This is an overview of the best-sellers for Comix Experience in 2022. It’s very long, sorry!

Also? Don’t foget to look at the new issue of COMIX EXPERIENCE ONOMATOPOEIA, where we show you what’s shipping in March of ‘23. Also scope on our Jan 23 Graphic Novel Club events, on the events page.

(I apologize upfront for any weird formatting errors – my outbound screen is really nice looking in format, but who knows how it will translate to you?)

Just in case this is your first time reading a sales report from us, let me give you a little background and a longer look at my CV. My name is Brian Hibbs and I own Comix Experience at 305 Divisadero St in the City of San Francisco. I first opened, in this same location, a bit more than 33 years ago on April 1st, 1989, when I was merely twenty-one years old. If you don’t live locally, but you’d like to support our efforts, we have a webstore you can buy from.

San Francisco is currently home to eight comic book stores. The stores are, well us… as well as Amazing Fantasy, Cards & Comics Central, Isotope, Jeffrey’s Toys, Mission: Comics, Silver Sprocket and Sour Cherry Comics. At least one of those still isn’t open to walk-in customers post-Covid, and most are still on reduced hours compared to their operations in 2019. This number of stores is significantly down from twenty-four stores when I opened in 1989, so comics in San Francisco are not precisely what they once were...

There are also something around a dozen general independent book stores (note that San Francisco has no national chain bookstores! I think this is unique among “major cities”?) that also carry a solid selection of “graphic novels” (which is usually really just a highfaluting name for “bound collection of comics”, and isn’t really any different in any substantial way from “comic book”, except that it makes people feel better about themselves) – But as far as I can tell by viewing and conversation, it still is the comics specialty stores that are selling the most comics material, and it is my belief that Comix Experience is likely the single strongest comics specialty store in SF.

COVID is still a pretty big psychological problem for retail in San Francisco -- not so much from transmission rates, etc (San Francisco did very well for a major city, actually), but more from we were among the first places to get fully shut down in March of 2020, and while we were allowed to reopen that May, we’ve had strong masking mandates in place that didn’t finally end until March 1 2022. This kept the citizenry nervous and not in the mood for shopping, and we’ve also lost huge portions of our twin pillars of commerce: tourism and tech workers in office jobs downtown.

Tourism came back a little in the very late summer, but it was still a fraction of pre-2020 numbers, and tech workers never came back to downtown in meaningful numbers, even after the mask mandates lifted, and, of course, you’ve seen how there have been pretty substantial layoffs from firms like Twitter – who had previously received MASSIVE tax breaks from the City while small businesses which drive much of the daily life of cities got very little.

Couple this with crazy rent and cost-of-living which makes it nearly impossible for most people having retail jobs to live in San Francisco, which had led to much higher unhomed population and folks doing Fentanyl, and San Francisco appears to be a city in crisis right now, with a largely abandoned downtown. It makes my heart break because the San Francisco I opened in was a City of Dreamers and Artists, but most people who fit those ideals have long been replaced by tech bros and libertarians. Ugh.

So SF has a number of pretty specific and significant external economic pressures acting upon it, and there’s also a bunch of really meaningful ways that the nature of comics retail has changed over the last few years. Specifically, I have found that the overwhelming majority of customers are completely fucking sick of the way that periodical comics are being presented to them. I don’t mean to say that I don’t think want periodical comics at all any more – because our best-selling book (SAGA) shows me clearly that this isn’t the case; but when I look at the state of “mainstream” periodicals, and the publishing and marketing decisions that companies are making in 2022 – weighed overwhelmingly towards “variants” and (completely manufactured) “collectibles”….. well, my heart entirely despairs.

As I noted, I have been selling comics since 1989, and we’re the oldest comic store with the same ownership in the same location in San Francisco. For a quarter of a century I’ve written “Tilting At Windmills”, a regular column about comics retailing, also published in two volumes from IDW Publishing; I’ve been a judge of the Eisner Awards (Comics’ equivalent of the Oscars); I’ve sat on the Board of Directors of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (an organization that protects the First Amendment rights of comics creators), I was one of the original founders of ComicsPRO (the comics retailer trade organization); and I even led a successful Class Action lawsuit against Marvel Comics that won more than a million dollars for comic book retailers internationally because Marvel mis-solicited years’ worth of comics.

