong Cassidy went from doubled in sales between 47 and 48 (333,334 to 666,667 monthly).

 

The 50s I don't, but I do have some for 1944. All these numbers are approx and there are plenty of publishers missing. Out of the data that I have:

 

Whiz Comics: 740,000

Crime Does Not Pay: 618,000

True Comics: 530,851

Action, Superman, Detective, Sensation, All American and Flash were grouped together in terms of reporting sales. Split evenly their sales were 526,986 each but obviously some titles sold better than others. I'm sure Superman sold way better than Flash.

Famous Funnies was 455,392

Target Comics and Blue Bolt were also grouped and if evenly split: 398,514 each.

 

The rest I won't bother getting into, but I'll say the titles included Startling Comics, Military Comics, Police Comics, and the Shadow.

 

Wait, I just found a source for some sale figures in the 50s and 60s.

 

 

1952

Walt Disney Comics and Stories 2,850,000

Sweethearts (Fawcett) circa 1,000,000

Young Romance circa 800,000

Classics Illustrated 670,000

Romantic Adventures (ACG) circa 650,000

Adventures into the Unknown (ACG-1953) circa 550,000

Tales From the Crypt (EC-1953) 400,000

Treasure Chest 329.903

Mad (EC-1953) 325,000

Two-Fisted Tales (EC-1953) 225,000

 

Forget EC. Dell Comics rule the decade. By 1954, while Dell’s total number of comic book titles is only 15% of those published, it controls nearly a third of the total market. Dell has more million plus sellers than any other company before or since, including Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Looney Tunes, Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Mickey Mouse, Porky Pig, Tom and Jerry and Little Lulu. A one-shot film adaptation like Peter Pan prompts over three million and a half purchases alone. Sales in more “suspect” genres such as crime, romance and horror, drop markedly with the establishment of the stifling Comic’s Code Authority in 1955. There is only one subversive survivor from the EC line of comic books. No longer, a color comic book, Mad is repackaged as Mad Magazine, a black-and-white magazine. It also expands its satiric scope to make fun of domestic life and a wide range of movies and television shows. Mad Magazine, as much as Playboy, is one of the most notable publishing successes of the fifties.

 

1960

Mad Magazine 1,048,550

Uncle Scrooge 1,040,543

Walt Disney Comics and Stories 1,004,901

Donald Duck 930,613

Superman 810,000

Dennis the Menace 800,000

Bugs Bunny 615,552

Mickey Mouse 568,803

Woody Woodpecker 537,773

Batman 502,000

Lone Ranger 408,711

Casper the Friendly Ghost 399,985

Blackhawk 316,000

Adventures Into the Unknown (ACG) 192,500

 

I don't have exact figures for Archie Comics in 1960, but it was probably just over a half a million per issue. This was how the industry looked just as the successful launch of Marvel Comics and the Silver Age of DC heroes was getting underway. Even so, humor and romance comics remain highly viable. But by the seventies, the industry will have fundamentally changed. But that’s a story better left for the next installment.

 

---

 

As I said before, Superman TV show was extremely popular and I'm certain helped the sales quite a bit. Batman and Wonder Woman were owned by their respective creators and were licensed to DC. Kane sold Batman to DC during the height of the TV show popularity. Prior to it, DC was considering canceling Batman (hence, releasing Batman back to Kane to do with what he wanted). I'm more inclined to believe that was due to many years of slow sales.

 

In all, I just think that superhero fans have this view that Superheroes are the end all and be all of the comics medium and everything else that's successful is as you put it, an anomaly. The numbers I've seen just doesn't bear that out. Especially from the Golden and Atom Ages. Superheroes were successful briefly (1938 to 1946-ish and most new superhero titles didn't start until 1940ish), then died out with the exception of a few titles. From there on out it's licensed comics (especially for kids), Crime, Romance, Westerns and more. It remains that way until the early 60s too.

 

I agree they became successful again in the early Silver Age (not immediately either as my 2nd post will show), but after that I think their "success" was due to the publishers not being able to do any other genre very well. Sales dropped until finally the industry reformed into something specifically for niche superhero collectors which guaranteed they'd stay on top of a declining industry.

 

I'll get into the numbers on post 2.

 

[Jamie Coville]

Part 2.

 

Me: Superheroes were hot in the early 40s and late 50's/early 60's.

 

>>And the 1970's and the 1980's and the 1990's and the 2000's.<<

 

Yes, within the DM, Superheroes were/are the top sellers, but that doesn't mean they were "hot."

 

>>There's no debate over declining sales here. But Marvel and DC heroes still dominate the sales charts over all other genres during the 70's through to today. While they may have declined, their decline was nowhere near as fast or as noticeable as every other genre. Even the best movie/tv tie-ins are mid-level sellers.<<

 

That I agree with. The DM was created to be more efficient for the collectors, most of them superhero fans. Once that was set in motion, virtually no other genre could sell better in the DM.

