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Print Is Dead; Long Live Print!: Are Digital Comics Killing the Print Comics Industry?

“There have been so many times that they have declared the death knell of the comics industry that it’s almost like a joke now.”

- , CEO of Diamond Comics Distribution, in an interview with Dan Shahin, 28 April 2020

In Reinventing Comics (2000), published at the peak of the so-called “Dot Com Bubble,”

Scott McCloud predicted that the future of comics would be digital. McCloud anticipated that improvements to bandwidth and more broadly available high-speed internet access would generate a “frictionless economy” in which comics “travel as pure information from producer to reader” (163). At around the same time, comics published solely to the Internet without production or oversight by major comics publishers became popular. These “webcomics” shirked traditional publication and distribution channels, skipping print runs in favor of advertising revenue and merchandising. Webcomics quickly developed throughout the 2000s, and the form has become a professional niche within comics production worthy of examination in its own right.

Quickly after McCloud’s pronouncement that better connection speeds and increased access to connections would dismantle the comics industry as we knew it, many who were invested in the success of printed comics panicked. In a direct-to-consumer model, there was no room for the publisher, the distributor, or the retailer, the major players in the economy of comics. At the same time, however, many saw the Internet not as an industry-killing weapon, but instead a tool of advancement and improvement. Jacqueline Danziger-Russell describes the webcomics landscape as an “incredible experimental space” where “fresh new ideas and styles can be explored and where an artist may hone their talents with little monetary investment” Eveleth 2

(Danziger-Russell 203). Freed from the shackles of minimum print runs and archaic no-returns policies pushed by distributors, comics could theoretically diversify by negating economic validity from the equation. With no shareholders to satisfy and fewer margins and overhead to cover, comics artists could be empowered to experiment while consumers, who could stretch their money further thanks to lower costs, could afford to try out new styles and creators.

It has been two decades since McCloud’s pronouncement that digital comics were the way of the future. In other media, we might say that the very future McCloud predicted is, indeed, happening now. What remains to be determined is whether digital comics are a viable alternative to print comics. The present essay looks at recent sales data and suggests that, unlike most other entertainment media formats, comics remain primarily a printed medium.

A Physical Medium in A Digital World

If we consider the example of other mass media, McCloud’s arguments in Reinventing

Comics have not been misguided. Many other entertainment formats, including film, scripted television, and even live sporting events have undergone a mass exodus to on-demand streaming services. At the corporate level, this has introduced new powers into the fold while decreasing the strength of formerly titanic entities. Many once-proud giants of the media stage have been drawn, quartered, and sold off to become parts of other multinational conglomerates, even as upstart niche companies have become multimedia overlords. For example, Netflix, once a rival of VHS and DVD rental giant Blockbuster, pioneered the streaming video sensation. Even conglomerate media giants like Disney and AT&T, which own Marvel and DC, respectively, generate much of their revenue not from physical media sales, but rather from streaming and digital delivery. In February of 2020, Disney reported that its streaming service, Disney+, had Eveleth 3 topped 28 million subscribers (Faughnder 1). AT&T still generates most of its revenue (39% in

2018) from its mobile and internet service divisions, though its two entertainment divisions combined generate slightly more (42%) of its annual income (AT&T 5). Such forms of integration are commonplace in the new, so-called “digital revolution” (Arthofer et al. 1), and

Netflix is one of the leaders in the industry. As Annabelle Gauberti explains,

SVoD [subscription video on-demand] services like Netflix have declared an open war on

the fragmented audiovisual content industry which has prospered for decades, grazing on

horizontally segmented industry models. Netflix is at the forefront of structuring end-to-

end vertical SVoD services, going direct to consumers and ruthlessly bypassing theatres,

broadcasters, networks, cable operators and even television manufacturers. (4)

Arthofer et al. note that in 2016, the transformation of television and filmed entertainment puts at

stake “some $570 billion in annual market value—in content creation, aggregation, and distribution” (1). Though there are many ramifications contingent upon how such vertical integration shakes down both locally and globally (see Arthofer et al.), it is almost certain that competing conglomerates, each housing their own data-access divisions, entertainment divisions, and other holdings, will continue to strive to integrate their media production and distribution services with their content delivery mechanisms.

At the creative level, the actual content being produced has changed significantly. What was once tightly controlled by a handful of production houses has, for the most part, been divvied up between not just the corporate creators and owners, but also amongst the people.

