Marvel has long been the eight-hundred-pound-gorilla of the comics industry, dominating the sales charts and the box office with their mix of iconic heroes and well told stories. When you really thought of it, there wasn’t really a “Big Two” anymore so much as Marvel and the lagging DC.
But then 2010 happened.
Well, to be more specific, then December 2010 happened, as DC for the first time in a very long time took the number one spot on the Diamond Comic Distributors sales rankings while Marvel’s market share continued to plunge.
How did DC do it? Is everything as dire as it seems for Marvel? Can Marvel reverse its overall downward sloping sales trend?
I take a look at that and more after the jump.
Is Marvel Really Trending Downwards?
The simplest answer to that question is this – oh god yes.
While the industry as a whole is suffering from a sales standpoint (100k selling issues are rarely seen at this point, top books across the industry are seeing double digit percentage decreases in sales monthly), Marvel has been hit perhaps the hardest. Even though their market share has still been enough to have a stranglehold on the top spot in the industry for the past few years, it’s easy to see that their trend has been sloping downwards (consult the graph if you don’t believe me – thanks to Comichron for the info) despite occasional spikes.
When you look deeper at Marvel’s numbers, you find that their last few significant bumps in sales (namely June 2009 and December 2009) have been aberrations to the trend. Those months were fueled by atypical occurrences like monthly books being released multiple times in the sales period (for example, June 2009 featured three issues that had the name “Dark Avengers” on it, which at the time was Marvel’s hottest selling book) or all-too-rare anniversary issues like the 600th issue of Captain America.
While the market share is in fact true, it creates unreal sales levels that are artificially inflated and not sustainable for the House of Ideas (see: the nearly 8% dip in market share between June and July of 2009).
Besides those flourishes, Marvel has been dropping as if it had an anchor on it, especially over the past five months. Marvel closed the year with decreases of at least 1% each month, dropping from 40.92% of the total share of overall dollars to 32.28% at year’s end.
Why is This Happening?
There are a lot of different reasons why Marvel’s market share is dwindling. The easy and fashionable answer would be that more fans are going digital, but let’s be honest: digital is still more of a niche for fans right than it is a game changer that could cause an over 8% drop over a five month period.
Realistically, this is happening for a couple primary reasons.
1) Stiffer Competition
DC has been on an uptick if they took over the number one spot, but their trend isn’t the yin to Marvel’s yang. If you look over the past two years, their trend has been more flat than anything. Some ups, some downs, but for the most part they oscillate between 34% and 25% of the market share with most months spent around 28%. In fact, their big months always coincide with Marvel’s small months (and vice versa). That’s logical, but to me, it seems as if their fate isn’t decided so much by what they do as it is by what Marvel doesn’t do.
With that said, DC has picked up a few tricks from the Marvel way, as they’ve substantially bolstered their Batman and Green Lantern lines, hitched their wagon primarily to the pens of Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns, and started staggering releases to bulk up certain months (namely December 2010).
Fun fact number one: Douglas Wolk pointed out that in end-of-the-year top 300 issues list, the first 26 entries for DC were either written or co-written by Johns or Morrison. Also, the top selling non-Batman/non-Blackest Night/Brightest Day tie-in was Superman #700 all the way down at #109 on the list. By attaching the name of their two biggest guns to so many releases (especially two with so much cache within the industry) you can drive up fan interest without a significant marketing push (although there always is one).
Continued belowFun fact number two: December 2010 featured two issues of Green Lantern, four Bat-books and two issues of Brightest Day in the top 10. Doing such a thing over the last two months of the year (November saw an overload of Bat-books as well, either caused by Morrison delays or by clever scheduling by DC) boosted the company out of their two year low of 25.56% and up into the top spot.
Besides just DC though, Dark Horse, Image, IDW and, in particular, Dynamic Forces saw their piece of the pie grow substantially year-over-year. With each of them seeing creative upticks, licensing deals pay off, and industry buzz heading their way thanks to projects related to Hollywood, their releases started bringing in interest from areas that Marvel and DC rarely touch.
2) Marvel’s Complete and Utter Lack of Buzz
I’ll be the first to admit that Marvel had a really nice year from a creative output. The amount of talented writers and artists at Marvel is arguably at an all-time high, there is a new emphasis on creator-owned books via the Icon imprint, and they are for once putting the best creators together on their biggest books. It’s pretty fantastic for current fans.
The problem lies in the fact that there aren’t any books that really draw multiple audiences lately, and you could easily say that’s because of the woeful lack of event comics.
Say what you will about event fatigue, but when Civil War was hitting shops, there was a veritable buzz about Marvel and what it meant for the world of our favorite heroes. Not only that, but it pulled in readers who were typically just the “browse not buy” type, ones who stayed strictly to other publishers, and most importantly, the non-fan comic purchasers.
These days we have each aspect of the Marvel Universe feeling decidedly segregated. It doesn’t really feel like a universe anymore, so much as a place that houses a lot of similar but disconnected concepts. Rarely do you see the Avengers teams interact with each other, let alone the X-Men. The X-Men themselves find themselves on their own island, not even connected to the United States. The Fantastic Four is so insulated that Galactus can stop by their hood and nary an Avenger is found.
Marvel doesn’t have the natural cohesion in its storytelling anymore that would typically drive a Fantastic Four reader to buy the X-Men books, or for an Avengers reader to purchase one of the Cosmic books, or any number of other interactions that should take place but do not.
