The third installment of The Mayo Report starts about 32 minutes into Episode #132 of Comic Geek Speak and covers both February 2006 and March 2006.

I rambled on for about 53 minutes or so this time around. This installment of The Mayo Report was plauged my telephone problems. Less than three minutes into my ramblings my cordless phone started to beep because the battery was dying. And later around the 1:15:00 minute of the episode my cell phone rings and again a minute later. I should have turned the cell phone off prior to the podcast.

Here are the rough notes I compiled for March 2006 in preperation for the podcast.

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    Top Comics List     Top Comics Breakdown     Top Trades List     Top Trades Breakdown

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2006-03 IndexPointValue:

• CBG = ~697.97
• Up about 33.74 from 2006-02
• ICv2 = ~698.05
• Up about 33.58 from 2006-02

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• 1 titles about 200,000
• Infinite Crisis #5
• 4 titles above 100,000 (and below 200,000)
• New Avengers #17
• All Star Superman #3
• New Avengers Illuminati Special #1
• Superman/Batman #24

• 17 titles came out with 2 issues:
• Amazing Fantasy #18 & 19
• Dooms of Doom #4 & 5
• Daughters of Dragon #2 & 3
• Fathom #7 & 8
• Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #5 & 6
• Godland #8 & 9
• Gold Digger #72 & 73
• Invincible #18 & 19
• JLA Classified #18 & 19
• Next Wave: Agents of H.A.T.E. #2 & 3
• Red Sonja #7 & 8
• Shadowhawk #9 & 10
• Spike vs Dracula #1 & 2
• Ultimate Spider-Man #91 & 92
• Uncanny X-Men #470 & 471
• Walking Dead #26 & 27
• X-Factor #4 & 5

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MARKET SHARES

• Another strong month for Marvel
• Not quite as strong as 2006-02 but close
• A little under half (47.54%) of the comic book units sold this month
• A little under half (45.89%) of the comic book dollars sold this month
• Again DC came in second place behind Marvel
• A little over one third (36.42%) of comic book units sold this month
• A little over one third (37.27%) of comic book dollars sold this month
• Image gained some market share this month
• Comic book units: 4.56%
• Comic book dollars: 4.52%

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MARVEL

• 90 new
• 10 reorders
• 100 total <--- 1/3 of the top 100 comics are Marvel
• Is Marvel trying to push everyone else off the comic book racks?

• Rank #2: New Avengers #17 (~121,100)
• Down ~3,100 (-2.50%) from #16
• About 50.14% of initial sales for #1
• The mention in New Avengers #18 could bring a ton of new listeners to CGS

• Rank #7: Amazing Spider-Man #520 (~89,900)
• Down ~23,000 (-20.37%)
• "The Other" storyline ended and sales dropped to around where they were during the first month of "The Other"

• Rank #16: Ultimate Spider-Man #91
• Up ~2,600 (+3.64%) from #90
• Ultimate X-Men guest star
• Ultimate Deadpool
• Rank #19: Ultimate Spider-Man #92
• Back down ~1,700 (-2.30%)

• Rank #28: Annihilation Prologue (~61,800)
• Not a great start for a Marvel event but not horrible either

• Rank #30: Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #5 (~59,900)
• Down ~18,700 (-23.79%)
• First issue that isn't part of "The Other" storyline

• Rank #32: Fantastic Four #536 (~57,900)
• Up ~14,800 (+34.34%)
• Civil War tie-ie

• Rank #47: Marvel Zombies #4 (~44,300)
• Up ~3,200 (+7.79%)
• Rank #145: Marvel Zombies #3 reorder (Second printing, variant cover) (~15,500)
• Rank #206: Marvel Zombies #2 reorder (~7,900)
• Impressive reorder numbers, particularly for a non-event mini-series

• Rank #80: Black Panther #14 (~28,800)
• Up ~2,800 (+10.77%)
• First part of "Bride of the Panther" storyline

• Rank #87: Thunderbolts #100 (~26,800)
• Up ~3,100 (+11.57%)
• Probably due to the "magic number" and increased size

• Rank #121: Thing #5 (~20,300)
• Down ~900 (-4.25%)
• #1: 30,200
• #2: 23,600 - down 6,600 - sold about 78.15% of #1
• #3: 21,800 - down 1,800 - sold about 72.19% of #1
• #4: 21,200 - down 600 - sold about 70.20% of #1
• #5: 20,300 - down 600 - sold about 67.22% of #1
• had the expected second issue drop but seems to be levelling off fairly quickly
• Marvel may cancel the book unles sales go up (according to the "Save the THING" thread on the forums
• Dan Slott is going all out to promote this book
• Marvel's "Line of Death" is around 21,000?

