Sales to Astonish #4 – December 2022 Comic Market Report
Welcome to Sales to Astonish, a new column in association with comics retailer The Unreality Store, in which Matthew De Monti brings us news on comic sales and the general moves in the comic market over the past month or so!
Before we embark on our December activity and recap on what’s happened in the past year it seems wholly appropriate to say thank you for all your support in 2022 whether that’s by buying something from us, following us and commenting and liking posts on social media, right down to visiting the website for a browse. We couldn’t have made it through our third year without you.
Now on to the good stuff…!
December 2022
As the days grow shorter and in some cases, colder, what better time of year to stay in and read a great graphic novel or a stack of comics.
This was our third December and our online activity was largely similar to our first two years of trading – the first 15 days of the month were busy and then there’s a tail off towards Christmas as the opportunity to get a lost minute present means bricks and mortar retailers benefit as there’s no longer time to order something online and get it shipped before the big day. This year wasn’t helped by the Royal Mail going on a series of strikes through December which created some inevitable delays in orders arriving on time.
Nevertheless we did a series of our usual Thursday launches throughout the month which included some second tier Marvel mutant titles from the 90’s such as Excalibur and X-Force. These sold really well as not only were they priced keenly but these issues have reached or are fast approaching their 30th birthdays and collectors who bought them first time round are coming back and buying them again for nostalgia purposes. It was great to see some Alan Davis Excalibur and Rob Liefeld X-Force issues fly out the door.
In January we ran an email subscriber 50% sale, but this year decided to bring this forward to Boxing Day and then to open the sale up to the general public from 1st January. We will report on the latter part of the sale in our January summary, but the week between Boxing Day and New Years Eve was the busiest of the year in terms of orders and revenue.
Key Sales from December were as follows:
- Marvel Spotlight Vol.1 #1 FN @£17.50
- Hero For Hire #2 FN @£20
- Giant Size Master of Kung-Fu #1 FN- @ £25
- Beware #1 FN- @£25
- Something Is Killing The Children LCSD Foil Variant @£40
- Alias #1 NM- @£40
We also sold sizeable runs of King Conan and Heavy Metal magazines during the month along with a good number of Roleplaying supplements and magazines.
