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What will happen after Archie reboot series comes to an end? Another reboot?

Started by terrence12, July 06, 2017, 12:32:40 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

DeCarlo Rules

Quote from: terrence12 on July 09, 2017, 01:02:37 AM

So,If you what you are saying is true then the other Archie reboot titles will end this year living only the reboot Archie which will probably end in about a year or two.

I guess you haven't been following too closely.

REGGIE AND ME ended with issue #5 in May 2017.
JUGHEAD ended with issue #16 in June 2017.
JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS will conclude with issue #9, expected in August 2017.

That leaves ARCHIE as the sole remaining rebooted ACP floppy comic, unless you're counting the Archie Horror titles (which barely manage to ship a new issue every 6 months or so).

Sales figures from comic shops serviced by Diamond Comics (which is all of them) for May 2017:

ARCHIE #20 = 10,755 copies
RIVERDALE #2 = 7,878 copies
THE ARCHIES (one-shot) = 7,741 copies
JUGHEAD #15 = 5,805 copies
JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS #7 = 5,254 copies
REGGIE AND ME #5 = 3,859 copies

If these titles, collectively, represent what Archie Comics as a publisher is depending on for its profitability and survival, they are indeed in big, big trouble. We already know that the last three listed titles have been cancelled, so we have some idea where the dividing line of unprofitability lies. There would seem to be no reason to follow up that ARCHIES one-shot based on sales, and if sales don't improve on RIVERDALE within a few issues, it seems likely that that one would be headed for cancellation as well, leaving only ARCHIE... but for how much longer?

The digests, on the other hand, are mainly distributed outside of Diamond Comics' direct-to-comics shop sales system, so we really have no reliable figures on their sales. You better HOPE they're selling better than those sales figures above, or it's just about all over for ACP, at least as far as print comics are concerned.

Now, what do those sales numbers mean, in relative terms, compared to the rest of the comic book publishing industry? The number of copies needed to be sold to be a good-selling comic book have changed over time, but in 2016, those numbers averaged out something like this: In 2016, the 50th best-selling comic book title sold a little less than 45,000 copies, the 100th best-selling comic book title sold a little less than 25,000 copies, the 150th best-selling comic book title sold a little less than 15,000 copies, the 200th best-selling comic book title sold a little less than 10,000 copies, and the 300th best-selling comic book title sold a little less than 5,000 copies. Above 50th place the number of copies sold and the actual titles are very volatile from year to year, due to special events and promotions.

Between the 50th and the 200th best-selling comic book gives you the best idea of what a reasonably good-selling (but not a "hit series" selling) comic book might sell -- the mid-range sellers that account for the bulk of all comic book titles that continue to be published. Below 200th place is where a publisher (depending on the publisher's overall rank within the market) would probably be looking to replace that title with another one that would sell better. Titles whose sales drop into the 300th best-selling range are almost certainly destined for cancellation by any but the smallest of comic book publishers.

terrence12

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 09, 2017, 02:35:50 AM
Quote from: terrence12 on July 09, 2017, 01:02:37 AM

So,If you what you are saying is true then the other Archie reboot titles will end this year living only the reboot Archie which will probably end in about a year or two.


I guess you haven't been following too closely.

REGGIE AND ME ended with issue #5 in May 2017.
JUGHEAD ended with issue #16 in June 2017.
JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS will conclude with issue #9, expected in August 2017.

That leaves ARCHIE as the sole remaining rebooted ACP floppy comic, unless you're counting the Archie Horror titles (which barely manage to ship a new issue every 6 months or so).

Sales figures from comic shops serviced by Diamond Comics (which is all of them) for May 2017:

ARCHIE #20 = 10,755 copies
RIVERDALE #2 = 7,878 copies
THE ARCHIES (one-shot) = 7,741 copies
JUGHEAD #15 = 5,805 copies
JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS #7 = 5,254 copies
REGGIE AND ME #5 = 3,859 copies



If these titles, collectively, represent what Archie Comics as a publisher is depending on for its profitability and survival, they are indeed in big, big trouble. We already know that the last three listed titles have been cancelled, so we have some idea where the dividing line of unprofitability lies. There would seem to be no reason to follow up that ARCHIES one-shot based on sales, and if sales don't improve on RIVERDALE within a few issues, it seems likely that that one would be headed for cancellation as well, leaving only ARCHIE... but for how much longer?

