Okay - I was checking out my Standard Catalog of Comic Books (4th) and looking at the circulation around issues 528-553.

528 Statement: 19,945 price 1.99 and Diamond orders 3,629
538 Statement: 19,945 price 2.19 and Diamond orders 3,781
555 no statement Diamond 2,604

The statement is carried through for the year it represents.  So chances are it appears in issue #538 and represents the past 12 months.

Now I need to do some averages, but I am wondering if there is a Diamond to Circulation ratio.  I am also interested in how this ratio changes. 

I paid my way through college by owning a comic shop.  We always had a "family" rack that was safe, fun and geared towards the casual reader, parents, and those looking to buy gifts.

We also found that window displays of anatomically exaggerated women would act as a deterrent to those customers, so we have a family-friendly entrance.  The long-term comic collector had no problem entering a shop with a smiling Archie or TinTin to find their issue of buxom babes.

I know that comic shops have to pay for FCBD issues (we never had this in 1985), but it can't be a profit or even a break-even for the comic companies I suspect.  Some shops don't even participate!  How do they stay in business?

Yup.  Eat less chips, read more comics.

There's a discussion on price-increases on almost all the comic forums I am part of.  People always hate them and for good reason - more money out of pocket is less money to spend on other things.

Personally, I would rather cut back in other areas then comics, but I will be dropping a few titles this time (not Archie's - but Sonic and Sonic X are on my radar to let go).

It's always balancing quality, quantity and price.  I still think that Archie's represent a good value for my entertainment budget.

Recently, I have been re-visiting some paper-backs as well.  They are denser reading, although less visual obviously.  Archie books remain nice, but some super-hero titles take 3-8 issues to tell a single, average story (because they are trying to collect them for trade paperbacks).  For the cost of 2-3 trade paperbacks (or 18 comics), I can get a Marvel Masterworks that have 10-12 issues of amazing stories from the silver-age, or a Spirit Archive, or even a DC Archive!  So the value of single issues in the super-hero books is becoming relatively less and less.

Also, the back-issue market is now the "discount, used-issue" market - so comics don't "hold" value like they used to.  Hardcovers hold-up to multiple reading much better. (and store nicely on a shelf too)

Well... I'm still researching - so no conclusions yet.

The thing is - there is only the one distributor to comic shops.  So any additional copies of a Marvel/DC book would have to be through other channels.  Do they sell any other way?  I have rarely seen any on the newsstand.

That's interesting - I guess the statements are due in March - so will check the issues with March cover dates coming up.

The best-selling book on the Diamond 300 list are just over 100,000 copies.  This means that Archie digests may very well be the best-selling comics in North America!  How cool is that!?

Wow!  Great posts!

Wonderful artwork!

You know - it raises another question!  Archie comics (the company) always participates in the Free Comic Book Day efforts to get more readers interested in comics.

No offense to the retailers, but you'd think they'd try a little harder to get a selection of books for kids in stock....  although, my retailer doesn't even do free comic day anymore....

It is really sad about the Disney books.  They are very high-quality (and priced as such), but North Americans seem to just pass on them.  Europe is HUGE on them though!  Millions of readers actually.  There's one publisher (Egmont), that I wish someone in North America would steal ideas from!  In fact, much of the new material here is older European material. 

It actually makes me want to learn to read Finnish!

It's tough to see reading in general on the decline.  There's so much to enjoy.

Here's the numbers for November that I pulled from CBG (Comics Buyers Guide)

Sonic The Hedgehog   194   $2.25   Archie   6,946
Sonic X   39   $2.25   Archie   4,450
Uncle Scrooge   382   $7.99   Gemstone   4,305
Walt Disneys Comics & Stories   696   $7.99   Gemstone   3,673
Archie   591   $2.25   Archie   2,661

Now - clearly Archie books sell more than 2600 copies - and this data doesn't even include ANY digest, or ANY other books. Which means that all those other titles would be selling less than 2,230 - which is the number of copies that the 300th selling title sold (top title sold 114,208 by the way)

These are sales directly to Comic Shops.  Which tells me a couple things:
1) Archie must sell a large percentage of their comics through the newsstand/Walmart/K-Mart, etc
2) Comic Shops are not ordering Archie because they don't sell to their clients and/or they aren't marketing them to their clients.

I'm trying to figure out just how rare a high-grade Archie of today might be.  I know that every title has at least ONE copy stored in mylar and is in very close to mint condition each month!

This might be an impossible question, but I thought I might as well ask.  If someone from Archie can answer - great!  If not, I understand this may not be "public" knowledge (or maybe it is given to advertisers anyhow)

How many copies of each title are printed?

I'm a "circulation geek" and am very interested in the number of copies printed of the different comics I collect.  This information is readily available for all comics distributed through Diamond Distributors - which is the only remaining place for Specialty shops to order comics.

For example, I collect Uncle Scrooge and Walt Disney's Comics & Stories.  During the 1960's - these titles sold more than 1 MILLION copies a month!  Today, the only way to by them is via Diamond or Subscription and the reported distribution is about 4000 copies of each title (actually Scrooge is higher and WDC&S is lower).

Diamond reports Archie distribution through their specialty shops at between 2000-7000 copies of each title (Sonic is the highest, Archie is about 2000, and some titles don't even show.)

However, Archie is one of the few companies that still sells via the newsstand.  So I know this figure is only part of the total number printed.

Why do I care?
Well... I like to know the relative scarcity of issues.  The "survival" rate of old issues is lower (people didn't collect them with the same attention to detail), but the printed quantity is much higher.  If there are only 2000 copies of Archie being sold via Comic Shops, even a 90% survival rate would mean high-grade issues of recent books are equally, and potentially MORE difficult to find then high-grade issues of older books.

In the old days, there were "Statements of Ownership" - which I suspect are still in play, but I haven't seen any for awhile.  Does anyone have recent issues with SOW in them?  I haven't caught-up on all my reading, so maybe they are right there waiting for me.

This is great!  Thank you Archie Publications!

(of course, I'd still like HC bound volumes....)

You know.... it's pretty cool how many pros are in these forums! Not too common elsewhere I tell ya!

I saw #2 in the same condition (NM) on the same site.  One copy was .69 and the other was $10.50!

How's THAT for a price difference!

I ordered to collector sets and have #8 to #35.

So I need to hunt down 1-8,36,37

The challenge for me is the shipping costs.  I'm much better off waiting until I need to order a few hundred dollars worth of books and then ordering a bunch at once.

Mile High comics often has special sales and this is when I try to order.  To be honest, they often have the book you want, but at a price that is far above market conditions (which is why they have it, I suppose).

On the super-tough material, you just have to pay the price, but on some material a little patience pays off.

Nice!

I think it's a good idea to have an Archie and a Sonic.  They really are different markets (I think) and FCBD is the perfect venue to get new readers into these books.

Opps!  I see they also have Jughead and you can buy all three.  Guess I know what I need to order!