COMIC STORES 2023: 'IT'S NEARLY 2024 AND I'M MORE THAN CONCERNED' 4 4

[ttfitz]

On 11/15/2023 at 4:30 PM, justadude said:

On 11/15/2023 at 2:27 PM, ttfitz said:

Ah, I see where the problem is - you responded to my disputing that "comic sales are at an all time high" to say that "comics are selling well for some people" which I've never argued with.

It's not some people. Again, almost everyone on this board equates superhero comics with comics more broadly.

Thanks for that link - not only does it not contradict what I've been responding to (as in, I haven't claimed anything about what your second sentence says, at all), but it supports it. I know Brian Hibbs (the author of the link), and I trust what he says. So...

"Some people" - From the article:

"These 89 people [selling 100K copies] represent 62% of all sales of NPD BookScan-reported sales in 2022.  What you can take from this is that only a tiny number [emphasis mine] of creators drive the vast majority of the business in comics (and books in general, as far as I can tell); and conversely, this probably means that the numerical majority of comics published aren’t actually significantly profitable any given year."

Comic sales at an "all time high"?

"But, as amazing as those topline numbers look, please remember that it really is largely “hits” that are driving the business – the “average” book still only sold approximately 1,051 copies, nationwide, in the entire year. Almost no one can earn a living from that (including book sellers!)"

Finally, as to your earlier statement that you were talking about "gross sales", Hibbs places the "calculated retail value" as $863,574,176 for 2022. From this article on the same website as your link -

"Certainly they help make sense of the trajectory that led Publishers Weekly in a 1954 article to place annual comics sales above 1 billion."

So, at 10¢ per comic, that would be $100,000,000 in 1954 dollars, or $1,089,962,756 (according to the inflation calculator on the Minn fed page) in 2022. So, not an "all time high" by that measure, either.

[justadude]

On 11/15/2023 at 7:15 PM, ttfitz said:

Thanks for that link - not only does it not contradict what I've been responding to (as in, I haven't claimed anything about what your second sentence says, at all), but it supports it. I know Brian Hibbs (the author of the link), and I trust what he says. So...

"Hey honey, I'm going to have some people over for dinner."

"Oh, yeah? How many can we expect?"

"Oh, just 89."

 

Lastly, Hibbs is estimating what's reported in his article is 85% of sales, only sales reported through NPD Bookscan, and admits that "In some cases, those numbers could potentially be many multiples of the retail trade." He's also counting zero digital sales.

Looks "all time" to me.

[Prince Namor]

On 11/16/2023 at 9:07 AM, Book Guy said:

As far as 'wakeness' being a problem if retailers say their customers are complaining then it is a problem, no matter whether it's important or unimportant to me or you. However, if 'Awakened' comics are drawing more new customers in that they are driving out then it might be a net plus. My guess is that quantifying the difference would be tough...At any rate it seems it is a problem of some sort.

Not when the people complaining aren't buying the books in the first place and its almost impossible to see what sales of those titles are since digital sales are completely hidden.

[Spawnfreak]

On 11/16/2023 at 2:56 AM, Prince Namor said:

Not when the people complaining aren't buying the books in the first place and its almost impossible to see what sales of those titles are since digital sales are completely hidden.

I have to say that this is the FIRST thread I have read that I have read each and every word. On both sides (the dummies and the 

professors) it is mostly civil, And on both sides, can be read as mostly right. I myself still buy comics. I'm 78, and I actually learned to read sitting by a comic rack, reading until they threw me out every day! I do not like the art in modern comics, the best art seems to be the covers, and I hate preaching. Give me a Superman who is beating the Kryptonite out of someone, or Plastic Man any day. Today's readers will be complaining about tomorrow's art ad infinitum. Things change. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow, or don't go at all!

Oh, by the way. Here's what I consider art;

[Ryan.]

On 11/16/2023 at 3:38 AM, Spawnfreak said:

Today's readers will be complaining about tomorrow's art ad infinitum

Something happens to the human brain when it turns 35. We immediately complain about how terrible the younger generation is and how everything was perfect when we were 12. Read any interview with a retired baseball player and they will complain about how soft the current players are. I'm not talking just about current retired players. I've read these quotes going back to the late 1800s .

[BA773]

On 14/11/2023 at 01:29, Ken Aldred said:

Yup. Classic recent example for me was Witcher 3 : Wild Hunt, which I got for £12, including free PS5 upgrade, which we’ll compare more directly with the approximate price of a trade paperback collection, typical 6 issue story arc.

Played the game, on-and-off, several completions, for over 6 months.

Says it all.

I remember the time i had some video games, so much games that i played hundreds of hours for few dollars, the witcher 3 was one of them and even one of the best i ever played.

[Ken Aldred]

On 11/16/2023 at 3:07 PM, BA773 said:

I remember the time i had some video games, so much games that i played hundreds of hours for few dollars, the witcher 3 was one of them and even one of the best i ever played.

