Comic Cuts - 5 December 2014

Click here to order Frontline UK

The proofs are in, the contract is signed... all I'm waiting on is confirmation from the copyright holder that they're happy with the finished book and I'll press the button and begin printing Frontline UK. Copies should start going out next week.

I'm going to keep this Comic Cuts column fairly short and sweet as I'm reading a book for review (hopefully up some time over the weekend). Not that a huge amount has been happening. I've spoken with my former boss at Look and Learn about doing another book with them and he's OK with it, so I've been digging around in boxes trying to locate comics, then scanning and cleaning artwork for most of the week. I've worked on almost nothing else, so there really is no news.

In the past I've run regular sales figures for annuals where I have been able to find them. Unfortunately, this has become more and more difficult over the years, almost as if companies want to be paid for the information they spend time and money gathering. However, I have managed to dig up some sales figures for The Beano Annual 2015, which was officially released on 4 July 2014. The latest figure dates from week ending 15 November 2014, at which time the title had sold 61,930 copies—11,555 that week. This is an almost like-for-like figure with last year's sales from the same time period (w/e 16 November 2013), which were 11,025 for the week bringing the total up to 58,990.

These are the latest figures I have been able to find, but it's interesting to see that Amazon have their own top selling lists—no sales figures, just a constantly adjusting and re-adjusting position—which, as of Thursday evening, looks like this:

1 Guinness World Records 2015
2 Lego Official Annual 2015
3 Doctor Who Official Annual 2015
4 Official Top Gear Annual 2015
5 One Direction: The Official Annual 2015
6 The Simpsons Annual 2015
7 Official Manchester United FC Annual 2015
8 The Beano Annual 2015
9 Deadly Annual 2015
10 Marvel Heroes Annual 2015
11 Oor Wullie (2013)
12 Jacqueline Wilson Annual 2015
13 WWE Annual 2015
14 Skylanders Universe Official Annual 2015
15 Horrible Histories Annual 2015
16 Tom Gates Totally Brilliant Annual 2015 by Liz Pichon
17 The Dandy Annual 2015
18 Horrid Henry Annual 2015
19 Official Arsenal Annual 2015
20 Monster High Annual 2015

Interesting to see what has lost favour over the past few years in the fickle world of kid's TV: High School Musical, Glee, Ben 10. Good to see a few annuals with a bit of what might be considered educational material—Deadly Animals, Horrible Histories. Some are entirely unknown to me—Skylanders Universe is presumably this year's Ben 10 for little boys; Tom Gates is a series of books written and illustrated by Liz Pichon, very well received but I have to confess completely unknown to me.

I said a couple of week's ago that there would be no more Roger Hall covers for our random scans section as I had run out of decent scans. Well, thanks to Phil Richards, I have some more. Cheers, Phil. This bumper crop of Corgis is very much appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

There may be a bit of a gap in transmission while I sort out (a) the new book I'm working on; and (b) process orders for Frontline UK. I'll post when I can.