• Rank #129: Marvel Team-Up (~19,000)
• Down ~400 (-2.06%)
• Sell less than the Thing which can't be a good sign
• Marvel should give Robert Kirkman more freedom on this title
• Give Kirkman control/jurisdiction over characters that aren't in use and let him do his thing
• Give the book another 6 to 12 months for Kirkman to build up an ongoing storyline

• Rank #218: Astonishing X-Men #13 reorder (~6,500)
• Strong reorder numbers

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MARVEL: NEW UNIVERSE

• Rank #169: Untold Tales of the New Universe: Starbrand (~11,200)
• Rank #175: Untold Tales of the New Universe: Justice (~10,700)
• Rank #178: Untold Tales of the New Universe: Nightmask (~10,400)
• Rank #179: Untold Tales of the New Universe: DP 7 (~10,300)
• Rank #188: Untold Tales of the New Universe: Psi-Force (~9,500)
• These landed lower than I expected they would
• The ordering of the titles within the group is a bit surprising
• I would have expected: Starbrand, DP 7, Psi-Force, Nightmask, Justice
• These issues really highlighted the difference in storytelling over the past 20 years
• Even Justice which was written by Peter David then and now had a different feel to it
• I think they should have written these comics "old school style" if they had been written during the original New Universe run
• Use thought balloons, 1980s panel layouts and pacing, etc
• Might not have sold any better but would have been truer to the original material

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DC

• 73 new
• 10 reorders
• 83 total

• Rank #1:Infinite Crisis #5 (~201,800)
• Rank #203: Infinite Crisis #4 (second printing) reorder (~8,100)
• Rank #222: Infinite Crisis #3 reorder ( ~5,900)
• Rank #255: Infinite Crisis #2 reorder ( ~4,100)
• Rank #268: Infinite Crisis #1 reorder ( ~3,700)
• strong reorder numbers
• total sales to date:
• #1: ~268,400 - originally ~249,100 + reorders of ~19,300
• #2: ~224,100 - originally ~207,600 + reorders of ~16,500 - sold around 83.94% of total of #1
• #3: ~216,700 - originally ~188,900 + reorders of ~27,800 - sold around 80.73% of total of #1
• #4: ~207,200 - originally ~182,600 + reorders of ~24,600 - sold around 77.19% of total of #1
• #5: ~201,800 - originally ~201,800 - sold around 75.18% of total of #1

• Rank #3: All Star Superman #3 (~110,600)
• huge drop of around ~17,100 copies (-13.39%)
• biggest drop for a DC title this month
• I enjoyed issued #2 and #3 much more than #1
• It should be interesting to see where DC goes with the All Star line

• Rank #5: Superman.Batman #24 (~101,300)
• Down ~2,400 (-2.31%) from #23
• First issue to come out this year (#23 came out 2005-12-29)
• Still sold very well

• Rank #38: Blue Beetle #1 (~50,700)
• Good opening numbers for this series

• Rank #115: Warlord #2 (~21,600)
• Down ~5,800 (-21.17%)
• Not out of line with a typical second issue drop

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DC: ONE YEAR LATER

• Nearly every One Year Later issue went up
• Exception: Green Lantern, JSA
• One Year Later resulted in a net gain of 96,800 copies sold compared to the previous issues of those titles
• Will these titles be able to keep the new readers?

• Rank #8: Green Lantern #10 (~79,700)
• One of only two One Year Later issues to go down
• Down ~10,200 (-11.35%) from #9
• Previous issue:
• Batman guest starred
• Two covers
• Down ~2,700 (-3.03%) from #8

• Rank #20: Batman #651 (~69,800)
• Up ~3,400 (+5.12%)

• Rank #25: Superman #650 (~65,600)
• Up ~1,600 (+2.50%)

• Rank #26: Detective Comics #817 (~62,200)
• Up ~26,800 (+75.71%)
• Largest increase in sales, both by number of copies and by percentage

• Rank #33: Action Comics #837 (~55,800)
• Up ~500 (+0.90%)
• Smallest increase in sales, both by number of copies and by percentage

• Rank #36: JSA #83 (~52,000)
• One of only two One Year Later issues to go down
• Previous issue:
• Art and cover by George Perez
• Infinite Crisis tie-in
• Down ~2,200 (-4.06%)

• Rank #42: Outsiders #34 (~47,300)
• Up ~4,000 (+9.24%)

• Rank #51: Nightwing #118 (~42,500)
• Up ~7,000 (+19.72%)

