The average comic reader likely doesn’t know what “attrition” means in the direct market. 10 Why would they? Most just buy their comics each week, read them, and return the following week for more, even if that middle step is often optional. Their job is to enjoy the medium, full stop. Anything else is one step towards becoming me, and no one wants more of that.

While they might not know what attrition is, comic shop customers play an essential role in defining it. That’s because attrition in this situation is, simply put, how an individual title’s orders diminish issue-by-issue. Given that the defining metric for future orders are previous in-store sales of the issue to customers, we all play a part in this formula.

“Attrition” on its own sounds like a problem. Sales diminishing? How could that not be? But it mostly isn’t because attrition is just something that happens in the direct market, perhaps best showcased by the fact the term “standard attrition” exists. Almost every title sees its orders drop issue-to-issue. Attrition is an inescapable truth, a near constant in a market otherwise bereft of them, save for the occasional outlier that rises in sales later in its run. It’s factored in to the arithmetic of the job of a retailer, with shops ordering titles based off typically predictable rates of attrition.

It usually isn’t a problem, but where it can become one is when that predictability disappears. The greatest enemy of your common retailer isn’t decreasing sales. It’s uncertainty. When standard rates of attrition break, the job gets harder. And lately, attrition has been accelerating. That’s a problem for retailers. As Bruno Batista from Dublin’s Big Bang Comics told me, “Any shop or publisher will tell you that this has been a thing for forever, but in the last six months or so, the attrition (has been) precipitous.”

Batista was the first person who noted this to me. That was several months back. Since then, I’ve slowly been looking into it, with a range of conversations with shops taking place of late. Naturally, how big of a deal it is depends on the shop. For some, it’s been a small but noticeable uptick. For others, it’s been significant, resulting in necessary changes to their approach. Take Patrick Brower from Chicago’s Challengers Comics + Conversation as an example. The veteran retailer told me that “(attrition) has definitely accelerated of late,” before adding something even more concerning.

“It honestly feels like the new normal for the industry,” Brower said. “And that’s disturbing.”

A good example of what he’s talking about can be shown by how titles behaved on average for Challengers both pre-pandemic and today. While Brower didn’t do a robust study of this by any means, his gut instinct suggested that the average drop-off from issue #1 to #2 at Challengers was around 50% pre-pandemic, meaning 50% of customers that bought #1 did not pick up #2. Now, it’s around 80%. 11 That’s incredible, and something that has a significant cost on titles both today and tomorrow.

“Pre-pandemic we’d keep ordering a series at least through issue #5,” Brower said. “But now it can be gone by #3.” 12

Challengers was the high point in the rise of attrition, but others agreed that this issue is worsening. Eitan Manhoff from Oakland’s Cape and Cowl Comics used to aim for 20% attrition issue-to-issue, but now, that “doesn’t work anymore.” He orders for growth on titles as much as possible, but he’s finding that to be increasingly difficult. Steve Anderson emphasized that drops from #1 to #2 have always been a thing, but also admitted, “We are seeing it a bit sharper than in the past.” Again, the impact ranged, but shops consistently agreed that this is a problem.