As you'll eventually see when I post my first elaborate Spidey-calculus post, I'm a bit of a math nerd. I'm in the process of deciding on which books to prune. I'm currently subscribed to 35 titles, according to Midtown Comics, with 25 of them being ongoing monthly series and not just limited series or one-shots. I'm starting to get concerned over the amount of space my burgeoning collection is devouring, and, frankly, I'm just not enjoying some of the comics I'm getting. So, I decided to mark which series I would keep based on just my gut reactions.
To be honest, I was surprised by how evenly it wound up being distributed. I hadn't intended only to pick 12 (almost exactly half), but it just sort of happened that way. The keepers? "Batman and Robin," "Detective Comics," "Dungeons and Dragons," "Nonplayer," "Amazing Spider-Man," "Avengers," "Captain America," "Generation Hope," "New Avengers," "New Mutants," "Uncanny X-Men," "X-Factor," and "X-Men." The losers? "Batman," "Batman: The Dark Knight," "Batman Beyond," "Batman Incorporated," "Flash," "Red Robin," "Superboy," "Teen Titans," "Starborn," "The Traveler," "Secret Avengers," "X-Men Legacy." (Apparently, I really AM a Marvel kind of guy...)
However, I realized I couldn't get rid of all the titles on the "losers" list, because they're important to the overall story being told about a certain character. For example, I feel like I have to keep "Batman" and "Batman Incorporated" because they're important to the overall world of Batman, but I can't say I really enjoy them. It would be hard to know what's happening in the Bat-books I like ("Batman and Robin" and "Detective Comics"), though, without reading them. Ditto "X-Men Legacy." Two books on the discard list -- "Batman Beyond" and "Secret Avengers" -- I'm saving because I enjoy them. I originally put them on the "losers" list because they're so discrete; the events in these books don't really affect the ongoing plots in other books. But, I like them, so they're saved. The final losers? "Batman: The Dark Knight," "Flash," "Red Robin," "Superboy," "Teen Titans," "Starborn," and "The Traveler."
But, I wondered if I wasn't being too hard on the books I didn't like, so I took a look at the last five months of sales figures (November 2010-March 2011). (I told you: n-e-r-d.) I toyed with all sorts of formulas, but, in the end, decided to just take a simple start-of-period/end-of-period average. This approach would never work in a real math exercise, because of the wide fluctuations within a title that occur month-to-month. For example, if you want proof that events work, "New Mutants" and "X-Men Legacy" had the greatest growth (48 percent and 9.5 percent, respectively), thanks to the "Age of X" cross-over event. In fact, the only other two titles of the 25 I get that grew over this period were "Detective Comics" and "Amazing Spider-Man."
To be honest, I was surprised by how evenly it wound up being distributed. I hadn't intended only to pick 12 (almost exactly half), but it just sort of happened that way. The keepers? "Batman and Robin," "Detective Comics," "Dungeons and Dragons," "Nonplayer," "Amazing Spider-Man," "Avengers," "Captain America," "Generation Hope," "New Avengers," "New Mutants," "Uncanny X-Men," "X-Factor," and "X-Men." The losers? "Batman," "Batman: The Dark Knight," "Batman Beyond," "Batman Incorporated," "Flash," "Red Robin," "Superboy," "Teen Titans," "Starborn," "The Traveler," "Secret Avengers," "X-Men Legacy." (Apparently, I really AM a Marvel kind of guy...)
However, I realized I couldn't get rid of all the titles on the "losers" list, because they're important to the overall story being told about a certain character. For example, I feel like I have to keep "Batman" and "Batman Incorporated" because they're important to the overall world of Batman, but I can't say I really enjoy them. It would be hard to know what's happening in the Bat-books I like ("Batman and Robin" and "Detective Comics"), though, without reading them. Ditto "X-Men Legacy." Two books on the discard list -- "Batman Beyond" and "Secret Avengers" -- I'm saving because I enjoy them. I originally put them on the "losers" list because they're so discrete; the events in these books don't really affect the ongoing plots in other books. But, I like them, so they're saved. The final losers? "Batman: The Dark Knight," "Flash," "Red Robin," "Superboy," "Teen Titans," "Starborn," and "The Traveler."
But, I wondered if I wasn't being too hard on the books I didn't like, so I took a look at the last five months of sales figures (November 2010-March 2011). (I told you: n-e-r-d.) I toyed with all sorts of formulas, but, in the end, decided to just take a simple start-of-period/end-of-period average. This approach would never work in a real math exercise, because of the wide fluctuations within a title that occur month-to-month. For example, if you want proof that events work, "New Mutants" and "X-Men Legacy" had the greatest growth (48 percent and 9.5 percent, respectively), thanks to the "Age of X" cross-over event. In fact, the only other two titles of the 25 I get that grew over this period were "Detective Comics" and "Amazing Spider-Man."
It was the contracting comics that were the most telling. The six books included in this approach that started at issue number one during the time frame fell the most: "Superboy" (-31.5 percent), "Batman Incorporated" (-31.7 percent), "Dungeons and Dragons" (-36.9 percent), "Generation Hope" (-43.1 percent), "Starborn" (-53 percent), and "The Traveler" (a whopping -62.6 percent). So, my guess is that my decision about "Starborn" and "The Traveler" is going to be made for me, because I can't see that you wouldn't cancel a title that lost over half its readership since its inception (even, or maybe particularly, for a small company like Boom! Studios). DC probably has the power to keep "Superboy," and my guess it that we're going to see some cross-overs soon. (Ditto "Generation Hope.") I'm worried about "Dungeons and Dragons," since it was the only issue on my keep list that also fell in the bottom six.
So, if I take the books on my drop list and combine it with the bottom half of the sales list, I should drop "Batman: The Dark Knight," "Superboy," "Starborn," and "The Traveler." I'd add "Teen Titans" to that list since, honestly, I just haven't enjoyed an issue, other than possibly the Damian issues. So, there you go. I'm also canceling "Batman: Gates of Gotham" before it starts, because I'm swimming in Bat-books. So, I'm cutting six titles, or almost 20 percent. Now, if I can just determine what I'm doing with "Fear Itself..."
No comments:
Post a Comment