Two things generate increased value, supply and demand. Demand, we can only guess at, but we do not find out the supply until the next month. Here is a peek at the estimated print run numbers for March 2016.
(All print runs are estimated based on the number of copies ordered through Diamond, the best estimate that anyone can get.)
Top 10
1 BATMAN 50 $5.99 DC 163,406
2 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers 1 $3.99 Boom 119,536
3 Star Wars 17 $3.99 Marvel 107,058
4 Superman 50 $4.99 DC 91,396
5 Amazing Spider-Man 9 $3.99 Marvel 88,164
6 Darth Vader 17 $3.99 Marvel 80,269
7 Darth Vader 18 $3.99 Marvel 77,942
8 Deadpool 8 $3.99 Marvel 72,706
9 International Iron Man 1 $3.99 Marvel 70,824
10 Avengers Standoff Assault on Pleasant Hill Alpha 1 $4.99 Marvel 68,004
BATMAN #50 takes the top spot followed by Mighty Morphin Power Rangers 1
. Marvel takes 7 of the top 10 spots. Star Wars titles taking 3 of the top 10. Top 10 books account for less than 1 million units sold. February was also below 1 million units sold. Comic sales are down 11% for the year.
Bottom 10
331 Grimm Fairy Tales Robyn Hood 20$5.99 Zenescope 3,384
336 Grimm Fairy Tales Satans Hollow 1 $3.99 Zenescope 3,292
338 God Is Dead 48 $5.99 Avatar 3,289
341 Simpsons Illustrated 22 $4.99 Bongo 3,255
351 Grimm Fairy Tales Escape From Monster Island 2 $3.99 Zenescope 3,084
354 Grimm Fairy Tales Grimm Tales of Terror Vol. 2 5 $3.99 Zenescope 3,059
359 Grimm Fairy Tales Grimm Tales of Terror Vol. 2 6 $3.99 Zenescope 3,012
361 Grimm Fairy Tales Red Agent 3 $3.99 Zenescope 2,984
364 Webwitch 5$4.99 Avatar 2,964
368 Badger 2 $3.99 Devil’s Due 2,867
Books of Interest
Evil Dead 2: Revenge of Hitler 1 4,588- Such an odd book. Dynamite holds the Army of Darkness license. Space Goat holds the Evil Dead license. These are fun books with tiny print runs.
Dark and Bloody 2 5,679- Tiny Print run on a Vertigo book. Vertigo is putting out really good small press stuff. Just look at Unfollow 5
at 5,149 copies (with a tv deal) and Survivors Club 6
at 4,862.
Power Lines 1 5,978- Wow. Crazy low print run for a new Image book. Controversial story line, low print run….
Sheriff of Babylon 4 6,007- Again, tiny print run on a Vertigo title. The early issues of this book have jumped in price.
Spider-Man Deadpool 1 10,295- 3rd printing of a hot book. Barely above 10k.
Monstress 4 22,406- Still a low print run for a great book. Early books have heated up. Fan base growing on this one.
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Informed Comic Book Speculation and Pop Culture News
Also from a variant stand point
Rocket and Groot #4 24,855 ..1:25 = 994 variants
Hyperion black panther variant 31,679 =1267 1:25 variants
Harley Quinn 26 51,000- 2000 1:25 variants
Mel, that isn’t exactly how incentive variants work. The 1:10, 1:25, 1:50, etc variants are given as “incentives” for retailers to buy more regular copies. Just because 1000 copies were printed doesn’t equate to 1000 divided by 10, 25, 50 etc. Many retailers don’t always order more than a few copies of a book and don’t receive the incentives. So basically, keep in mind that many retailers aren’t meeting the incentive order requirements but if you have 200 stores order 5 copies, there is your 1000 printed books. In this scenario, none of those stores receives a variant.
I generally feel that many people aren’t fully aware how this works and this misconception makes some people think certain variants are far more common than they actually are. I do see the idea you are rolling with, though, and anyone can agree that these are going to be rare.
I’ve seen guys speak of convoluted math and formulas. I haven’t googled it yet to research it myself. Is there a good link to start to read up on and understand the topic of incentives?
Hi Josh. No. There is not. Diamond only reports the number of orders and not the number of actual sales. Furthermore, the variants are not separated out from the total print run. I know people do not like the “division by ratio” method to guesstimate the number of variants but it does give an idea of what may have been printed. But it is still a guess. The previous comment is correct that if the print run is 10,000 and the variant is 1:10 then that does not mean that the publisher only printed 1000 copies. But it does give a range or an idea of where it could be. Sadly, that’s the best anyone can do unless the variant specifically says limited to 250 or whatever.
Here is an example. The publisher gets orders of 40,000 books before final order cut off they are doing a 1:25 variant. By the “division by ratio” method we can assume that they printed 1000 variants. However, publishers do print an overage to account for damages and reorders. So let’s say they do an overage of 10%. This would mean an addition 4,000 copies of the book and an additional 100 variants. These do not get reported on comichron. Furthermore, they do print extras as giveaways and such. The exact number cannot drilled down so the best any of us can do is guess.
I liked Power Lines interested to see where it goes in the next couple of issues. I still see a ton of Power Rangers #1 in the shops. I’m surprised how small the print run for Monstress is.
Its growing