pageviews and pamphlets

March 2 2007, 16:45:25 UTC 5 years ago

Which is a market bigger than comic books at the moment, right? I think I read that this week.

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stevenlcloud

March 2 2007, 16:32:03 UTC 5 years ago

woah. that's an interesting thought.

your brain works good.

webcomics rise!

shadowofsummer

March 2 2007, 16:35:42 UTC 5 years ago

I'd argue that webcomics, by-and-large, don't have as much overlap with the comic book market as they do with the daily newspaper strip. At least stylistically, that is: the majority of webcomics tend to deliver in made-for-one-page bursts, even if within a part of a larger story arc. (Megatokyo is an obvious exception, though I'd put forward the argument that Fred's probably feeling a lot less pressure to do one-page-bites now that he knows Dark Horse are collecting the chapters in book form.)

March 2 2007, 16:56:02 UTC 5 years ago

Apples to Oranges. People pay for Comics and by-and-large (minus draconian micro-payment systems which are rare these days) webcomics are free.

A better comparison might be Trade Paperback sales in comics versus webcomics. For instance, I'd be curious to know how well the recently released 3rd Penny Arcade trade paperback stacked up against other trades sold that month.

March 2 2007, 17:07:58 UTC 5 years ago

OR you could average sales of for instance Marvel's TPB sales this month with their page views for the free comics on their site and compare that with for instance PA's pageviews averaged with their TPB sales.

I just think that compared two different price points (with infinite difference ((nothing vs. anything))) and two different delievery systems doesn't make for useable data or any kind.

boy_story

5 years ago

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lunchbreak_pat

March 2 2007, 17:13:34 UTC 5 years ago

It's not really fair to compare a "page" of webcomics to a page of a comic book, though--who's to say they're equal units? Some webcomics resemble a traditional print comic page, but lots are closer to a 3-(or 4-)panel newspaper strip. In terms of content, that's more like 1/3 of a page? It varies. Also, how much does page count influence a print comic's sales? You're assuming that everyone who buys, say, an issue of "Batman" reads every page--which is probably fairly accurate--but then again, they don't have the choice to buy it page-by-page, which is how webcomics are read.

March 2 2007, 17:25:41 UTC 5 years ago

Exactly. The number of pages is simply not part of the decision to pick up a comic book for 99% of readers. They buy the book because they like Batman or because they like who writes or draws Batman (i.e. people buy All Star Batman and Robin because Jim Lee does it despite the fact that the book is crap) and not because of the number of pages. The closest thing I've seen to the whole "page views" thing is Warren Ellis' "Fell" which attempts to page a lot of story into the book by cramming in the page to provide a complete narrative at a lower price-point.

Not to mention the fact that comic books involve a buying decision and webcomics do not.

March 2 2007, 18:15:47 UTC 5 years ago

I'm just talking pure readership, guys. It totally *is* apples and oranges, but it's something to consider!

lunchbreak_pat

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lunchbreak_pat

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granulac

March 2 2007, 17:53:37 UTC 5 years ago

yeah, but I'm pretty sure he's talking about readership and not sales. How does a popular webcomic stack up next to a mid-size comic book in terms of recognizability? I'd think more people know who Gabe and Tycho are than, say, a semi-obscure Marvel superhero. I don't know the numbers, though, so I could be wrong. :]

Webcomics are still a small (and different) market, but they have the potential to reach more people than comic books.

March 2 2007, 19:13:00 UTC 5 years ago

But Gabe and Tycho have only had 7 or so years (I think) whereas Doctor Bong has had decades to filter into the hearts and minds of America.

I also feel like comic books have kid appeal whereas most web comics (Penny Arcade included) do not. The highbrow humor and snappy comebacks just don't play as well as *Snikt* for the younger demographics.

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Anonymous

March 2 2007, 20:07:42 UTC 5 years ago

This is an interesting idea! But when counting website pageviews, how do you know that some of them weren't generated by someone reading the same comic page multiple times? To be fair, you'd also have to count in all the pageviews from people who read the latest X-men over and over because they CAN'T GET ENOUGH.

