The comic book industry will no longer be the same. It will no longer be as profitable as it used to be. And to make sure there are no confusion, please do not misunderstand. When we talk about the comic book industry we are mainly talking about the major brands and distributors. We are talking about comic book stores and the distribution of American comic books. We are not talking about the superhero movies, ticket sales, no, we are talking about comic books themselves, unit sales and statistics.
You know, the superhero comics from Marvel and DC have not been doing well especially with the pandemic of 2020. This also includes Dark Horse comics although, they are not as popular as Marvel and DC they are still one of the top comic book publishers in the west.
Despite of all these superhero movies and live action adaptations, comic book sales are not going up. In fact, the opposite has happened. Just because people watch the movie does not mean they will buy comic books. This is why the comic book industry has collapsed. Not complete but it is getting there.
There are many lies out there telling people that the comic book industry is alive and strong but that is a lie. People wonder “has the comic book industry collapse?” If you are asking this question then perhaps you have not been seeing what has been happening for the past few years (since 2014 or much earlier). The 2010s brought many changes to the world. Although things were looking good back in early 2010s, as the decade proceeded there were people that were destroying the comic book industry from within.
By the way, lets get this clear, people still want to read comic books. The problem is that the new titles that are being made have been horrible. There is a reason behind all of this so lets find out why.
Top Comic Book Companies Revenue (Not Including Movies)
First of all, here are the numbers of the top comic book companies. This might seem like a lot of money but it really isn’t. The book publishing industry makes more money than comic book companies
Dark Horse Comics $30 Million
DC Comics $300 Million
Marvel Comics is over $500 Million
Image Comics owns about 7.9% of the market share so their estimate revenue is about $79 Million.
People think that comics books are super popular but not as much as the media claims. Despite of all the superhero movies out there, the comic book companies themselves are not even worth a billion.
Book publishing companies like Penguin Random House is worth $3 Billion. Hachette Group is worth $2 Billion.
You would think that comic book publishers make as much money but not even close. Marvel comics (the most popular one) is only half way there. Not even after being bought by Disney they were able to reach a billion in sales. Now with the intense diversion happening in our society, their profits are going down more than ever.
What Caused The Industry To Collapse
One of the things that caused the drop in sales of comic books is the quality. This is especially with Marvel comics. They were printing cheap comics with ink that was getting stuck on people’s fingers and selling it for $4. The quality hurt the sales. If you are going to sell something, make sure it is well produce so that people wont regret buying. This does not apply to comic book companies but it was something that hurt sales.
Another cause of the collapse of the comic book industry was Diamond. You can read more about Diamond Comic Distributors here. To make the long story short, Damon is the distributor of comic books and what they were paying comic book stores was not enough. Keep in mind that comic books are about $4 or less and graphic novels cost more but the stores still don’t make enough.
Where do people buy comic books? You would answer, at a comic book store, right. Oh wait, but there are also online comics. People can now buy comic books online. True, but, 80% of sales come from retail stores because like Stan Lee said…
“Comic Books are like boobs. You love looking at them but you want to hold them.”
Love Stan Lee.
Despite of comic books being so accessible on the internet, people still rather buy them at the store for the experience. However, because comic book store owners lack business skills, it causes them to close the store.
Many comic book store owners open the store out of emotion because they love comics. They forget the business side of things when the store closes they end up in debt. This is very common in the field of arts. Many artist focus on the art but forget the business side of things. The great Walt Disney went through the same thing in his early days but thank god that he realize how important business was for his art.
Comic book stores don’t make enough money from comic book so they have to resort to sell other things like toys and even anime stuff (that’s the only thing keeping many of them afloat now).
Political Agendas
Comic readers are being pressured in to buying comic books that they are not really interested in buying. If a comic book store does not order enough comics of a certain comic book that is more diverse or has LGBTQ characters, then then the owner is called names and gets insults. However, despite of the fact that an LGBTQ comic book does not sell much the store owner is still pressure into buying those.
The comic stores are the ones that suffer because of the politics. You have feminist comic books that don’t sell even 10,000 copies but the store owner is pressure into ordering those. The comic book store does not make much money as a result and forced to close. Either they close or decide to sell some manga
and anime stuff which always wins.
Hostility
I am sure you have heard the news already but as the political tension rises in North America, it affects the relationship between business owners and customers.
You have probably heard of comic book store owners kicking customers out for having a different political opinion.
There have been political comic book artist that attack the fans and call them names. Its all over twitter. It will not be covered in this article. In other words, they were scaring away potential comic book buyers.
