However, it gets worse for DC Comics, as he writes, “DC had a pretty bad year, with their lowest sales since 2004 – down 25% from 2022 in the bookstore market – even with their highest ever number of titles in the total list. In 2023 they had only 14 titles in the Top 750; in 2013, ten years ago, they had 130. That is a huge and troubling drop – but maybe laying off nearly your entire sales and marketing team is not a great strategy for growth? If someone had been been making a concerted effort to dismantle DC Comics, they couldn’t have been more surgical – luckily, DC still has talented execs like Marie Javins, Jim Lee, Annie de Pies and the rest of the staff who have thwarted those plans. And from what we’re hearing, 2024 will see some more moves to reverse this concerning trend.”
I wouldn't hold my breath.
I get the comic industry has had declining sales going back a long time but giving the middle finger to actual fans, hiring women who hate comics to write, and believing there were waves of female fans just waiting to read comics.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. When I go to the comic store the manga section has all the women since Manga markets to a variety of audiences. Super hero comics have always and will always appeal to men generally speaking and the back issue section is the most popular for super hero comics. Eric July once said that marvel and dc execs need to go to a comic book store and see who actually buys them.
I used to have almost 20 comic subs through Midtown that were mailed to me monthly. Now I have zero subs and just buy older comics
There's only like 200-ish 'comic shops' in the US. (maybe less now)
If the big 2 were serious about making money, they would have sales reps call the shops and glean demographic info. They aren't serious businesses though. They have been in the movie/Netflix pitch model for too long, or the even lazier 'we sell ads in our comic book shaped pamphlets' model.
Forgetting that they need to get pamphlets into houses for the ads to hold their value.
Bad management. Weak editors. Activist writers. No coming back from this.
I wish you were wrong but I can’t argue with what you are saying. The comic books stores in my area seem to sell more tabletop and manga and with the comics they do sell, the majority is back issue