"Fantastic Four" may be the most kid-friendly of the bunch

[hobbes]

Article on toy sales

 

 

That was an interesting article. Any revenue that works back to the comic book publishers is a good thing.

 

Here's an article from last month: Traditional Toy Sales Decline

 

 

Excerpt from second article:

U.S. sales of traditional toys have decreased over the last few years. Sales of traditional toys were down 3% in 2003 to $21.3 billion, according to the NPD Group and the Toy Industry Assoc. While the two organizations will not release 2004 sales figures until Toy Fair starts on Feb. 20, 2005, analysts have estimated that sales were down 5% over the first three quarters of the year and about 1.5% during the critical holiday selling season.

 

I could not find the results of 2004 but I will keep looking.

 

Another excerpt from the second article:

 

Several factors lie behind the industry’s struggles. Kids are moving beyond traditional toys at an ever-earlier age, a phenomenon known as “age compression;” action figures now appeal to 4- to 6-year-old boys, for example, whereas a decade or more ago they extended up to age 12 or so. Kids spend their time on a wider range of activities than ever before, from sports to videogames to DVDs to e-mailing, all of which compete with toys for their leisure time. New products such as wireless phones and iPods compound the challenge.

 

No surprises there.

 

One more:

She also notes that just because a show has high ratings does not mean it will be a good toy line. “There’s a huge difference between what kids will watch and what they’ll buy.” An action-adventure series typically lends itself to more and better toys than a comedy, for example, no matter what their relative ratings strength.

 

“Ratings don’t give a fair picture,” agrees Kahn, who points out that the aggregate rating for boys/girls 2-11 is not meaningful for a toy company. Manufacturers need to focus on the demographic segments that match their core market. “Who cares if the non-target audience is watching the show?”

 

I thought about the X-Men and Spiderman movies. Spiderman 1 & 2 generated over $1 billion between the two of them. Any money that DC/MARVEL or any other comic book publisher can generate is good. The question is: How many kids bought comics after watching the movies? The last excerpt mentions demographics. If Spiderman saw an increase in sales after the movies was it because kids started buying comics or was it because people who already bought comics but were not buying Spiderman decided to add a Spidey comic to their pull? What about people like myself that quit reading/buying comics 10+ years ago and came back in the last 3 years? How much does that skew the numbers?

 

 

I've seen numerous threads on here about sales figures. Correct me if I'm wrong but is it not safe to say that comic book sales have not seen anything remotely resembling insane growth? If Comic Book publishers cannot rely on movies, cartoons and action figures to draw in readers then what avenues can they pursue?