December Sales Figures

One of the essays/rants that's been running around in my head for some time now, yet has never cohered enough to be written, is about how I think that obsessing over the monthly Diamond sales figures is unhealthy for comics.

That said, I'm now going to obsess over the Diamond sales figures for December. I am nothing if not inconsistent in my beliefs.

Bad news for those who don't like Brad Meltzer's minutia-dwelling new JLA, as the 4th & 5th issues place as #1 & #2 on the charts. So don't look for things to change unless/until Meltzer wants to leave. (Justice League Unlimited, which is the sort of title that outspoken online JL fans say they want, sells less than 10% of JLofA...)

No issue of Civil War in December, so Marvel's missing a bunch of sales, both for the main title and all of the tie-ins that had to be pushed back as well.

I continue to be surprised though that Civil War: Front Line sells near 100K each month. (Happy though for pal Steve Lieber, as hopefully the payment he gets will allow him to do something less super-hero-y.) Look for DC to try to replicate Front Line's success on whatever their next big crossover is.

Looks like 52 fatigue is starting to creep in, as sales on the weekly comic dip below the 100K mark.

Sales on Supergirl are plummeting. Not that 56K is horrible, but this book used to sell over 100K back when it was plagued with delays.

Sales on newuniversal #1 were 43K, which is good for a Warren Ellis take on the old New Universe.

The Spirit #1 only moved 35K, which is darn near criminal.

Warhammer 40K moves nearly 10K units, which I think is the most that a Boom! title has ever done? Esp. good since the true market for this comic will most likely be looking for it in a trade edition outside of the direct market channels.

Poor sales on WildStorm's new licensed horror titles. I'm sure they're hoping for collected edition sales in the book market, but if those don't materialize look for these to be toast.

In fact, the whole chart shows, as it does most every month, the inability of the direct market to support a midlist (we proved this with graphs a few months ago). Comic sales may be up a healthy 15% for 2006, but that's mainly due to a few top performers in the form of event-driven super-hero comics. So look for DC & Marvel to continue to pursue that strategy for the near-to-mid-future.

Review: Fun Home

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
by Alison Bechdel
Houghton Mifflin, $19.95

As a general rule I don't care much for autobiographical comics. Actually that's not exactly true, as I really enjoy a well-done autobio comic. But while I can to a certain extent enjoy a mediocre super-hero comic, a mediocre autobio comics leave me cold.

So it was with a bit of trepidation that I approached Alison's Bechdel's lauded graphic novel Fun Home. I have on occasion enjoyed Bechdel's regular Dykes to Watch Out For comic (which, to be honest, is borderline fictional autobiography itself), but would she be able to pull off a long-form graphic novel about her family?

Thankfully, the answer is yes, most definitely.

In Fun Home, Bechdel shows a true command of the comics form. There is nothing demonstrably innovative or flashy; yet she expertly weaves together a non-linear narrative that gives insights into facets of her life and that of her family's, and in total is greater than the sum of its parts.

The Fun Home of the title is a funeral home, the family business. But since they live in a small community, Bechdel's father--a distant, seemingly loveless, slightly effeminate man--works his main job as a high school English teacher. While the narrative is about the relations of the entire family, it focuses mainly on Bechdel's relationship with her father, and how she learned in bits and pieces his background and what he really was like.

'Fun Home' is also an ironic title, as life in the Bechdel house was--while not normally abusive--certainly lacking in familial love. There's a telling scene midway through the book when Bechdel is relating the events of her 'year of obsessive-compulsion': A ten-year-old Alison ends every night before going to bed by giving each of her stuffed animals a goodnight kiss, affections she points out that she never remembers receiving from her parents.

What impresses me the most about Fun Home is that Bechdel is able to make me relate to her situation and empathize with her family, even though her circumstance and upbringing were quite far apart from mine.

I think that there's a good deal of 'depth' to the narrative in Fun Home, which at some point I'd like to take apart and examine to see how it ticks. But for now after a first read-through I'll just settle for calling it one of the best comics of 2006.

Rating: 4.5 (of 5).

New Library Comics: Week of January 8, 2007

Here are the comics we added to our library collection last week:


Barnes, Bill, 1967- Book club : an Unshelved collection /Seattle, WA : Overdue Media LLC., c2006.

Big fat little lit /New York : Puffin, c2006.

Bouden, Tom, 1971- In bed with David & Jonathan /Berlin : Bruno Gmunder, c2006.

Brown, Chester, 1960- Louis Riel : a comic-strip biography /Montreal : Drawn and Quarterly ; New York : Distributed in the USA by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.

Chaykin, Howard V. Mighty love /New York : DC Comics, c2003.

Cicerone, Michelangelo. Ozone Jones : space worms /[Dearborn, Mich.?] : Michelangelo Cicerone, c2005.

Espinosa, Rod. Rod Espinosa's New Alice in Wonderland /San Antonio, Texas : Antarctic Press, c2006- vol. 1

Feiffer, Jules. Passionella and other stories /Seattle, Wash. : Fantagraphics, 2006.

Fingerman, Bob, 1964- Recess pieces /Milwaukie, OR : Dark Horse Books, 2006.

Fish, Tim, 1970- Something fishy this way comes-- : a collection of off-beat mini-comics /Los Angeles, CA : Poison Press, 2006.

Fraction, Matt. Five fists of science /Berkeley, Calif. : Image Comics, 2006.

Giardino. Rapsodia ungherese : una storia di Max Fridman /Roma : Lizard edizioni, c2004.

Lewis, Jon. True swamp : underwoods and overtime /Gainesville, Fla. : Alternative Comics, 2000.

McCloud, Scott, 1960- Making comics : storytelling secrets of comics, manga and graphic novels /New York : HarperPerennial, c2006.

