So, we’ll just go ahead and mention Batman #89. First appearance of Punchline. Pretty obvious book from last month.
Let’s go ahead and get Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen #3 out of the way as well. I think we’ve talked enough about these that most know what they peaked at, are going for and most recently were available on Midtown again for $24.00 each after discount.
Bitter Root #6 1:10 Chris Brunner Variant was a book that caught a lot off guard and as Bitter Root is a great new series and read, with a current media option, I think a lot of shops didn’t even qualify (only a 5,599 print run total).
The cheapest copy now on eBay is at $149.99. A few recent solds right over the $100 mark with most others at $125 or more.
BANG! #1 (10,741 print run) is the new Matt Kindt series that got great reviews, heated up due to such reviews and saw some love on the secondary market briefly. This one became much easier to find and you can find it at online retailers now. Midtown has theirs listed for $8 after discount. I think the same time they listed theirs at that price, TFAW listed their copies again for 10% discount off cover. They have since sold out and only have the 3rd print available.
This was briefly a $10 – $20 book at peak but is now a cover price book for the most part. I say hold onto any copies, if it does get a media deal, could turn into more.
There was also the 2nd printing of BANG! #1 that came out the following week. Didn’t reach as high as the first print but still saw a slight bump in sales very briefly.
It helps when there’s new cover art for the additional printings.
Marvels Spider-Man Black Cat Strikes #2 Nakayama Variant is another ratio variant that saw some love if you found them for cheap. Not a heavily ordered series, with only 10,741 (and no, that’s not a typo, that’s the same print run as BANG!) reported as its print run, these are gonna be tough to find. I doubt most shops even qualified for this 1:25 variant.
This is an easy $50 to $60 sale. Most retailers likely listed it around the $30 range to kick them off. So if you nabbed at that price or lower, it’s an easy flip. Some sales were as low as $35 for some recent completed listings.
Venom #23 Skottie Young Variant (total print run was 48,894). You don’t see these heat up that often but since it’s now considered Stegman and Cates first cover/issue appearance, some sought these out as it sold out pretty quickly.
These are still an easy $8 to $12 book if you can find them out in the wild.
The last book is the series that’s just organically growing over time it seems. Thor #3 (48,707 print run) isn’t breaking records and some sales are still at cover or a little over cover but on a good day, some are reaching as high as $10. It’s certainly a book and series to keep a close watch.
That’s it folks. If I missed something, overlook something or you just want to chat about another book from February, hit up the comments or start a conversation on the forums.
Just have to say that I love the month in review posts ?
Good to know. I’ll try and squeeze them back in the rotation again. 🙂
Me likey too.
Great review! Thanks!
Comichron are sales numbers not print runs.
Yes, we know this already. We will never know the actual print run numbers but this is the closest thing we have to know how many are out in the world based on sales since most are distributed by Diamond.
If the comic was sold, it therefore must have printed. There is a correlation there.
Yes. We don’t know how many extra publishers might have printed (kept some for internal purposes, handed out to employees, sold indirectly outside of Diamond, etc) but the sales numbers correlate a good estimate of actual print run numbers. It’s the best tool to assume such numbers. I think most of us and CHU readers understand how Comichron numbers work.
Best tool to assume, in other words guess.
It is the best educated guess. There is no assumption. The data that is given is hard. Using that hard data at hand, within reason, allows us to reach a reasonable conclusion without making assumptions. If the book was sold/distributed, it therefore had to have printed. There is a direct correlation there.
Sometimes when retailers go back for more copies those additional copies show up in the following month’s comichron numbers until they are so,d out.
They are not exact but if you total the numbers across a couple months you’ve probably captured 99% of what was printed.
https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/402666-110-125-150-1100-are-distribution-numbers-not-print-run-numbers/
If you like making inaccurate conclusions go ahead. But any conclusion made with this data is inaccurate to the point that it should not be relied upon to make any purchase based on print run.
Also, this article is full of assumptions. Every book is touted as having x print run, based off these numbers. To claim such is misleading.
No, actually it’s not misleading. Unless a publisher comes and provides the actual print run for each issue, this the best data we got and it probably as close as it will ever get to the print number.
What other data would you have the comic industry use, Rick?
Speculation is gathering information and data based on little to zero facts. Most speculators know the numbers at comichron are not 100% accurate. They’re just the next best thing we have to go on. It’s not hard to comprehend nor get your panties all knotted up over.
For DC, it is easy to figure out a close print run number. They print in 3 batchs, each batch corresponding to a distribution center. If you have a full case from the printer, it will tell you how many boxes were printed for that distribution center. In the case of Hell arisen 3, we were lucky that one retailer was trying to sell a case on ebay. this gave us all the information that we needed to “guesstimate” a print number. 160 comics per case with a case count of 79. times that number by 3 and its a good estimate. Comichron is proof that the math works. Granted this only applys to north america, it is still a good approximation. Image and Boom also use 1 printer, though they dont distribute to all three, diamond does that. So a case from either of them will give you the estimated print run as well. I havent ordered enough from IDW to make these correlations and Marvel is weird with all the store variants padding the print run.
And if extrapolate populations from foreign countries, and applied the ratios from NA, you could also get a somewhat accurate distribution number for other countries, like England.
Please elaborate why it is inaccurate? Just because you say it’s inaccurate, does not make it so. Why wouldn’t a distribution number give you an educated guess given the correlation between shipped and printed? Yes, there are factors to consider, and, as involved members of the comic community, we can pretty much figure those out, and extrapolate given the hard NA distribution number.
According to your theory, Rick, if Comichron says they distributed 50k of any given issue, then the actual print run could only be 10k, or 25k, or 1,000,000, because you are choosing to ignore the data at hand. I can make a post on the CHU forum, and post a link here, saying how one could easily extrapolate numbers from Diamonds distribution numbers and that would just as much weight as your link to the CGC forums. Do you see how you are choosing to believe one, and choosing not to believe the other? ?
Wow!!! Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. You don’t have to get all grouchy. Geez Rick take a chill pill or some wacky tobacky and relax man. Life is to short and crazy for someone to get upset over numbers.
Exactly.. like I’ve stated, most know the comichron numbers are sales and that’s the best we’re ever going to get on what the print run is close to as the publishers never reveal such info, ever.