How is the Comic Book Industry Doing Lately?

Cafe Society
1

I collected comics from 1971 to 2007. I stopped buying them not because I wanted to, but out of financial necessity. I was wondering – how are comics faring lately? There are so many other sources of entertainment among the various media now, I wonder if the current generation views them as viable.

I know that every few months there is a new superhero movie out in the theatres, but I don’t know if movie fans actually follow up the experience with a trip to the local comics shop.

So, are sales of new and old issues anemic, or do the comics shops still get bustling business?

2

Sales are low, but fairly consistent, if the dealers are to be believed. It’s a niche market.

On the other hand, DC Comics just did a big relaunch with advertising because they perceived a decline and wanted to lure in some new readers.

3

OK, not great – as a completely discretionary purchase, they’ve been hit by the Great Recession more than some other industries, and that isn’t helped by price increases. There’s a way of seeing the DCU relaunch as a desperation ploy to trade in a lot of goodwill for a season-long bump in immediate sales.

And of course, while the publishers seem to be doing all right, individual retailers are marginal operations with high capital requirements; some of them are dropping off, I’m sure. Since that’s the primary sales outlet for paper comics – almost the only one now that Borders has folded – there’s a tipping point somewhere where the existing LCS infrastructure isn’t going to be large enough to service a national comics market.

That’s part of the reason for the big push into digital delivery. But it’s still an open question as to whether the market will embrace that. (I certainly don’t see myself paying full price for a bunch of electrons. OTOH, I don’t have an iPad or other tablet – maybe if I did, the reading experience would be close enough that I wouldn’t mind.)

–Cliffy

4

In my area, a third comic book shop opened right in the middle of the recession, and it seems to be doing pretty well. All three comic book shops have slightly different emphases.

  1. Used bookstore and new and used comics
  2. Anime, manga, cards, toys/figures, and new comics with a small gaming room
  3. New comics, games, toys/figures, cards/collectables with a large gaming room

There’s also a gaming shop that doesn’t focus on books or comics. All this is within about one or two square miles.

5

Part of the reason for the DC reboot is to push digital sales, in order to combat the problems with the retailers and to have the content in a form the kids of today are more used to seeing.