Archie Sales Figures for 2012

Continuing the tradition, but a lot later this year. That’s because, with most of the titles publishing less frequently than monthly, I had to wait for all the figures to be available. Even so, Life With Archie isn’t available yet for this year.

This is my sixth year compiling the Archie sales figures filed with the government from the Statements of Ownership, Management, and Circulation the company is required to include in their publications. These numbers appeared in issues published between January 16 and March 6, 2013; the data was filed with the government on October 18, 2012. Here are previous years for books:

• published in 2011
• published in 2010
• published in 2009
• published in 2008
• published in 2007

Note that these figures don’t cover the videogame titles — Sonic, Mega Man — or other non-Archie-character books. That’s because I don’t read those and so don’t have access to the data. Reportedly, those books do better than these. Note also that the core Archie line is down to three periodicals — Archie, Betty & Veronica, and Kevin Keller — one magazine-format comic — Life With Archie — and six double digests — Archie, Archie & Friends, Betty & Veronica, Betty & Veronica Friends, Jughead, and World of Archie. Archie has just launched a Double Double Digest format, but that’s too early to include.

So, on to the numbers. For the single issues, these are the Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation figures that Archie files with the government. The first number is the Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months; the second is No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date.

Title	Average	Nearest Issue	Total Published (Nearest)	% Sold of Published
Archie	15,292	12,462	32,229	39%
Betty & Veronica	9,095	9,210	25,272	36%
Kevin Keller	7,274	7,169	18,068	40%

Kevin Keller, which last year looked like a great success, has lost 40% of its sales bump from launch (last year = 12,327). That’s not surprising, as the curious likely got their fix from the first issue or so and may not want to follow a continuing series — especially since Kevin hasn’t been shown as actively dating or romantically interacting with other guys very much (particularly when compared to how the core cast is portrayed).

Archie is down to three comic periodicals, with Jughead cancelled last year. Only Archie appears monthly; the other two publish six issues a year. Most Archie issues went bimonthly in 2010.

Let’s chart these issues over the past six years, using average sales.

	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
Archie	27498	13259	11493	14413	15466	15292
Betty & Veronica	16982	11963	11283	11319	10918	9095
Veronica / Kevin Keller	14119	8230	7981	8756	9731	7274
Jughead	13645	10718	7823	8585	7869
Archie & Friends	14699	9388	8099	8850
Betty	12731	8864	8314	8952
Betty & Veronica Spectacular	12234	8891
Sabrina the Teenage Witch	13534	7404

(Veronica became Kevin Keller in 2011, based on sales figure continuation, which is why that’s just one line. I still miss Sabrina.)

If, based on this chart and the title history, the cancellation line is around 9,000 copies sold, then Kevin Keller is likely hanging on for reasons other than sales (which is a fine strategy, if they believe in the title for outreach purposes or to give a new character time to catch on), and Betty & Veronica is in danger.

On to digests! These are all Double Digests, since singles went away in 2010.

Title	Average	Nearest Issue	Total Published (Nearest)	% Sold of Published
Archie	45,641	47,851	169,754	28%
Archie & Friends	38,855	39,386	171,889	23%
Betty & Veronica	47,600	47,108	160,488	29%
Betty & Veronica Friends	38,278	37,176	156,410	24%
Jughead	37,812	36,924	168,359	22%
World of Archie	39,936	40,358	167,596	24%

On the plus side, these numbers are relatively stable, if you compare average sales to nearest issue. The titles aren’t rising or falling significantly. On the negative side, sales are down by 10,000-20,000 copies on all titles compared to last year, and they’ve gone from selling at least 36% of the print run to selling only a quarter of it. (Back in 2010, they were selling 40% of the print run.)

Here’s a chart of the double digests over the past six years, using average sales. Sadly, it’s a story of sales falling greatly over the past two years. Weird how they kind of end up in the same place, isn’t it?

	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
Archie Double	96887	97584	87860	95236	70860	45641
Betty & Veronica Double	96971	100073	83032	80307	67719	47600
Archie’s Pals ‘n’ Gals Double / Archie & Friends Double	85587	74430	69277	70806	57188	38855
Jughead Double	82108	82035	71570	70927	55651	37812
Betty & Veronica Friends Double				51099	50512	38278
World of Archie Double				62822	57850	39936

Archie’s Pals ‘n’ Gals became Archie & Friends in 2010, which gave it a temporary sales boost. The single digests were all selling above 47,000 when they were cancelled (or where the highest-selling double digest is now), so this can’t be good.

Last (I know! would you rather I have broken all this up into multiple posts?) comes the title ranking, best- to worst-selling, based on nearest issue figures.

1. Archie Double
2. Betty & Veronica Double
3. World of Archie Double
4. Archie & Friends Double
5. Betty & Veronica Friends Double
6. Jughead Double
7. Archie
8. Betty & Veronica
9. Kevin Keller

No surprises here if you’ve read this far. Some shuffling among the digests, with various place swaps, but this is generally in keeping with expectations, although Jughead’s place has kept falling over the past two years. Wild, baseless speculation: With an actual gay character in the Riverdale lineup, is his position as the one non-girl-crazy boy character less special? Or is it just that fewer kids want to read about someone who can eat all the junk they want without gaining weight?