By John Jackson Miller on 5/15/2008 7:44 PM

And speaking of advertising and comics...

About a decade ago, I interviewed Manfred Bernhard, the advertising executive who produced the Big Boy comics series for the famed restaurant chain — and there began my attempts to begin tracking down some of the unusual artifacts of this series of promotional comics. Now, Hertiage is auctioning a rare gem indeed: Bernhard's own file copies of Big Boy #1-233!

Filling in a couple of blanks for Heritage's listing: The "Timely" part of the run isn't defined by when Dan DeCarlo is working on the series; DeCarlo worked for it well into its run. The distinction is that before #13 (that's the issue, to the best of my recollection), Bernhard had been contracting with Timely to produce the comics completely in-house; afterward, Bernhard's own W.E.B.S. Advertising Group managed production, evidently hiring work out to DeCarlo. I spoke with Stan Lee about it some years back; he recalled writing the first issue and meeting Bernhard when Timely had the account.

And there definitely are "East Coast" editions with a blond Big Boy — redrawn for a splinter group of franchisees until at least issue #152. No doubt there; I've been tracking them intermittently here with Ray Bottorff Jr. — lately, with Ray doing all the work. As noted in the auction, only the West Coast, or traditional, versions of Big Boy are in these bound volumes. We had been tracking what Western copies definitely existed, too; I think we can take it from this auction that all the West Coast issues did indeed circulate!

Surely a fascinating artifact — I envy the one who wins it!

By John Jackson Miller on 5/14/2008 10:35 AM

We've got a discussion started on the practices and history of advertising in comics in the forum. I've put in my $0.02, but others certainly know more. Drop by and help Kris out!

By John Jackson Miller on 4/30/2008 9:18 PM

I did this last year for Amazing Spider-Man when the third movie came out in response to media inquiries; now, I have plunged ahead and listed all the Iron Man sales figures from Statements of Ownership that I have found, from 1980 to 2003.

I can't locate my copies from Volume 4, so if anyone can dig those out, please post what you find in the Research Forum under "Scavenger Hunt." And while I went through most of the likely issues, if anyone can find anything from before 1980, please post it. I don't think they ever ran any in the 1970s, which is bizarre, considering it was offered by subscription the whole time. I'll have to ask Len Wein about it some day — he was editing it for a while in there.

I do intend more of these lateral title-centric tables, but after I get some more of the annual tables onto the site. I am up past 2,470 Statements in my database now. (Thanks to Johanna for the new Archie numbers!)

And this month's Comichron Report is now online at Newsarama. Enjoy!

By John Jackson Miller on 4/24/2008 8:58 PM

I'll be saving the more lengthy analysis for the Newsarama column coming up, but the tables with my raw estimates for March can be found here. I will say here that while it is a soft month, it's one that's following a year after a blockbuster March — and the first quarter has historically been slow in most normal years. In the widest category, the quarter is only off by almost exactly $1 million — less than the revenue of a single product, last year's Captain America #25. And the five-year comparatives are way up.

So it's our first slower quarter in a while — but it takes two down quarters in a row in the general economy to make a recession. And in this business, I'd make that two not including the first quarter!

TOP 300 COMICS UNIT SALES
March 2008: 6.08 million copies
Versus 1 year ago this month: -13%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +9%
Versus 10 years ago this month: -15%
YEAR TO DATE: 19.11 million copies, -6% vs. 2007

TOP 300 COMICS DOLLAR SALES
March 2008: $19.14 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: -15%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +22%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +10%
YEAR TO DATE: $64.14 million, -7% vs. 2007

TOP 100 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES
March 2008: $4.33 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: +5%
Versus 5 years ago this month, just the Top 50 vs. the Top 50: +17%
YEAR TO DATE: $12.47 million, +5% vs. 2007

TOP 300 COMICS + TOP 100 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES
March 2008: $23.47 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: -12%
Versus 5 years ago this month, counting just the Top 50 TPBs: +21%
YEAR TO DATE: $72.23, -5% vs. 2007

OVERALL DIAMOND SALES (including all comics, trades, and magazines)
March 2008: $31.21 million ($34.67 million with UK)
Versus 1 year ago this month: -7%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +27%
YEAR TO DATE: $98.3 million, -1% vs. 2007, +46% vs. 2003

By John Jackson Miller on 4/21/2008 7:38 PM

It will be a bit yet before the calculations appear here (New York Comicon took everyone's weekend, along with my voice) but for the curious, here are the vanilla rankings for the Diamond Top 300, released today. This is raw — no clean-up work, no formatting. The "ratio" is the number of copies sold per 100 issues of Detective Comics sold. (Edit: And the Newsarama preliminary report is here.) Check back for the full report, soon!