Without the cohesion and without the events to drive up sales, Marvel is left with what they have: dropping market share and reduced reader crossover between their titles.
3) Pricing Structure
Marvel was the first publisher to commit to the $3.99 price point, and that initially drove their market share of overall dollars up. I believe it has also been part of the cause for why their sales have been dipping overall.
While this isn’t backed up by numbers, I can say anecdotally that many readers I’ve talked to have dropped books simply because the $3.99 price point unbalances the cost/value relationship. When you’re a fan who is buying 10 books a week, that’s a difference of $10 a week. Spread that out over a year, and you’re looking at an additional $500 a year added to your already tight comic budget. Higher costs means less books over time, and I think Marvel is starting to feel the burn as the other publishers (especially DC) back away from the challenges of $3.99.
What is Marvel Doing to Turn This Around?
Marvel obviously is facing challenges right now, and they are highly interested in doing things to recapture their former glory. Their agenda is highlighted by two big ideas, with one idea being something I’m totally on board with, and the other I find myself scratching my head about.
The first one is their upcoming mega event titled “Fear Itself.” Coming from superstar writer Matt Fraction and artist Stuart Immonen, this event has Marvel drawing parallels to Civil War in the size and scope of it. Not only that, but teasers and early word from Marvel marketing indicates that this will be a line wide event, with no one (we mean you the X-Men) sitting it out for once.
Early buzz indicates significant fan interest, and this could be just what the doctor ordered for Marvel’s flagging sales. Having a central book for all others to rally around is just good for business, and I have faith in the idea that there will be no cries of “event fatigue” around the industry by its end.
The other major project Marvel is taking on is the one that I find to be a bit of a head scratcher. A few months ago, Marvel announced the Point One Initiative, and it was received by many sites with a collective “huh?” Many didn’t understand exactly what the purpose of this project was (10,000 foot view: issues released of major series weekly numbered xxx.1 that will be a standalone issue for just $2.99 that make it easier for new readers to jump in), and others just looked at the project as a money grab.
I’m on both sides – to me, these are normal issues that are being released concurrently to the regular series for the simple purpose of artificially bolstering sales temporarily. As I pointed out earlier, Marvel’s biggest spikes come when their top books are released multiple times in one month. If Marvel can do that with all of their biggest books over a three month period while dragging in a few new readers, that’s good for their bottom line and to me, not exactly old reader friendly (these comics after all have “important moments” that collectors and fans will find hard to resist). The project itself was confusing to me at first, but I find it to be a frustratingly transparent marketing ploy designed to fatten up Marvel’s market share.
Marvel did something this past week that was far more attractive to me: the resurrection of their Marvel Must Haves initiative. This is something Marvel rarely does anymore, but for people who missed the first few issues of various new series from Marvel, you could get the first three issues for just $3.99 or $4.99 in these mini-collections. Marvel released these editions for Avengers Academy, Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, Wolverine, X-23, and Daken: Dark Wolverine, and if you were a fan with some interest in these books previously, it is financially reasonable to jump on when you can get multiple issues for the cost of one. If only they did that for Thor: The Mighty Avenger, this past week’s issue might not have been its last.
Oddly enough, I didn’t see any press about these releases, but to me, they are very alluring and clever packaging by Marvel. To me, they are far more fan friendly than the Point One alternative.
Either way, Marvel is doing a good amount to buoy fan interest, with all three of the previous projects alongside the upcoming “Age of X” all predicted to ramp up sales.
Oh yeah, and I heard that Marvel is releasing a couple movies this year in “Thor” and “Captain America: The First Avenger.” That might do a little bit to bring outside fan interest back to the world of Marvel.
Where Do They Go From Here?
Onwards and upwards, I say. While I don’t predict that sales are going to suddenly spike back to over 100k for their top books, nor do I think the downward trend of the individual titles will reverse, I do think that DC will not be long for the top spot in the industry. Marvel is looking like they will be taking 2011 early on, as “Age of X” kicks off this month, “Fear Itself” and the “Point One Initiative” are coming in March, and their big blockbuster films are coming come summertime. Their downward trend will likely reverse itself at least temporarily.
But will the industry be able to turn it around? That’s an entirely different question, and another story for another time. The first steps that Marvel needs to really embrace is finding a way to get new fans and to recapture the glory of yesteryear in which comics had buzz outside of the insular and comfortable bubble we all exist in now. Oddly enough, you could easily say that the cultural zeitgeist of the comics industry exists today outside of the big two themselves, what with creator-owned books dominating and Erik Larsen gleefully pointing that fact out:
Continued belowFun fact! NINE of the TOP TEN graphic novels in 2010 were creator-owned books! Walking Dead, Kick-Ass and Scott Pilgrim among them.
He omitted that those books also happened to have films or television shows released in 2010, which is the real reason why they dominated the charts. But the ultimate point is this – these books, like Watchmen in 2009, managed to bring in the non-fan to purchase them, which is something the comics industry is failing to do outside of ones tied to film releases.
If Marvel really wants to take back the industry and begin developing themselves both for now and the future, they need to begin bridging the gap between the comic mainstream and the real mainstream. Until they do that, it’s my take that they’ll still be in a cyclical battle against DC for the same pieces of an increasingly small pie.
