UK comics sales

Over on the Down the Tubes blog, John Freeman has the circulation figures for British comics for the last six months. While no one is saying the British comics industry is thriving it's definitely holding its own, with some titles showing an increase in sales. 

True, sales look grim compared to 40 or 50 years ago, but the world has changed with more things competing for people's leisure time. (Even TV shows don't get the same viewing figures as they did decades ago.) The important thing is that there are still British comics being bought in their thousands. (With some outselling most American comics.) Toxic and The Beano even rank in the top 100 UK magazine sales. Yes, some people will always focus on the negative for reasons of their own, but true comics fans will support the industry.

You can see the figures for yourself over at this link:
http://downthetubes.net/?p=29163

Any thoughts on the matter? Post your opinions below. All comments welcome. (Only spam and abusive comments are blocked on this blog but all comments are held until I log on again, so if yours doesn't appear right away don't resend it multiple times. Thanks.)

UK comics: Sales figures for 2013

The latest Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures have been released for magazines and comics covering June to December 2013 and once again they make for interesting reading. 

John Freeman goes into it in more depth on his excellent Down The Tubes website (http://downthetubes.net/?p=14099) but there's a few things I'd like to mention here.

Egmont's boys mag Toxic shows an increase from 47,000 to 53,000 since the same period in 2012.  Its new rival Mega, has sales around 30,768. Doctor Who Adventures has dipped to an average of 28,443, and Ultimate Spider-Man is fairly stable at around 28,709 sales an issue. 

Girl's mag Barbie had an average fall from 50,000 to 42,907 in twelve months, with Disney Princess falling from 62,506 to 51,649. Egmont's Hello Kitty has risen from 31,000 to 37,020, and Monster High is up from 32,000 in 2012 to 35,579 in 2013. 

For the nursery market, Redan's Fun To Learn - Peppa Pig had an impressive average of 86,878 in 2012 and rose to an even more impressive 98,922 in 2013, making it currently the best selling children's title on the stands. 

In the diminished children's traditional comic market, the new Dennis the Menace Megazine has average sales of 20,502, whilst The Beano has a slight drop from 36,000 in 2012 to 32,000 in 2013. 

All things considered, I still think The Beano is holding its own. I know a few critics were predicting "Dandy style" drops in circulation due to The Beano's revamp bringing in several of The Dandy's artists, but that clearly hasn't happened. So much for the theory that it was mainly the contributors who caused The Dandy's fall. Yes, there is a sales decline, but it's comparable to that of other titles and is not as drastic as some had feared. Even more importantly, sales of comics have been falling since the 1950s, mostly due to each generation having an increasing number of leisure distractions. 

Here's something else to consider: The Beano is the only weekly comic listed in the circulation figures. (2000AD and The Phoenix do not submit their data.) Considering that Ultimate Spider-Man sells 28,709 a month, and Toxic sells 53,000 every three weeks, I think the fact that The Beano only has seven days to shift each issue and still manages to sell 32,000 every week is an impressive accomplishment. 

Another factor to remember is packaging. All of the other children's titles listed come either bagged with several gifts, or have cover mounts every issue. Throughout most of 2013 The Beano carried no gifts. It relied solely on its content and being a comic. It's interesting that The Beano's highest selling issue for 2013 was the Christmas issue, (45,896) which was bagged with gifts, and was on display for a whole month. Which kind of backs up what I'm saying. (The Beano's other handful of issues that had noticeable sales increases were the ones that carried cover mounts last summer.) 

Finally, the other factor, in my opinion, is how comics are displayed. Throughout 2013 my local WH Smith (and branches in some other towns/cities) had a curiously OCD method of shelving all the comics alphabetically in a narrow, high, shelving unit. This meant that The Beano, Dennis the Menace Megazine, and Doctor Who Adventures were on top of a 6ft high shelf, out of visibility of their target audience, whilst Toxic, Monster High, Peppa Pig and others were right at a child's eyeline. Admittedly, many retailers do have all their comics within a child's reach, so this may not be a major factor but it's worth considering. 

Interestingly, the issue of The Beano that had a noticeable dip in sales was the one featuring 'guest editor' Richard Hammond, (down to 28,729) despite being plugged in newspapers and on the TV news. My guess is that young kids simply don't watch Top Gear. (Heck, I'm 54 and I don't watch it either.)

In case anyone thinks I'm bigging up The Beano because I freelance for it, well, I also freelance for Toxic. I'm not pretending that everything is rosy. It's an ongoing concern for readers and contributors that comic sales are gradually falling every year, and I'm well aware that we'll never again see the sales figures of millions that some had in the 1950s or the hundred thousands of the 1960s. I'm just saying that things aren't apocalyptic just yet. 

Latest sales figures of UK comics

Above: A preview of next week's Kid Cops from The Dandy No.3572, on sale Wednesday 22nd February.

The ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations) figures have just been released for publications from July to December 2011. As you may recall, the previous figures (Jan - June 2011) delivered quite a shock in regards to The Dandy, which was apparently down from 15,012 from its 2010 figures to 7,448.

There were fears that this would decrease even more, particularly as some shops no longer stock it (readers can't buy it if they can't find it) but there's some good news in that the sales seem to have stabilized. The latest figures are 7,489. A tiny increase but better than a decrease.

The issues with cover mounted toys sold above average, including the bumper Christmas issue. As distribution was better on those issues that must be taken into consideration. Getting the comic noticed is half the battle, and as some shops stuff the comics in the shelves upside down, back to front, or out of reach of children, the fact that sales have stabilized is some sort of achievement.

It's not cause to be complacent though. As production and distribution costs rise, comics still need to increase sales to survive.

The Dandy's stablemate The Beano saw a rise from 37,145 to 38,333 but its monthly version, BeanoMax saw a fall from 24,438 to 22,094. (Hopefully the fresh new cover design instigated this month will improve its fortunes.) Meanwhile, Egmont's Toxic climbed from 40,503 to 41,521. Viz fell from 67,851 to 64,233 but still remains the top selling UK comic featuring originated material (excluding nursery magazines).


You can see the full details of all the UK comics (well, the ones that submit their data) over at John Freeman's Down the Tubes site here. It's a rewarding and well researched website and shows how sales have fallen considerably on all titles over the past five years with several titles losing half their readers over that time.

The information is visibly at odds with the notion voiced elsewhere by a couple of relentless critics who always single out The Dandy and assert that declining sales of that comic are mainly due to readers disliking the modern artwork. As sales of all comics, magazines, and newspapers have plunged over the years there are obviously other factors at play apart from content that should be considered. Therefore it's a pity that "content" is regularly pinpointed by one or two spiteful people posting snide and sometimes personally insulting comments on their blogs to try and demoralize the editors, writers, artists and readers who are actively doing something to keep comics alive.

The Down The Tubes site also carries information on sales figures of comics in the 1960s and 1970s. Back then, it was standard for an individual comic to sell a quarter of a million or even half a million copies a week! Of course that was an era before video games, computers, mobile phones, weekend adventure holidays or hanging around fast food burger bars posed a distraction from reading matter. However, the very fact that there are still several thousand kids in the UK who do still read comics is something to be pleased about.

ABC website:
http://www.abc.org.uk/