1) Dark Tower Long Road Home #1 (Of 5) • MAR • Ratio 250.56
2) New Avengers #39  • MAR • Ratio 208.49
3) Thor #7 • MAR • Ratio 197.25
4) Amazing Spider-Man #552 • MAR • Ratio 181.76
5) Uncanny X-Men #496  • MAR • Ratio 180.18
6) Buffy Vampire Slayer #12 • DAR • Ratio 179.93
7) Justice League O/America #19 • DC • Ratio 177
8) Amazing Spider-Man #553 • MAR • Ratio 167.22
9) Mighty Avengers #11 • MAR • Ratio 166.42
10) X-Men Legacy #209  • MAR • Ratio 166.4
11) Mighty Avengers #10 • MAR • Ratio 166.21
12) X-Force #2  • MAR • Ratio 165.33
13) Captain America #36 • MAR • Ratio 164.65
14) Amazing Spider-Man #554 • MAR • Ratio 164.03
15) All Star Superman #10 • DC • Ratio 148.86
16) Cable #1  • MAR • Ratio 138.9
17) Green Lantern #28 • DC • Ratio 137.73
18) Countdown To Final Crisis 8 • DC • Ratio 137.66
19) Countdown To Final Crisis 7 • DC • Ratio 137.62
20) Countdown To Final Crisis 6 • DC • Ratio 137.37
21) Countdown To Final Crisis 5 • DC • Ratio 136.95
22) Fantastic Four #555 • MAR • Ratio 136.4
23) Green Lantern #29 • DC • Ratio 134.62
24) Wolverine #63  • MAR • Ratio 130.45
25) Logan #1 (Of 3) • MAR • Ratio 128.05
26) Serenity Better Days #1 (Of 3) • DAR • Ratio 126.05
27) Ultimate Spider-Man #120 • MAR • Ratio 116.8
28) X-Factor #29  • MAR • Ratio 110.94
29) Avengers Initiative #10 • MAR • Ratio 110.11
30) Wolverine Origins #23 • MAR • Ratio 100.42
31) Angel After Fall #5 • IDW • Ratio 100.27
32) Detective Comics #842 • DC • Ratio 100
33) Incredible Hercules #115 • MAR • Ratio 99.82
34) Teen Titans #57 • DC • Ratio 99.36
35) Ultimate X-Men #92 • MAR • Ratio 99.17
36) Superman Batman Annual #2 • DC • Ratio 94.89
37) Green Lantern Corps #22 • DC • Ratio 94.56
38) Ultimate Human #3 (Of 4) • MAR • Ratio 92.34
39) Justice League New Frontier Special • DC • Ratio 87.5
40) Superman #674 • DC • Ratio 84.4
41) Daredevil #106 • MAR • Ratio 84.04
42) Ultimate Iron Man Ii #4 (Of 5) • MAR • Ratio 83.67
43) Ms Marvel #25  • MAR • Ratio 82.94
44) Wonder Woman #18 • DC • Ratio 82.49
45) Captain Marvel #4 (Of 5)  • MAR • Ratio 82.19
46) Thunderbolts #119 • MAR • Ratio 81.28
47) Ultimate Fantastic Four #52 • MAR • Ratio 77.18
48) Brave & Bold #11 • DC • Ratio 76.38
49) Batman & Outsiders #5 • DC • Ratio 74.45
50) Booster Gold #7 • DC • Ratio 73.12
51) Iron Man #27 • MAR • Ratio 72.86
52) Wolverine First Class #1 • MAR • Ratio 72.22
53) Flash #238 • DC • Ratio 72.04
54) Teen Titans Year One #3 (Of 6) ... Read More »

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