Eight years ago, in response to rising costs in San Francisco, we launched an international Graphic-Novel-Of-The-Month Club where we hold streaming meetings with the authors for literally hundreds of folks around the country (and globe!), and we also have a sibling club for kids age 8-13 (“middle readers”). We’re now somewhere around 300 hour-plus long, serious interviews with a diverse lot of comics creators, and I think I’ve really gotten good at interviewing creators, so absolutely check out the channel! We started a smaller number of audio-only versions of those same shows this year, which you can get here, or wherever you get your podcasts.

So, how did the store do in 2022? Well, I am chagrined to admit that we ended up 0.81% down from 2021. I put some of this on the challenges of being in San Francisco right now, some on the current flaws of the Direct Market system, but in terms of actual performance as who lot of it is really about what a horrible Winter we had weather-wise in SF. People with actual weather will laugh at me, but, like SF weather is usually so temperate and mild and predictable that few citizens have central heating, or know what do really do with massive temperature drops (for us) or weeks of rain. I know, I know, now I’m sounding like a snowflake, but I think we would have ended strongly up if our whole December wasn’t thrown into disarray by the weather.

When it comes down to what we’re selling, in 2022 almost 67% of our sales were from new and used graphic novels. 31% are from periodical-format comics. 1% are from supplies (bags, boards, boxes, etc), while the last 1% is from everything else. For our sales, 91% comes from credit cards, which means we’re only making ~98% of our stated sales, with the other ~2% going to CC fees. That super sucks.

Since it is our largest category, let’s talk about BOOKS sales at Comix Experience.

One important consideration here is that these numbers DO NOT include the Graphic-Novel-Of-The-Month Club numbers, each and every one of which would top the #1 in-store book! We’re selling somewhere between two hundred and four hundred copies of each selection each month, depending on whether it is kids club, or adult. In fact, we’ve been told that, for at least some of the titles we selected, the book club order is an actual meaningful percentage of sales, impacting sell outs or triggering further printings. However, when I report on the charts below, I am only reporting retail sales, not club sales. There is a real and meaningful difference between a subscription box, and a walk-in customer pulling a Jefferson out of their pocket at the counter!

Our 2022 GNC selections were, in order of release:

Adult Graphic Novel Club selections for 2022

January 2021: NO ONE ELSE by R. Kikuo Johnson [Fantagraphics]

February 2021: OKSI by Mari Ahokoivu [Levine Querido]

March 2021: EVE by Victor LaValle and Jo Mi-Gyeong [Boom!]

April 2021: NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez Bueno [DC Comics]

May 2021: WALK ME TO THE CORNER by Anneli Furmark [Drawn & Quarterly]

June 2021: MAMO by Sas Milledge [Boom!]

July 2021: PEANUTBUTTER SISTERS by Rumi Hara [Drawn & Quarterly]

August 2021: WHAT'S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE by Matthew Rosenberg and Tyler Boss [Image]

September 2021: GHOST CAGE by Nick Dragotta and Caleb Goellner [Image]

October 2021: IMPOSSIBLE JONES by Karl Kesel and David Hahn [Scout]

November 2021: FOREST HILLS BOOTLEG SOCIETY by Dave Baker and Nicole Goux [Simon / Atheneum Books]

December 2021: THIEVES by Lucy Bryon [Nobrow]

KIDS Graphic Novel Club selections for 2022:

January 2021: OTTO: A PALINDRAMA by Jon Agee [Random House / Dial Books]

February 2021: BATMAN & SCOOBY DOO MYSTERIES by Ivan Cohen & Sholly Fisch and Dario Brizuela, Randy Elliott & Scott Jeralds [DC Comics]

March 2021: HOOKY by Miriam Bonastre Tur [HMH / Etch Books]

April 2021: SQUIRE by Nadia Shammas and Sara Alfageeh [HarperCollins / Quill Tree Books]