The digests, on the other hand, are mainly distributed outside of Diamond Comics' direct-to-comics shop sales system, so we really have no reliable figures on their sales. You better HOPE they're selling better than those sales figures above, or it's just about all over for ACP, at least as far as print comics are concerned.



Woah,You are not kidding eventhough the reboot Archie is still on top ,The others have low sales though you didn't mention about Betty and Veronica especially the one shots and whether if The Archies becomes a full series including Archie horror's latest series The Hunger.

Then this could possibly mean that the Reboot Archie will end in about one or two years after the Over the edge storyline which will cause 'Jump  the shark 'to that series  because one character is killed off (spoilers betty and hope it's just coma)

And if the reboot series ends because of low sales then this will cause bankruptcy and closure to Archie Comics

But at least Your Pal archie series gain positive reception maybe there could be hope that it will gain profit and bring back the old readers even though this series is using Dan Parent's new style which I admit suits him better.

Especially the Digest which contains reprints of old Archie tales even though 'Digest' is just a relic of the past that people will ignore it especially that it wasn't part of the sales chart .


Still however if those titles and even digest get low  sales especially that Riverdale will probably be cancelled in about few years even though the latter will be considered logn running in the future.


Then this will be the end of Archie comics unless there is hope maybe Goldwater would sell the company to IDW known for their best licensed and they will make the Archie series as a comedy Period piece series set in the 40's to 50's since the series is known then or I could be wrong.







DeCarlo Rules

Digests don't register in sales for comic book shops, which is why there's no sales data for them, which comes only from Diamond Comics' statistics. The vast majority of those digests are being sold NOT in comic shops, but at various retail outlets, or direct from ACP through subscriptions, and there is no sales data from those methods of distribution that is available to the public. On the other hand, Diamond's sales statistics for floppy comics reliably account for more than 90% of ALL sales of printed copies.

BETTY AND VERONICA #1 sold very well in July 2016. It sold 70,830 copies according to Diamond's sales data. B&V #2 didn't do nearly as well as #1 in November 2016, selling only 19,794 copies. STILL much better than ARCHIE #20, though... But that is a massive drop in sales from one issue to the next. We don't yet have sales data for B&V #3, which arrived in comic shops only last month, but I'll bet I can guess that it sold less than #2. We also need to take into account that B&V was a massively expensive comic book title for ACP to produce... by ACP's standards. There was a HUGE amount of overhead cost in hiring Adam Hughes. There doesn't seem to be much point in speculating about the future of that title, since we already know that issue #3 was the last to be written & drawn by Adam Hughes. No issue #4 has yet been solicited by ACP (and may never be). Certainly the lack of Adam Hughes would affect future sales in a negative direction, so who could predict whether this could still be a viable reboot?

BettyReggie

I asked Adam Hughes on Twitter , who is going do Issue #4 of Betty & Veronica? He said Rachel Stott. So he is done with it.

Vegan Jughead

Quote from: BettyReggie on July 09, 2017, 06:59:47 AM
I asked Adam Hughes on Twitter , who is going do Issue #4 of Betty & Veronica? He said Rachel Stott. So he is done with it.


I had never heard of her.  I just looked at some of her art.  I'm not wild about it.  Hopefully she can do something good with B&V.

terrence12

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 09, 2017, 06:02:21 AM
Digests don't register in sales for comic book shops, which is why there's no sales data for them, which comes only from Diamond Comics' statistics. The vast majority of those digests are being sold NOT in comic shops, but at various retail outlets, or direct from ACP through subscriptions, and there is no sales data from those methods of distribution that is available to the public. On the other hand, Diamond's sales statistics for floppy comics reliably account for more than 90% of ALL sales of printed copies.