The list goes on but the point is, some comic book store owners make emotional decisions and it hurts their business. Michael Jordan once said “both Republicans and Democrats buy shoes.” Never take sides in business. Lesson learn.
The 2020 Plandemic….oops, I Mean The Pandemic
In this photo taken on Wednesday, April 29, 2020, Joe Feld, owner of Flying Color Comics, loads comics into plastic bags for curbside delivery outside his shop in Concord, Calif. The biggest day of the year for comics retailers in America is May 2, Free Comic Book Day, which Feld created. There will be no such day this May, and no comics to populate it after the main distributor stopped shipping product. Will the industry that fuels millions of collectors’ superhero dreams and provides fodder for Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters be dealt a powerful death blow by the effects of the coronavirus? (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
The 2020 pandemic made the comic book industry worst than it already was. While you had these political comic book artist calling their fans names and even telling them “don’t buy my comics,” when the pandemic came and everyone was locked at home, nobody went out to buy comic books anymore.
Comic book stores did not have any foot traffic and therefore made no money and thus were forced to close. Hundreds if not thousands of stores closed down.
Comic book store owners were barely making ends meet and with the pandemic they suffered. How many comic book stores will open back up? Who knows.
Its hard enough to make a comic book store profitable. The economic recession that the pandemic created will make it harder for people to open comic book stores since people have to wear mask and practice social distancing.
Every business that was not essential such as grocery stores, restaurants, medical offices would most likely go out of business. So the next step was to rely on online sales but remember what we said earlier. Online sales are less than 10% of comic book sales.
The Conquest of Manga
As the political tension increase in North America and western Europe, many comic book readers got sick and tire of being told what to think and how to think. What comics they should read because if they did not read a comic book about a transgender superhero then it mean that they were homophobic and a bad person.
People began to migrate to the next best thing. Manga.
Manga sales increase during 2020 and beyond, reaching records heights. However, manga sales were always higher than comic book sales both in Japan and America.
Take a look at the stats from Animenewsnetwork.com Demon Slayer sold 82 million units both in Japan and America. As more and more people abandon comic books and for manga, comic books sales drop.
Here is the thing though, comic book sales don’t even reach one million. It is rare for a comic book to reach one million sales. Not even the top superhero comics like Batman reach one million sales.
Look above, at the 2020 list of Marvel and DC comic books. Not even Spider Man comics reach one million. The highest sales number a comic book has ever reached is 500,000. Other than that the usual high number is 200,000 or 300,000.
Manga on the other hand, sells in the millions. Even the newest manga in any genre can reach a million sales in the span of a few years.
Manga Outselling Comic Books In America
For more prove that manga is outselling comics, read the article Demon Slayer outsells entire comic book industry. The article talks about how one manga series sold 100 million copies, way more than the entire American comic book industry combined. It is sad.
As a matter of fact, manga has even made it to the top 20 graphic novels and they are not even graphic novels.
Try to find one American or western comic book there.
Anime and Manga has become so big that it has contributed to the collapse of the comic book industry and the comic book industry totally deserves it. Why would you attack your own fans and insult your buyers. Horrible business.
What Comic Books Artist Can Learn From Manga Artist
Focus on story telling and stop pushing your political messages. It is alright to be inspired by some political ideas but to use that as the back bone of the story, it turns people off.
When people pick up a comic book or novel, they want to relax and escape into an amazing story. We get enough politics during the day. We want to escape that and your job as an artist is to help people mentally escape the stress of their life into an adventure. Whether if its scifi or fantasy, give them a good story.
The reason why manga is winning is because there is no political messages or feminism telling the reader how bad of a person they are (subliminally). Manga characters are relatable and people fall in love with the characters because it feels so real.
Western comic book artist and companies need to stop pushing political agendas all together and focus on telling good stories that people can relate to.
The Future of Comic Books
Crowdfunding seems to be the future for successful comic books. You have to understand that while people wont buy comic books from Marvel and DC after getting pissed off at the companies and artist, they still like comic books.
Keanu Reeves crowd funded a comic book where he stars as the main character. The comic book is called BRZKRK.
Keanu Reeves Kickstarter reached over a million dollars in funding.
Other comic book artist are doing this as well. In the Youtube channel, Clownfish TV, the creators ran a IndieGoGo Campaign and made five figures in crowd funding from their fans.
This way, the creators can sell directly to the fans and there will be no need for the middle man. This is the future of the comic book industry.
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