 

>>Conan, Master of Kung Fu, Howard the Duck --- these were marketted as super-hero titles! Conan was a success, but it was because they applied the Marvel method and one of their best creative teams at the time and tapped into an audience that was interested in fantasy, but Conan was marketted by Marvel as one of their super-heroes... and they even tied his history (as well as Kull and Red Sonja) in to the Marvel Universe. Shang Chi is a kung-fu superhero (Iron Fist even more so). Howard the Duck's success was short-lived, but he was a talking duck in the Marvel Universe. These are peripheral super-heroes.<<

 

I agree they were marketed as superheroes and had their back stories tied into the Marvel Universe (ie, my comment about editors and writers being Superhero fans). But they were clearly not your standard superhero (with bright spandex tights, secret identities and the like). I consider them to be more adventure heroes, more in common with Doc Samson than Spider-Man.

 

>>Creepy and Eerie were successful, as was Heavy Metal. But remember what I said earlier about Walt Disney Comics (and the same can be said about Archie) these are very limited anomalies in the comic book publishing industry.<<

 

As per earlier sales figures I'm not 100% certain of that. I do know in 1969 Archie was the top selling comic book and 9 of the top 20 books were non-superhero. 15 of the remaining 30 where also non superhero. MAD trumped them all though, selling triple of then highest superhero title, Superman.

 

Here are some figures based on the same source as before. Their 1968 numbers check with John Jackson Millers.

 

1968

Mad Magazine 1,831,648

Superman 636,400

Archie 566,587

Batman 533,450

Amazing Spider-Man 373,303

Dennis the Menace (1967) 308,736

Daredevil 292,423

X-Men 273,360

Donald Duck 262,249

 

In 1968, Archie reaches his sales peak for the decade (and for the rest of the feature's life, in all likelihood). Credit the redhead's renewed popularity to the convergence of a television cartoon series and a group of musicians called the Archies, who actually produce a pop music hit in "Sugar, Sugar." While Marvel is decidedly more hip than either Archie or DC in the sixties, it is only in the seventies that Spider-Man and the Hulk begin to regularly outsell icons like Superman, Batman and the freckled teen. In the meantime, Mad Magazine reaches the pinnacle of its popularity in 1974. Despite being written and drawn by an increasingly graying crew, Mad's satirical stance still appeals to adolescents. It manages to successfully tap into the cynicism widely felt towards the establishment. Older readers graduate to underground comix. While relatively few in number, the most popular undergrounds like Zap underwent multiple reprintings, a practice unheard of outside the rarefied realm of Classics Illustrated.

 

1974

Mad Magazine 2,132,655

Amazing Spider-Man 288,232

Superman 285,634

Archie 272,272

Incredible Hulk 202,592

Batman 193,223

House of Mystery 174,504

Daredevil 161,910

Archie Digest Magazine 137,857

 

With the open materialism of the eighties in the offing, and its own satiric bite getting rather long in the tooth, Mad Magazine starts a long downward descent in sales. Sales for the Incredible Hulk crest in 1979, at 276,000, in concert with the popular television series. But the Hulk hardly proves to be a sensation like Batman proved to be in the sixties.

 

1980

Mad Magazine 1,342,640

Amazing Spider-Man 296,712

Incredible Hulk 201,000

X-Men 191,927

Superman 178,946

Archie Digest Magazine (1981) 141,739

Batman 129,299

Archie circa 100,000

 

By the 1980s, most fans are buying their super-hero comic books from comic book specialty shops. In 1983, Frank Miller's Daredevil sends the book's circulation to 259,000, suggesting that excellence can translate into increased sales in a specialized market. Byrne and Clairmont's X-Men will soar even higher. But there are limits. The weakness of only targeting comic book shops as a strategy is demonstrated by the fact that the entirely reprint Archie Digest Magazine, sold primarily in grocery stores and magazine racks, outsells the all-original, regular format Archie, not to mention Batman! For the first time ever, sales on Superman and Batman both slip below 100,000 per issue.

---

 

Granted, I don't see Conan, Shang Chi or Master of Kung-Fu in those numbers. Yet, I don't see how top selling Superhero Comics which lose 2/3rds of their sales in 6 years time (and in DC's case, ANOTHER 3rd of their sales in the following 6 years) can be described as "Hot." Marvel managed to hold on and slightly increase some of their biggest sellers (Spider-Man and Hulk) as the industry enters into DM Collector Market, but everybody else continues to drop (Daredevil being the anomaly with Frank Miller joining in the early 80s).