Amateur content creation is enormously popular in 2020, and, more importantly, the economic Eveleth 4 viability of amateur content creation has been realized. In just fifteen years (marked by the

creation of YouTube in 2005), the glimmer of possibility that was user-created content has

exploded in volume and value. The democratization of media content has produced a multi-

billion-dollar global market (Klat) that spends upwards of five hours a day consuming amateur-

production content. Consumer-creator content has exploded not only in popularity but also in

scope; what was once limited to blogs and vlogs has diversified and developed into, among other

formats, streaming gaming content, YouTube hobby tutorials, amateur albums on Soundcloud,

and ASMR mukbang videos. In 2020, consumer-created digital media has validated Danziger-

Russell’s claims of an “incredible experimental space” where “fresh new ideas and styles can be

explored” (203). Alongside new platforms for media creation and curation, new methods of

monetizing one’s work—including ad revenue and merchandise, yes, but more eminently crowd-

funding—have empowered users to become full-time content creators.

In the face of this “digital revolution,” however, some forms of media have continued to

be consumed primarily via physical products. Contrary to McCloud’s prediction, the comics

industry in 2020 remains stolidly grounded in printed media. Whereas the consumption of many

other media formats has shifted enormously away from physical media toward digital delivery,

comics as an industry has actually seen unprecedented growth in its sales of physical media. Two

decades after McCloud’s contention that comics will flow electronically straight from creator to

reader, digital comics still make up less than 10% of the total sales of comics in North America

(Miller).

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2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Mass- 210 245 285 350 405 400 465 Market Graphic Novels

Comic 300 340 355 385 405 355 360 Store Comic Books

Comic 175 170 175 185 165 160 150 Store Graphic Novels

Other 30 25 20 20 20 10 20 Print

Digital 75* 90 100 90 90 90 100

Total Sales 790 870 935 1030 1085 1015 1095 Table 1. North American Annual Comics Sales Figures by Channel. Amounts are in millions of US dollars. Note that 2012 digital sales were estimated. Data from Miller and Griepp, 2020. Since 2012, combined print and digital comics sales in North America have increased steadily from approximately $795 million to $1.095 billion, a 37.73% increase over six years. With the exception of 2017, sales have increased every year; even in that “down” year, combined sales were over $1 billion.1 The comics industry continues to increase sales figures annually, and sales numbers in 2020 are perhaps the highest ever seen in North America, even when adjusted for inflation.

Of that number, stores remain the dominant sales channel, accounting for

$510 million (46.6%) in 2018. Since 2012, comic book sales have remained the highest-earning subset of sales at comic book shops. Though comic book shops saw a slight increase in graphic

1 All data is drawn from the collaborative work of John James Miller of Comichron and Milton Griepp of ICv2, cited in the references page. Eveleth 6 novel sales from 2012 to 2015, since 2015 sales of graphic novels at comic shops have decreased steadily in every year. Conversely, from 2014 onward, mass-market sales have

increased tremendously. This revenue channel represents an increasingly important component

of North American comics sales. Mass-market graphic novel sales have increased in both actual sales and proportional sales every year from 2012, when they were just 26.58% of sales, to 2018, when they contributed 42.4% of the total sales. Combined, these two revenue streams account for 89% of all sales.

% Digital % Comic Store % Mass Market % Other 2012 9.49% 60.13% 26.58% 3.80% 2013 10.34% 58.62% 28.16% 2.87% 2014 10.70% 56.68% 30.48% 2.14% 2015 8.74% 55.34% 33.98% 1.94% 2016 8.29% 52.53% 37.33% 1.84% 2017 8.87% 50.74% 39.41% 0.99% Table 2. North American Annual Comics Sales by Percentage from Channel. Comic Store revenue includes both graphic novels and comic book sales. Digital sales, on the other hand, have never contributed more than 11% of total comics

revenue. Early on in record-keeping by Miller and Griepp, digital did not even warrant its own

category; it was estimated in 2012 to be “more than $75 million,” but that figure remains an

estimate without corroboration. Though the figure itself has risen or remained stagnant within

10% since 2013, digital sales have dropped in proportion to between 8 and 9% of total sales (see

Table 2).

Though around the publication of Reinventing Comics there was some concern within

publishing and distribution as to whether digital comics would disrupt established print creation,

distribution, and retail revenue, these fears have proven unfounded. As Steve Geppi, CEO of

Diamond Comics Distribution has said in a recent interview, “when digital came along,

everybody was panicking. Is digital gonna replace print?” Instead, the industry seems to be Eveleth 7 leaning toward an assessment of digital comics as merely supplemental to print media comics delivery: “Digital is gonna help. It’s gonna proselytize the value of these interesting stories.

