July 2014 Best Month for Comic Books in Recorded History

[guise709]

200,000 - 250,000 copies of Rocket Racoon issue 1 were sold to Loot Crate (http://www.lootcrate.com/)

So that's the reason for the surprisingly high numbers.

There was a bit of a flap about it in comic circles with some claiming they were given away free to Loot Crate for promotional use and shouldn't be counted in sales numbers.

Still August's numbers will get the distinction of having one of the highest ever issue to issue drops.

I heard Loot Crate only bought 100,000 issues, but your numbers could be more accurate the site doesn't really say.

Regardless I hope RR sells well this month as well and continues to do so. Its a solid comic with good writing/art (since when could Young write?) and its nice seeing Cosmic Marvel get more attention.

Now if only we can get someone other than Bendis on the current GOTG run, then we'll be getting somewhere.

 

[guise709]

Oh man, I want to read that new Rocket Raccoon comic so badly. Almost makes me reconsider only buying trades, almost.

But no, I'll be patient. I hope we'll get to see the first Rocket Raccoon trade this year.

Comics get expensive quick, one of my biggest issues with the medium. It wouldn't be such a bigger deal if every series wasn't stitched together from every possible angle with tie-ins, forcing you to buy outside you usual pulls if you want the "full" story.

Yeah that's the reason why I go for trades. I decided to get into the New 52 Batman comics because I really liked the art of it, and I found out soon that they have bits and bobs of the story all over the freakin' Bat-family. But if you're patient they usually publish a trade, like Batman: Night of the Owls, that neatly picks all the bits from all the different comic lines and puts them in one book. Saves so much money.

Yea, but sometimes its good to vote with your dollar. The individual issue sales will pop up sooner than the trade sales. Its also what is being used to judge whether a series will get cancelled or not.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Yea, but sometimes its good to vote with your dollar. The individual issue sales will pop up sooner than the trade sales. Its also what is being used to judge whether a series will get cancelled or not.

Understandable, but I don't have that much disposable income, so I have to make a hard choice in that part.

I also want my comics to be a bit more sturdy and individual issues are way too flimsy for my taste. I'm not exactly graceful, so to speak. I'll lose 'em, I'll tear 'em, whathaveyou. My trades are already at risk, so I ain't taking more chances.

 

[Souplex]

That's something of a fallacious statement.
Yes, it's made more money than anything since 97, but the early-90s industry was by far its peak of profitability.
Granted it was completely unsustainable, but still.

 

[The Great JT]

You might not think it considering their important role in pop and nerd culture, but comic books usually aren't big sellers.

I'd believe it. Comic writers don't know how to write comic books anymore, they just write for the trade paperback.

Or to put it another way, "one-off adventures sprinkled with overarching storylines good, four-part mini-series after four-part mini-series bad."

 

[Falterfire]

The thing that actually surprises me about it is that they printed 300,000 copies of the comic to sell... unless of course this is including digital which makes it less surprising.

That said, with all the movies, and growing awareness, it doesn't shock me that the movie success is trickling down to the various books.

The reason this is a surprise is that by and large previous movies haven't really led to sales bumps in associated titles. (And based on the rest of this thread, this bump was due to LootCrate buying a bunch of copies for their subscribers rather than moviegoers specifically going after it) Mostly neither DC nor Marvel has done a terribly good job of converting movie fans into comics fans.

Personally I blame how poorly digital is set up - Marvel has Unlimited, which is great if you have a tablet and know it exists, but they don't do a great job of advertising it and the PC client is pretty bad. DC doesn't have anything similar and buying digital backlogs at $2-$4/issue is not something easy to get into.

I bet if DC and Marvel both sold Unlimited subscriptions and advertised them well they'd see a massive increase in revenue.