Sunday, August 10, 2008

How many comic readers in Australia?

They used to say that if you added up how many Uncanny Xmen were sold and how many Love and Rockets were sold you had a pretty decent idea about how many people read comics. With Uncanny Xmen you captured the superhero/mainstream fans and with Love and Rockets you got the indy crowd.

Could something similar be done now? What titles would be used?

New Avengers is the highest selling superhero comic (outside of miniseries)
Fruit Baskets is the highest selling manga.

But what about indy comics; there's no more Hate, Eightball or Love and Rockets that appeal to the alternative scene. Plus there aren't that many indy comics that are released in a monthly/bimonthly format.
Meat Haus? American Splendour?

My idea is to try and get a better idea of how many comic readers there are using local comic shops. Why? It seems like it could be a useful piece of information. I like information.

My plan is - make a list of 3 comics; of a mainstream, manga and indy comic. Then ask people around the country to go to their local store and count how many copies are on the shelf of those comics and report in.

We'll have a breakdown of state-by-state/shop-by-shop.

Then pretty much double the number (to account for people have pull-lists).

Sound reasonable?

5 comments:

Douglas Holgate said...

What if the shop has 100 copies of Xmen and 2 copies of Sincere Indy Monthly on shelf but they sell 98 of the X-men before i get there?

Not an accurate representation at ALL!!

Anthony Woodward said...

How about angry youth comics as t comes out the most frequently and is popular[?]

Mark Selan said...

Douglas - now Doug I know you are at the comic shop as the boxes are being unloaded getting in the way "Is Secret Invasion in? Is secret Invasion in? How about Green Lantern? Hal Jordan rooooolz"

Yes. I was thinking about just ringing up Comic Shops and asking but
A)I suffer from the phone terror and therefore can't ring people
B)i'm guessing that shops won't say how many copies they've got because its secret comic shop business.

Anthony - Angry Youth Comics. Is that what all you cool alt-indy comics guys are getting? Ok, sounds like a good suggestion.

Anonymous said...

Mmm a lot of people read graphic novels - I rarely buy monthlies anymore. GNs that come from bookstores, amazon? Or what about the cheapos who download comics illegally?

I like me some superhero comics, but I don't read New Avengers. I also read indie comics, but I've never read angry youth. If I ever saw Johnny Ryan on the street I would punch him on the ass.

Mark Selan said...

Mr Tang - yeah i read mainly "Graphic Novels" too but as you say i'm interested in Australia and there are too many sources of them to analyse.

With the idea of finding out how many copies of New Avengers and ngry Youth Comics sell, at least we have a rough idea.