We’re working on a new feature: a custom shipping calendar for every customer that shows when we expect to ship stuff. This is sometimes hard to get right, because comics often run late. We did a little digging into how late by comparing the actual shipping date of every issue we’ve mailed to a customer in the last year or so against the original planned release date. This is data from thousands of issues. It’s kinda interesting… here’s the breakdown:

• 5 weeks early: 0.4%
• 4 weeks early: 1.0%
• 3 weeks early: 2.0%
• 2 weeks early: 2.5%
• 1 week early: 3.6%
• Right on time: 44.4%
• 1 week late: 10.5%
• 2 weeks late: 6.2%
• 3 weeks late: 4.8%
• 4 weeks late: 3.4%
• 5 weeks late: 2.8%
• 6 weeks late: 2.3%
• 7 weeks late: 2.2%
• 8 weeks late: 1.4%
• 9 weeks late: 1.2%
• 10 weeks late: 1.3%
• More than 10 weeks late: 10.0%

So, about 54% of the issues we ship are released on time or a bit early (hurray for early!). That’s more than half, which would be good if we were shooting a basketball. The average comic is delayed 3.2 weeks. The median comic does actually ship on time!

If we just look at all the comics that are released late, we can see how late they get released:

• 1 week late: 22.9%
• 2 weeks late: 13.6%
• 3 weeks late: 10.4%
• 4 weeks late: 7.3%
• 5 weeks late: 6.2%
• 6 weeks late: 5.1%
• 7 weeks late: 4.8%
• 8 weeks late: 3.0%
• 9 weeks late: 2.7%
• 10 weeks late: 2.8%
• More than 10 weeks late: 21.2%

The average late comic runs 7.5 weeks late. The median late comic runs 4 weeks late. So, if it’s running late, there’s a better than even chance it’ll be a few weeks late, not just one week late. Probably not very surprising to anyone who’s been reading comics for a while!