Mayo Report for 2011-07
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Top Comics List Top Comics Breakdown Top Trades List Top Trades Breakdown
June 2011 was another month of generally low sales with "Amazing Spider-Man" #666 being the notable exception. The Godzilla gimmick of a retailer specific cover for retailers ordering 500 copies or more and the start of the Spider-Island storyline helped boost the sales from the prior issues 56,946 estimates units to around 135,564 units.
Other than that, once again nothing cracked 100,000 units. The most recent "Captain America" #1 did well with approximately 96,923 units. This is the sixth volume of "Captain America" with five of the six having starting in the past 15 years. The longest of the recent five volumes lasted until issue #50.
"Fear Itself" #4 sold an estimated 93,432 units to retailers while "Flashpoint" #3 sold only about 86,004 units to retailers. While the core titles for the two major events were near the top of the charts, once again the sales of the related miniseries were not.
While it felt like half of the comics released by Marvel were Fear Itself tie-ins, the sales of comics with Fear Itself in the actual title of the miniseries were far less impressive. "Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force" #1 topped the list of Fear Itself mini-series titles with only 39,604 units and "Fear Itself: Fearsome Four " #2 was at the bottom with around 17,764 units. The average 25,016 units for these issues is about 26.77% of the sales of "Fear Itself" #4.
"Flashpoint: Batman, Knight of Vengeance" #2 was the top selling of the Flashpoint related titles with about 40,759 units which is around 47.39% of the sales of "Flashpoint" #3. The lowest selling of the Flashpoint related titles was "Flashpoint: The Outsider" #2 with an estimated 22,944 units. "Booster Gold" #46 moved the titles from being the second lowest of the Flashpoint related titles in June to around the midpoint of the group. While the increase of around 2,213 units from the sales of about 26,183 units for "Booster Gold" #45 to approximately 28,396 units for "Booster Gold" #46 were certainly a factor, the other factor was the average loss of around 6,854 units on the second issues of the secondary Flashpoint miniseries. Those secondary Flashpoint titles averaged about 27,651 units in sales to retailers. With "Booster Gold" selling less than 30% of "Flashpoint" #3 and only about 10,000 to 15,000 units higher than the title has been doing prior to the Flashpoint event. "Booster Gold" is the only ongoing monthly title to tie into Flashpoint and even that failed to significantly increase sales. For those of you wondering why "Booster Gold" isn't one of the DC 2.0 titles, here is your answer.
The chart topping sales of the event titles combined with the low sales of the secondary miniseries titles for those same events indicates the problem isn't event fatigue but event oversaturation. Readers are still interested in events themselves. What they don't seem interested in is following the adventures of each and every character in the universe during those events. While this tactic of secondary miniseries worked well for Marvel with "Civil War," the continued use of it in every event since then has leached the sales power out of it.