May 2021: CLOUD TOWN by Daniel McCloskey [Abrams / Amulet Books]

June 2021: MISS QUINCES by Kat Fajardo [Graphix]

July 2021: PUPPY KNIGHT: DEN OF DECEPTION by Michael Sweater and Josue Cruz [Silver Sprocket]

August 2021: THE GIRL AND THE GLIM by India Swift and Michael Doig [IDW Publishing]

September 2021: EXPEDITION: BACKYARD by Rosemary Mosco and Binglin Hu [Random House Graphic]

October 2021: EVERYDAY HERO MACHINE BOY by Irma Kniivila and Tri Vuong [Image / Skybound]

November 2021: ALCATOE AND THE TURNIP CHILD by Isaac Lenkiewicz [Nobrow / Flying Eye]

December 2021: OTHER EVER AFTERS by Melanie Gillman [Random House Graphic]

(If I am allowed to say, I think it is a SUPERB program, and I really invite you to JOIN TODAY! Each of these books ALSO have a LIVESTREAMED interview that goes with them, which you can find here)

(I also can sell you pretty much all of these excellent books, and the adult ones all have author-signed bookplates, too! Go buy a few, wouldja?)

Again: NONE of the club copies are counted in here as “sales-to-walk-in-customers” - if we did, our Top 24 books would ONLY be these titles -- when any of the preceding books appear on the list, it is because we sold additional copies to walk-in customers!

So anyway, at Comix Experience (which I say again: book-forward comics shop), here are the Top 100 best-selling BOOKS – this is by NUMBER OF COPIES SOLD