 

But I should say that Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers is said to have been outselling Spider-Man comics at some point during the 70s. I don't know if there are any hard sales figures out there to back that up though. And lord knows how well some Crumb books sold with the multiple printings.

 

>>So other genres sold badly because they were of poor quality because the superhero fans who were creating comics at the time weren't interested? That's kind of twisted logic. How about the books of those genres weren't being supported or given any attention by publishers because they weren't selling. No publisher is going to kill a genre that's selling, if there's an audience they would have found people to create them. Archie Comics is an example of this.<<

 

No they sold badly because Superhero fans tried to write genres that they weren't very good for. Remember when Mark Millar (who wants to write Superman comics more than anything in the world) wrote the "romance" comic called Trouble and it tanked? It's like that, over and over and over again. But the titles included were Man Thing, Ghost Rider, Son of Satan, and even Swamp Thing when it got it's regular series. Superhero sales were dropping at an alarming rate and that's the best they could muster. In the 70s, the comic editors really didn't bother to go outside the comic fandom world to hire writers.

 

I think this was more due to a decline in distributors and publishers personally. After the 1955 crash of American News there was only a handful of publishers left and pretty much all of them were very set in their ways. There were fewer chances for Lev Gleason's, Gaines, and Prize Comics to try something different. That Jim Warren managed something is pretty impressive.

 

>>Swamp Thing was so popular they cancelled his title less than two years after it had started, so you better check on where you are getting your source material about it being the best-selling book of it's time. Critically acclaimed yes. Best-selling, it started off okay and declined quickly enough but was fondly remembered enough to warrant revivals. Even Alan Moore's Swamp Thing was not a huge seller, it was just critically acclaimed and sold well enough then to warrant continuation (unlike the character's 1970's run). But Swamp Thing, like Man-Thing, Ghost Rider, Son of Satan, etc. was a horror SUPER-HERO! He crossed over with Batman. He occupied his own bizarre corner of the super-hero universe.<<

 

Swamp Thing's first appearance was the best selling comic that month, not the entire series that followed it (which had modernized him and superhero-ed him up). Wrightson says so here: "The issue came out and apparently it was their best-selling book that month, beating out Superman and Batman." I've heard this from other sources too (I'm pretty sure Carmine Infantino was one of them).

 

Once they brought him back, changing him did the series tank (I've read it too.. ugh )

 

>>Jamie, everything is relative. Long-running titles get revamped regularly to boost sales, but many best-selling super-heroes fade away only to come back again. Thor, for example, or Iron Fist. If it wasn't for the continued success of super-hero comics we wouldn't have a direct market, and by extension, a comic book industry at all. And yes, we owe a lot to the die-hard collectors, for which one would not have a support base for any types of material. But would there be a Chester Brown, Seth, Dave Sim, Matt Wagner, Bill WIllingham and so on if it wasn't for superhero comics? The all have admitted that this is where they first enjoyed comics and became interested in making them... they may not all particularly like them now, but at the time that is what got them interested in comics.<<

 

This I agree with. I'm not arguing any different.

 

>>Would Star Wars and GI Joe comics have been as popular if they were not Marvel Comics and distributed as part of the new distribution system that saved comic book publishing from virtual extinction? I'm not denying that direct market distribution is NICHE marketting. <<

 

I don't think I have to tell you that Star Wars was popular because of the movie and GI Joe was advertised on TV with the cartoons. I think any professional publisher had hired the right people and published them regularly they would have been successful. I don't think anybody knows the breakdown of where they sold, but I strongly suspect they did the majority of their sales on the newsstand.

 

Regarding your other post about declining sales in all magazines, that is correct.

 

I still stand by what I had originally wrote. Today's market is improving, Graphic Novels is a reason why and among the best sellers are non-superhero books. As you've pointed out, in Septembers ICV2 numbers half of the top 10 are non-superhero books (and I might argue that Ennis isn't writing Punisher like a superhero either). The DM is still very Superhero dominated with a little over half of the top 100 are superheroes. But then ICV2 doesn't take into effect the bookstore market where a few art/lit publishers say 2/3rds of their sales come from it.

 

 

[Kevin Boyd]

I'm at the point where I wonder why you keep bringing up the word "hot". I don't think I've referred to anything as hot before as I think it's an inappropriate term for comics.

 

No, I don't think the success of Disney in the 1940's was an anomaly, but by the early 70's, yes, I do think that by then it was an anomoly.

 

Better check that 1946 date... 1949 is more like it.

 

- Captain America Comics became Captain America's Weird Tales with #74 (Oct. 1949) for two issues before it was cancelled (and revived briefly again in 1954 for three issues).

