March 2019 sales

[Sam]

Yes.
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/04...lling-20-ebay/

Because shops weren't ordering them, so it created a low supply.
Which ironically, makes them worth more than Detective Comics #1000.

So theorectically shops will order more the next month in response?

[Lee Stone]

So theorectically shops will order more the next month in response?

Maybe not.
#4 comes out this month.
And in the orders, it's finished, as they're now ordering for July.

They could've ordered more copies of #5, however, back in February, but they wouldn't order too much more because they wouldn't have enough copies of #1-4 to match up. And with there only being one more issue, they'd probably just order enough to match their previous orders. The general thought on mini-series is that once they get past a few issues, they don't gain in readers.

Most likely what they'll do is be sure to stock up on the trade paperback.

[Konja7]

That's retailer money, though.
And they buy more Batman because it has a wider reach. There's always another Batman fan out there.
If they don't sell off the shelf, they'll sell at cons to non-readers.

You'll rarely see a retailer at a con with a display of comics that strays far beyond Batman, X-Men, Wolverine and Spider-Man.
And if you ask for something like Young Animal or NAoH, the answer will be to come by their store because they didn't bring those with them.

I haven't bought a Batman comic in years, if not decades.

And a lot of those Detective Comics #1000 orders were pure investment only. They'll get slabbed and sit somewhere until they become more valuable.
I'd wager that over 300k of those copies won't ever get read.

Considering shops have experienced with Action Comics #1000 before Detective Comics #1000, they should have some reasons for their expectatives.

Also, Batman is still pretty popular even if there are people who say they want less of Batman. That's why shops always buy more of Batman comics than other characters comics.

[Konja7]

Also, not sure how important this is these days (in the days of digital comics and plentiful trade collections), but only the top 93 titles had more than 20,000 copies ordered/sold to comic book shops.

DC titles with numbers of less than 20,000 included:

95th - Wonder Twins #2 - 19,892 copies
99th - Martian Manhunter #4 - 19,187 copies
101st - Adventures of the Super Sons #8 - 19,071 copies
105th - Red Hood Outlaw #32 - 18,389 copies
106th - Hawkman #10 - 18,269 copies
114th - Batman Beyond #30 - 16,427 copies
121st - Terrifics #14 - 15,294 copies
123rd - Dreaming #7 - 15,046 copies
126th - Naomi #3 - 14,691 copies
130th - Female Furies #2 - 13,585 copies
136th - Books of Magic #6 - 13,177 copies
137th - Freedom Fighters #4 - 13,130 copies
142nd - Lucifer #6 - 12,721 copies

There were others below 142nd, but three others also worth pointing out:

178th - Damage #15 - 8,667 copies

and

188th - Silencer #15 - 7,949 copies

and

201st - Curse of Brimstone #12 - 7,152 copies

I'm not sure how big are digital sales and trade collections. Are there some numbers about how big are these?

Regarding the sales under 20K, I don't know how important are these numbers. Although I wouldn't be surprised if many of these comics are cancelled.

Some of these are minis and maxis, so these aren't planned for long runs.

[Kurisu]

And Brightest Day wasn't even really an event book .

Neither is Heroes in Crisis.

People say they want less batman content, but money talks

No one outside this hell site actually says this.

[Konja7]

So theorectically shops will order more the next month in response?

Maybe not.
#4 comes out this month.
And in the orders, it's finished, as they're now ordering for July.

They could've ordered more copies of #5, however, back in February, but they wouldn't order too much more because they wouldn't have enough copies of #1-4 to match up. And with there only being one more issue, they'd probably just order enough to match their previous orders. The general thought on mini-series is that once they get past a few issues, they don't gain in readers.

Most likely what they'll do is be sure to stock up on the trade paperback.

It also depends if the amount of people who demand for Naomi (that the shops can't cover) is significant.

Some of them may be willing to pay higher prices, but we don't know the exact amount of these people.

[married guy]

75,000 issues of Flash moved in a month at $3.99 an issue.
Guess DC will be continuing the double shipping schedule...

[SixSpeedSamurai]

Maybe he does better with digital copies and collected editions?

Possible. The only thing of his I read is Young Justice, but it's been slow, and really who cares about Gemworld? Not exactly a beacon for readers.

[Lee Stone]

Possible. The only thing of his I read is Young Justice, but it's been slow, and really who cares about Gemworld? Not exactly a beacon for readers.

I think Gemworld has a lot of potential when it comes to new readers.

[cranger]

Bendis hasn't delivered the sales DC has wanted I don't think.