1 NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE TP VOL 01

2 SAGA TP VOL 10

3 GOOD ASIAN TP VOL 01

4 MAMO TP

5 MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR TP

6 EVE TP

(tie) SAGA TP VOL 01

8 HEARTSTOPPER GN

9 SQUIRE GN

10 FAR SECTOR TP

11 DUNGEON CRITTERS SC GN

(tie) HOOKY GN

13 SANDMAN BOOK 01 TP

14 FABULOUS FURRY FREAK BROTHERS IDIOTS ABROAD & OTHER FOLLIES

(tie) MONSTRESS TP VOL 01

(tie) SANDMAN TP VOL 01 PRELUDES & NOCTURNES 30TH ANNIV ED

17 TIME BEFORE TIME TP VOL 01

18 BUG BOYS YA HC GN VOL 01

(tie) NO ONE ELSE TP

20 WHATS THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE TP VOL 01

21 ODESSA GN

22 HEARTSTOPPER GN VOL 02

(tie) SECRET TO SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH GN

24 WATCHMEN TP NEW EDITION

25 RAPTOR TP

(tie) YOUNG SHADOW SC GN

27 LETS MAKE RAMEN COMIC BOOK COOKBOOK

28 GENDER QUEER MEMOIR GN

29 GHOST IN YOU HC A RECKLESS BOOK

(tie) MONSTRESS TP VOL 07

(tie) OGLAF BOOK 1

32 PUPPY KNIGHT DEN OF DECEPTION

33 CAT KID COMIC CLUB HC GN VOL 02 PERSPECTIVES

(tie) FOLLOW ME DOWN HC A RECKLESS BOOK

(tie) HEARTSTOPPER GN VOL 03

(tie) PILU OF THE WOODS GN

37 GIRL AND THE GLIM GN

(tie) GOOD ASIAN TP VOL 02

(tie) OKSI GN

(tie) SQUAD GN

(tie) WE LIVE TP VOL 01

42 GRAFITYS WALL HC

(tie) SOMETHING IS KILLING CHILDREN TP VOL 01

(tie) THIEVES GN

45 CAT KID COMIC CLUB HC GN VOL 03 ON PURPOSE

(tie) HEARTSTOPPER GN VOL 04

(tie) PEANUTBUTTER SISTERS & OTHER AMERICAN STORIES

(tie) SANDMAN TP VOL 02 THE DOLLS HOUSE 30TH ANNIV ED

(tie) UZUMAKI 3IN1 DLX ED HC JUNJI ITO

50 BUG BOYS YA HC GN VOL 02 OUTSIDE AND BEYOND

(tie) LOST ON PLANET EARTH TP

(tie) MONSTRESS TP VOL 02

(tie) MS MARVEL TP VOL 01 NO NORMAL

(tie) OH MY GODS GN

(tie) SOMETHING IS KILLING CHILDREN TP VOL 02

(tie) STRANGE ACADEMY GN TP FIRST CLASS

(tie) TIME BEFORE TIME TP VOL 02

58 5 WORLDS GN VOL 05 EMERALD GATE

(tie) BATMAN WHITE KNIGHT TP

(tie) EVERYDAY HERO MACHINE BOY GN

(tie) FUNGIRL GN

(tie) MANU GN

(tie) MONSTRESS TP VOL 06

(tie) TOMIE COMPLETE DLX ED HC JUNJI ITO

65 COOK KOREAN COMIC BOOK WITH RECIPES SC

(tie) DEADLY CLASS TP VOL 01 REAGAN YOUTH

(tie) GHOST CAGE TP

(tie) GIRL FROM THE SEA GN

(tie) PAPER GIRLS TP VOL 01

(tie) PARADISE KISS 20TH ANNIV ED GN

(tie) SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING TP BOOK 01

(tie) SAGA TP VOL 02

(tie) UMBRELLA ACADEMY TP VOL 01 APOCALYPSE SUITE

(tie) WALK ME TO THE CORNER

75 AKIRA KODANSHA ED GN VOL 01

(tie) BATMAN YEAR ONE DELUXE SC

(tie) FANGS GN

(tie) FANTASTIC FOUR FULL CIRCLE GN

(tie) OTHER EVER AFTERS GN

80 BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH MONSTERS HC

(tie) BONE COLOR ED SC VOL 01 OUT FROM BONEVILLE

(tie) CAT KID COMIC CLUB HC GN VOL 01

(tie) DELICATES TP

(tie) INFIDEL TP

(tie) SANDMAN TP VOL 03 DREAM COUNTRY 30TH ANNIV ED

(tie) SNOTGIRL TP VOL 01 GREEN HAIR DONT CARE

(tie) SPARKS GN

88 AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER OMNIBUS TP THE PROMISE

(tie) BRIAN BLOMERTHS MYCELIUM WASSONII GN

(tie) BUG BOYS YA HC GN VOL 03 ADVENTURES & DAYDREAMS

(tie) CLEMENTINE GN BOOK 01

(tie) DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH TP VOL 01

(tie) DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH TP VOL 03

(tie) DISPLACEMENT SC GN

(tie) HILO GN VOL 08 GINA & BIG SECRET

(tie) MEGAHEX HC MEGG & MOGG

(tie) PAPER GIRLS COMP STORY TP

(tie) SAGA COMPENDIUM TP VOL 01

(tie) SAGA TP VOL 09

(tie) UNFLATTENING

(tie) WHITEOUT COMPENDIUM GN

Every single one of these books sold more than one copy a month each month of the year (on average)

It shouldn’t be any massive surprise, but I am absolutely thrilled by the range and variety of our sales – not just from genre, but also creator’s voice as well as intended audience. This list makes me super proud to sell the comics, yo!

Some notes!

Our best-seller is NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE, which sells about 80% more than book #2. We also had James Tynion IV in for a signing for the book, but that was only about 10% of the final sales – this sold based on the quality of the work

#2 is the newest SAGA which was certainly the year’s biggest piece of suspense before it happened: WOULD people come back to a book that had three years off the market? Well, given the two months on sale so far, it looks like it sold 80% of v9 in the same time period, which seems really good to me based on historical trends of other ongoing series. And, as you’ll see below, the serialization sold slightly better than normal, I’m going to call it a “W”.

