Drunken Comics Rage

Newsarama posted an article with the Diamond's sales charts for June. You can find the full article here, but there are some rather interesting tidbits that I thought worth mentioning.

First the total marketshare numbers. No surprise in who the top two are, but take a look at this.

 

Publisher            Dollar Share       Unit Share

MARVEL                43.62%             48.42%

DC COMICS           27.02%             28.57%

I wonder how DC feels about having a quarter of the market share when Marvel is approaching half? You gotta think that stings a bit. Now I wont get into the whole Top 100 titles and analysis around them, but  a little ways down the chart I found something that maybe starts to explain the above discrepancy in market share. Check out the these couple of select titles and their rankings.

Rank          Title

31                 BLACK PANTHER #28 CWI

35                 MOON KNIGHT #11 CWI

44                 DETECTIVE COMICS #833

45                 SUPERMAN #663

WTF?

Moon Knight and Black Panther outselling Superman and Batman?

Now don't get me wrong, I love me some Black Panther and Moon Knight. But what kind of wacky world do we live in where they outsell comic icons? Not even just comic book icons, but american icons. Hell, worldwide icons.

Batman and Superman should be at the top of the charts all the time. ALL THE TIME. If you can't market Superman and Batman in a way that puts them in the top 10 in sales each month, you should just hang it up and leave the industry because you're fucked. There isn't any bigger name recognition anywhere in comcs. Period. Combine that with the exposure they get in hollywood movies, television shows (I think Smallville sucks, but someone is watching that shit enough to keep it on the air), not to mention toys, beach towels, bedspreads, lucnhboxes and any other thing they can smear the "S" and the Bat on, how the fuck is this not a slam dunk to move 100k issues a month?

I don't know what DC is counting down to with their latest weekly nonsense. But if the end result doesn't involve Supes and Bats at the top of the charts, there should think seriosuly about a wholesale slaughter of the editors and creative teams.

Filed under: DC Comics, General Comics Rage