It’s an absolute classic RPG.

[Robot Man]

On 11/16/2023 at 5:58 AM, Ryan. said:

Something happens to the human brain when it turns 35. We immediately complain about how terrible the younger generation is and how everything was perfect when we were 12. Read any interview with a retired baseball player and they will complain about how soft the current players are. I'm not talking just about current retired players. I've read these quotes going back to the late 1800s .

Being an old geezer, I don’t find young people of today much different than when I was young. Or any previous generation for that matter.

I do consider them inexperienced in life. The older you get, the smarter you get. And you aquire more life experience.

I do, probably like my parents before me, feel bad for the world we all live in. Hopefully, the young folks of today make it a better place but I kind of doubt it.

And as an old time comic collector, I really feel bad for the collectors today. You folks really missed out…

[Paul © ® ⚽️💙™]

On 11/16/2023 at 3:47 PM, Robot Man said:

Being an old geezer, I don’t find young people of today much different than when I was young. Or any previous generation for that matter.

I do consider them inexperienced in life. The older you get, the smarter you get. And you aquire more life experience.

I do, probably like my parents before me, feel bad for the world we all live in. Hopefully, the young folks of today make it a better place but I kind of doubt it.

And as an old time comic collector, I really feel bad for the collectors today. You folks really missed out…

[justadude]

Here's what Jean Baudrillard has to say on collecting and collectors:

"Because [the collector] feels alienated and abolished by a social discourse whose rules escape him, the collector strives to reconstitute a discourse that is transparent to him, a discourse whose signifiers he controls and whose referent par excellence is himself. In this he is doomed to failure: he cannot see that he is simply transforming an open-ended objective discontinuity into a general validity. This kind of totalization by means of objects always bears the stamp of solitude. It fails to communicate with the outside, and communication is missing within it. . . . The collector is never an utterly hopeless fanatic, precisely because he collects objects that in some way always prevent him from regressing into the ultimate abstraction of a delusional state, but at the same time the discourse he thus creates can never -- for the very same reason -- get beyond a certain poverty and infantilism."

Collecting is made to feed your ego, your sense of nostalgia, your unshakable belief that everything made today is simply worse than when you were a kid simply because you were a kid. While the quote above doesn't cover every collector on this board, it easily describes most. You don't understand this world, so you can hide away in the comforting thought that you know what the best of [insert collectible here] is. The world is "going to hell" not because you don't understand, but because you refuse to understand.

This is also not universal. Many retired pro athletes say younger players are "soft," but it's an indication of their own insecurity when compared to younger, sometimes even better players. The way they can remove themselves from comparisons. Many players celebrate the wonder of younger players and it's clear that they're much more secure about their position in the pantheon of X sport by doing so.

This mentality is one cultivated by decades of thinking your tastes are unilateral, of being convinced that your world is the only correct one, of living years of mental solitute. Thankfully, you have always, and will always, be wrong.

[Paul © ® ⚽️💙™]

On 11/16/2023 at 5:46 PM, justadude said:

Here's what Jean Baudrillard has to say on collecting and collectors:

"Because [the collector] feels alienated and abolished by a social discourse whose rules escape him, the collector strives to reconstitute a discourse that is transparent to him, a discourse whose signifiers he controls and whose referent par excellence is himself. In this he is doomed to failure: he cannot see that he is simply transforming an open-ended objective discontinuity into a general validity. This kind of totalization by means of objects always bears the stamp of solitude. It fails to communicate with the outside, and communication is missing within it. . . . The collector is never an utterly hopeless fanatic, precisely because he collects objects that in some way always prevent him from regressing into the ultimate abstraction of a delusional state, but at the same time the discourse he thus creates can never -- for the very same reason -- get beyond a certain poverty and infantilism."

Collecting is made to feed your ego, your sense of nostalgia, your unshakable belief that everything made today is simply worse than when you were a kid simply because you were a kid. While the quote above doesn't cover every collector on this board, it easily describes most. You don't understand this world, so you can hide away in the comforting thought that you know what the best of [insert collectible here] is. The world is "going to hell" not because you don't understand, but because you refuse to understand.

This is also not universal. Many retired pro athletes say younger players are "soft," but it's an indication of their own insecurity when compared to younger, sometimes even better players. The way they can remove themselves from comparisons. Many players celebrate the wonder of younger players and it's clear that they're much more secure about their position in the pantheon of X sport by doing so.

This mentality is one cultivated by decades of thinking your tastes are unilateral, of being convinced that your world is the only correct one, of living years of mental solitute. Thankfully, you have always, and will always, be wrong.

Or it could just be that we like collecting junk.

[justadude]

On 11/16/2023 at 10:01 AM, Paul (GG) © ® ™⚽️💙 said:

Or it could just be that we like collecting junk.

If that was all it was, you wouldn't feel so strongly about "comics today."