Maybe I guess the reason Diamond doesn't add Digests into their stats is because they think Digest are just relics of the past for which they are.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 09, 2017, 06:02:21 AMBETTY AND VERONICA #1 sold very well in July 2016. It sold 70,830 copies according to Diamond's sales data. B&V #2 didn't do nearly as well as #1 in November 2016, selling only 19,794 copies. STILL much better than ARCHIE #20, though... But that is a massive drop in sales from one issue to the next. We don't yet have sales data for B&V #3, which arrived in comic shops only last month, but I'll bet I can guess that it sold less than #2. We also need to take into account that B&V was a massively expensive comic book title for ACP to produce... by ACP's standards. There was a HUGE amount of overhead cost in hiring Adam Hughes. There doesn't seem to be much point in speculating about the future of that title, since we already know that issue #3 was the last to be written & drawn by Adam Hughes. No issue #4 has yet been solicited by ACP (and may never be). Certainly the lack of Adam Hughes would affect future sales in a negative direction, so who could predict whether this could still be a viable reboot?


Woah,Good point I guess the series remain in hiatus because Adam is done with the series.At least Rachael Stott is in charge of the series even though  we don't see the sneak preview of her version of Betty and Veronica

DeCarlo Rules

Quote from: terrence12 on July 09, 2017, 07:21:01 AM
Maybe I guess the reason Diamond doesn't add Digests into their stats is because they think Digest are just relics of the past for which they are.

It has nothing to do with any prejudicial attitude towards the digest format on the part of Diamond Comics. They distribute hundreds of products every single week, but they don't produce a monthly sales report detailing the sales on every single item they distribute.

It's much simpler than that. They only list sales for the top 300+ or so publications (and there is a separate list for trade collections) that they distributed every month, so things that sold fewer copies fall off the bottom of the list, because that data becomes irrelevant when the numbers get too small. Archie's digests aren't on Diamond's sales reports lists because they sell very poorly -- in comic book shops -- compared to other comics they carry. So yes, the digests sell even worse than those floppy comic titles ACP is cancelling in comic book stores. The purpose of Diamond reporting their sales list is so that comic shop retailers can know which comics are selling well (or not so well) in stores other than their own, which would help them make decisions about which comics they should preorder (or RE-order) from Diamond, and in what quantities. If Diamond were to report sales on every single product they distribute, the list would be thousands of items long, with some products selling less than 1000 units.

But Archie's digests (unlike their floppy-format comic books) aren't dependent on Diamond Comic Distributors for the majority of their sales, because Diamond sells its products mainly to independent comic shops -- and there are only about 2000 or so of those stores in North America. Archie digests are mainly sold in other diverse retail chain stores, where they sell much better than they do in comic book stores.

DeCarlo Rules

Quote from: terrence12 on July 09, 2017, 05:07:52 AM
Then this will be the end of Archie comics unless there is hope maybe Goldwater would sell the company to IDW known for their best licensed and they will make the Archie series as a comedy Period piece series set in the 40's to 50's since the series is known then or I could be wrong.

No, I said "IF these titles, collectively, represent what Archie Comics as a publisher is depending on for its profitability and survival, they are indeed in big, big trouble."

Are ACP's floppy comics titles its primary source of revenue as a company? No, I don't believe that's true. Floppy comic sales are the only sales we know with any degree of certainty, because of Diamond Comics' sales lists, and because Diamond distributes nearly all the floppy comic books sold to retailers. They're reporting those because that is the format of comics that is most important to COMIC BOOK STORES. Trade paperbacks and hardcover sales are also important to comic book stores (and Diamond also reports those), but still not as much as floppy comics sales. The relative importance of those formats is different, depending on whether you're a comic shop retailer or a comic book publisher. Trade and hardcover collections are sold in many more places than just comic book stores. Archie digests are sold in many more locations than just comic book stores. Then there are digital comic sales, which are also important to a publisher, but only to a retailer as far as it eats into his print comic sales. Publishers also derive income from the licensing and merchandising of their company-owned intellectual properties.

Mr.Lodge


terrence12

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 09, 2017, 10:54:08 AM
Quote from: terrence12 on July 09, 2017, 07:21:01 AM
Maybe I guess the reason Diamond doesn't add Digests into their stats is because they think Digest are just relics of the past for which they are.

