Source: comicsalliance.com
2. Myth: “The Comic Book Industry is Doing Better Than EVER BEFORE!”
The Truth:
*sigh*
I wish this one WERE true. And the truth is that comic sales ARE increasing currently, but sales and print runs are NOWHERE NEAR what they were in the 1990s. Let me give you some perspective right now. Star Wars #1, released a year or two ago by Marvel, was INSANELY high-selling, almost doubling the record for most comics sold in the 21st century and getting close to a million copies sold.
ONE. MILLION.
But what was the highest selling comic of the nineties, you ask? Well, that was X-Men # 1, which sold, reportedly, EIGHT MILLION COPIES.
Yeah. I know.
And it’s not just sales, comic shops are less common and are having a harder time succeeding with fewer readers. Go ask your comic shop owner how their business is doing. They might be making bank, but odds are a lot of them are just breaking even. Again, in recent years, we’ve seen a decent influx of new readers thanks to digital sales and the movie boom, but we’ve got a long recovery ahead of us.
