Is this impacting comics?

[Davenport]

Or are variant covers keeping it at bay? How are comic numbers comparing?

 

Today (12/3/15):Washington Examiner

Crash of magazine sales speeds up

"Time Inc. down 13% in just 3 months"

 

"The downward trend in newsstand sales is continuing — and may even be gathering speed."

[shadroch]

Weekly magazines are in a death spiral. As newsstand sales decline, retailers give them less space, which means cutting back on titles carried. As number of titles carried declines, many of the titles are no longer profitable to print. Less titles and less sales eventually will lead to some distributors failing.

Comics are avoiding this because they are sold almost exclusively in specialty shops and only have one distributor.

[Murphman13]

 

Weekly magazines are in a death spiral. As newsstand sales decline, retailers give them less space, which means cutting back on titles carried. As number of titles carried declines, many of the titles are no longer profitable to print. Less titles and less sales eventually will lead to some distributors failing.

Comics are avoiding this because they are sold almost exclusively in specialty shops and only have one distributor.

 

That's the meat and potatoes of it. The gravy is the current popularity of the movies, TV shows, conventions, cosplay, media attention and just the fact that comics are en vogue right now which is keeping younger generations interested.

[Michelangelo]

i agree with both above posts.

 

comics do avoid that death spiral because they aren't the weekly trash mag you pick up at grocery stores when waiting in line to pay.

 

Plus, pop culture is all about comics right now

[thehumantorch]

Weekly magazines are in a death spiral. As newsstand sales decline, retailers give them less space, which means cutting back on titles carried. As number of titles carried declines, many of the titles are no longer profitable to print. Less titles and less sales eventually will lead to some distributors failing.

Comics are avoiding this because they are sold almost exclusively in specialty shops and only have one distributor.

 

As a long time letter carrier I've watched the distribution of magazines via the post collapse. At one time it was a very significant portion of our business with many of our customers getting at least 1 mag a week and some getting many per week. Now magazine subscribers are almost extinct. I have to think newsstand sales would mirror subscription sales.

 

 

[GACollectibles]

 

a long time letter carrier

 

 

Something else that might disappear along with magazine sales.

[drotto]

There is also a fundamental difference in content. Magazine are only current for the month they are printed and the contents are basically dated from the second they get distributed. Plus a large percentage of magazines are basically ad carriers with a few fluff articles placed in between. Take a look at those fashion periodicals, they are 70% ads.

 

Comics on the other hand are more akin to books where the material has continue value beyond the date of print. So yes, books have taken a hit from online and digital distribution, but at least with books it seems like there is a floor, and that books will always retain value. Despite what people were saying 10 years ago, when both book and comics were also projected to completely go away, the market seems to have stabilized.

[Azkaban]

I have my old magazines protected like comic books. I sell a handful each month via Amazon. Most people buy them for what is on the cover-- so my old Rolling Stones are good for fans of older bands (I stopped getting magazines around 2004). I also have a small amount of Sports Illustrated -- though the ones that are more often sold are the newer ones that my brother gives e from his current subscription (the womens soccer ones got snatched up quickly for example).

 

I also put all my back issues of Playboy on there and get the occasional buyer. I have a handful of others too like ESPN and Time -- but they rarely sell.

 

I don't mind it taking forever to off load them-- and I am not making a ton of money from doing it. But it feels better than just trashing the whole thing. I wonder if the eventual end/drastically reduced output of magazines will one day lead to more people actively collecting them.

 

And yeas-- I totally agree that a comic book is a different animal entirely-- as it is a story that can be read any time. A magazine might only be relevant for a week unless you are looking to reminisce.

 

I wish I could find someone that collected Sports Illustrated, I have a ton of those from the 80's

[rjrjr]

There is also a fundamental difference in content. Magazine are only current for the month they are printed and the contents are basically dated from the second they get distributed. Plus a large percentage of magazines are basically ad carriers with a few fluff articles placed in between. Take a look at those fashion periodicals, they are 70% ads.

