Personal Marketshare

I spent a couple of hours recently cataloguing my entire collection - by publisher. I thought this would be an interesting experiment to see where exactly my comic book dollars were going. I think that understanding which companies you're supporting and what share of your personal "market" they possess is interesting in and of itself from a business perspective. Here are the results in terms of total percentage of my collection, along with some casual observations. Note: Keep in mind, we're talking about hundreds of books, so for my own personal sanity, lines of books were grouped together with their parent company. For example, DC Comics would contain entries for their imprints of Vertigo, Wildstorm, etc.

DC Comics: 23%
Dark Horse: 15%
Oni Press: 15%
Image: 14%
Marvel: 13%
Fantagraphics: 5%
Drawn & Quarterly: 3%
Top Shelf: 2%
IDW: 2%
Pantheon Books: 2%
Archangel Studios: 2%
Slave Labor Graphics: .08%
Virgin Comics: .08%
Burlyman Entertainment: .08%
NBM/ComicsLit: .08%
AiT/PlanetLar: .08%

* I wasn't too terribly surprised that DC Comics came out on top. I really did grow up as a "DC kid" and really didn't find my Marvel legs until late high school or early college. The Vertigo & Wildstorm imprints didn't hurt either.

* Conversely, I was very suprised that Dark Horse, Oni, and Image all edged Marvel out of the #2 slot. I was thinking going into it that Marvel would be running a close second. While Image was sort of all over the map content wise (and that's no criticism, just the opposite in fact, bravo diversity!), the Hellboy & BPRD trades from Dark Horse added up, as did 10 hardcovers of Queen & Country from Oni Press.

* Also interesting is that the high volume of DC Comics titles are predominantly ongoing series, meaning loose "floppy" issues. I have surprisingly few collected editions from DC. As I scan my bookshelf, there are numerous Marvel hardcovers, Alias and Iron Man: Extremis being some recent examples.

* The so called "Big 2" (DC Comics & Marvel) comprise a mere 36%, while the next 3 "second tier" publishers (Dark Horse, Image, and Oni Press) comprise 44%, nearly half of my buying power.

* I was... proud, I guess is the word, that Fantagraphics had a strong showing of 5% of my entire collection. Tony Millionaire, Jordan Crane, Sammy Harkham - take a bow guys!

Obviously there's an endless number of ways one could dissect this. I could further analyze my buying habits and break it down by genre, separating percentages of superhero, spy, western, romance, etc. I could do format, black & white vs. color, hardcover, softcover, single issues, oversized, etc. I could look at writers, artists, etc. Perhaps in a future installment.

But remember, they're just numbers. I think it was Samuel Clemens who said "there are lies, damn lies... and statistics."