comic-con 2002

adam, jonathan, sumir, and vince on 08/09/2002 12:19:52 -0700

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This was the first panel I attended.  The panelists were: Tim Stroup (Grand Comic-Book Database), Robert Boyd (Client Distribution Services), Paul Levtiz (DC Comics), Mel Thompson (Mel Thompson & Associates), and Peter Bickford (Comic-Base).  The three of us attending were by far the youngest people in the audience and we soon discovered why: this was a panel targeted toward resellers, distributors, and business owners.

Comic books have traditionally been referred to as the red-headed stepchild of retail.  Major retailers are close-mouthed about numbers, unlike toy companies, but we can get some basic numbers about comic book demographics from sites like Locker Gnome.  The fact is, not all comic book customers are created equal.  Different people value different things.  For most buyers, the storyline and artwork are most important.  For people buying over 21 titles a month, investment value and immediate availability are key; the quality does not matter as much.  For females (~12% of the market), quality of storyline, art, and production are most important.  (On a side-note, Mel Thompson probably wasn't thinking clearly when he commented later, "A woman is worth anywhere between $500 and $1000 a year if you get her inside your store).

The panel discussed BookScan, a concept similar to SoundScan, that captures sell-through comic books (and regular books too, I imagine).  Currently, BookScan claims it reflects 70% of the market.  The numbers presented should be taken with a grain of salt.  In 2001, 3.8 million graphic novels sold through for $53 million.  Up to July 14, 2002, 2.4 million graphic novels have already been sold, with $34 million in revenues (Paul Levtiz of DC claimed that these numbers are vastly inflated and should be half, or even less, of what they are).

BookScan also reveals some interesting figures on publishers and how well they do.  TokyoPop was the unit leader last year with 23.6% of the market, followed by VIZ with 21.1%.  DC Comics (20.2%), Dark Horse, and Marvel (11.8%) followed.  Up until July 14, 2002, VIZ leads the pack, Marvel and TokyoPop are tied for second, followed closely by DC.  Dark Horse lags behind by nearly a full percentage point.

These numbers bring up some fascinating results: for example, manga seems to do very well in America.  In fact, the Top 10 selling single comics of last year had 8 manga titles.  (The top seller was The Hobbit, followed by a ludicrous 7 titles of Sailor Moon, then DragonBall #10; DC's Dark Knight Returns rounded out the top 10.  Marvel's top offering was Ultimate Spider-Man at #16; the popular comic Maus was #18.)  Paul Levtiz attributed the success of manga to the widening of tastes and the influx of casual readers.  He also pointed out that for the first time, we have a new breed of customer - someone who spends $200-$300 a year on graphic novels instead of $1000 on comics in general with some part of it spent on graphic novels.

After a dull 2001 which saw the industry level off for the first time in 78 years, 2002 sales as of August 1 are up 30% (Levtiz again contended that the increase was smaller, in the single-digits), in part due to the many movie tie-ins we have been seeing.

The panel brought up a great point: people who read a lot of comics, read a lot of books.  So logically the people who read a lot of books are untapped comic book customers.  The problem lies in the fact that not many people read much anymore.

Overall, the panel was slightly dull at times, but still very interesting in the overall picture.  I imagine it would have been very useful information for the other people in the audience, who were all uniformly between 2 to 4 times my age.  I think what I got out of the panel was the sense of how slow the industry is and how much room there is for change.  To wit: it took 11 reprints of the classic comic The Watchmen for DC to put "Winner of the Hugo Award" on the cover.

- Sumir

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