Random Thoughts on the state of the comics hobby – Part #1

Tragically the history of comic books can’t be told without including its ever diminishing sales numbers. While the specific numbers are difficult to obtain, it’s not a secret, and websites such as Comichron have made a valiant effort to try to keep track of the numbers. When the industry started in the late thirties and forties it was not unusual for individual comic titles to sell millions of copies each month. As time went on, these numbers started to decline to where today a title selling 100,000 copies is a big deal. A monthly title selling over 50,000 actually gets you in the top ten in many cases. The aggregate annual numbers include the sale of Trade Paperbacks and this also presents an inflated picture.

There is another factor that needs to be considered in this type of calculation. The numbers that are published aren’t actual sales numbers. They are the number of copies ordered by the comic stores. The actual, sell-through numbers are unknown although efforts are being made to set up electronic systems to start measuring sales.

Obviously showing declining numbers isn’t good news, so recently we’ve seen the industry broaden its definitions to include others things than the monthly comic book floppy. This brings us to our first distortion:

Distortion #1
Including Manga & Children’s Books in Comic Book Sales

There is no question Manga is extremely popular and sells really well in both comic and book stores. As do the many cartoon styled books targeted to children such as Dog Man. But let’s be clear: Manga buyers are a different group than traditional comic book buyers. The same is true for kid’s books. Each product is bought for different and yet very specific reasons.

While Japanese Manga and North American comic books share a fundamental similarity: that is they are images drawn in a sequential format that is where the similarity ends. I know of no comic book collectors who also collect Manga. I’m sure they’re out there, but I’ve never seen them.

A few years ago the idea of including these two sub-categories into the comic collecting hobby/industry would have been considered strange and even questionable. Nonetheless, the industry decided to group these categories together. In my opinion, this was done for the sole purpose of inflating the sales figures and present a “rosier” picture of the industry, in spite of the reality that monthly comic book sales have been steadily declining.

Up until very recently, Manga and children’s books were not counted together and were seen as separate revenue streams in most comic book stores. It’s only since the plummeting sales of traditional comic books that these products began being included in order to artificially inflate sales of what could be considered a “comic book.” Manga and children’s books are categories unto themselves and their success is to be commended. Recently Rob Salkowitz, the author of Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture wrote an editorial on the ICv2 website addressing this very issue and his observations are worth taking note of.

Rob says “more than 15 years into the Scholastic-led explosion of young reader graphic novels, it’s worth asking if this is doing the wider industry or even the medium of comics much good.  It’s certainly not awesome for other publishers angling for younger readers, who are getting ground into paste by Scholastic’s total market domination. But more fundamentally, we seem to have come full circle from “comics aren’t just for kids anymore!” to “comics seem to be just for grown-ups now” to “is anyone but kids buying graphic novels in big numbers?“

Here’s where the problem lies. For the traditional comic book world to piggy-back on the success of Manga and Children’s books only hides the failings of the traditional comic book market. Ignoring that reality also prevents systemic problems in the comic book market from being identified and changes made. And there are plenty of failings to talk about. It’s too easy to fool ourselves into thinking that everything is OK, when its not. That’s why I would suggest including Manga and other things like Children’s cartoon books, like ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ or ‘Dog Man’ distorts the comic book world.

This is intended to be a think-piece…some points to consider…to open up a discussion. So with that said, over the next few days I will present additional discussion-points where the current thinking in regards to collecting comics is in my view distorting the comic book collecting world. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section, and stay tuned.

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