D&D General Some comic makers would kill for D&Ds numbers and demographic.

[teitan]

I think Amazon has a comix app now where you can get an unlimited subscription and read as much of certain comic book lines as you want, for a lot cheaper then $70s, I'll see if I can find details.

yeah Amazon owns COmixology and it has an unlimited subscription that gives you hundreds of comics to read for free.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Today here in Spain 8 or 10 euros is the price for a cinema ticket. 10$ can be spent very soon in a saturday night.

I am not a true player, but a collector, and I would rather to buy books, at least I try justify myself they are to speculate and years after they will be more valuable.

We have to remember the printer paper industry has got other rival, and not only videogames and cartoons, but also the free web comics.

The superheroes franchises by Marvel and DC are still cash cows, but not so good with the printed paper editions but more with toys, action-live movies, some cartoons and DC teleseries as Flash, Supergirl and Green Arrow.

The TTRPG market is for the fandom who love to create their own stories, being their own Mary Sue/Gary Stu. And I would bet WotC is dreaming with create the ultimate d20 system for superheroes. (Some times when I see in youtube Alan Walker AMVs with Chinese CGI wuxia animation I wonder how it would be the wuxia version of the wester superheroes franchises, and I don't talk about the batman samurai anime but ordinary humans with ki techniques destroying walls.

 

[gyor]

yeah Amazon owns COmixology and it has an unlimited subscription that gives you hundreds of comics to read for free.

10 of thounds, not just hundreds.

 

[LordEntrails]

More like 5 minutes for $4, although you can get better deals if you go just digital or get subscription and some other options. Buying a single paper back issue is the worst way to enjoy comics IMHO, its like only buying a single card of MtG, wtf are going to do with that.

Not quite the point of my post. And buying a single comic was not what I did. But yes, if that had been the advice, and if that had been what I had tried, then yes, it would have been a useless way to try and get in.

 

[Jester David]

I don't think it's a fair comparison. If WotC published a dozen new 32-page D&D books every single week, I'm sure it would drastically affect the sales figures of individual books. Comic books are just a different model.

The market is less different than you would think...

I wonder how many Marvel or DC fans there are out there?

For super hero comics, the best selling comic will sell <175,000 copies, with most being <100,000 copies. Heck, when you chart the top ten books sold each month, the bottom couple are generally close to 50,000 copies.

If there were a million comic fans regularly buying monthly books it would be a surprise.
(Based on the total number comics sold every month, if every person who bought a comic in Janurary 2020 only bought a single comic and no person bought two comics, there's be 2,775,000 comic fans.)


Okay, financials and comic industry deep dive...

As you say, because comic books are monthly rather than quarterly and there are some many, the comic industry pulls in a lot of money despite smaller sales. $361 million in 2019 compared to the $65 million of RPGs.

BUT, this gets larger when you add graphic novels to the mix, which brings in an additional $635 million. This is the big market and it's only growing: it went from $400 million in 2013 to the number above, from comparable to superhero comics to dwarfing it.
The catch is, only like $275 million of the graphic novel revenue come from comic stores. A big chunk comes from traditional book stores.
And these sales are very much like RPG books: big releases that come out two or three times a year.

And here's the side fact that most comic fans forget. That growth in graphic novels? It isn't from superhero books. It's youth orientated graphic novels.
Sales of Dav Pilkey and Raina Telgemeier dwarf sales of any superhero book, and their stuff is only released as graphic novels. The Smile and Dog Man series of books are the 5e of comics.

 

[Morrus]

The market is less different than you would think...


For super hero comics, the best selling comic will sell <175,000 copies, with most being <100,000 copies. Heck, when you chart the top ten books sold each month, the bottom couple are generally close to 50,000 copies.

If there were a million comic fans regularly buying monthly books it would be a surprise.
(Based on the total number comics sold every month, if every person who bought a comic in Janurary 2020 only bought a single comic and no person bought two comics, there's be 2,775,000 comic fans.)


Okay, financials and comic industry deep dive...

As you say, because comic books are monthly rather than quarterly and there are some many, the comic industry pulls in a lot of money despite smaller sales. $361 million in 2019 compared to the $65 million of RPGs.

BUT, this gets larger when you add graphic novels to the mix, which brings in an additional $635 million. This is the big market and it's only growing: it went from $400 million in 2013 to the number above, from comparable to superhero comics to dwarfing it.
The catch is, only like $275 million of the graphic novel revenue come from comic stores. A big chunk comes from traditional book stores.
And these sales are very much like RPG books: big releases that come out two or three times a year.

And here's the side fact that most comic fans forget. That growth in graphic novels? It isn't from superhero books. It's youth orientated graphic novels.
Sales of Dav Pilkey and Raina Telgemeier dwarf sales of any superhero book, and their stuff is only released as graphic novels. The Smile and Dog Man series of books are the 5e of comics.

No, that wasn’t my question. I was asking about numbers of Marvel or DC fans, not comic books sales. The latter doesn’t interest me at all! We’re talking people who see films, buy video games, the whole works. The same sort of metric WotC uses — people who have interacted with the brand in some way.

 

[Jester David]

No, that wasn’t my question. I was asking about numbers of Marvel or DC fans, not comic books sales. The latter doesn’t interest me at all! We’re talking people who see films, buy video games, the whole works. The same sort of metric WotC uses — people who have interacted with the brand in some way.

No way to tell.

Because do you include people who just watch the movies but have never read the comics? Kids who only watch the cartoons or play with Lego Batman?
You’d have to define “fan” first and that inevitably leads to gatekeeping....

 

[Morrus]

No way to tell.

Because do you include people who just watch the movies but have never read the comics? Kids who only watch the cartoons or play with Lego Batman?
You’d have to define “fan” first and that inevitably leads to gatekeeping....

WotC managed it (40M for the record). I bet Marvel and DC have some idea. Companies that size definitely spend money on market research.

 

[Jester David]

WotC managed it (40M for the record). I bet Marvel and DC have some idea. Companies that size definitely spend money on market research.

WotC also wants the biggest number. So they likely just tracked anyone who has every played a D&D game, tabletop or digital.
That 40 million isn’t the number of current players...

If Marvel were to do the same you can bet they’d include comic sales but also video games, TV views, and movie tickets.
But including sales of Spider-man for the PS4 and seats at Endgame doesn’t tell us anything about the comic industry...

 

[Morrus]

WotC also wants the biggest number. So they likely just tracked anyone who has every played a D&D game, tabletop or digital.
That 40 million isn’t the number of current players...

If Marvel were to do the same you can bet they’d include comic sales but also video games, TV views, and movie tickets.

Yes.

including sales of Spider-man for the PS4 and seats at Endgame doesn’t tell us anything about the comic industry...

My question wasn’t about the comic industry. It was about Marvel and DC fans.

Am I stuttering?