It has nothing to do with any prejudicial attitude towards the digest format on the part of Diamond Comics. They distribute hundreds of products every single week, but they don't produce a monthly sales report detailing the sales on every single item they distribute.

It's much simpler than that. They only list sales for the top 300+ or so publications (and there is a separate list for trade collections) that they distributed every month, so things that sold fewer copies fall off the bottom of the list, because that data becomes irrelevant when the numbers get too small. Archie's digests aren't on Diamond's sales reports lists because they sell very poorly -- in comic book shops -- compared to other comics they carry. So yes, the digests sell even worse than those floppy comic titles ACP is cancelling in comic book stores. The purpose of Diamond reporting their sales list is so that comic shop retailers can know which comics are selling well (or not so well) in stores other than their own, which would help them make decisions about which comics they should preorder (or RE-order) from Diamond, and in what quantities. If Diamond were to report sales on every single product they distribute, the list would be thousands of items long, with some products selling less than 1000 units.

But Archie's digests (unlike their floppy-format comic books) aren't dependent on Diamond Comic Distributors for the majority of their sales, because Diamond sells its products mainly to independent comic shops -- and there are only about 2000 or so of those stores in North America. Archie digests are mainly sold in other diverse retail chain stores, where they sell much better than they do in comic book stores.


That's true though people will probably ignore the digest and just look online at previous issues instead,Since Digest are probably outdated.Still if Archie comics is closed down because of low sales in the near future maybe the only hope is to have it sold to IDW so that the company will revive the series as a humour period piece taking place in the 40's and 50's since this is the era where Archie gain popularity.

DeCarlo Rules

Quote from: terrence12 on July 09, 2017, 01:01:41 PM
That's true though people will probably ignore the digest and just look online at previous issues instead,Since Digest are probably outdated.

When you say "people", you assume they all think like you do, and love comics in the "floppy comic format" only. Comics readers outside of comic book store consumers have no special attachment to that format. "Outdated" is just an opinion. It means nothing. What's important is that these "outdated" digests are selling to, and being read by, far more people than the current "modern" ARCHIE floppy comic book. Because they're being sold in stores where people are going to buy things anyway, not to collectors making lists of what comics they want and making special trips to a special store to purchase that one type of product. Those "outdated" readers (many of whom are kids, or the parents of kids) probably won't be reading their comics online. If I had to take a guess, I'd say it's a habit that gets passed down from a parent to a child, and/or a purchase that gets made for a child by a parent in a lot of cases. For many of those, these would be the only comics they see outside of a newspaper comic section.

Otherwise why waste the company's money on the 48 printers' bills they have to pay every year to put them out? Couldn't they spend the same money on bills for printing floppy comics instead? But of course that would cost even more, because then they have to fill another 15 pages of comics with new material that needs to be paid for -- for an audience in comic book stores, that doesn't really care about Archie anyway, new or old.

It's funny how those digests keep getting recycled into variant formats like Archie Giant Comics or Archie 1000-Page Comics digests, and this is a recent phenomenon that's only happened in the last 3-4 years. I would guess that's because bookstore and chain store customers wanted more and bigger Archie digests, and digests that would have a shelf-life beyond the next issue. Judging by the number of them released so far, you can't argue that that's probably THE company's biggest success of recent years, in terms of pure profit.

terrence12

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 09, 2017, 01:38:23 PM
Quote from: terrence12 on July 09, 2017, 01:01:41 PM
That's true though people will probably ignore the digest and just look online at previous issues instead,Since Digest are probably outdated.

When you say "people", you assume they all think like you do, and love comics in the "floppy comic format" only. Comics readers outside of comic book store consumers have no special attachment to that format. "Outdated" is just an opinion. It means nothing. What's important is that these "outdated" digests are selling to, and being read by, far more people than the current "modern" ARCHIE floppy comic book. Because they're being sold in stores where people are going to buy things anyway, not to collectors making lists of what comics they want and making special trips to a special store to purchase that one type of product. Those "outdated" readers (many of whom are kids, or the parents of kids) probably won't be reading their comics online. If I had to take a guess, I'd say it's a habit that gets passed down from a parent to a child, and/or a purchase that gets made for a child by a parent in a lot of cases. For many of those, these would be the only comics they see outside of a newspaper comic section.

