This is the place to discuss the episodes of the Comic Book Page podcast, the Comic Book Page website or pretty much anything else of interest to the Comic Book Page community...
It looks like I've found another 'clean-up project' for John too.
How much of a P.I.T.A. would it be to add a range function to titles like ASM? For example, say you only wanted 6 months or 1 year's history, instead of 12 years.
A range search function is a great idea. Both in terms of issue numbers and date ranges.
But I still need to convert the website over to the newer and cleaner database structure. I just haven't have the time to do that over the past year. The Amazing Spider-Man problem is fixed in that cut of the database.
And, frankly, at this point, I'm tempted to take another crack at my clean up process to add in some additional features like imprints and possibly even creators.
If I can carve out some time to work on this, I want to really revamp the charting section of the website.
Lobo wrote:So, any opinion on ASM's downward spiral?
Perhaps Peter Parker should have asked Mephisto to make people forget why they weren't buying his comics?
In all seriousness, what we are seeing here is the basic life cycle of a title. It launched strong, sales dropped off a bit with the "second issue" and then has fallen victim to the standard attrition we see on most titles. It gets a little more complicated with the variant covers that they used on the first issue for each new creative team there for a bit.
It isn't like the title is falling like a rock. It is just losing a percent or so per issue. I'm told that this is "normal" and "nothing to worry about."
That's a 58,944 drop in sales, down 46.10%, or a 2.31% drop per issue.
While this is roughly what's considered "standard attrition", it's also 6.93% per month, which is (naturally) 3x the standard rate of attrition.
I suppose the question is, is it valid to compare the rate of attrition per issue for books that come out weekly (or almost weekly, in the case of ASM), to other titles that come out monthly, or should a monthly rate of attrition be used as a standard?
Last edited by Lobo on Wed Aug 27, 2008 8:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Another interesting comparison would be what ASM's 3 issues are selling in total per month vs. what the aggregate of ASM, FNSM, & SSM before "One More Day".
JLAFan wrote:Another interesting comparison would be what ASM's 3 issues are selling in total per month vs. what the aggregate of ASM, FNSM, & SSM before "One More Day".
The average Spider-Man comic (ASM, FNSM & SSM) sold 80,600 units in 2007. The average for Amazing Spider-Man in July was 68,973. So in that respect, merging the titles was resulted in lower sales. But 2007 was filled with "events" for Spider-Man while 2008 has been fairly event free so far.
In 2007 the delta between the highest and lowest selling issues was over 100,000 units. With the merging of the titles into Amazing Spider-Man, the sales are more consistent from week to week. The sales are dropping but they are doing so across a single sales pattern versus three different ones.
I've really been enjoying Amazing Spider-Man lately. I wasn't reading it before Brand New Day so maybe I happened to jump on a good point. I think the stories are quality and most of the art has been excellent. I noticed in the news that ASM#569 has sold out already. I wonder how this will play out in the sales numbers that will come up in the future.
IanG wrote:I've really been enjoying Amazing Spider-Man lately. I wasn't reading it before Brand New Day so maybe I happened to jump on a good point. I think the stories are quality and most of the art has been excellent. I noticed in the news that ASM#569 has sold out already. I wonder how this will play out in the sales numbers that will come up in the future.
For a comic to "sell out" all that needs to happen is for reorders (including any "advance reorders" that happened after the Final Order Cutoff date) to exceed the overprint amount.
Marvel set the print run based on the orders for the comic. By adjusting how much they overprint the comic by they can essentially generate a "sell out" on demand.
What would be more impressive is a sell out at the retail level, but given that there is no real retailer tracking/reporting system or data, that is impossible to report on.
One thing I do know is that many books that are "sold out" via Diamond have plenty of copies sitting on the shelves of stores I have gone into.
johnmayo wrote:Marvel set the print run based on the orders for the comic. By adjusting how much they overprint the comic by they can essentially generate a "sell out" on demand.
I'm interpreting this to mean Marvel may be doing this as a marketing tool in order to boost the sales of comic books. Is this a sign that Marvel doesn't think the sales are where they should be with ASM?
I never would have thought of that way without having your comments, thanks. Doesn't give me the best feeling about Marvel's sales tactics but it makes stop and think next time I see all those "sell out" announcements.
JLAFan wrote:What would be more impressive is a sell out at the retail level, but given that there is no real retailer tracking/reporting system or data, that is impossible to report on.
I completely agree that a sell out at the retailer level would be much more impressive. And, I think it might help future issues sell better since it would be a direct reflection of the reader demand for the title.
I think the problem with BND is the same as with "Superman Returns". It tries to rehash old material and just seems anachronistic and stale at times.
Much as I try to relive my adolescence on pretty much a daily basis, sometimes you just can't go home again. I mean, they used an old joke of Spidey splitting the seat of his costume in Ultimate Spiderman. Works there, because that Spidey is still a teen in high school. It would be utterly stupid if they did that in ASM now. The ASM Parker has moved beyond girl troubles, bullies and losing web shooters by now. The ASM Parker has been buried alive, lost a baby daughter and had his eye sucked out before being killed. To insert some of the jokes of more innocent times of 20 years ago just seems very out of place.
If Joe Q had all these great stories that couldn't be told otherwise, *HE* should have been writing the title for these past six months, instead of rewriting the rules and then punting to others.
I am not one who gets too bothered by the ups and downs of quality in a title, but what really ticks me off is that Joe Q set up completely arbitrary parameters of a weekly title put out by a rotating creative teams that have to deliberately try to forget elements of the past 20 years.
The result? People like Slott, McNiven and friggin JR jr put out utterly ordinary stories, when I G-D know they can do far better.
80sJunkie wrote:
If Joe Q had all these great stories that couldn't be told otherwise, *HE* should have been writing the title for these past six months, instead of rewriting the rules and then punting to others.
That hadn't occurred to me but I completely agree. Quesada should have been the writer or at least the plotter for the series.
80sJunkie wrote:
If Joe Q had all these great stories that couldn't be told otherwise, *HE* should have been writing the title for these past six months, instead of rewriting the rules and then punting to others.
That hadn't occurred to me but I completely agree. Quesada should have been the writer or at least the plotter for the series.
Mainly, the book was rewritten in the editorial offices to a degree that the words weren't mine any longer, to a certain degree in three, and massively in four. If the work represents me, I leave the name there and take the rap; if it doesn't, then that's a different situation. There's just not much of my work there, especially once you get to the last dong of midnight...everything after that was written by editorial.
Whether my work is good or it sucks, it's mine. What came out of the end of OMD wasn't, hence my desire to omit the writing credit. Joe graciously offered to share it on the last issue. I think that helped. Credit where credit is due.
