Monday, January 15, 2018

By The Numbers

Star Wars Adventures Continues to Struggle in December

December is the fourth month where there are two different publishers of ongoing Star Wars titles, Marvel and IDW.  I will analyze the numbers from both publishers separately.

Comichron released the December 2017 estimated sales today and 2017 sales for all comics finished the year down by 10%.  Marvel improved in December with 4 titles placing in the top 10 with Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey #1 leading the way in 3rd place.  DC's Doomsday Clock #2 was in 1st place like the previous month.  Amazing Spider-Man #793 placed 10th edged out Star Wars #40 in 11th.  We'll see next month if Star Wars is still Marvel's top selling ongoing title or if the Spider-Man #793 bump is permanent and not due to the Venom Inc. event.

Marvel


TitleIssueMonthly RankEstimated SalesLast Estimated SalesPercent Change
Star Wars401161,06456,125+8.80
Darth Vader91651,69253,696-3.73
Storms of Crait11849,257n/an/a
Doctor Aphra154931,83933,157-3.98%
Jedi Republic - Mace Windu55030,14930,630-1.57%
Poe Dameron225828,92229,451-1.80%

As expected, Star Wars #40 did rebound from the previous issues sale of 56,125 units sold adding almost 5,000 units.  Last month's double shipping did not impact the long term sales of the title.

The remaining ongoing titles, Darth Vader, Doctor Aphra, and Poe Dameron, all saw modest decreases.  The final issue of Jedi Republic - Mace Windu mini-series saw unit sales little changed from the previous issue.

The Storms of Crait was the 6th one-shot released by Marvel.  Here are the other 5 one-shots:

TitleIssueMonthly RankEstimated Sales
Vader Down12384,969
Star Wars Special: C-3PO14120,841
Droids Unplugged15935,918
Screaming Citadel11469,019
Rogue One - Cassian & K2SO Special13043,765

The Vader Down and Screaming Citadel one-shots do not tie-in to a movie and are the first issue of an event that cross over into several titles, so we can dismiss those numbers as outliers.  Additionally, Droids Unplugged also does not tie-in to a movie and consists of reprints.  The C-3PO and Rogue One specials however are movie tie-ins.  While Storms of Crait did not achieve the same lofty sales as the C-3PO special, it did do better than the Rogue One special.  I'm expecting the DJ one-shot in January to sell about the same as the Rogue One special one-shot.


Month/YearTotal Estimated Sales# IssuesAverage Sale per Issue
January 2015985,9761985,976
February 2015526,4513175,484
March 2015596,2994149,075
April 2015537,8124134,453
May 2015324,8353108,278
June 2015396,931499,232
July 2015597,0235119,404
August 2015430,241586,048
September 2015551,8805110,376
October 2015953,2891095,329
November 20151,003,9548125,494
December 2015507,545684,591
January 2016465,698593,139
February 2016288,355472,088
March 2016355,554571,110
April 2016533,9765106,795
May 2016299,189474,797
June 2016545,833690,972
July 2016359,166571,833
August 2016322,499564,500
September 2016174,420358,140
October 2016339,778567,956
November 2016269,975553,995
December 2016303,886475,972
January 2017161,014353,671
February 2017262,889465,722
March 2017214,603453,650
April 2017274,262554,852
May 2017285,363647,560
June 2017495,588955,065
July 2017326,062746,580
August 2017425,473947,274
September 2017418,023946,447
October 2017299,174742,739
November 2017330,496747,214
December 2017252,923742,153

The average sale per issue of 42,153 would rank 26th on the top 300 chart for the month of December.  Marvel's Star Wars trade paperbacks, reprints, and reorders are not accounted for with these numbers.  The Star Wars trade paperbacks are strong sellers.

IDW


TitleIssueMonthly RankEstimated SalesLast Estimated SalesPercent Change
Star Wars Adventures512813,73315,917-13.72%

Star Wars Adventures fell again in December and has not found its sales level yet.  I'm surprised at how low this title has sank with regards to initial units sold.  Just from a Star Wars comic collector point of view, many of these issues have an absurdly low number of copies available.  Star Wars Adventures #5 has 3 covers; there are approximately 7,000 copies of the A and B covers and 1,400 copies of the 1:10 ratio retailer incentive cover.  (I'm doing a lot of rounding up because we don't know how many copies were published, just how many were sent to comic retailers.  My estimates can be wildly off without knowing what the publisher printed.)  These numbers are lower than several Star Wars exclusive covers released by Marvel and in the case of the retailer incentive, it has a population similar to several Marvel 1:100 ratio covers.  I would think a collector would pick them up just for the covers and relative rarity alone, even if they didn't enjoy the stories.

Month/YearTotal Estimated Sales# IssuesAverage Sale per Issue
September 201781,318240,659
October 201723,739123,739
November 201715,917115,917
December 201713,733113,733


Take a look at the Star Wars Sales Estimates Charts and please read the blog posting December 2017 estimates online: Diamond expands comics, graphic novel tables to Top 500.

No comments:

Post a Comment