Manga Math

So I'm reading over Sarah Glazer's article on Shojo manga in yesterday's New York Times, and a little throw-away line in the lead paragraph catches my eye: "Last year, Del Rey sold a million copies of its first 16 releases combined."

Okay, let's pull out our calculators: That's 1,000,000 copies divided by 16 volumes, or an average of 62,500 copies per volume. That's of an $11 book, or $687,500 in sales per book.

The top seller via Diamond for August 2005 was Justice #1 with $190,400 copies of a $3 comic, or $571,200 in sales.

Which means that, dollar for dollar, each release from Del Rey--a second-tier manga publisher--is right up there with the most that Marvel & DC can do. And they're doing it completely outside of the direct market.

(Dollar figures are calculated here as if the books actually sold for cover price, which of course is not always the case. But I think it makes for a fair comparison.)

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover.

All September we'll be featuring Jungle Girls vs. Apes--a very common theme for comic book covers!

Jungle Girl vs. Ape covers weren't just restricted to the golden & silver ages, as you can see by today's cover: Cavewoman: Rain #4, featuring Meriem vs. Klyde, is by Budd Root and hails from 1996.

(standard disclaimer about apes not really being monkeys applies)

Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.

This Week on YAMB

This week on Yet Another Media Blog:


I kicked off my annual preview of the fall television season, looking at new and returning shows: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday (Sunday will come tomorrow).

I also watched celebrity poker, distressed at the state of Big Ten Football, and revealed my cyborg name.

This week's program on Yet Another Music Radio is Live Tracks 2, bringing you over 3 hours of great live performances.

JLU Returns

Justcie League Unlimited, for my money the best super-hero cartoon ever, returns with a new season tomorrow at 10pm Eastern on Cartoon Network with two episodes:

"We Are Legion": Lex Luthor is invited to join the Legion of Doom.

"Shadow of the Hawk": Batman is suspicious of Shayera's new boyfriend.


There are two new episodes the following Saturday too:

"Heart of Stone": Supergirl, Star Girl and Green Lantern try to free Skataris from the rule of a brutal dictator.

"Elegy": Wonder Woman uncovers a plot to steal powers from the frozen remains of a legendary hero.


That's right man. The Legion of Doom! Warlord! I really like how JLU uses the full spectrum of the DCU.

Diamond and The Long Tail

So, the blogosphere is abuzz this week with the news that Diamond wil be enforcing a hard cutoff on low-selling comics. Essentially they won't go forward with orders for anything that doesn't generate at least $600 in orders (or approx 500 copies for a standard $3 comic). If you're one of the three people reading this who hasn't caught up on this news, you can read more about it here, here, here, and here, amongst many other places.

Most observers have been saying that, from a purely economic & business standpoint, Diamond should have done this a long time ago. But no one seems to be talking about The Long Tail effect (or if they have, I haven't come across it yet).

For those unfamiliar, a quick summary: As relating to commerce, especially arts-commerce (or really any non-fungible goods), The Long Tail was coined by Chris Anderson in 2004. Basically he pointed out that collectively, products that have low demand, as an aggregate, comprise a market comperable to the high demand products. The problem is that traditional retail outlets, with the demands of physical storage and distribution costs, realistically can only afford to carry the high demand products, meaning that the market for low demand products, while real and existing, is untapped. The real revolution in online retailing has been the ability to tap into the low demand market; as examples, look at Amazon, iTunes, and NetFlix.



(You can read better and more in-depth explainations at Wikipedia and on Anderson's blog.)

What we see with Diamond's moves then is a perfect example of this in the comic book direct market. Even though the aggregate market for these low print run comics undoubtedly exists, the current retail and distribution chain cannot support it. (I've pointed out before that all it takes for a comic to be profitable is for each comic store to order one copy, but that for various reasons that's never going to happen.)

So, while it "makes sense" that Diamond is taking the steps that it's taken, it also stands to reason that there is a sizable untapped market for low print run comics, and that there needs to be an online retailer that traffics effectively in these comics. A store that's willing to work with the smaller distributers and with publishers directly, and produce a quality online shapping experience. About the closest we have now are Mars Import, although they deal pretty much exclusively with graphic novels; and Poopsheet Shop, which deals exclusively with minis. Both are good at what they do, and could probably expand out more generally to fill the gap, or maybe a new store is needed.

I surely haven't thought this through fully, and I don't have the disposition to be a retailer myself, but it seems to me that there's a market opportunity just waiting to be filled.

Another Reason Why People Wait for the Trade

Notice anything about your Marvel comics this month? They're all 48-pages long. But no, they're not extra-sized because you're getting more story for your money--they're still 22-pages stories. All the rest of those pages are ads (including a 4-page preview of Nick Fury's Howling Commandos). That's more ad than story, and every other page is trying to sell you something. Is it any wonder why people would opt to wait and read their comics in tarde format where they're not continually having the story interrupted?

New This Week: September 14, 2005

Based on the NCRL list for this week's comics shipping from Diamond, here are a few things to look for at the local comic shop later today:


The Pick of the Week is Warren Ellis & J. H. Williams III's Desolation Jones #3 (from DC/Wildstorm). The first issue was good, and the second issue was even better, so I have high hopes for the series at this point. It's probably the best thing that Ellis has written since Transmetropolitan. If you haven't read it yet, you should plan on picking up all three issues and prepare for a treat.


In other comics:

AiT/PlanetLAR, not content with getting your hard-earned dough for Smoke & Guns a couple of weeks ago, have two more OGNs for you to choose from: Electric Girl vol. 3 and Full Moon Fever (Werewolves on the Moon. Genius!)

Arcana have the sixth issue of 100 Girls.

BuyMeToys.Com have the zeroeth issue of Oz/Wonderland Chronicles.

DC have new issues of 100 Bulelts (#64), Action Comics (#831), All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder (#2), Fables (#41), Firestorm (#17), JSA (#77), Majestic (#9), and Winter Men (#2).

Image have a new issue of Ferro City (#2), and the Beckett OGN Ronin Hood of the 47 Samurai.

Marvel have Fantastic Four Presents: Franklin Richards, Son of a Genius, a colelction of the very fun back-up stories that appeared in the recent Power Pack mini; and new issues of Gravity (#4), New Thunderbolts (#12), and The Pulse (#11).

Phenomenon have the second issue of Blackpool.


And that pretty much does it. Relatively small week, although Larry Young is making a mad grab for your wallet :)