Marvel is increasing its production in a soft comics market, according to an ICv2 analysis comparing solicitations in the February Diamond Previews for this year, last year, and five years ago.

We pursued this analysis based on comments from retailers about the number of titles, variants, and first issues they’re faced with every month, most recently in a guest column by Phil Boyle of Coliseum of Comics (see "Something Has To Change").  We wondered what the numbers would show, so looked at the number of first issues, variants, and comic titles being solicited this month by the largest publishers and overall, comparing this year with last year and five years ago.  The overall titles number includes the number of variants and first issues.  We also included numbers for the total titles less variants, to make visible the comparison between number of different comics contents being produced, and the number of SKUs.

Compared to the February Previews from last year, Marvel is soliciting three times the first issues, 22% more variants, and 24% more comic titles.  Compared to five years, ago, Marvel is soliciting 38% more first issues, 27% more variants, and 29% more titles. This February, it’s soliciting an average of more than one variant for every comic it produces.

Marvel’s strategy is the opposite of DC’s, which has reduced the number of titles it’s soliciting by 36% and reduced the variants it’s soliciting by over 40% from the same month a year ago.  DC is soliciting roughly two variants for every three comics it produces.

Image Comics’ strategy is between the Big Two’s, with variants stable, first issues, up, and titles down from a year ago but up from five years ago.  Image has the most restrained variant strategy of the publishers we looked at, offering less than one variant for every two comics it produces.

The rest of the publishing universe has cut back on the number of titles being solicited from a year ago, but is still releasing more titles than five years ago.  Variants are down substantially from a year ago, while the number of first issues is still growing.  That group of mid-sized and smaller publishers is putting out roughly 1.5 variants for every title being produced.

The number of variants is truly staggering.  Over-all, comic publishers are soliciting an average of over one variant cover for every comic title this February.  That’s actually better than a year ago, but still up substantially from five years ago.

There is also a huge number of first issues, with around 17% of all titles solicited this month a first issue.

Our findings are reproduced in the chart below.  As a caveat, we note that this is only one month out of the year, and could be atypical.

For more information on the strategies of the mid-size comic publishers, see our ICv2 Pro article "Detailed Breakdown of Mid-Size Comic Publisher Strategies."