Shown here, are a series of posts from anons who have been monitoring the sales figures each month for the respective comic releases. The numbers show a steady downward trend for sales, but the biggest drop comes from the 2014 My Little Pony Annual, written by Ted Anderson. The numbers, which we verified through 3rd party sites such as Comichron confirm a total sales number of 15,292 copies.
For comparison's sake, that puts it as the lowest-selling individual new pony comic release for the month, trailing Friends Forever 9 by over 1500 (nearly 9% drop) and even further behind the main series #23 by nearly 4200 copies, a difference of over 20% in sales.
For a proper comparison, last year's 2013 annual sold 18,614 copies, showing a same-series drop of nearly 18%. The first issues of IDW's My Little Pony were each clearing 40,000 copies.
The factors for this noticeable slide could be numerous, though many people believe it to be in response to the controversy associated with the 2014 annual, and the actions of Ted Anderson. More data will be required, but it is uncertain how much farther the IDW sales will slip over time.
Sure, Ted is a dick, but didn't the incident only start around 2 weeks ago when it's October 6th now? The last week of September is not enough time to show a significant decrease if that's the main issue.
ReplyDeleteSince comic sales have been decreasing constantly and consistently for months now I'd say a prolonged hiatus is to blame. Anything past half a year and fans start to focus on other things. With the rate it's going now, (due mainly to the Hub channel change), we may be looking at a full year for hiatus.
Hasbro, don't let your cash cow starve to death. I'm sure your stockholders wouldn't appreciate it anymore than the fans would.
While I agree it's too soon for this to be related to the Ted Andumbasson stuff, you'd think sales would go UP during the hiatus as people are desperate for content.
DeleteHahaha oh wow.
ReplyDeleteHey Liki, maybe you would want to edit your article to add this:
Last year's Annual was polemic as shit and drawn by Tony "I-can't-fucking-draw" Fleecs, yet it sold 18,614 comics, aka 3,322 more comics that this year's annual (which had much nicer art and a better story)
This year's annual was shit. And only the second half of last year's annual was shit (funny enough, that's the half written by Ted)
DeleteI think this is more of a hit from the shit Reflections arc, its much too soon for Ted Anderson to be making any kind of real impact
ReplyDelete... lol?
ReplyDeleteWow, guys, you are really grasping at straws here. The Anderson news is less than a week old, that's way too late to impact sales, especially since the vast majority of comic readers are going to be either casual fans or little girls, who are very unlikely to know anything about the whole Anderson fiasco. There are very few people who know anything about Ted's Tumblr drama. This is not national news.
ReplyDeleteBesides, last year's annual had a hit animated movie backing it up, and considering how well the Equestria Girls dolls sold, it makes sense that kids would be picking up this issue as well. This year's annual has a bunch of characters we've never seen before, who were just alluded to in a single episode. That's not anywhere near as appealing. The annual was going to see a dip in sales no matter who wrote it. If anything, it's surprising that the sales drop was only 18%.
I do like that the delusional autist whose thread you screencapped acts like IDW's head editor is going to be reading his thread. Yeah, kiddo, Bobby Curnow has no idea what the sales on his own comics are. Thank goodness you came along and told him.
Nice damage control, Round Stable.
DeleteRound because your ass is fat and Stable because it stinks like the fat cow you are?
LOL!
That....was embarrassing Anon #2. Real grade school level.
DeleteYou didn't even call them faggots. Poor show.
Ted's backlash is only a week and so old, so it couldn't have affected the sales of the annual.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, that comic sold poorly because it was shit. Which blows when you remember that it was also Ben Bates' final comic before he moved on to a different field.
I see that Ted also subscribes to the hypocritical thinkings of "Jokes about rape are bad, but jokes about killing people, ESPECIALLY over mundane things are A-OK!"
ReplyDeleteFucking social justice retards.
And don't forget rape PORN is perfectly fine, because masturbating to rape doesn't spread "rape culture" because I said so.
DeleteWanna know how fucked up Tumblr is? It's not even dragondicks that says shit like this. I once saw this one yaoi fangirl whine about "rape culture", draw porn of Naruto all bloody and pissing himself as he was being raped, and then she actually has the nerve to go "this is okay because it's NOT REAL, UNLIKE RAPE JOKES".
I stopped buying the comics after the celestia + sombra BULL SHIT
ReplyDelete"BAAAAAAAAW MY WAIFU HAS A CANON BOYFRIEND BAAAAAAAAAAW"
DeleteI hear IDW makes its ink with genuine brony tears.
Nice damage control, bro.
DeleteThe sales are still falling despite your epic SJW post, though.
And they will keep dropping and dropping but keep being an autistic whiteknight if that makes you feel like you are helping.
The sales can fall all they want, but Celestia/Sombra is still canon.
Delete"B-but white knights and autism and SJW and I can't form a sentence without invoking 50 memes!"
That's nice, kiddo. You don't sound upset at all. Weep harder.
Celestia/Sombra is canon and also shit. :D
DeleteNow go back to the Round Stable to talk about femiism and how you men are so opressed and tired of the same toxic internet behaviour you guys spread around 24/7 as if it were your day job.
Probably it is, too.
Anon #1 is still a crying waifufag, regardless of other anon's possible SJW-ness.
DeleteThe comics had a great start.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, IDW's staff took the readers' support for granted and began to approve really shitty comics.
