Image Comics to raise print runs on their comics

They tried this before, but Image comics will start doing larger print runs to combat quick sell outs and multiple reprints. A few years back they came up with the same strategy and ended up switching it back after several months. This led to the boom of 40,000 issue new series.
The news came directly from Image Comics Website

The decision to increase overall print runs to accommodate increasing demand among bricks-and-mortar retailers comes on the heels of feedback at the annual ComicsPro meeting in Portland, Oregon last month.
“We’ve been listening to the feedback from the Direct Market, and we would like to take this opportunity to announce that we are now increasing print runs to make sure we don’t find ourselves and our creators in a position where we are constantly going back to press so quickly, or hopefully, at all,” said Corey Murphy, Director of Retail Sales at Image Comics. “We don’t want to spend our creators’ money carelessly, but that being said, we understand how essential it is to the health and wellbeing of our retail partners, the creators we work with, and Image itself, that we make the necessary investments in our series.”
Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson added: “This is an issue we’ve wrestled with for some time now, but in all honestly, we’d love it if this announcement was the last press release we ever had to send out about sell outs or second printings. It’s more important to us that these comics are in stores when readers come looking for them.”

So, what are your thoughts on this? I alluded to it in the Wednesday open forum. Here to stay or go away, as it did before?

20 thoughts on “Image Comics to raise print runs on their comics”

  1. While it can kill the investing potential of most titles it might not make a huge difference. Warren Ellis decided to print an extra 5,000 copies of Trees #1 and Diamond never did sell out of them all but it did keep the book available for retailers. Though issues #2 onwards did sell out quickly.

  2. You got to think the rationale behind this. It cant simply be ‘quick sellouts and second prints’. Reprints themselves solves the sellout issue, by getting it into the initial unlucky’s hands (a little late, but hey). And second prints also solve the issue of bloat. No publisher wants to see piles of books left on stands.
    The underlying factor here is, if this decision wasnt made to make more money – their leadership team blows monkey balls. They know there is a bubbling feeding frenzy going on, and they know everyone will start to grab multiple issues to cash in.

  3. Good news Image! Even less of a chance of selling out when far less people are buying stacks to spec on. Mission accomplished.

    1. Yup. Instead of buying several copies on a potential hot comic, I’ll be buying more knowing they’ll be plenty at the stores (or the store can order more cause they’ll be sitting on the pallets, waiting on the loading docks at Diamond).

  4. yea i don’t understand what the problem is with reprints. I assume image has a pretty streamlined system for printing after 23 years. I cant imagine it costs that much to go back for another round. now theyre gonna have stacks and stacks of comics just sitting there. sure, its tough to find back issues of saga, manifest destiny, chew, etc. but do they really want even more copies of books like ody-c, intersect, reyn, synergy, the empty, secret identities, graveyard shift just lying around? and those are just the crappy ones! both my lcs’s still have plenty of 1st print copies of books like wytches, birthright, bitch planet, low, they’re not like us, etc.
    and demand leads to more demand! spider-gwen, hello?! her costumes cool. but if there hadn’t been the crazy auctions for EoSV 2 on ebay, there wouldn’t be nearly as much hype. which wouldn’t have led to her own series (which also is still all over the racks at my lcs, btw).
    I know this seems like a rant, but im also just trying to fill time before l get my lunch break. this website is awesome btw.

  5. Why even do a “press release”? If they feel they need to increase print runs, why not just do it? Those individuals who are buying multiple spec copies are just going to buy fewer now.

  6. Very poor business decision on the part of Image. When you increase supply, demand decreases! How could they be so stupid? I expect the 10 cent bin at my LCS to be chock a block full of Image titles in 6 months. I won’t be buying any Image #1s from here on in. Surface #1 is the last one.

    1. I didn’t even buy Surface #1.. just reading the title I wasn’t even interested in it.

  7. So really we should be looking more at which publishers are going to be a better choice for speculators going forward?

  8. I think they are trying to compete with Marvel and DC on the high prints. Even if EoSV 2 wasn’t a big hit on ebay,with the print run of over 50,000 copies, Marvel would still take that risk and have Spider-Gwen with her own series just to see where it went. I just think that Image is going to regret this decision later on if they do go threw with it and people aren’t going to buy as much copies as they would IMO.

    1. I think they are way out of their league if they are trying to compete with Marvel and DC. Mostly because they are creator owned books and the creators have to pay for the print runs. So if a book has a big print run and does not sell, the creator may not make any money. What Image does is pays upfront for the print run and deducts it from the money generate by the sales of the book. So if 50,000 copies are printed, and only 17,000 sell, the creator would be on the line for the remaining money. Image needs to tread carefully or they could see an exodus of creators. Granted this is onltyfor some of the more popular books and not across the line.

      1. Yeah, if I was producing comics and using Image as my backbone.. I’d be against this. Unless the creators are off the hook per se.. if they have 17k definite orders and Image decides to print more on their own, perhaps getting a larger percentage from any sales after the initial orders. I don’t know, unless they know something we don’t know, I got bad business decisions on just pumping up prints without them necessarily being ordered.

    2. I’m not sure about that. I think if no one cared about Spider-Gwen from EOSV then we wouldn’t have a Spider-Gwen series. Look at the other characters from that mini-series before Spider-Verse.. none of them got their own series. Honestly, EOSV was likely a good way to get a feel for what readers wanted, the clear winner was Spider-Gwen.

  9. Like with spawn #1 (one of the reason why I got into comics) when it first hit the shelfs, it had a sale of over 1.5 million copies sold world wide. And it has taken a little over 20 years for it to finally hit the $20 price mark. It will suck big time if they do go back to high print runs or in the high 50,000 lol since a million is more of the 90’s prints lol

        1. If NM condition, I can easily sell these between $5 – $15… If I was finding them for $1, I’d be picking these up to make a few bucks all day long. 😉

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