April 2019 sales

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Newsarama has given us a preliminary look at comics sales for April 2019.

https://www.newsarama.com/45123-apri...es-charts.html

As expected, sales were down compared to March due to the absense of Detective 1000, among other reasons. Also, as expected, the War of the Realms event took the top slot.

Marvel Comics relcaimed the top publisher spot with 45.50% dollar share and 50.70% unit share.
DC followed with 23.73% and 25.89% respectively,
then Image Comics in at third with 7.93% and 7.60%.

According to John Jackson Miller of Comichron, the big takeaway from the April 2019 figures are DC's cutbacks to its comic book line are taking affect - not just for the publisher, but the entire market.

"It would be a down month year-over-year even with Action Comics #1000 excised from the charts last April," Miller told Newsarama. "Marvel is filling some of those empty rack slots (presuming any store had a spot for everything), but not all of them."

Marvel shipped 106 comic books in April 2019, to DC's 52. That's DC's lowest title count since 1991, and is 29 fewer than it released in April 2018. Comparitively, Marvel released 86 comic books in April 2018, but has exceeded 106 on several occasions - it's last being June 2016.

"I’m sure Marvel did double DC’s output in terms of number of titles some months in 1974, but I can’t find much evidence that it’s happened since," Miller explained. "DC, meanwhile, doubled up on Marvel often in the post-bankruptcy years."

However, it's interesting to note that even though DC's numbers were half of Marvel's, DC also published about half the number of comics that Marvel did (106 comics for Marvel vs. 52 for DC). This might mean that the average DC title sold just as well as the average Marvel title. It will be interesting to see if this bears out when the full figures are released. Does this mean it was smart of DC to cut its line?

These are the Top 10 Comics sold by units in April 2019:

1 WAR OF THE REALMS #1 $5.99 MAR

2 SYMBIOTE SPIDER-MAN #1 $4.99 MAR

3 THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS #4 $4.99 DC

4 THE IMMORTAL HULK #16 $3.99 MAR

5 BATMAN #69 $3.99 DC

6 BATMAN #68 $3.99 DC

7 THANOS #1 $4.99 MAR

8 HEROES IN CRISIS #8 $3.99 DC

9 WEB OF VENOM: CULT OF CARNAGE #1 $4.99 MAR

10 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #20 $3.99 MAR

[ChrisG]

Dc's hope's are all pinned on the year of the villain, they expect that it will changed the sales downfall.

[Johnny]

Hulk outsold Batman? Damn. Reminds me when GL used to outsell almost anything Marvel put out. Good times.

[Lee Stone]

It will take years of DC cultivating fans to get them to where they don't dip so far down when there's not some event launch or special issue.
But they can't seem to wrap their head around the terms 'cultivating' and 'fans'.

[Digifiend]

Looks like Marvel readers have finally learned how good Hulk writer Al Ewing is. Meanwhile fans are cancelling their pulls for Tom King's Batman. This is the result.

[Robotman]

Reminds me of the 90s when Batman was DC’s only marketable character. Morrison on GL, Bendis on Superman, and Johns on Shazam and none of them can break the top 10.

[Lee Stone]

Reminds me of the 90s when Batman was DC’s only marketable character. Morrison on GL, Bendis on Superman, and Johns on Shazam and none of them can break the top 10.

They only have themselves to blame for that.

[Confuzzled]

Reminds me of the 90s when Batman was DC’s only marketable character. Morrison on GL, Bendis on Superman, and Johns on Shazam and none of them can break the top 10.

There weren't so many #1's every month in the 90s either.

[Korath]

Well, Batman resonate with the grey and very complex world we live in far better than Shazam or Superman or Green Lantern (and this case, Morrison's very hit and miss, I really can't feel myself interested in this series, I just can't find a doorway in).

[MajorHoy]

Looks like Marvel readers have finally learned how good Hulk writer Al Ewing is. Meanwhile fans are cancelling their pulls for Tom King's Batman. This is the result.

Was there any information on the number of copies sold (ordered through Diamond) to verify that "fans are cancelling their pulls for Tom King's Batman", and how much of a difference there was between March and April on King's Batman?

[Frontier]

They only have themselves to blame for that.

Do you mean that people are just so disinterested in DC that even popular stuff doesn't sell as well?

Although I think these sales are a little skewed with the #1's on Marvel's side.

[Lee Stone]

Moved this from the Marvel version, as it deals more with DC:

Honestly I'd say the DCU seems more centralized on Snyder's stuff and Bendis' Superman then Batman at this point.

Right now the only thing Batman's got going for him is that he can carry a franchise of titles. The only solo Marvel character who can do that is Spider-Man.

But DC's biggest problem is that those incentives (Bendis at DC and Wonder Comics) have just started.
DC has a history of abandoning things after the new wears off.
The only thing they really commit to is Batman.

While the X-Men's current state is debatable (mostly due to the damage they did with the FF/X-Men embargo and trying to replace them with the Inhumans), the work that Marvel put into developing and cultivating the team as a franchise from 1975 to 1992 could be used as a textbook example of how to build a strong franchise.

But DC's heads have a problem with looking beyond their own current works to learn from past successes. Even their own company's past successes.

[Frontier]

]
But DC's biggest problem is that those incentives (Bendis at DC and Wonder Comics) have just started.
DC has a history of abandoning things after the new wears off.
The only thing they really commit to is Batman.

I think the difference is with the current iniative is Bendis still seems very involved and is more of a creative director, so unless DC deliberately downplays him I'm not sure his initiatives are going to just peter out very quickly.

While the X-Men's current state is debatable (mostly due to the damage they did with the FF/X-Men embargo and trying to replace them with the Inhumans), the work that Marvel put into developing and cultivating the team as a franchise from 1975 to 1992 could be used as a textbook example of how to build a strong franchise.

Well, the Age of X-Men line isn't really firing up the charts, but I get what you mean.

But it doesn't seem like the X-Men books sell well aside from the main title (whatever that is).

[Lee Stone]

Do you mean that people are just so disinterested in DC that even popular stuff doesn't sell as well?

Although I think these sales are a little skewed with the #1's on Marvel's side.

What I mean is that DC has had strong franchises.
Even ones that beat Marvel.

But they don't stick with them the way they do with Batman.
They will bend over backwards to make sure Batman is the top book, but they don't give other franchises that same degree of importance.

If Batman has a dip in sales, they're not going to just cancel him and move on.

[Aahz]

Was there any information on the number of copies sold (ordered through Diamond) to verify that "fans are cancelling their pulls for Tom King's Batman", and how much of a difference there was between March and April on King's Batman?

At least it is safe to say that the numbers keep going down. During Snyders Run Batman sold usually more than 100K copies. Last month the Batman issues sold only 84,463 and 83,102 copies.