- All Star Comics 57 (Feb 1951) last Justice Society

- Sub-Mariner 32 (June 1949) and revived again in 1954/55 for another 10 issues.

- Green Lantern 38 (May 1949)

- Flash Comics 104 (Feb 1949)

- Human Torch 35 (March 1949) revived again in 1954 for three issues.

- Police Comics 102 (Oct 1950) last superhero

- Plastic Man 64 (Nov 1956) - survived the superhero implosion of 1949-50

- All American 102 (Oct 1948) becomes All American Western

- All Flash 32 (Dec 1947)

- Star Spangled Comics 131 (Aug 1952) mostly Robin hero stuff from 1949-52 along with Tomahawk and Ghost Breaker.

- Captain Marvel Adventures 150 (Nov 1953)

- Captain Marvel Jr. 119 (Jun 1953

- Whiz Comics 155 (May 1953)

- Wow Comics 58 (Fall 1948)

- Master Comics 133 (Apr 1953)

- Mary Marvel 28 (Sep 1948)

- Marvel Mystery Comics 92 (Jun 1949)

- Marvel Family 89 (Jan 1954)

- Sensation Comics 102 (1952)

 

More Fun was cancelled in 1947. Young Allies in 1946 (hard to keep a war book going with no war).

 

 

---

 

When I was reading comics in the early to late 1970's there were four companies that were well represented on the racks - DC, Marvel, Charlton and Gold Key. Archie was out there as well. Marvel and DC each experimented with other genres but the kids in my neighbourhood didn't care for them that much. DC was the company of Batman, Superman, Justice League and the House of Mystery/Secrets. Marvel was the company we loved and we ate up everything we could get published by Marvel - but we considered Conan and Shang Chi to be super-heroes, as they were done in the Marvel style. But Marvel also tried to do things like Tarzan and Classics Illustrated. Lucas lifted a lot of Kirby for Star Wars so it was only natural for it to be at Marvel, and it was also produced in the house style by mostly Carmine, whose work we all pretty much despised as blocky and unattractive (much in the same way we all despised the Eternals). Charlton books were mostly dismissed as boring horror and mystery titles like Dr. Graves, and Gold Key was all kiddie fare like Scooby Doo, Mickey Mouse, Looney Tunes and such. To me, Gold Key books were the comics you got at the Golden Griddle as a treat (you could pick a comic or a toy from their toy bin).

 

By the end of the 1970's Gold Key was pretty much gone except for the occasional three pack, as was Charlton. Archie digests were noticable for being different.

 

I visited my first comic shop in early 1982 and bought Marvel Fanfare 1, which came out that week. Before that I relied exclusively on newsstands, used bookstores and flea markets to obtain my comics.

 

At the early comic shops the diversity was almost exclusively left with the indie publishers - Pacific and Eclipse, then First and Comico later as well as a ton of indie produced black and whites. Very few of these COPPER comics, aside from Cerebus, Nexus and a few others, lasted very long.

 

Superhero comics, mostly X-Men, dominated at Marvel... but we still enjoyed Miller's Daredevil, Simonson's Thor, Byrne's FF and Alpha Flight, Stern and Romita Jr.'s Amazing Spider-Man, Zeck's Captain America, and all of these superstar artist fueled titles came together in 1985 with Secret Wars and they suddenly making radical changed in the look and attitudes of their characters. Star Wars faded away, and other licensed books came and went, like Transformers and the A-Team, but these concepts were always done "Marvel-style" to fit in with the rest of the line.

 

DC was the same dull and boring company in the early 1980's except for Titans and later on, Swamp Thing and Camelot 3000. The horror and war titles were all but gone by this time. But when DC reorganized with Crisis the entire line was rejuvinated and we were willing to try any new series they released.

 

[DrWatson]

I'm at the point where I wonder why you keep bringing up the word "hot."

Influenced by Paris Hilton.

[Kevin Boyd]

Paris Hilton is hot.

[Jamie Coville]

 

 

[Mac Man]

Wow... stepped away from this thread for about 1 1/2 weeks, and has it ever taken off! Lots of great commentary on this too. Definitely a nice change of the "normal" pace around the boards lately.

[joe_collector]

Publishers began selling direct to Phil Suiling around 1973, with him distributing to other stores at the same time.

 

Yes, but he was simply distributing NEWSTAND copies to comic book stores.

 

It wasn't until 1979-80 that a TRUE Direct Market edition emerged.

[Rich_Henn]

I'm going with Amaz. SM 180 or ROM #1 as the start (just to be difficult) and the END of the copper age was the day McFarlane picked up a pencil.

Or Liefeld. Take your pick.

 

So would the new age/era we're in now be called "tin" or "aluminum?"

[Rich_Henn]

Paris Hilton is hot.

 

MOST whore's are.