The last several months have woken many up to the comic industry’s problems. Retailer Glenn O’Leary blew the doors off of the problems in mainstream comic book content and their “self-insert” characters, which was roundly mocked by industry professionals who felt threatened and identified with his statement. This was followed up by journalist Heidi MacDonald, laying out figures that Marvel and DC Comics were in trouble. Now, buried in another article, it appears DC Comics is in even worse of a position than we’ve suspected.
The writing’s been on the wall for some time. Comic book retailers are closing shops regularly. Marvel and DC Comics made moves to not even report their sales any longer. All while, the gatekeepers of the comic industry kept posting that there was nothing wrong and that sales were fine.
We’ve seen reports that IDW Publishing has laid off more than 40% of its staff in the last year, showing signs of wear for the second-string of mainstream comics as the heavily-licensed publisher under Heather Antos has circled the wagons around diversity hiring at the expense of their content quality. Meanwhile, smaller publishers like Aftershock and Scout Comics were outed as not even paying their creatives.
How does this impact DC Comics? In a recent interview, Batman writer Chip Zdarsky finally blew the doors off the comic industry collapse. He admitted massive issues were going on with the mainstream industry, saying, “The problems in comics are a myriad right now. There are so many ways that the industry is being harmed and is having trouble kind of recovering. It’s facing challenges.”
RELATED: Batman Writer Chip Zdarsky Admits The Problems In The Comic Industry Are “A Myriad Right Now”
While he didn’t elaborate as to sales, after talking with several retailers, reading between the lines of Heidi MacDonald’s shill coverage, one finds that sales have been on a steady decline since the pandemic, as comic readers have mostly gotten out of the habit of reading these books from Marvel and DC Comics after so many of their beloved characters had been changed to be unrecognizable to their classic forms, much of which has been pushing LGBTQ propaganda.
DC Comics has suffered worse than Marvel. With their Dawn of DC relaunch failing to garner much interest, fans seemed tired of having to completely reboot the DC Universe every few years. From New 52, to Rebirth, a third relaunch in just over a decade seemed like a good jumping-off point. Once DC Comics made changes to Superman, Robin, Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, and more to add homosexual virtue signaling, few wanted to continue with the lines. It’s been a running joke in the industry that Batman is the only thing DC Comics can sell anymore.
Sales figures have been confirmed to be in a state of decline, again in a ComicsBeat expose on the industry. Brian Hibbs released an annual report from Bookscan, highlighting sales in the industry to regular bookstores. While we still don’t have the accurate numbers for comic shops, this gives a bellwether as to where the industry is going.
In this expose, Hibbs writes that Marvel and DC Comics represent less than 10% of comic book sales, a shockingly low number for what many call the Big 2.
However, it gets worse for DC Comics, as he writes, “DC had a pretty bad year, with their lowest sales since 2004 – down 25% from 2022 in the bookstore market – even with their highest ever number of titles in the total list. In 2023 they had only 14 titles in the Top 750; in 2013, ten years ago, they had 130. That is a huge and troubling drop – but maybe laying off nearly your entire sales and marketing team is not a great strategy for growth? If someone had been been making a concerted effort to dismantle DC Comics, they couldn’t have been more surgical – luckily, DC still has talented execs like Marie Javins, Jim Lee, Annie de Pies and the rest of the staff who have thwarted those plans. And from what we’re hearing, 2024 will see some more moves to reverse this concerning trend.”
Amazingly, ComicsBeat writers can still spin this as “and that’s a good thing” as many mainstream articles try to mitigate the destruction of entertainment industries like comics at the hands of the woke. These are the same executives who initially led DC Comics into this mess. A new relaunch of a universe—as he’s alluding to with the Absolute DC line—might give a short-term boost but isn’t going to fix the comic industry problems.
DC Comics is on a death spiral, and unless they make wholesale changes to prioritize story and less identity politics virtue signaling at the hands of creators like Tom King or Tom Taylor, we can expect this sales decline will continue.
What do you think of the comic industry problems and DC Comics posting terrible sales? Leave a comment and let us know.
I doubt that Clown Jim Lee and his Cancel Pig friends will turn things around over at DC, because People these days only read Webtoons and Manga.
Love the site but in he same article you indicate both Glenn O’Leary and Chip Zdarsky “blew the doors off” the industry. Maybe another phrase for the other?
Love it hopefully the others are tanking too like Marvel, IDW, Image, Dark Horse, Oni, Valiant, Dynamite, and Archie. Don’t buy any mainstream trash.
This breaks my heart as comics were a big part of my childhood. Death of Superman, Punisher Final Days were such a formative part of my life. Yes I know they turned punisher black but they did it the right way and it was supposed to be an end story, an out for him. I hate what DC has become though and I would rather it die than go on like they have. Realistically DC/Marvel sales will continue to contract to where they just become a small niche product for its core audience again. Then we can start this whole mess again… because, ya know, we never learn from history.
DC and Marvel are taking too long to die.
What gets me is how these shills lose money year after year and yet… Never seem to die.
“They are alone. They are a dying people. We should let them pass.””
– Kosh Naranek
I love some good news. lol