It feels like everything has kind of fallen, so looking at the charts I don't see much room for Bendis to be doing much better. That is I don't think there was any reason to expect him to put Superman or Action anywhere near Batman, and even Snyder on Justice League had more reason to think it would do better than Bendis. Unless there was some hope Bendis coming would by itself lead to overall better sales at DC then obviously some people at DC misread the market. That said, hopefully Bendis is just getting started, and it takes Bendis a long time to get going, but maybe after his first "event" more eyes will be checking out what he is doing.

Yes. I believe DC only prints to order now.
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/04...lling-20-ebay/

Because shops weren't ordering them, so it created a low supply.
Which ironically, makes them worth more than Detective Comics #1000.

The first issue of Naomi appears to have come out right at the end of January, right around the time shops were making orders for April (and issue #4).
So, even if they had a huge turn out for the first issue, they likely wouldn't know in time to up orders for #4. Especially if the first issue was a sleeper that gained traction when the second issue came out.

I think Naomi is more a target of speculators, especially flippers due to the low number of copies.

I think Gemworld has a lot of potential when it comes to new readers.

Yes. If anything I think more exploration of Gemworld was needed, but Bendis has also had to juggle the mysterious reunion of these characters, however I think all of it is just fine for new readers, it is definitely the kind of thing I would have loved getting in on the ground floor of when I started reading.

[Frontier]

Justice League Dark seems pretty successful for a Justice League spinoff title .

[Truman Burbank]

It feels like everything has kind of fallen, so looking at the charts I don't see much room for Bendis to be doing much better. That is I don't think there was any reason to expect him to put Superman or Action anywhere near Batman, and even Snyder on Justice League had more reason to think it would do better than Bendis. Unless there was some hope Bendis coming would by itself lead to overall better sales at DC then obviously some people at DC misread the market. That said, hopefully Bendis is just getting started, and it takes Bendis a long time to get going, but maybe after his first "event" more eyes will be checking out what he is doing.

Everything has fallen, but Bendis's Super-books are seeing faster sales declines than what he replaced. He's lost readers every month on both books save for Action 1004, but that had a huge dropoff to Action 1005 (as did Superman 4 to Superman 5 - the foil covers in October 2018 gave a sales boost and Superman STILL lost readers over the previous month).

DC also cancelled the double-shipping of the Super-books for Bendis, so there's even more revenue lost because of the drops.

[cranger]

Everything has fallen, but Bendis's Super-books are seeing faster sales declines than what he replaced. He's lost readers every month on both books save for Action 1004, but that had a huge dropoff to Action 1005 (as did Superman 4 to Superman 5 - the foil covers in October 2018 gave a sales boost and Superman STILL lost readers over the previous month).

DC also cancelled the double-shipping of the Super-books for Bendis, so there's even more revenue lost because of the drops.

Depending on where you look around 12-15 months ago, they are either up, down, or the same:

March 2019
Superman 48K
Action 43K

March 2018
Superman 43K/42K
Action (999) 51K

January 2018
Superman 47K/44K
Action 41K/41K

December 2017
Superman 48K/44K
Action 42K/41K

Take a look, they are pretty much the same, so it is not fair to say they have fallen from what they replaced, definitely nothing here to claim they dropped. The move to once a month each definitely affects the bottom line as I am sure DC would be more than happy to have two more issues a month selling between 40-50K considering where sales are at right now.

[Truman Burbank]

Depending on where you look around 12-15 months ago, they are either up, down, or the same:

March 2019
Superman 48K
Action 43K

March 2018
Superman 43K/42K
Action (999) 51K

January 2018
Superman 47K/44K
Action 41K/41K

December 2017
Superman 48K/44K
Action 42K/41K

Take a look, they are pretty much the same, so it is not fair to say they have fallen from what they replaced, definitely nothing here to claim they dropped. The move to once a month each definitely affects the bottom line as I am sure DC would be more than happy to have two more issues a month selling between 40-50K considering where sales are at right now.

Yeah, it is fair, because comparing sales from the same point last year isn't a true comparison. March 2018 is the tail end of the Rebirth run, when it was known that Bendis would be taking over and sales tapered off because of it.

March was Bendis's ninth month on the main titles. His books did roughly 49K/43K. The ninth month of Rebirth, the books were at around 55K/43K. Rebirth Superman didn't have an issue drop below 50K in sales until #27; Bendis did it on issue #9.

Again, he's lost readers every issue but one. Action Comics sales are almost half of what they were for his first issue. Sales of Superman are quickly approaching half of what they started at (and that's not counting the spike for Bendis's Superman 1, which sold 133K because of speculators - almost two-thirds of that total is gone).

DC got a spike at the start of Bendis's Super-run, as many relaunches get; however, almost all of that has been squandered in just under a year.

[Lee Stone]

I think Bendis' popularity at DC will rice once Event Leviathan hits.