Maybe somebody will discover comics online. I had great confidence, though, that once they did, they’re going to discover a comic book store, because we’re not just selling products there-- we’re selling the clubhouse” (April 28, 2020).2

It is worth mentioning that another primary driver of print sales in comics lies in the payment model, especially in creator remuneration. Cover prices for single issues in the United

States run between $2.99 and $3.99, with special editions or alternate covers commanding higher

prices and some especially popular second runs of comics (such as Saga and Locke & Key) going

for just $1 each. Trade paperbacks vary, but prices are typically between $9.99 and $19.99,

depending on publisher. Original graphic novels vary most widely in price, though a good

average is $19.99 for a juvenile title and $29.99 or $39.99 for a young adult or adult title. Most

of that income goes to the various intermediaries involved (retailers, distributors, publishers)

while a small amount goes to the creator. Typical pay for respected creators at major houses like

DC and Marvel might be $200-$300 a page, which, in a 20-22-page volume, is between $4000

and $6000 a month. In comparison, as Todd Allen has explained, a self-published comic might make between “$.50 and $1.10 per issue” depending on print run and price point, or “the old

Image comics rule of thumb that says you make about $1.00 per book.”

Digital publishing prices are much lower, on the order of $0.99 per issue. Further, as

Allen explains, the digital distributors take a hefty chunk of that from the creator. Mark Millar reports that Apple takes an immediate 30% off the top of any digital sale through its distributor,

2 It must also be noted that, due to the limited number of distributors and slow industry adoption of direct-to- consumer distribution models, comic book stores remain one of the few places where individual issues can be regularly acquired. Exclusivity may be buttressing sales at comic book shops. Eveleth 8

Comixology. Comixology then splits that remaining 70% evenly with the creator. Thus, on a $1- comic, the creator, if lucky, might get $.35/copy. So, for a low-circulation comic, digital might make more on a per-issue basis. On print runs for established authors, however, Allen explains that one might make “$1.10 to $1.20 per issue” on “a 50K+ print run.” In order to match that,

Allen notes, the publisher would need to run their own system (to bypass licensing through vendors like Apple) and also bump the cover price of a digital issue to at least $1.99.

Though these numbers are from 2011, the pricing models at Comixology have not changed (if anything, the relative decline in global economic activity since the outbreak of

COVID-19 has driven prices down). Allen’s contention that “digital sales might be better considered as ‘found money,’” gained as a supplement to print sales, seems to have held true through the decade. Increasingly, comics creators have been having success selling issues independently via money-exchanging and payment platforms like PayPal, but these kinds of sales are often supplementary to other forms of work the creators might be doing. Thus, from the perspective of both creators and the publishers, digital comics remain a secondary version of the primary thing: large print runs.

The Kids Are Alright: Mass Market Vs. Comic Book Store

Rather than imagine digital comics as the bogeyman that will destroy the comics industry, it is perhaps more prudent to consider how mass-market sales of graphic novels and trade paperbacks have affected the comics market. Between 2012 and 2018, book sales have taken the largest bite out of comic book stores’ proportional sales. In 2012, comic stores accounted for 60.4% of print sales; conversely, mass-market book sales constituted just 26.58%.

Since then, mass-market book sales have increased at a much faster rate than comic book store Eveleth 9 sales, going from $215 million in 2012 to $465 million in 2018. Combined comic book store sales numbers have remained high, averaging $525 million per year, but the proportion of those sales coming from graphic novels has steadily decreased even as total sales have increased (see

Figure 1).

Much of the reason for this appears to be the popularity of the graphic novel as a format, which accounts for $635 million of all sales (58%). Comic books only contribute $360 million to the final accounting (32.8%). Though comic stores carry both formats, most booksellers exclusively sell graphic novels and trade paperbacks, and since 2015 comic book stores have seen decreasing sales numbers for graphic novels.

Figure 1. North American Comics Sales by Type, 2012-2018. MM = Mass Market; LCS = Local Comic Store. Notice that Mass-Market Graphic Novel sales equalled comic book sales in 2016 and surpassed it thereafter. Meanwhile, LCS sales of graphic novels decreased from 215 onward. Note also the relatively stagnant numbers for digital and other channels. Eveleth 10

These trends reflect larger graphic novel sales trends. In short, people are spending more

money on graphic novels at mass-market sellers, including brick-and-mortar stores, , and

Scholastic book fairs, than they are at comic book stores. If trends continue, sales data from as

soon as 2021 could show mass-market graphic novel sales overtaking total sales at comic book

stores. This movement of sales away from comic book stores and into the mass-market is due in large part to a significant departure in North America from traditional superhero comics and the undisputed dominance of juvenile graphic novels. According to The NPD Group, a metrics firm that owns and manages the publishing industry’s standardized tracking system, Bookscan,