This is the result.
If you look at the total sales chart, you'll notice that comic sales fell across the board for ALL of IDW's titles, including non-pony ones. It was a bad month for everyone, in fact, because DC was running a special event and that cut into every other company's sales. Pretty much every publisher that wasn't DC took a sales hit, even Marvel.
ReplyDeleteIf Ted Anderson does cause a sales drop we won't know about it until October's numbers are out. Right now this seems pretty standard for September, as DC does these events every year and they always bite into everyone else's sales.
Liki, it seems you're grasping at straws again, my love
ReplyDeleteReporting numbers from a reliable source (provided there) is grasping at straws now?
DeleteFrom what I can see, IDW's whiteknights are the ones grasping at straws to rationalize and justify the decline of what used to be the juiciest cashcow ever.
While I really, REALLY don't want to see this turn into another GamerGate, the fact that people keep coming here and trying to rationize this to rub it in people's faces instead of stating that it's simply on a natural decline thanks to a number of variables tells me Ted Anderson's supporters (by which, I mean dragondicks, because it's late 2014, who the fuck else hasn't move on from whining about bronies?) are scared.
DeleteThere are three things losers do when they're scared: They get angry, they get smug, and then they negotiate. What we're seeing now is getting smug. After they burn themselves out on pretending they don't think this is a big deal, they'll try to negotiate, and then the cycle will repeat itself as it always does.
Reporting incomplete numbers with no context (the MLP comics are still the best selling books put out by IDW, but /mlp/ wants to make it look like their sales are in the toilet) is textbook grasping at straws.
DeleteMaking the assumption that this is because of some Ted Anderson backlash when there is zero evidence of that goes beyond straw-grasping; now you kids are straight-up desperate.
You want the big, scary SJW to be punished so bad, but you're too chickenshit to actually do anything about it, so instead you rationalize easily explainable sales dips as some sort of gigantic, company-destroying catastrophe for IDW.
Like the other anon mentioned above, every comic book publisher beside DC had a drop in sales last month.
Also, it's cold outside. I give it 24 hours before HN finds a way to blame Dragondicks for that, too.
Nice SJW damage control, but numbers don't lie.
DeleteStay mad, fatties.
"Like the other anon mentioned above"
DeleteI think you mispelled "Like I said in my other post above", m8.
The numbers certainly don't lie, and they show that IDW's drop is part of an industry-wide one. Sorry if that math is a bit too advanced for you. Keep getting hysterical over your pretend boycott.
Delete>my love
DeleteI thought I smelled tumblr somewhere around here...
Everyone is a defensive little faggot and everyone has nice damage control.
DeleteThere. You can stop arguing now.
I'm not surprised by this.
ReplyDelete>implying that bronies are the main audience for these comics
ReplyDelete>implying that most of its readers aren't kids
>implying that a kid's comic losing readers the first month after summer vacation ends isn't incredibly common
>implying that Hiatus News isn't just desperate for content so they're pretending there's a story here
>implying that you're not equally desperate for something to get buttmad about so you're swallowing it hook line and sinker
>implying that all the "nice damage control" posts aren't by the same furious autist
Kek.
Nice damage control.
DeleteAlso, > Implying that all of the "Hurr hurr numers prove nuthing stoopid auteest" post aren't by the same butthurt shill.
>implying bronies and horsefuckers aren't a considerable market for these things
Deleteare you high
I hate Ted Anderson as much as the next faggot, but I'm not really sure you understand much about comic sales, Author.
ReplyDeleteAs other Anons have already pointed out, Anderson's licking of Dragondick's clit was a bit too late to influence the numbers you're reporting, but aside from that, the general trend of all comics is to start out at a certain volume and then slowly trickle down, except when boosted through advertising campaigns. Sooner or later, you're left with only hard-core fans (or subscribers for serialized publications) that will keep the line steady and plus or minus a bunch of spur-of-the-moment buys.
This isn't really "news," it's been the fate of all comics since around the mid-60's (unless you count Japan, but Japan's too weird to count) after the comic boom.
I'd also like to point out that the numbers "reported" aren't the actual consumer sales, but instead the amount shipped to distributors. That's one of the reasons comics always decline in sales--shops make sure to have enough, and then slowly cut the amount they request as a distributor until they're selling close to what they order. (Anyone that's done any kind of inventory/ordering on a regular basis will understand this concept.)
Certainly, it's a basis for consumer purchases, but it does not (as explained) necessarily mean a decline in actual sales or interest.
This being said, though, I do agree that Bronies (or "Horsefuckers" if you prefer) are a bigger share of the market when it comes to the comics than some Anons have tried to imply. /mlp/, though, probably not so much as other communities; let's be real, the majority of the people bitching about the comics don't even buy them when it comes to /mlp/ (as opposed to some other site where they're always sucking author/artist/colorist/etc. dick).
Anyhow, the TL;DR of it is that the implication that a drop in distribution of comics is the direct cause of lack of interest is bogus, and you can just look at comic trends over the past 50 or 60 years if you need proof. This isn't "news," it's more like some "the ride is ending" bullshit.
You are my favourite anon.
DeleteNice damage control
DeleteI'm also my favorite Anon.
ReplyDeleteExcept for Anon--dude's pretty cool when he's not a faggot.