Analyzing 20 years of DC sales

[Gotham citizen]

Did sales go up on Birds of Prey during Gail Simone's run compared to Dixon's?
[…]

The sales of the "first season" of Birds of Prey grew up slowly but constantly with every writer until they reach a maximum of thirty-one thousand (circa) copies/monthly during the Simone's run, then they start to decrease and the title was stopped when it retuned to twenty thousand copies sold monthly. The "second season" was most successful, but the bestseller issue was the first one, which sold about fifty/sixty thousand copies, then the sales started to drop again.

[The no face guy]

2003 – DC had the top selling comic title of the year, there was a JLA/Avengers crossover issue, some new titles, Teen Titans/Outsiders & of course many cancellations

Top Selling Title:

Batman wasn’t just DC’s top selling title, it smashed through Marvel and the competition like a wrecking ball, with one issue selling over 235,000 copies, all of the result of Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee’s excellent Hush storyline.

100,000 plus Range

Superman/Batman – With the Hush storyline winding down, Jeph Loeb started the Superman/Batman title in the fall of 2003, another title challenging Marvel's dominance.

60,000 Range

Teen Titans – Geoff Johns High 60’s

50,000 Range

JLA – High 50’s

40,000 Range

Outsiders – High 40’s, new series starts around June
Green Arrow – mid 40’s The title starts high but dramatically drops as Brad Meltzer leaves and Judd Winick takes over, not the greatest writer in my opinion, but the numbers speak for themselves, the title falls to the mid 30’s by the end of the year.
JSA – low 40’s Geoff Johns/Goyer

30,000 range

Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) mid 30’s
Superman – Low 30’s. This has to be where it bottoms out. You can’t have your number 2 hero selling that low.
Action Comics
Flash (Wally West) – Geoff Johns
Aquaman
Batman titles

20,000

Hawkman – high 20’s Geoff Johns
Birds of Prey – Gail Simone
Nightwing
Batgirl (Cassandra Cain)
Wonder Woman
Batman titles
More Superman titles (high)
Legion – low 20’s
Robin
Catwoman
Young Justice – Cancelled – 4/5 year run
Supergirl – Cancelled – 7 year run
Titans – Cancelled – 3 + year run
Dr. Fate (Mini Series)

19,000 – 15,000

Lobo Unbound – Looks like a mini series
Gotham Central
Hellblazer John Constantine (Vertigo, Limited print)
Harley Quinn – Cancelled 3 year run
Gen 13
Spectre – cancelled 2+ year run
Azreal Agent of the Bat Cancelled 8+ year run

15,000 – 5000

Doom Patrol – Cancelled run under 2 years
Beware the Creeper (Vertigo limited print) (mini series?) – looks like a replacement character, which would explain the low sales

[Digifiend]

More people were reading about Conner in Teen Titans than Clark in JLA, Superman and Action? Wow.

Yes, Lobo Unbound was a six issue mini.

[Vampire Savior]

Looking through these numbers it becomes clear why DiDio lasted so long, not that I support that. His stuff was pretty wacky, in my opinion, and I hated all his events, but it at least got people's attention (for a while). Levitz was clearly floundering and had put the audience to sleep, and Marvel had been utterly destroying DC for a long time. It's like Levitt could only manage one hit book at a time, if that.

DiDio may have turned things around, but he went to the same well way too many times, and obviously had no other tricks besides reboots, events, silver age resurrections, and random shocking nonsense. Oh, and weekly titles that lead to events or are like events themselves. He lasted way too long, in my opinion, and ended up wearing the audience out and pissing them off. He also showed a lack of commitment to ideas, or weirdly commiting to the wrong ideas, poor planning, and pulled the rug out from under readers way too much. It also seemed to me he only cared about getting reader attention through something shocking and the storytelling quality wasn't nearly as important.

[The no face guy]

More people were reading about Conner in Teen Titans than Clark in JLA, Superman and Action? Wow.

Yes, Lobo Unbound was a six issue mini.

I think by that time Geoff Johns name had really caught on as the new hot writer in comics. Thanks for the confirmation on Lobo.

Looking through these numbers it becomes clear why DiDio lasted so long, not that I support that. His stuff was pretty wacky, in my opinion, and I hated all his events, but it at least got people's attention (for a while). Levitz was clearly floundering and had put the audience to sleep, and Marvel had been utterly destroying DC for a long time. It's like Levitt could only manage one hit book at a time, if that.

DiDio may have turned things around, but he went to the same well way too many times, and obviously had no other tricks besides reboots, events, silver age resurrections, and random shocking nonsense. Oh, and weekly titles that lead to events or are like events themselves. He lasted way too long, in my opinion, and ended up wearing the audience out and pissing them off. He also showed a lack of commitment to ideas, or weirdly commiting to the wrong ideas, poor planning, and pulled the rug out from under readers way too much. It also seemed to me he only cared about getting reader attention through something shocking and the storytelling quality wasn't nearly as important.