Original Graphic Novels in juvenile fiction held a market share of 41% from 2018 to 2019 (NPG

Group, cited in Salkowitz). The second-highest area within Original Graphic Novel sales was

Manga with a 28% market share. Superhero comics and graphic novels held a mere 10% share, a drop of 9.6% year-over-year (ibid.) (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. US Comic & Graphic Novel share by Category. Source: Salkowitz, Rob. Cited in references. Eveleth 11

Indeed, the 2010s has been the decade of the juvenile graphic novel. As NPD reported in

December 2019, all of the ten best-selling original graphic novels sold between 2010 and 2019 were juvenile graphic novels; of them, six were written by Dav Pilkey (Dog Man) and three were written by Raina Telgemeier (Smile, Sisters, Drama) (NPD Group, cited in Arrant). In 2018 alone, nineteen of the top twenty best-selling books were aimed at juvenile audiences (Clint

McElroy’s Here There Be Gerblins is the sole book) (Hibbs 2). For the better part of the decade,

Scholastic publishing has dominated the graphic novels scene; DC has traded back and forth for the number one spot, while Marvel has jumped in and out of the top three publishers.

Returning to the original argument of this essay, this finding suggests that, as Jacqueline

Danziger-Russell suggests, webcomics remain “humble beginnings” from which comics careers are launched (201). The “gold standard” of achievement for many webcomics creators continues to be a job at a print-comics company. Historically, a job with the so-called “Big Three”--

Marvel, DC, and to a much lesser extent Image--has been considered the hallmark of success in the broader culture of comics creation and consumption. In the 2010s, however, this achievement has been superseded by the power of Scholastic as a publisher and retailer. The “jump” from webcomics to print comics has been an important career development for such lauded creators as

Raina Telgemeier, Ryan North (The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl), Fred Gallagher and Rodney

Caston (Megatokyo), Kazu Kibuishi (Amulet), Kate Beaton (Hark! A Vagrant), Noelle Stevenson

(Lumberjanes), ONE (One-Punch Man), Leigh Dragoon (Vampire Academy), Hope Larson (A

Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel), and Randall Munroe (XKCD). Amongst webcomics creators, Scholastic remains a major publisher--to some extent, a greater opportunity than one of the major comics publishers. Eveleth 12

Even if the writer does not land one of the coveted spots with Scholastic, sales from

Scholastic’s distribution is often enough to improve the standing of a book. For example, Ryan

North and Erica Henderson’s Original Graphic Novel, Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel

Universe (2018), though published by Marvel, was a huge hit at Scholastic book fairs. Other

Marvel-published trade paperbacks that are popular with kids, including Brandon Montclare and

Amy Reeder’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, are sold more frequently by Scholastic than by comic book stores. So great has been Marvel’s success selling at Scholastic that they announced a multi-year exclusive deal to “produce original stories featuring iconic superheroes” in “middle grade novels” (Puc).

I cannot overstate Scholastic’s absolute dominance of print media publishing of graphic novels in North America. Arguably, it has a much greater impact on the comics tastes of North

Americans than the entirety of the “traditional” comics houses. As Brian Hibbs notes in his review of BookScan’s annual sales report that Scholastic remains as the number one publisher for the fourth year in a row since 2015. It has a staggering 33% market share of Western publishers. Its 58 placing books in the top 750 titles of 2018 alone brought in some $53 million in sales (Hibbs 4). Eveleth 13

Figure 3. 2018 Market Share of Western Publishers of Graphic Novels. Source: Hibbs, Brian. If we look more closely at Figure 3, we will notice that the “Big Three” of traditional

comics publishing have a combined share that remains lower than Scholastic’s (just 28%

between DC [10%], Marvel [9%], and Image [6%]). In fact, comparing all other major comics

publishers, such as Andrews McMeel (5%, publishers of Universal Press Syndicate collections

like The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, and so on), Dark Horse (3%), IDW (2%), and Boom!

(1%), the total is still just 39% of the entire market. It is clear that, when considering the larger

arena of publishing—even publishing in comics and graphic novels—the “main players” in the

comics industry are still very small fish in a large, exceedingly predator-filled pond.

Summing Up: Digital Comics As Gateway

To summarize the sales data that I have presented in this essay, print comics are currently in no danger whatsoever of being overtaken by digital sales. Since 2012, digital sales have remained relatively stagnant at between $90 and $100 million per year, while total sales of Eveleth 14 comics have been increasing steadily year-over-year. Without digital sales, the comics publishing establishment would retain almost 90% of its sales. Insofar as the established publishing and distribution houses are concerned, digital is nothing more than a gateway to the

“real” stuff of purchasing physical copies.

