It's sad how much Disney comics have fallen in popularity, even in Italy. In 1993, one single issue of Topolino sold just over 1 million copies (it was the peak year for Topolino). Today, I think they're lucky if a single issue sells 30k.
I think to an extent, you need to consider how much physical media sales have declined in general.
That's true, but digital sales of disney comics are very small too. People, especially younger people, have switched to tv/video games/cell phone games.
A small update on changes in sales figures for the main Disney magazines of various countries over the last years. Note that these numbers all exclude digital sales, as far as I could see.
Finland The weekly Aku Ankka had a circulation of 202,094 in 2015. In 2020, this was 110,000, a 46% decrease. The number of readers has decreased from 737,000 (2015) to 302,000 (2021), a 59% decrease. Source: inducks.org/publication.php?c=fi%2FAA
Netherlands Circulation of the weekly Donald Duck decreased by 11% from 228,685 (2015Q2-2016Q1) to 202,541 (2020) Source: nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Duck_(weekblad) and dundasbi.reports.nl
Norway The circulation of the Norwegian weekly Donald Duck & Co decreased by 31% from 36,280 (2015) to 25,139 (2020). Source: no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Duck_%26_Co
Sweden The number of readers of Swedish weekly Kalle Anka & Co has decreased by 23% from 137,000 to 105,000 (2019). The first number is only readers older than 15, the second either that or all readers, I’m not sure. Source: Räckviddsrapport Orvesto Konsument
France Circulation of the French weekly Le Journal de Mickey has decreased by 12% from 103,725 (2015) to 91,008 (2020). Source: www.acpm.fr/Support/le-journal-de-mickey
Disney Comics disappeared completely from the market in Portugal (2018), Czech Republic (2018) and Indonesia (2020). In Brazil Abril canceled Disney publications in 2018, but Panini took over in 2019.
Apart from the above, Disney comics magazines are also still published in at least Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy, Slovenia (at least until 2020), Serbia, Greece, China and Egypt. In the United States, IDW's run with the classic magazines seems to have ended, but Fantagraphics still publishes new books regularly. The latest issues of Bulgarian Мики Маус on Inducks date from 2017, so maybe Disney comics have disappeared in Bulgaria as well.
I have to wonder how Covid influenced the tail end of this slippage—especially in Finland, where the data seems more recent and the downward slide more significant...
I'm curious about that, too. Unfortunately, it seems that circulation figures for Topolino are now longer publicly available. The latest figures I could find were for 2014, with a print run of 212,538, a circulation on paper of 138,318 and an average digital circulation of 56,708 (of which 56,351 are for subscribers receiving both a paper copy and a digital copy, if I interpret correctly). See it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topolino_(libretto).
In contrast to this trend, in European countries and elsewhere (e.g. Brazil), graphic novel albums and anthologies have sold well. Glénat's complete work of Romano Scarpa series will comprises 51 albums and are sold at 30 euros each. It would be interesting to know if this new market is significant compared to that of regular magazines? A copy of Unique Heritage's weekly comic (88,000 copies sold each week) costs 2,90 euros, so by a rough estimate that's equivalent to selling 400,000 copies of a standard Glénat album. Now Glénat has published a dozen of albums in 2019 so you would need to sell a bit more than 30,000 of each on average by comparison.
Post by dorialexander on Dec 18, 2021 21:34:00 GMT
Regarding Italy, the director of Topolino has recently stated that sells have risen for the first time in twenty years (a modest rise, in comparison with pre-COViD figures, but a rise still). Figures have not been disclosed, but this seems consistent with a significant upscale in the quality of the comics. There have been much more very good original stories published in Topolino lately than at any time in recent history. For the last two weeks there is a fantastic run of "interconnected" stories (honestly one of the best things I have read in Disney comics in years).
