16 Responses to “ Comix Experience 2011 Best Sellers: Books ”

1. David Oakes on January 1st, 2012 at 11:29 pm said:

   Walking Dead Vol 1 sells basically as well as Vol 14? And a Compendium in there as well?

   Everyone is basically going to want to be Robert Kirkman for an entire generation, aren’t they?

2. AndyD on January 2nd, 2012 at 3:58 am said:

   So, the most successful book in terms of sold units is by Alan Moore, DCs bestselling book is Fables, followed by TDKR, which is 25 years old. Marvel is absent on this list.

   This is surprising. I know this is just one store, I guess they sell tons on Amazon or whatever, still would have thought at least one Marvel book of the last years would merit enough interest to buy it in collected form.

3. Corey (Ottawa) on January 2nd, 2012 at 9:02 am said:

   Further to Mr Hibbs’ digital comics pc, which I won,T reopen here….’ I think it’s instructive looking at what books DC is doing as all the Nu52 reach the typical collection point at issue 5 or 6. We have JLA, Batman, WW and GL. That’s it. No BoP, no Batwoman no Action or Superman even!

   Maybe the return to ‘tentpole’ collections or (gasp! choke!) quality, will guide the market. We shall see.

   Marvel for their part, seems to be willing to canabalize their young, and drive down floppy sales for TP waiters who never buy, while still incurring the costs of publishing the trades. Market expectations are killing them.

   I hope 2012 brings us the turn around we need. Tough love, but love all the same.

4. DavidT on January 2nd, 2012 at 10:03 am said:

   I imagine Marvel single issues blow away DC…at least before the “new 52″ revamp.

5. Chris Brown on January 2nd, 2012 at 10:05 am said:

   Hibbs – in response to AndyD, is it true that Marvel might sell more back catalog trades than DC but that there are no single dominant titles (like Watchmen and DKR)to make it on a ‘Top 100′ list?

   Personally, I buy a lot more Marvel back catalog and practically zero DC back catalog. On the other hand, I of course have the obligatory copy of Watchmen and DKR. Is that a quasi-common pattern?

6. Brian Hibbs on January 2nd, 2012 at 10:30 am said:

   David:

   WALKING DEAD (the book format), sells in a pretty perfect bell curve — the first three and the last three books sell the best.

   AndyD: Nothing of Marvel’s that sells well is ever in print long enough in a single format to build up the sales, or so it feels!

   Go look at the month-by-month indexes for the DM (this should be in everyone’s bookmarks: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/1850.html) and you’ll see that Marvel trades really don’t perform very well, and I’m certain that most of that is ultimately a result of their printing and inventory policies. BookScan shows almost the same thing in the bookstores — Marvel is NOT a significant player as their #1 DM periodical status would seem to indicate.

   Corey: your Marvel statement was double-plus perfect.

   DavidT: market-wide, that historically has been the tendency, yes.

   Chris: IN terms of superheroes, DC has DKR/WATCHMEN/KINGDOM COME/BATS YEAR ONE and so on: stories that stand extremely well on their own, as a single thought. Marvel has much fewer of those. But why DC really wins is because they have Vertigo, and FABLES/PREACHER/SANDMAN/Y THE LAST MAN/TRANSMET etc. Marvel has *nothing* to compare to those, in terms of their being in-print numbered series…

   -B

7. Matthew Murray on January 2nd, 2012 at 6:41 pm said:

   There’s Criminal and Incognito. Those are almost Marvel books : )

8. AndyD on January 3rd, 2012 at 1:32 am said:

   “Nothing of Marvel’s that sells well is ever in print long enough”

   Of course. I wanted to buy the Ennis Punisher Max HC collection. Imagine my surprise that Vol 4 (of 5) from 2008 is not avaiable while the rest is. (Or was, this was last year). The same problem I had with a Nova-Tp and some Essentials. Nobody is expecting that they keep books in print forever which don´t sell, but with three year old stuff this is a bit frustrating. Not only for customers, but also for the creators involved.

9. J_Smitty_ on January 3rd, 2012 at 3:28 am said:

   Great bookmark suggestion, Brian and thanks for all your hard work this past year. The comics biz can be horribly difficult to understand and between SavCrit and your Tilting columns I always feel better informed.

10. Comics A.M. | Justice League #1 sells 360,000 copies in four months | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources – Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment on January 5th, 2012 at 6:57 am said:

    [...] Retailing | San Francisco retailer Brian Hibbs shares the top-selling graphic novels in his store for 2011, by units and by dollars. [Savage Critics] [...]

11. JE on January 5th, 2012 at 7:39 am said:

    I am curious with regard to the placing of Scenes Of An Impending Marriage. It seems like too niche of a title, yet the units sold indicate otherwise.

12. Brian Hibbs on January 5th, 2012 at 10:31 am said:

    JE:

    “Niche”, sure, but… Tomine. We sell a lot of his work.

    SCENES was probably our lowest selling new work in a long time….

    -B

13. Steve D on January 5th, 2012 at 12:57 pm said:

    I was surprised to see that BATMAN AND ROBIN VOL. 1: BATMAN REBORN only placed at 90 — until I saw that it also placed at no. 59. WTF??? Are these different printings of the same book, and does that kind of thing play havoc with your efforts to track your “bestsellers”?

14. Brian Hibbs on January 5th, 2012 at 1:26 pm said:

    Steve:

    The top chart (where B&R is #59) is PIECES SOLD, the bottom chart (where it was #90) is DOLLARS SOLD

    -B

15. Steve D on January 5th, 2012 at 4:15 pm said:

    Clearly, my mom was right. Too many comicbooks have rotted my brain.

16. Blue Tyson on January 10th, 2012 at 7:22 pm said:

    How’d Morning Glories TPB 2 do so far?

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