To some extent, digital-as-supplement makes sense because of the central role that community and fandom play in comics. As Geppi notes, comic book stores offer a sense of community. Though that particular community is slowly being overtaken by sales from mass- market booksellers, nevertheless the comics community has retained a value for single-issue comics that ensure the industry will remain profitable for some time. Even in the wake of global pandemic, it is unlikely that comics will suddenly shift to primarily digital delivery over physical. Indeed, as Geppi quips during his interview with Dan Shahin, comics retailers are in a better situation than, say, food retailers or restaurants; comics do not expire, and as soon as people are back to work, many comics fanatics will begin collecting their backlog of published issues and settle back into collecting.

The present study does not pretend to be a complete overview of how digital comics production and delivery compares to physical production and delivery. For one thing, the present study does not take into account the extremely large secondary market. As Allen notes, there is no collectability in digital. It is possible that this secondary market drives some of the ravenous single-issue purchasing habits of the most devoted comic book fans. Full collections of especially influential runs, alternate covers, and special editions command high prices, and even retailers who specialize in back-issues nevertheless are often able to charge close to cover price

(if not more) for sought-after back-issues. Eveleth 15

In addition, the present study does not look at other forms of income from comics which

webcomics creators might pursue, such as advertising revenue or crowdfunding. This is in part

because of the difficulty in finding full data to discuss the phenomenon in any depth, the

difficulty of comparing projects, and the comparatively small economy surrounding

crowdfunding versus traditional publishing. Moreover, what data we do have suggests that many

crowdfunders spend their money on both traditional comics streams and nontraditional ones, and

so any comparison would be inherently uneven. Finally, it is worth noting that many webcomics

creators ultimately seek traditional collection and publication of their works, whether they are

hired on by those publishers or whether they obtain single contracts.

Finally, the present study focuses solely on the North American comics market. While

intentional, we must admit that the North American comics market pales in comparison to more

established global markets, such as the comics trade of Japan. In Japan, digital manga compiled

book volumes are more popular than physical volumes, while physical manga magazines are

much more popular than digital manga magazines. In 2018 the All Japan Magazine and Book

Publisher’s and Editor’s Association (AJPEA) reported that physical manga compiled book

volumes (tankōbon) contributed $1.42 billion, while manga magazines accounted for $739

million. Digital manga magazines were much less popular, accounting for just $33.2 million. In

contrast, digital manga compiled book sales were higher than physical book sales, accounting for

$1.76 billion (AJPEA, cited in Sherman). Eveleth 16

Figure 4. Totals on BookScan 2018, by Calculated Retail Dollars. Source: Hibbs, Brian. Despite the popularity of digital manga in Japan, digital manga has been slow to appear

in North America. This is not because Japanese distributors are not present in the North

American market. As Hibbs explains, Japanese distributors Viz and Kodansha have a valuable

market share in the North American comics market (see Figure 5). Rather, the concern until

recently seemed to be a fear of “cannibalizing” their own market. Until very recently, Viz and

Kodansha focused primarily on maintaining a presence in print materials in the US (Aoki).

However, in 2015 representatives from Kodansha International explained that publishers abroad

needed to diversify into digital formats in order to combat illegal distribution due to a lack of

legal options. Noting that “the difference between (manga) in printed and digital format is totally

meaningless,” Sam Yoshiba of Kodansha explained that the real competition is not between Eveleth 17 formats, but rather between digital manga and other digital entertainment formats, like games and social media (Aoki).

As the data collected above has shown, it is not worth it to wonder whether digital comics will rise up to take the place of their more traditional printed forebears. For the time being at least, seeing the two formats as antagonistic or mutually exclusive is counterproductive. Rather, the interplay between digital and print comics should be viewed as a supplementary relationship.

Based on information from per-issue revenue as it compares with larger print-run revenue, it might be valuable for comics publishers to consider allowing trial runs of new comics on a digital basis. This move might allow for a broader range of voices to enter into comics publishing, as webcomics did in the early part of the 21st century. At the same time, it will allow

creators to build cachet and readership, both of which will help them to achieve greater print runs

in traditional formats. Finally, offering both digital and print formats simultaneously (as is often

done with analog musical formats like vinyl) seems like a prudent way to allow collectors to

engage in gathering their materials while still being able to freely read and loan these books to

friends and consumers.

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