Damn...I'm pretty sure that's the lowest sales for any Buffy issue yet (or at least ranking.)

marvelknight616 | December 09, 10:36 CET

I would reckon so. And the Angel sales have more than halved as well. Times have changed when all the comics in the top ten were 100,000+.

Simon | December 09, 10:59 CET

Well I suppose the new standard $4 pricetag (with the exception of the lovely folks at Dark Horse of course,) has eroded sales and fans (including myself.)

marvelknight616 | December 09, 12:12 CET

Raising prices during a recession doesn't really pay off.

Simon | December 09, 12:20 CET

Yeah given the price hike and the less favourable exchange rates, comics were the first thing to go in the Great Belt Tightening '09. Nearly 3 quid a pop is pretty hard to justify (for me I mean, different strokes etc.).

Saje | December 09, 13:56 CET

While I like getting Buffy monthly, for a whole lot of other comics, you get more for your buck if you wait for the trade (long as it's mainstream enough that a TPB is pretty much guaranteed, otherwise depending on how indie or unpopular it is, you might wanna support the floppy issues).

So nearly 50,000 issues of Buffy #30 were sold (I can't assume that means that near-50,000 bought it because some of those issues are still sitting in shops and I wouldn't be able to guess how many comic fans are buying two copies of an issue--still lotsa folks that do that, from what I've read). It'd be interesting to know how many folks download.

[ edited by Kris on 2009-12-09 13:57 ]

Kris | December 09, 13:57 CET

Only ever downloaded two issues personally, a single of Y: The Last Man's final arc that I couldn't even find on eBay (i've since bought the trade) and the last part of "Batman: RIP" (didn't want to wait the 3 days before getting it from my LCS. Sad bastard ;).

Moral considerations aside, I just can't stand reading comics onscreen, it's still much too unwieldy IMO.

(still buying Buffy in singles - though i'm way behind - and also cutting out quite a few titles then dipping in and out of TPBs on the rest. To be honest, i've always preferred reading trades anyway but with some stuff, particularly from the smaller presses like Oni, a trade isn't guaranteed)

Saje | December 09, 14:28 CET

I used to buy single issues all the time but I only get the Buffy and Angel ones now. And Supergod if it's in stock.

Simon | December 09, 14:41 CET

Haven't bought any comics for a while. Mostly, I got behind and now the only ones the book stores carry are the past 2 or 3. I wish there was a comic book store around here (but since there's no electronics store and no Target, I'm not surprised).

VeryVeryCrowded | December 09, 18:07 CET

Those are pretty good numbers for Buffy. Considering that it's not Spiderman, Batman...or Booster Gold??

I dont have access to all the Dark Horse sales figures but I'd be willing to bet BtVS is by far their biggest seller.

And I agree, comics have gotten very expensive. Its slowly killing the business...less pages, more money and a constant barrage of cross-overs, special events and alternate covers.

alexreager | December 09, 18:36 CET

>I dont have access to all the Dark Horse sales figures but I'd be willing to bet BtVS is by far their biggest seller.

It is - Dr. Horrible is, in fact, the next-biggest selling Dark Horse release in that month.

It should also be noted that diminishing returns is a general trend for comic books, failing a major event or highly-publicised creative team debut - particularly for a long-running series like Buffy: people stop reading, and they aren't really replaced by new readers because there's so much to catch up on, and the trades are there for them instead.

littlexander | December 09, 20:32 CET

$4.00 is a new standard among some publishers, Marvel and IDW come to mind (though Marvel still has a few books at $3), but there are still quite a few titles out there selling for under $4, such as most DC, Dark Horse, Image, Dynamite and some others.

alexreager,

Booster Gold was one of seven DC titles that came with a Blackest Night Ring as part of a popular promotion. All seven titles saw sales increases, with Booster being among the biggest gainers. From one of the other ICv2 articles, these were the sales increases for those promo books when compared to October: Adventure Comics +40,714, Rebels +39,816, Booster Gold +35,525, Doom Patrol +33,712, Outsiders +29,505, Justice League of America +28,364, The Blackest Night +7,766.

Dark Horse has long published some great comics, but until Buffy they haven't often had much sales success. I am not 100% certain, but would bet that Buffy has been their best-selling title every time that they publish it.

The entire industry has seen a slowdown in sales, but to me, it's been most noticeable in the middle of the charts. Once upon a time, 36,000 copies sold meant that a comic was in danger of cancelation or a major creative shake-up, now that's enough to make the Top 50. Further, both Marvel and DC are having quite a lot of trouble in launching new series, that is quite significant as well. Both of those trends must be quite worrisome for the Big 2.

Risch22 | December 10, 01:23 CET

I'm interested in seeing what sales are like when Runaways goes to direct-to-graphic-novel format next year (all signs point to it). That might not save the book though, as many of its readers seem to be tired of it after too many creative team change-ups and apparent missteps with the direction of the book (eh, I've still found things to enjoy in it, even in Terry Moore's run, though I wasn't happy with the pretty lame and typical cliffhanger they left us with). A lot of its older readers gave up on it long ago (I wasn't sure I was gonna bother with more after Volume 2, but found Volume 3 back-issues for cheap, so figured what the heck).

It's a special case though (the trades/digests have always sold well for Runaways) and success for that title in direct-to-trade format (ie, never a monthly/floppy release) might not indicate potential success for certain other Marvel comics.

Kris | December 10, 05:56 CET