So I hear many times from some of my fav Youtuber news how Marvel comics may shut their doors via Disney not seeing a profit like the films, and that DC comics is stated by inside sources to be losing tons of money and may close in the next 2-3 years if not sooner. Trying to sell there back issues as of now.
Comics like Darkhorse, IDW, Image, ect are chugging on, but the Big 2 seem to be finding themselves stretch thin while Disney and Warner looking to shut the non profitable, and often SJW mindset, comic studios down to save cost and focus only on movies and shows for IP content. Thus why DC has its channel now for show content.
So if true, assuming this is the case, how do you feel?
Hope this isn’t true.
https://youtu.be/DPPdJKaamdo
There is no way on these figures for last year that there is any chance of the big two comic companies dissappearing. In 2018 in JUST North America comic sales were $1.095 billion. And a huge sales growth. I found one site that estimated DC's revenue from comics in 2015 as $47m. The industry had grown in 2016 a decline in 2017 and an increase again 2018.
That's without the other revenue these companies bring in. For example in 2105 $4.5 billion was spent world wide on DC merchandise. EVEN if we assume their licensing fee only gives them $1 out of every $600 it would be revenue of 7.5 million on top of the $47m in sales (and then we have to add in license fees for movies, TV shows, video games.
Though the rumor might be getting pushed by comic stores as their sales steadily decline and other channels increase massively. Back in 2014 almost half North American comic sales came from comic stores now the book channel is almost level with them without digital and other.
There's also th fact there is a steady strong shift toward graphic novels and away from monthlies. Showing more of the market is buying the completed story in one go not pice by piece.
I do recall some industry person saying in an interview years ago that circulation numbers getting down around 16-15000 was cancellation worthy. Its still profitable but the cost of production and circulation is to high a percetage of the taking.
What we may see is a new cut off with nore and nore reading digitally that numbers below 25k or so no longer warrants a physical printing. That way they still get the same sales dollars at a much lower overhead increasing the profit margin
I seriously doubt that they will close up Marvel comics or DC anytime soon.
Based on July 2019 sales alone house of X which sold 185,630 copies at $5.99 alone brought in $1,111,923.7 for the publisher in one month.
It doesnt cost that much to produce and distribute a comic book. Flash at position 49 with sales of 38436 units at $3.99 grossed $153,359.
I can See DC returning to the idea that Batman is in everything given 8 of the 15 comics they had in the top 50 featered the dark night
https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/43808/top-500-comics-july-2019
Based purely on the top 20 selling titles for both Marvel and DC in July that meant Marvel took sales of $7,005,555 and DV took sales of $5,183,202. Both companies produced more than 20 comic titles that month and that is JUST one month.
There's clearly still a lot of money to be made producing comics, so I wouldnt worry. That mind you is without the revenue from selling rights to those intellectual properties and the revenues made by those sales/licenses. Not to mention licenses of merchandise/toys etc.
Manga GG, Team Valiant GG, webtoons GG (can I see see the source links though?)
I would definitely say that comics will probably never die completely, but we will probably see a lot of books get cut again, leaving us with the standard Superman, Batman, Spiderman, etc.