Otherwise why waste the company's money on the 48 printers' bills they have to pay every year to put them out? Couldn't they spend the same money on bills for printing floppy comics instead? But of course that would cost even more, because then they have to fill another 15 pages of comics with new material that needs to be paid for -- for an audience in comic book stores, that doesn't really care about Archie anyway, new or old.

It's funny how those digests keep getting recycled into variant formats like Archie Giant Comics or Archie 1000-Page Comics digests, and this is a recent phenomenon that's only happened in the last 3-4 years. I would guess that's because bookstore and chain store customers wanted more and bigger Archie digests, and digests that would have a shelf-life beyond the next issue. Judging by the number of them released so far, you can't argue that that's probably THE company's biggest success of recent years, in terms of pure profit.


You  might have a good point there.Though I still think that in about few years,Digests will no longer be in newsstand as the company will focus more on their comics and graphic novels in both bookstores and comic book stores instead.




But still, What do you think if Archie Comics is being sold by IDW in case the former was about to go bankrupt due to low sales and low ratings on the TV show ,Think about it  IDW will make a new comedy period piece on Archie where it will take place in the 40's and 50's since those eras were considered Archie's popular period.

DeCarlo Rules

Quote from: terrence12 on July 09, 2017, 11:29:17 PM
But still, What do you think if Archie Comics is being sold by IDW in case the former was about to go bankrupt due to low sales and low ratings on the TV show ,Think about it  IDW will make a new comedy period piece on Archie where it will take place in the 40's and 50's since those eras were considered Archie's popular period.

IDW is one of the existing companies that would be the best custodians of the Archie Comics legacy (the other candidates would be Dark Horse or Fantagraphics). Aside from appealing to collectors and those who are appreciative of comic books of the past, I can't see any sort of new floppy comic format series set in the 1940s or 1950s working, though. Its appeal is far too limited. Anything set in the past is a very tough sell in the current comic marketplace. A modified version of that approach, something like what was done with Batman the Animated Series, which is to create a sort of 'timeless' world where artifacts and fashions of the past coexist, blended with some more modern things (like computers and phones), might be more acceptable to the current comics market.

Still, the recent discontinuation of IDW's floppy comic versions of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Walt Disney's Comics & Stories might be an omen -- IDW is replacing those floppy comic titles with more modern, less traditional, spins on the classic Disney characters, and converting WDC&S to a $7.95 prestige/bookshelf-format (squarebound, 68 page, slick cardstock-covered) comic, and combining Mickey & Donald into one comic in the same format, re-testing their acceptance in the marketplace on a quarterly schedule. There are definitely some parallels to be drawn between the classic Disney comics and classic Archie comics.

If anything though, I'm more and more convinced that what works for the comic shop/comic book collector audience does not work for the expansion of comics into the general marketplace. The idea of getting a 20-page continuity (that isn't usually even a complete story in itself) for $4 is just not conducive to reaching out to the many potential comics readers out in the real world. NO retailers want to carry that product except for comic shop retailers (because they are pre-motivated sellers), and it's necessary for genres other than action/adventure type comic books to find those readers outside of the insular culture of comic book fandom. Casual comics readership needs to become a real possibility, with easy accessibility to the product, complete done-in-one stories, and a product with more pages that looks and feels like a substantial entertainment experience (that is more likely to be perceived by the average person as good value for money) for the comics reading experience to be considered viable by the average reader who hasn't been immersed in decades of comic book culture.