• Rank #53: JSA Classified #10 (~41,300)
• Up ~2,200 (+5.63%)

• Rank #57: Green Arrow #60 (~37,900)
• Up ~6,700 (+21.47%)

• Rank #58: Aquaman Sword of Atlantis #40 (~37,600)
• Up ~19,300 (+51.33%)
• Second largest increase in sales, both by number of copies and by percentage

• Rank #60: Birds of Prey #92 (~36,800)
• Up ~7,000 (+23.49%)

• Rank #61: Robin #148 (~36,700)
• Up ~4,600 (+14.33%)

• Rank #65: Hawkgirl #50 (~34,700)
• Up ~9,700 (+27.95%)

• Rank #82: Catwoman #53 (~28,500)
• Up ~6,600 (+30.14%)

• Rank #97: Firestorm Nuclear Man #23 (~25,100)
• Up ~4,000 (+15.94%)

• Rank #141: Manhunter #20 (~16,100)
• Up ~3,100 (+23.85%)

• Rank #151: Blood of Demon #13 (~14,100)
• Up ~2,700 (+19.15%)

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IMAGE

• 40 new
• no reorders
• 40 total

• Rank #83: Cyberforce #1 (~27,500)
• Really low opening numbers for a revival of an early Image title
• Top selling Image book for the month

• Rank #127: Walking Dead #26 (~19,400)
• Up ~100 (0.52%) from #25
• Rank #131: Walking Dead #27 (~18,900)
• Down ~500 (-2.58%) from #26

• Rank #156: Invincible #29 (~12,700)
• Rank #159: Invincible #30 (~12,300)
• Surprising that there was a drop between issues, Invincible has had a solid upward trend for a while

• Rank #216: Savage Dragon #124 (~6,800)
• Resolicited
• Down ~700 (-4.41%) from #123
• Don't know if I want to go down this road or not (probably not):
• Is it time for Eric Larsen to put up or shut up?
• Eric Larsen has a history of "challenging" other creators to do better
• Sometimes creators and publishers need to be challenged by others
• Does Larsen himself need such a challenge?
• At the rate Savage Dragon is dropping in sales, Larson might not be able to give copies away in another 30 issue or so
• Eric Larsen can do better. Savage Dragon can sell better. Why isn't it?
• Is Savage Dragon Eric Larsen's "magnum opus" or just a self-indulgent vanity project?

• Rank #257: Retro Rocket #1 (~4,000)
• This is a really great title from Image featuring big robot mechs

• Myth: Image books sell well
• No books over 30,000 copies
• 2 over 20,000
• Cyberforce #1 and Spawn #154
• 9 between 10,000 and 20,000
• 4 of them by Robert Kirkman: Walking Dead #26 & 27, Invincible #29 & 30
• 12 comics between 5,000 and 10,000
• 17 comics between 2,500 and 5,000 copies
• Uncle Scrooge #352 from Gemstone sold better than each of these 17
• Uncle Scrooge #352 contains reprints and costs $6.95
• the total sales of Robert Kirkman's 4 comics from Image outsold the total of these 17 comics
• Robert Kirkman: 63,300
• 17 other comics: 60,200
• these are not bad titles
• Somebody explain to me why Image isn't considered "indy" these days

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OTHER

• IDW:
  • 15 new, no reorders, 15 total
• Dark Horse:
  • 10 new, no reorders, 10 total
• Devil's Due:
  • 9 new, no reorders, 9 total

• Rank #249: Angel Scriptbook #1 (~4,500)
• Even with low numbers this book have to be making some money since it can't be that expensive to produce
• I hope they keep this around as it is an interesting way to distribute scripts from the show

• Rank #226: Local #4 (~5,800)
• Up ~1,100 (+23.40%) from #3

• Rank #261: Victoria's Secret Service (~3,900)
• Alias issues a press release stating they were "excited" that this had sold out
• There was a thread about this on the forums
• Fun book and you get exactly what you might expect from the title:
• a light-hearted spy story with good girl art
• The title is sort of similar to Danger Girl from Wildstorm

• Rank #275: Plantery Brigade #2 (~3,500)
• Down ~1,600 (-31.37%) from #1

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TRADES

• Rank #41: Walking Dead Vol 1: Days Gone Bye (~2,400)
• Rank #43: Walking Dead Vol 4: Hearts Desire (~2,300)
• Rank #87: Walking Dead Vol 2: Miles Behind Us (~1,400)
• Rank #91: Walking Dead Vol 3: Safely Behind Bars (~1,400)