 

Comics on the other hand are more akin to books where the material has continue value beyond the date of print. So yes, books have taken a hit from online and digital distribution, but at least with books it seems like there is a floor, and that books will always retain value. Despite what people were saying 10 years ago, when both book and comics were also projected to completely go away, the market seems to have stabilized.

 

I agree with many of the posts here. Comics have several things going for them:

 

1) Stories, unlike magazines which are articles. As you mentioned, the material can be consumed well beyond the date of publication.

2) An avid, although aging, base who are devoted despite rising prices, variants, etc. Nostalgia is a big factor and if the antics of the big two haven't killed their audience by now, I doubt anything will.

3) Movies and cartoons. This helps bring in new readers.

4) Toys and other merchandise. This also grooms the next generation but keeps the characters viable.

5) Owners with deep pockets. Needless to say, deep pockets are key to ensuring comics stick around, if for no other reason, than as a test bed for content for future movies for the parent companies.

 

Like trade paperbacks, digital versions of comics have augmented comic sales, and did not decrease them as many had feared.

[AKA Rick]

I don't think comics are purchased by children/kids as they once were and used to be designed for, and feels more for adults, and not adult in rating, nor complexity.

 

I very rarely see any kids at the comic store. The cover price of most comics is in the $3-5 range per comic. When it was for kids it was priced at least 75% less if not up to 90% lower than today. If you ask a sample size of 10,000 random children about reading a physical comic book, most will have no interest or haven't read any in their lifetime.

 

So, comic books are for a niche sector who does have money or disposable income to afford buying variants as well as speculate and invest in multiple copies. So, I think in part you're right about the variant covers helping boost comic book sales. I think stores need to buy 25 copies of a comic to get the rights to buy that 1:25 variant that's so highly sought after.

 

Many of the standard comics needed to obtain the variants probably goes into the dollar bins and eventually probably landfill.

 

I'd say a majority of comic books purchased goes unread. This is why when you read reviews of most of today's super hero books they're usually negative, and the indie books are getting higher critical praise. I think the super hero publishers (Marvel and DC) are just cranking out tonnage with less concern for quality and more for branding their properties for the multi-media of TV or Film.

 

I think it's only a matter of time where the variants get over-saturated and the collectors feel what once was something special is too commonplace and the feeding frenzy will become a lot more selective. It happened with the sports card industry/hobby.

 

 

[VintageComics]

I live in a college heavy town and I always see tons of college kids in my local store but I agree, the days of a 7 year old picking up comics from their local grocery store are gone.

[shadroch]

The days of anyone picking up a comic at the corner grocery store are long gone.

What do you think the reaction of your typical comic shop clerk would be if a half dozen ten year olds stumbled into their shop?

[drotto]

I live in a college heavy town and I always see tons of college kids in my local store but I agree, the days of a 7 year old picking up comics from their local grocery store are gone.

 

Also the very nature of comics has changed. Many of those old books were self contained. A kid could come in plop down 10 to 15 cents and get a full story. That kid then may not have picked up another issue for weeks or even months. Today virtually no comic book story is self contained, most last 4 to 6 issues, and require not only more cash, but a commitment to get to the store to purchase every week. Kids in general do not have the money or the commitment to do that.

[VintageComics]

The days of anyone picking up a comic at the corner grocery store are long gone.

What do you think the reaction of your typical comic shop clerk would be if a half dozen ten year olds stumbled into their shop?

 

Probably a little less surprised than a decade ago.

 

Comic book stores have become pop culture centers, so kids come for Pokemon cards, books, video games, etc - whatever the shiny new thing is.

 

Those new pop culture items are probably just as responsible for taking away business from comics as anything else.

 

 

[revat]

I live in a college heavy town and I always see tons of college kids in my local store but I agree, the days of a 7 year old picking up comics from their local grocery store are gone.

 

Also the very nature of comics has changed. Many of those old books were self contained. A kid could come in plop down 10 to 15 cents and get a full story. That kid then may not have picked up another issue for weeks or even months. Today virtually no comic book story is self contained, most last 4 to 6 issues, and require not only more cash, but a commitment to get to the store to purchase every week. Kids in general do not have the money or the commitment to do that.

