2019 In Review
2019 was another year of recovery and growth for the store.
Sales grew a more modest 8.6% as compared to 2018, compared to last years 14% improvement from 2017’s near disastrous bottom. Fantastically 2019 actually ended with the store’s best month and quarter of sales ever!
There was a slight decline of sales for graphic novels and books, but significant growth for comics and toys, games and other miscellaneous items. We seem to be more established as a source for board games now, and sales of DragonBall merchandise has been strong.
2018
2019
Breaking down the year by month, you can see how slow January and February are. But strong Summer and a great December really carried the year.
Broken down by publisher, something is immediately obvious. Image has a terrible year of sales in our store. It was very much a “year of endings” for Image in 2019, with many popular series like The Wicked + The Divine, Paper Girls, Black Science and East of West and of course, The Walking Dead. On the other hand, Marvel experienced strong growth, pretty much all thanks to Jonathan Hickman and his revival of the X-Men. The quality of his X-Men stories brought back lots of lapsed X-men fans and even a few new readers. However, the House of X/Powers of X series could have sold even better if Marvel had had stronger faith in the series themselves and hadn’t been out of stock of copies for nearly month’s at a time. It could be that Marvel was able to grab a modest success out of the hands of what could have been a triumphant success. Late in the year Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige was promoted to Chief Creative Officer of all Marvel Entertainment, and while I’m sure publishing will not be a big concern for him. I’m hoping that his influence will be felt and some of his success will help the comic book side of Marvel! Also not immediately evident in the graphs and charts, First Second grew tremendously in sales for Mission: Comics, nearly 40%! I foresee sales of books for young readers, middle-grade and young adult continuing to grow for us.
2018
2019
Even as sales declined for Image, their graphic graphic novel sales absolutely dominated at Mission: Comics, mostly as you’ll see later thanks to continued strong sales for older series like Saga, Paper Girls, Wicked + Divine and Deadly Class. The best selling “new” Image graphic novel is Die Vol 1, which is way down at number 16. It’s also been a year without a new Saga volume. The evergreen Image graphic novels are great, but without some newer hits I worry about the future of Image graphic novel sales here.
Marvel graphic novel sales were flat which speaks to a failure to create or market evergreen books that fans want.
DC graphic novel sales were up slightly, largely thanks to late 4th Quarter sales of Watchmen.
Marvel single issue comics sold very well in 2019, and the higher $5, $8 and $10 price points did a lot to boost their numbers. Then the Hickman X-Men exploded, but stock availability still hindered that success.
DC comic sales went up slightly, but looking at their sales in dollars masks a problem. The higher priced Black Label are making up for falling sales of the core DC Universe titles. Brian Michael Bendis hasn’t really boosted DC sales and the boost of Rebirth has long run out.
Image single issue sales dropped significantly in 2019, with many of their most popular series ending or in the case of Saga, just not coming out. One bright spot was Little Bird, but being a 5-issue mini-series, sales peaked and dropped off quickly. The Walking Dead one-shot by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin.