Worth observing is the performance of SANDMAN, since DC moved to the four volume scheme, vs the previous 10 paperbacks. Ultimately this means a greater than 50% drop in revenue for the same sale, and that’s assuming that people keep buying. The “old format” paperbacks are all marked as “30th anniversary”. What I see is that v1-3 of those all place, while only v1 of the reformat did. The more expensive reformat outsold the old paperback, but far fewer people came in for the NEXT one vs the cheaper old format. Looking over the course of 10 volumes vs 4 volumes, I sold more of the “30th” anniversary” editions. Often with comics, your “business school” assumptions end up wrong, y’know?

I was super impressed that the Fantagraphics FREAK BROTHERS placed at #14 in sales – being in SF surely is a factor, but it’s nice to have these in swell format. We had Mavrides in for a signing, but much like Tynion, it was under 10% of the grand toal.

But yeah, me happy with this list of books.

Since the real thing isn’t “number of copies sold”, but “dollars grossed” (since I have to pay wages, rent, utilities, etc), let’s resort it into DOLLARS. I’m not going to report all 100, though, let’s cut it at 20…

BOOKS By Dollars:

1 NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE TP VOL 01

2 FAR SECTOR TP

3 SANDMAN BOOK 01 TP

4 SAGA TP VOL 10

5 GOOD ASIAN TP VOL 01

6 FABULOUS FURRY FREAK BROTHERS IDIOTS ABROAD & OTHER FOLLIES

7 EVE TP

8 MAMO TP

9 RAPTOR TP

10 SAGA COMPENDIUM TP VOL 01

11 SANDMAN TP VOL 01 PRELUDES & NOCTURNES 30TH ANNIV ED

12 MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR TP

13 HEARTSTOPPER GN

14 SECRET TO SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH GN

15 WATCHMEN TP NEW EDITION

16 WHATS THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE TP VOL 01

17 PAPER GIRLS COMP STORY TP

18 SQUIRE GN

19 ODESSA GN

20 TIME BEFORE TIME TP VOL 01

$50+ books show their weight value here, despite prices higher than $19.99 being much harder to sell.

There were 4846 graphic novels that we sold at least a single copy, at full cover price in 2022.

But what about the periodicals at Comix Experience? Well, it’s a different picture for sure. Here’s the Top 100 by number of copies sold, this should be properly and accurately adjusted to account for variant covers (smallish thing for us compared to some stores, but, damn, it was at least 60 min of work to sort that through!)

This is Periodical comics by quantity sold.

1 SAGA #55

2 SAGA #56

3 SAGA #57

4 SAGA #58

5 SAGA #59

6 SAGA #60

7 CHEESE PUFFS BY KATT KELLY

8 AXE EVE JUDGMENT #1

(tie) AXE JUDGMENT DAY #1 (OF 6)

10 IMMORTAL X-MEN #1

11 AXE JUDGMENT DAY #4 (OF 6)

12 AXE JUDGMENT DAY #2 (OF 6)

(tie) X-MEN #12

14 AXE JUDGMENT DAY #5 (OF 6)

(tie) AXE JUDGMENT DAY #6 (OF 6)

(tie) X-MEN #6

17 AXE JUDGMENT DAY #3 (OF 6)

(tie) X-MEN #10

(tie) X-MEN #9

(tie) X-MEN HELLFIRE GALA #1

21 SECRET X-MEN #1

(tie) X-MEN #11

(tie) X-MEN #7

24 WONDER WOMAN HISTORIA THE AMAZONS #2 OF 3

(tie) X-MEN #8

26 BATMAN #125

27 X-MEN #13

(tie) X-MEN #14

29 AXE JUDGMENT DAY OMEGA #1

(tie) BATMAN ONE BAD DAY #1 THE RIDDLER

(tie) BATMAN SPAWN #1 ONE SHOT

(tie) IMMORTAL X-MEN #2

33 BATMAN SUPERMAN WORLDS FINEST #1

(tie) GOOD ASIAN #10 (OF 10)

(tie) IMMORTAL X-MEN #3

(tie) IMMORTAL X-MEN #4

(tie) IMMORTAL X-MEN #5

(tie) X-MEN #15

39 JUSTICE LEAGUE VS THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #1 (OF 6)

(tie) MARAUDERS #1

(tie) SHAOLIN COWBOY CRUEL TO BE KIN #1 (OF 7)