[Ken Aldred]

On 11/16/2023 at 5:46 PM, justadude said:

This mentality is one cultivated by decades of thinking your tastes are unilateral, of being convinced that your world is the only correct one, of living years of mental solitute. Thankfully, you have always, and will always, be wrong.

A bit straw man to claim and impose universal solipsism on the practitioners. Also, a lack of theory of mind in not accepting that there can, naturally, be a range of perceptions and motivations driving the interest or obsession, that the evolution is underpinned by a more complex spectrum.
 

I don’t expect anyone here to be the same as me when it comes to collecting, and many unique journeys might have been taken, none absolutely identical. I don’t assume simplistic homogeneity and predictability.

In group therapy, you may have been congregated together on the basis of sharing a certain psychiatric or neurological, syndromic complex of symptoms, but the range of personalities you interact with and the experiences and worldviews voiced can still seem quite astonishingly diverse, and a bit confusing and paradoxical, considering that we’re supposed to be there for fundamentally the same diagnostic reason.

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Ken Aldred

[marmat]

On 11/13/2023 at 4:41 PM, MatterEaterLad said:

We're seeing the effects of 40 years of the direct distribution model. 

This

[Spawnfreak]

On 11/16/2023 at 1:55 PM, Ken Aldred said:

A bit straw man to claim and impose universal solipsism on the practitioners. Also, a lack of theory of mind in not accepting that there can, naturally, be a range of perceptions and motivations driving the interest or obsession, that the evolution is underpinned by a more complex spectrum.
 

That, my man, is one hell of a use of the English language!

[WolverineX]

On 11/13/2023 at 6:56 AM, media_junkie said:

While I agree with pretty much everything he says in that article, the sad truth is that we all know nothing will change.  Nothing.

If it doesn't bring more short term profit for the MBA in charge, he could care less.  Long term doesn't matter.  

[ttfitz]

On 11/16/2023 at 12:45 AM, justadude said:

"Hey honey, I'm going to have some people over for dinner."

"Oh, yeah? How many can we expect?"

"Oh, just 89."

My hope is you are being disingenuous, and not that you are completely unaware that "some" is a relative term. Yes, for a dinner party at home, 89 is "a lot." But to use your reasoning,

:"Wow, there were a lot of people at the Michigan football game this week."

"Oh, yeah? How many?"

"EIGHTY-NINE!"

[ttfitz]

On 11/16/2023 at 12:45 AM, justadude said:

Lastly, Hibbs is estimating what's reported in his article is 85% of sales, only sales reported through NPD Bookscan, and admits that "In some cases, those numbers could potentially be many multiples of the retail trade." He's also counting zero digital sales.

Looks "all time" to me.

I suggest asking Hibbs if he thinks comic sales are at an "all time high." Having talked to him on a number of occasions, I doubt it, he's a pretty smart man.

(EDIT - I should also point out for completeness sake that the estimated billion comics sold was only the traditional comics, and wouldn't include any sort of things that Hibbs' report included. No clue whether that would change things much, but it doesn't really matter.)

Edited November 16, 2023 by ttfitz
added something

[Paul © ® ⚽️💙™]

On 11/16/2023 at 8:42 PM, ttfitz said:

:"Wow, there were a lot of people at the Michigan football game this week."

"Oh, yeah? How many?"

"EIGHTY-NINE!"

Sold out again?

[1Cool]

On 11/15/2023 at 5:30 PM, justadude said:

It's not some people. Again, almost everyone on this board equates superhero comics with comics more broadly.

Absolutely not true. Kids are reading comics, a whole lot more than adults reading comics as 15 of the top 20 sellers in 2022 were childrens and middle aged titles. They just aren't reading superhero comics which weren't even in the TOP 250 titles sold. And who would blame them for not reading a genre where less than 5% of published stories EVER were any good?

The whole discussion just confirms again and again how narrow-sighted collectors on this board, and collectors in general, really are. They collect specific eras or artists or titles because they are so sure they're the "best" era in some way. It's an incredibly limited view and one that furthers their own egotism to think the only thing that matters is what they like.

Superhero comics =/= comics.

Thank _________ god.

But you are writing your opinions on a CGC message boards where the average person is probably in their mid 40s so it’s perfectly ok to have the discussion slanted toward that group.

im down in Puerto Rico this week and we went on a snorkeling trip yesterday with about 40 people of all ages.  The way out to the reef they played a lot of older songs which had everyone (even the youngest) singing and having some drinks.  The way back the youngest were very drunk on rum punch and the music got louder and newer.  The older people were basically covering our ears by the end while the young were stumbling around and quoting songs we didn’t know.  I find comics are the same way - the young can at least appreciate the older ways (or at least grin and bare it) but the older crowd just can’t handle the pace and the headaches of the stuff the young like. 

if the future of comics is manga and anime then most of us will just be content to live in the past and talk on a message board where younger people would be driven crazy with the slow pace.