Since comic book collectors have come to accept the floppy comic format, and indeed prefer it, as the format of choice, they are completely blind to the many detractions it holds for the average person. The idea of needing to get the next issue, and the next, and the next... before you have a complete story.  The very fact that no retailers outside of comic book store owners want to carry that format ought to have been telling the comic book industry that, 30 or more years ago, but it was easier for publishers to persist in producing the same-old, same-old, as long there remained a rabid cult audience which demanded that very format for comics, because decades of programming made them comfortable with the thing they were most familiar with. The floppy comic was a good and economically-viable model for casual readers for a few decades, but has grown increasingly less so since at least the 1970s, and the industry just doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that the price-point/page-count/accessibility of purchase (non-direct distribution) issue is the one biggest thing that CAN be changed to get comics back out of the comic shop and into the real world of average readers.

terrence12


Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 10, 2017, 05:32:31 AM
IDW is one of the existing companies that would be the best custodians of the Archie Comics legacy (the other candidates would be Dark Horse or Fantagraphics). Aside from appealing to collectors and those who are appreciative of comic books of the past, I can't see any sort of new floppy comic format series set in the 1940s or 1950s working, though. Its appeal is far too limited. Anything set in the past is a very tough sell in the current comic marketplace. A modified version of that approach, something like what was done with Batman the Animated Series, which is to create a sort of 'timeless' world where artifacts and fashions of the past coexist, blended with some more modern things (like computers and phones), might be more acceptable to the current comics market.



Well,It does work for Don Rosa when he made the stories and sequels based on Carl Barks's Duck stories as it takes in the exact era the Carl Barks comics were published as in the 50's but I think what you said about 'A modified version of that approach, something like what was done with Batman the Animated Series, which is to create a sort of 'timeless' world where artifacts and fashions of the past coexist' would work since it will take place in a mixture of the modern and 50's era ,When IDW owns the rights of Archie Comic incase the company goes bankrupt. I mean they did fine with Popeye but your are right it is difficult to choose who will own the rights of Archie comics,Dark Horse or IDW not Fantagraphics since the company just only publish Graphic novels.




Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 10, 2017, 05:32:31 AM
Still, the recent discontinuation of IDW's floppy comic versions of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Walt Disney's Comics & Stories might be an omen -- IDW is replacing those floppy comic titles with more modern, less traditional, spins on the classic Disney characters, and converting WDC&S to a $7.95 prestige/bookshelf-format (squarebound, 68 page, slick cardstock-covered) comic, and combining Mickey & Donald into one comic in the same format, re-testing their acceptance in the marketplace on a quarterly schedule. There are definitely some parallels to be drawn between the classic Disney comics and classic Archie comics.



Woah,No kidding.Maybe the reason IDW comic book versions of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Walt Disney's Comics & Stories is because no one is interested in those stories or maybe it's because there is not single american version of the disney comics like in the 50's to early 90's .As most of the stories come from Belgium and Italy and are translated into english.



Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on July 10, 2017, 05:32:31 AM
If anything though, I'm more and more convinced that what works for the comic shop/comic book collector audience does not work for the expansion of comics into the general marketplace. The idea of getting a 20-page continuity (that isn't usually even a complete story in itself) for $4 is just not conducive to reaching out to the many potential comics readers out in the real world. NO retailers want to carry that product except for comic shop retailers (because they are pre-motivated sellers), and it's necessary for genres other than action/adventure type comic books to find those readers outside of the insular culture of comic book fandom. Casual comics readership needs to become a real possibility, with easy accessibility to the product, complete done-in-one stories, and a product with more pages that looks and feels like a substantial entertainment experience (that is more likely to be perceived by the average person as good value for money) for the comics reading experience to be considered viable by the average reader who hasn't been immersed in decades of comic book culture.

Since comic book collectors have come to accept the floppy comic format, and indeed prefer it, as the format of choice, they are completely blind to the many detractions it holds for the average person. The idea of needing to get the next issue, and the next, and the next... before you have a complete story.  The very fact that no retailers outside of comic book store owners want to carry that format ought to have been telling the comic book industry that, 30 or more years ago, but it was easier for publishers to persist in producing the same-old, same-old, as long there remained a rabid cult audience which demanded that very format for comics, because decades of programming made them comfortable with the thing they were most familiar with. The floppy comic was a good and economically-viable model for casual readers for a few decades, but has grown increasingly less so since at least the 1970s, and the industry just doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that the price-point/page-count/accessibility of purchase (non-direct distribution) issue is the one biggest thing that CAN be changed to get comics back out of the comic shop and into the real world of average readers.


Good point

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