42 DARK CRISIS #1 (OF 7)

(tie) DC PRIDE 2022 #1 ONE SHOT

(tie) DEVILS REIGN #4 (OF 6)

(tie) LOVE & ROCKETS MAGAZINE #11

(tie) LOVE & ROCKETS MAGAZINE #12

(tie) X-MEN #16

48 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1

(tie) AXE X-MEN #1

(tie) BATMAN ONE BAD DAY #2 TWO-FACE

(tie) GOOD ASIAN #8 (OF 10)

(tie) GOOD ASIAN #9 (OF 10)

(tie) NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE #7 OF 12

54 BATMAN #126

(tie) EIGHT BILLION GENIES #1 (OF 8)

(tie) FANTASTIC FOUR #1

(tie) IMMORTAL X-MEN #6

58 DO A POWERBOMB #1 (OF 7)

(tie) FLASHPOINT BEYOND #0 (OF 6)

(tie) HULK VS THOR BANNER WAR ALPHA #1

(tie) MARAUDERS ANNUAL #1

(tie) MONSTRESS #36

(tie) PUBLIC DOMAIN #1

(tie) SUPERMAN SPACE AGE #1 (OF 3)

65 DAREDEVIL #1

(tie) INFERNO #4 (OF 4)

(tie) JANE FOSTER MIGHTY THOR #1 (OF 5)

(tie) MARAUDERS #27

(tie) MARAUDERS #3

(tie) MONSTRESS #37

(tie) NEW MUTANTS #31

(tie) X-CELLENT #1

(tie) X-MEN #17

74 BATMAN #119

(tie) BATMAN #120

(tie) BATMAN #128

(tie) DAREDEVIL WOMAN WITHOUT FEAR #1 (OF 3)

(tie) DEVILS REIGN #6 OF 6

(tie) FABLES #151

(tie) IMMORTAL X-MEN #7

(tie) JUSTICE LEAGUE VS THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #2 (OF 6)

(tie) JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #1

(tie) MIRACLEMAN SILVER AGE #1

(tie) MONSTRESS #38

85 BATMAN #122 SHADOW WAR

(tie) BATMAN #127

(tie) BATMAN ONE BAD DAY #4 MR FREEZE

(tie) ETERNALS #9

(tie) FLASHPOINT BEYOND #1 (OF 6)

(tie) JUSTICE LEAGUE VS THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #3 OF 6

(tie) MARAUDERS #2

(tie) MARAUDERS #4

(tie) MARAUDERS #5

(tie) NEW MUTANTS #24

(tie) SANDMAN UNIVERSE NIGHTMARE COUNTRY #1

(tie) SHAOLIN COWBOY CRUEL TO BE KIN #2 (OF 7)

(tie) SHAOLIN COWBOY CRUEL TO BE KIN #4 (OF 7)

(tie) TWIG #1 (OF 5)

(tie) X-FORCE ANNUAL #1

100 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 FACSIMILE EDITION

(tie) BATMAN #121

(tie) BATMAN #123 SHADOW WAR

(tie) BATMAN & THE JOKER THE DEADLY DUO #1 (OF 7)

(tie) BATMAN BEYOND THE WHITE KNIGHT #1 OF 8

(tie) BATMAN ONE BAD DAY #3 PENGUIN

(tie) DEVILS REIGN #5 OF 6

(tie) GHOST CAGE #1 OF 3

(tie) JUSTICE LEAGUE VS THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #4 (OF 6)

(tie) JUSTICE LEAGUE VS THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #5 (OF 6)

(tie) JUSTICE LEAGUE VS THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #6 (OF 6)

(tie) LITTLE MONSTERS #1

(tie) MONSTRESS #41

(tie) PUBLIC DOMAIN #2

(tie) SHAOLIN COWBOY CRUEL TO BE KIN #3 (OF 7)

(tie) THOR #23

(tie) THOR #25

(tie) WE HAVE DEMONS #1 OF 3

(tie) X-FORCE #27

(tie) X-FORCE #28

You can see that periodicals are much much narrower in breadth in terms of what is selling.

