Comics sales relative to Movies

When a major motion picture gains critical acclaim from both most merchandise related to it gets bought pretty easily. This can definitely be asserted and asserted when talking about nerd subculture media. When a new Star Wars movie rolls around, both before and after, toys and cheap costumes fly off the shelves. With that as an example of what the masses expect after a successful movie release, most comic fans presume this would increase comic sales and concurrent readers. This however, is not the case as sales do not grow considerably or consistently regarding comics after major film releases.

When a new major superhero film is released, publishers are not expecting current runs of comics with characters featured from the Marvel Cinamatic Universe to go flying off the shelves. The films are expected to turn a few heads in the direction of comics, but that is mostly for younger new readers who do not want to pick up a recent issue that is in the middle of a complex storyline. They want something simple with a lot of action that informs them more about the character they thought looked cool. These readers want to walk into a comic shop near them, or more preferably to go online, look for a comic about Thor, and find a new #1. Something like Jane Foster Thor on issue 25, looks like too much effort for something that is not exactly what they want.

Publishers are aware of this information, they have been in the business for a while, they know what the old and new readers respond to. Which is why currently you see a lot of relaunch or promotional comics aimed at the specified purpose of bringing in new readers. In all honesty, it is intended to make a quick sale to the younger readers. The relaunches can be quite annoying to current readers as they can halt or alter a current story that a reader has bothered to read through. The promotions can be fun from time to time, it honestly just depends on your interest. Comic publishers also want the success of films to grow the overall sale of comics, but it is still difficult to push such a niche interest.

Now the numbers, that is a game no one wants to play, especially when you are apart of an industry that is very small and constantly looking to go for the quick dollar. Marvel and DC have admittedly gained a lot more financially since their major losses during the 90's. Recently, comics have made it back into a billion dollar industry, barely, and at a cost. The public can even view how well a Comic is doing with humbly created sites like Comichron. Current readers have noticed a change in price on monthly series inside comic book shops. As well as the constant pushing of new series and major comic universe encompassing storylines that are meant to force the immediate readers to start buying them just to keep up with current comics. All that pressure on readers has made up a major portion of comics recent income, but we don't know the exact numbers of digital purchases. People live for convenience, and digital services play on that to gain a massive amount of profit by providing things to the public as easily as possible.

However, most times you go to the main digital comics website, Comixology, there are whole comic collections on sale. In the end all the numbers from the digital sales are not present to be reviewed by the public to see exactly how films affect comic sales. Plus the ones that are available don't show that much major success as far as sales. If anyone is looking for someone to blame for the lack of comic sales, there is no one that you can really blame. No matter how much producers push a product, if the consumers do not want to go out of their way to get that product, it will not sell.