Morrison, Grant. Doom patrol : down paradise way /New York, NY : DC Comics, c2005.

Morrison, Grant. Doom patrol : musclebound /New York : D.C. Comics Inc., c2006.

Myrick, Leland. Missouri Boy /New York : First Second, 2006.

Pinsent, Ed. Primitif /Glasgow : Kingly Books, 2006.

Sfar, Joann. Klezmer /New York : First Second, c2006- vol. 1

Shaw, Dash. The mother's mouth /Gainesville, Fla. : Alternative Comics, [2006]

Starger, Steve. Wally's world : the brilliant life and tragic death of Wally Wood, the world's second best comic book artist /Somerset, N.J. : Vanguard, c2006.

Ware, Chris, 1967- Jimmy Corrigan : or, the smartest kid on earth : in the final explosive installment of our amateur 'nouvelle graphique' /Seattle, Wash. : Fanta-graphics Book Concern, c2000.

Ware, Chris, 1967- Jimmy Corrigan, smartest kid on earth : handy synopsis of our story /Seattle, Wash. : Fantagraphics Book Co., c1998.

Wilson, S. Clay. The art of S. Clay Wilson. /Berkeley, Calif. : Ten Speed Press, 2006.

Zezelj, Danijel. Stray dogs : a story in eight chapters /Milano : Charta ; Boston (USA) : Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2005.

Monkey Covers

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

Look, it's a giant purple bow and arrow-wielding gorilla on Bob Brown's 1966 cover for Tomahawk #107.

(Standard disclaimer about giant purple gorillas masquerading as Native American stereotypes not really being monkeys applies.)

Image courtesy of the The Gorilla Cover Gallery. Click on the image for a larger version.

Slave Labor Dominates Sales Charts

I know you all read ¡Journalista! before coming here, so you've probably already seen Dirk's link to the Cold Cut Top 300 of 2006.

Slave Labor Graphics dominates, taking the first 36 positions on the list, with perennial seller Johnny the Homicidal Maniac taking 8 of the top 10. JtHM #1 is the top seller, a comic that first came out over a decade ago.

Unfortunately Cold Cut doesn't include actual sales figures, so we can't do a long tail analysis. I assume that most comic shops that use Cold Cut are doing so because the get better service (and price?) on back issues for the non-front-of-Previews stock than they can from Diamond.

Just a reminder that the true state of the comics industry sales-wise cannot be determined by looking at Diamond's sales charts alone. The true formula is:

Total Sales = Diamond + Cold Cut (and others) + Book Market + Newsstand + Subscriptions + Direct to Consumer (online and otherwise) + Foreign Sales

Not all comics-like-things make use of all of those distribution channels; but I imagine that Slave Labor is making a good deal of their sales through places other than Diamond.

Yet Another Music Moment: Matraca Berg

Matraca Berg is probably my favorite Nashville-based songwriters. Heck, she's one of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters period.

Most of you right now are saying "Who?"

Here's Matraca singing her CMA-winning song "Strawberry Wine" (originally recorded by Deana Carter):



See what I mean?

Her 1997 album Sunday Morning to Saturday Night--long out of print--is spectacular. If you listen to "Back When We Were Beautiful" and don't shed a tear, you're not human.

Here's her official Website: http://www.matracaberg.com/ where you'll find a few more videos and lots of other info.

She almost never tours these days but sometimes appears at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. If you live in Glasgow or South Yorkshire then I'm very jealous because she's appearing in a couple of weeks with Gretchen Peters & Suzy Bogguss for a couple of concerts.

Quick OEL Manga Reviews

Snow vol. 1 by Morgan Luthi (TokyoPop, $9.99) features one of those galactic future milieus where humans and aliens exist side-by-side, and an oppressive galactic empire seeks to run roughshod over the various worlds for no apparent reason. The empire's key weapon is The Ghost, a humanoid being that is dropped onto an uncooperative planet and runs roughshod over everything. On the ass-end of the universe is The Hub, whose newest arrival, Snow, bears a remarkable resemblance to The Ghost. Luthi--another of TP's Rising Stars finalists--manages to work in libertarian ideas without being too obvious or preachy, or leaving out the many warts. In fact, there are a lot of good ingredients here; but they don't quite gel into a comprehensive whole, and the story is a bit too obvious in places.


I shouldn't have liked Nathaniel Bowden & Tracy Yardley's Riding Shotgun vol. 1 (TokyoPop, $9.99) for it's senseless, over-the-top violence, but it was gleeful and charming enough to win me over in its nihilism. Set in an alternate world where assassination is legal and regulated, Doyle Harrington and his partner Abby are up-and-coming assassins looking to make the jump to the big leagues. But their plans go awry when one of their targets turns out to be Doyle's old high school girlfriend. Yardley's art is appropriately energetic. The car chase sequence that runs for about 17 pages at three-quarters of the way through is one of the best I've seen represented in comics. Riding Shotgun doesn't quite measure up to Bambi and Her Pink Gun in the ranks of violent nihilistic comics, but it's a good read for fans of that sort of stuff and I'll be looking forward to the next volume.


With Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness (Oni, $11.95) I think I'm finally getting into the groove of Brian Lee O'Malley's video games-meet-emo world view. I laughed quite a bit, and actually looked forward to the crazy fight scenes that pop in to resolve existential and emotional conflicts. I'm a bit concerned that the plot doesn't seem to be moving forward much, but we get enough drama, back story, action and humor to carry us through this volume at least. And I still feel sorry for poor Knives Chau, whose only mistake was falling for the charming but self-centered Scott.



Ratings:
Snow vol. 1: 2.5 (of 5)
Riding Shotgun vol. 1: 3 (of 5)
Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness: 3.5 (of 5)