Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Why Does Marvel Front-Load Its Release Schedule?

Here's something that's bothered me for a while now:

Take a look at Marvel's release schedule for May, in terms of how many new comics are being released each week:

May 5: 46 titles
May 12: 20 titles
May 19: 18 titles
May 26: 14 titles

There are more than twice as may titles being released on the first week as there are any other week. That's 47% of their total monthly output scheduled for the first week. This pattern is not atypical for Marvel.

Mu question is: why? Do they count on many of these titles slipping a week or two? Are they playing games with FOC dates? Do they want reorders to show up on that month's shipping to game the monthly Diamond market share?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I would guess it's simple economics. Many people get paid at the beginning of the month, so they are more likely to have money to spend at that time. Still, I would expect the third week to have a slight bump since so many people get paid bi-weekly.