A few notes: As mentioned in the book section I was worried a bit about SAGA, since there was a three-year gap in there. The usual pattern is that the first issue of an arc spikes up, then it drifts back down. My real fear was we were going to lose 20% or more off the top of the series, so I decided to blow my wad and just give out issue #55 for free, figuring with luck this locks people into the second half until issue #108. And it really really worked at first – that was our best “selling” issue of SAGA, by about 8%. (The previous high point was issue #25, which was about 6% above issue #1). And even more importantly, both #56 and #57 was significantly higher than the last few arc’s second and third issues, but then, dunno, lots of people walked away from there, and while #60 was only a single copy below #54 (the previous 6th issue), there was about a third of the audience walked between #57 and #60. And we’re talking about the only triple-digit sales of periodicals this year, so that’s a lot of copies. BUT, we still ended up with triple digit sales, which really says to me that people really DO want periodicals as long as they are affordable and singular.

Also of super note to me is that staff member Katt Kelly’s zine about working at the store, CHEESE PUFFS, is our 7th best selling comic. It’s funny and you should buy a copy, so here is a link. It even sold more copies than this year’s Big Crossover Comic, which is a pretty serious WOW! to me.

Then comes a bunch of X-Men and crossover comics. What makes me nervous is that despite the relatively strong sales on AXE (“AVENGERS X-MEN ETERNALS”), it’s nearly 10% below LAST year’s big X event (Which was “Gala”), and the best-selling issue of X-MEN sold nearly 20% fewer copies of the same from last year. Endless #1s, endless crossovers, ever changing focus – it makes the customers drop away from the entire line.

I also was surprised that the facsimile reprint of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 sold within 10% of the newest 2022 series of the same name and number. (You’ll also notice that ASM #2 doesn’t even make the top 100, *sigh*, so what was the point of starting it over, then?)

Other than that, just a general note that I am unexcited about the general performance of periodical comics. Except for SAGA, these numbers are probably half of what they would have been a decade ago. Wednesday is usually not our biggest sale day any longer, and that says to me that we as an industry really have traded away much of our greatest strengths by corporations that just don’t care about the long-term prospects of comics at all. Chasing short term dollars sent so many dollars away, in my opinion.

And for a last thing, here is “market share” for us. This is books AND comics combined together (along with everything else), but still not including any GN Club pulls – these are ONLY retail sales! I cut off listing anyone not making at least a half-percent in sales, so this is our Top 26 publishers, as a result. Where you see “imprints”… that’s putting together all imprints from those bookmarket publishers – outfits like Penguin Random House have literally hundreds of different imprints that they own!

MARVEL COMICS 17.7%

DC COMICS 16.9%

IMAGE COMICS 13.8%

DARK HORSE COMICS 6.6%

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS 4.0%

BOOM! STUDIOS 3.9%

PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE imprints 3.6%

VIZ MEDIA LLC 3.0%

IDW PUBLISHING 2.9%

MACMILLAN imprints 2.7%

SCHOLASTIC imprints 2.2%

ONI LION FORGE 2.0%

DRAWN & QUARTERLY 1.9%

HARPER COLLINS imprints 1.6%

ABRAMS Imprints 1.1%

KODANSHA COMICS 0.9%

AFTERSHOCK COMICS 0.9%

HACHETTE Imprints 0.8%

NOBROW PRESS 0.7%

HUMANOIDS 0.6%

TITAN COMICS 0.6%

VAULT COMICS 0.6%

SEVEN SEAS ENTERTAINMENT LLC 0.6%

SILVER SPROCKET 0.5%

ANDREWS MCMEEL 0.5%

SIMON & SCHUSTER imprints 0.5%

We carried material from almost 260 publishers in 2022, sourced from about twelve distributors that we ordered at least twice from in the year. Material selling out at wholesale is a larger problem this year than I have ever seen before.

That’s the Comix Experience 2022 – I am very happy to hear your takes; please feel free to use the comments section below!

Happy New Year to you all!

-B

Brian Hibbs

Head Cheese