Tuesday 11 December 2012

Comic sales: Pastel Ponies 1 Green Lantern 0

MLP:FiM comic #1, Twilight cover
Something tells me I'm into something good
After all the hype and speculation about IDW's MLP:FiM comic over the past few months, we now actually have some sales figures for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic #1. Remembering that these only account for sales to shops in North America during November, I think it's fair to say that we — and IDW, of course — have a winner on our hands. What's the headline number? Drumroll, please! It's...

80,128

That puts MLP:FiM #1 in 15th place in the charts in terms of sales volume, and 10th in terms of total dollar value. The only reason our favourite ponies didn't climb even higher is that November turned out to be a stellar month for comic sales, with all the top 10 selling more than 110,000 copies for the first time in several years. I think we can live with 15th place, especially as there'll be more sales in December when the second printing arrives.

And no, that subject line does not deceive you. MLP:FiM #1 outsold Green Lantern in November. It also outsold The Walking Dead. Oh, and Batgirl too. While we're at it: this was both IDW's best-selling and its highest-charting comic ever. So yes, this constitutes a commercial success to go with the critical one we already knew about. Now let's make sure we carry on buying the thing!

3 comments:

  1. That really is extremely good news, and very encouraging indeed! 80,000+ (I'm guessing that figure is also only for the North America sales?) is a *very* respectable number. Hopefully at some point the total of UK sales for the comic will be known, because I'm very interested to know how well it did here. That could be a key factor in whether or not we get other merchandise, such as DVDs.

    I don't know to be honest if it's typical for the comics market to sell far more copies of everything during December. Possibly it is, because of all the Christmas issues that turn up, or people buy them as gifts. Not that it matters - the main thing (mane thing?) is that of course the MLP one has still done exceptionally well, and with luck the fans will like what they saw in #1 and will continue to buy it. And I suspect many certainly will!

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    1. Yep, all the figures are for North America only. Considering that they don't include overseas sales, I think 80,000 is very satisfactory indeed. I really don't know if there's an equivalent UK comics sales chart; I can't find one anywhere, though, so I suspect not. That's a shame, because I honestly don't have the slightest clue how many copies a successful US-style comic usually sells in the UK.

      As for next month, I think it will obviously be considerably down, since there won't be all these people buying multiple copies for whatever reason. The reviews I've seen (including those from non-fans) have been mostly very positive, though, which can't hurt. As long as it's somewhere close to the 20,000 mark (given that there'll still be a few variant covers) I think things will be okay. :)

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    2. I honestly don't know what is considered good sales for the UK. Strangehaven was an independant comic written, drawn and published in the UK, and I think at its peak he was selling around 5000 copies per issue. ( http://www.millidge.com/home/scrapbook/interview-features/independent.htm ) That doesn't necessarily mean they were all sold here though, but I think many of his sales were in the UK. And although it was a popular comic here, there are comics that sold far more.

      Which doesn't really help suggest how many MLP issues may have sold here... :P

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