 

nor do they have the attention span to wait

but they can enjoy entire arcs on ipads a few months later for a fraction of the price if they share the unlimited pass thingy with their parents and/or siblings...things have changed, but its not necessarily worse, just different.

[loadstone]

I live in a college heavy town and I always see tons of college kids in my local store but I agree, the days of a 7 year old picking up comics from their local grocery store are gone.

 

Also the very nature of comics has changed. Many of those old books were self contained. A kid could come in plop down 10 to 15 cents and get a full story. That kid then may not have picked up another issue for weeks or even months. Today virtually no comic book story is self contained, most last 4 to 6 issues, and require not only more cash, but a commitment to get to the store to purchase every week. Kids in general do not have the money or the commitment to do that.

 

This x1Billion.

 

This is my biggest complaint about comics currently making some titles unbearable to follow. I understand this 'soap-opera' method is used to keep the reader invested in continuously morphing arcs but at a cost to the content and direction of the characters and value. Then there's all these reboots.

 

I loved it when I could read a single issue and feel like I got a complete story for my money: a beginning, an adventurous middle and an ending with a resolution and possibly a little hint at what's in store in the next issue. Now I feel like I get 10-15 pages of excruciatingly slowly developing storylines where nothing really happens with too many plot points to keep up, too many cameos, appearances, gimmicks, misdirections and twists for the sake of twists and no further along the plot by the last page.

 

Sometimes I get so fed up I just cancel the series from my pull box and my LCS manager will balk and ask why I'm not waiting until the end of the current arc. I tell him why. I know their game. I know he's trying to keep me buying until the next arc begins hoping it'll be good enough to suck me in or guilt me into feeling committed to a story arc but "enough!" I say! If the story arc sucks for 3/4 of the duration and it spans 10 issues, a 2 issue resolution, no matter how amazing, isn't going to make up for the 10 issues I could have just bought them all at once from the discount dollar bin a year from now and binge read or better yet, just download from comixology and decide at a lower cost, whether it's worth continuing to read.

 

If you publish comic stories like TV shows, people will start to view them the same way and ask why the hell am I paying for cable and waiting week to week when I can just be patient, save my money and catch up all at once on Netflix or Hulu.

[kav]

If you read a SA Marvel it actually takes a while to read. Lots of word balloons. Lots going on. Now you can read a book in like 3 minutes because all the writers are trying to be so clever and brief with words. Or the books with no words at all like that Hawkeye issue that you can 'read' in 60 seconds. I hate modern comics man.

[rjrjr]

I'd say a majority of comic books purchased goes unread.

 

 

 

This is more true than most people realize. There are still comic readers, but a large number of collectors don't even read the comics they buy. And when they pick up 5 - 6 different variants for a comic, of course only 1 copy will get read, if any.

 

When you consider Star Wars #1 in January had close to 100 variants and the regular issue sold maybe a couple of hundred thousand copies, how many copies of that one million print run do you think actually got read? 1/5th? Now that is probably an extreme example, but there are many comics that come out with one or more variant.

 

The aging comic base is a huge factor in why comics sales have not dwindled. But many of that aging base has turned from readers into hoarders with very few of them reading the comics they buy anymore. They are trapped by a desire to "own them all" or a fear of missing the next big thing.

 

And I'm not talking about all comic readers/collectors. But enough.

[drotto]

The thing is there used to be a happy medium. For me the most enjoyable length has always been the 2 or 3 book arcs. This seems like it reached its peak in the 80's. You usually got a good buildup story with a cliffhanger, then the big fight and resolution in the next issue. The current trend has actually changed how I read books. I still go to the store once per week, but with many series I let the books pile up for several months. The in about 1 to 1 1/2 hours I will sit and read the entire batch. I know it sounds stupid and I should just get trades then, but its what I do.

[gyro-1]

If you read a SA Marvel it actually takes a while to read. Lots of word balloons. Lots going on. Now you can read a book in like 3 minutes because all the writers are trying to be so clever and brief with words. Or the books with no words at all like that Hawkeye issue that you can 'read' in 60 seconds. I hate modern comics man.

Exactly this

and my 2 cents -->

4 bucks 2 minutes poor story though some art is getting better on the shiny pages