What I wonder is how many webcomics are viewed by more than 100,000 unique readers every month! But I imagine the only way to really figure that out is totaling unique IPs... which in my vague understanding of the internet isn't really an especially accurate measure of unique individuals, is it?

-Sam L.

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March 2 2007, 20:19:21 UTC 5 years ago

I'd say without better figures, those cancel one another out. Just for simple thinking purposes.

alexjeffries

5 years ago

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Anonymous

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netizenron

March 2 2007, 21:28:48 UTC 5 years ago

It is a hard comparison, just simply because webcomics are more diverse in size, audience, overlap and cycle.

As pointed out they range from single panel strips to traditional comic style pages to obscure and erradic formats. And these forms command a broad audience, that don't always intersect.

I personally like a range of styles, formats and themes. But there are probably people who only like strips, and not long format. Some that like gaming comics and not super-heroes. It's a crapshoot.

I do think that webcomics have a broader and larger readership than comicbooks as a whole. Case in point. Scott Kurtz gets 100k+ pageviews a day, or so I've heard professed. Not really outlandish, and if those are pageviews and not visits, we can probably break that down a third to mean actual readers a day (visits). And we can assume that all his readers don't visit daily. I go long stretches and then read a week or so at a time. Yet, he sells less than 10k books per issue of his comic.

Um ... there was a point, I'm sure. I just find it amazing that a webcomic could have such a following, but it doesn't echo in it's print companion.

I do know that the collections of PA have done extremely well, selling out of first runs of 30k+. For a trade comic that's pretty good numbers.

constructchris

March 3 2007, 00:13:39 UTC 5 years ago

10 or 15 comics is generous.

http://www.cbgxtra.com/Default.aspx?tabid=1860

Only 6 topped 100k sales and most of those books aren't even monthly. They're OSTENSIBLY monthly, but they have tons of delays.

On those same statistics, the top 100 selling TPBs accounted for 4 million in sales, vs 20 million for the top 300 comics. If the next 200 TPBs don't cumulatively account for 16 million in sales (probably not, looking at the numbers drop offs after the top 30 or so), then issues are still do more business.

buddhist_kabuki

March 3 2007, 02:15:27 UTC 5 years ago

No really, until webcomics start costing $3.00-$4.00 a month or for every 22 comics, you can't compare. I'm sure that if every web comic charged something comparable to print comic books, the readership levels would be pretty similar.

March 3 2007, 02:35:05 UTC 5 years ago

i said "readership," not "paid readership." otherwise, i agree with ya.

buddhist_kabuki

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buddhist_kabuki

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maritzac

March 3 2007, 03:14:14 UTC 5 years ago

I think the number of pageviews should be applied to say, panel numbers.

As in, a three panel webcomic strip with two pageviews is the same as a six-panel comic book page with one pageviews.

March 3 2007, 03:18:12 UTC 5 years ago

Not sure I follow?

I was using pages/pages because a good comic strip and a good comic book page both should have at least one complete idea each.

maritzac

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Anonymous

March 3 2007, 10:07:18 UTC 5 years ago

Unfair

Here's the thing: It's not apples to oranges. You're just making a comparison that is unfairly stacked in favor of webcomics.

I'll give you an example using my own numbers:

In a good month, I might pull 3 million page views. By your reasoning, that would put my "readership" at 3 million comics viewed per month. Of course, many of those comics were probably viewed by people who disliked my comics and will never read them again. Yet, you are counting them as "readership."

Meanwhile, you're assuming that the number of people who buy Batman comics monthly equal the number of readers. Of course, there are many people who may buy trades, or who may not read religiously. There may be people who buy a comic and share it with 10 friends. Or, maybe someone reads it in a comic book store but doesn't buy.

On the flip side, what if someone read and reread my archive three our four times. That's a single individual skewing my "readership" way up.

Bottomline, you're advantaging webcomics by suggesting that everyone who read anything this month counts as a "reader," and disadvantaging print comics by suggesting that anyone who didn't PURCHASE during a given month is not a reader.

I blame Coast to Coast AM. You're using Richard C. Hoagland logic - applying extremely lax standards to the side you favor, and extremely strict standards to the side you don't.

-Zach Weiner