Yes, it's frustrating being a comic fan sometimes, being powerless to change decisions you know they are not the right direction for the company.

[The no face guy]

2004 – was a renaissance year for DC comics as they dominated the top sales of the comic industry with their two big guns (Batman/Superman) and the emergence of great writers coming to the forefront, in Geoff Johns Green Lantern Rebirth, and Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis. All in all, DC sales were up across the board with few cancellations. A great year for DC!

Top Selling Title:

Superman/Batman: It wasn’t the highest selling single issue of the year for DC, but consistently it was the highest selling title, with one issue reaching close to 179,000 copies sold. Jeph Loeb

Over 100,000 range

Superman – Superman was struggling as a title, so DC went to work by putting Jim Lee on the art & Brian Azzarello on script, resulting in over 231,000 copies of the first issue sold in April. Sales would settle down by the end of the year, but still in the six figures.
Identity Crisis – Infamous today for the Sue Dibney controversy, at the time it was a great mini series, by a great writer, Brad Meltzer
Green Lantern Rebirth: (Hal Jordan) The mini series that would redeem Hal Jordan from being a mass murderer and bring him back as one of DC’s most popular superheroes of all time, and the one man capable of writing that script was none other than Geoff Johns.

70,000 range

Batman was still popular, but started to fade fast once Jeph Loeb left the title, by the end of the year it fell from approximately 90,000 to the low 60,000 range.
JLA Classified – Two issues at the end of the fall.

60,000 range

JLA - John Byrne came in to write a few issues, which gave it a bump before it settled back down in the 60,000 range. Surprised to see absolute legend Denny O Neil writing the JLA before that, RIP, Denny.
Teen Titans – Geoff Johns mid 60’s

50,000 range

Legion of Superheroes – Mark Waid; first issue 50,000 at the end of the year. (How did I miss this??? I must of still been ticked for something DC did to the Legion previously. Some back issue reading to put on my list)

40,000 range

Flash (Wally West) – Geoff Johns –mid 40’s
Action Comics – all over the place hard to gauge high or low.
JSA – Geoff Johns – low 40’s
Outsiders
Another Superman title (Adventures of Superman)

30,000 range

Robin – mid 30’s bouncing around a lot.
Detective Comics
Batman Gotham Knights
Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) cancelled – bounces around a lot
Green Arrow – low 30’s
Nightwing - Jumps around a lot
Birds of Prey (Gail Simone)
Batgirl (Cassandra Cain)

20,000 range

Wonder Woman – high 20’s
Hawkman – Geoff Johns
Legion – mid 20’s
Swamp Thing (Vertigo limited prints)
Catwoman
Firestorm (Jason Rusch )
Batman Legends of the Dark Knight
Aquaman – low 20’s
Adam Strange (Mini Series)
Deadshot (issue 1 Dec, mini series?)
Doom Patrol – The first series doesn’t do well, so what does DC do, start a brand new one?

19,000 – 10,000

Question mini series – I am a huge fan of this character, but to this day, I think it’s one of the worst comics I’ve ever read, I couldn’t even stomach buying the 2nd issue and that’s saying a lot . Around the time he was immensely popular in the JLA cartoon. Does not reflect nicely on Veitch’s writing.
Richard the Dragon
Gotham Central
Hellblazer (John Constantine) (Vertigo limited prints)
Plastic Man(kids comic)
Manhunter (Kate Spencer)

[Digifiend]

Yes, Deadshot was a five issue mini.

Doom Patrol was cancelled, and then relaunched 11 months later. Robotman was the only character on both teams - the relaunch brought back the other classic characters, whereas the cancelled run featured a bunch of newbies.

[The no face guy]

Yes, Deadshot was a five issue mini.

Doom Patrol was cancelled, and then relaunched 11 months later. Robotman was the only character on both teams - the relaunch brought back the other classic characters, whereas the cancelled run featured a bunch of newbies.

Ah that explains it then, nothing to alienate Doom Patrol fans more than to replace all their favourite characters but one, and still keep the name the Doom Patrol. I think Geoff Johns JSA approach of keeping the classic favourites, but introducing some new blood works the best. My opinion of course, I'm sure some will disagree. Thanks on the Deadshot.

I'll have 2005 up late tonight, a big year for DC, now their starting to dominate the industry.

[The no face guy]

2005 – was a golden year for DC, they basically took the wrecking ball to Marvel and comic competition in general, with the top selling title of the year, several titles in the six figures, and sales up across the board, with few cancellations. All you need to do is look at the top five covers of November 2005, compare DC’s to Marvel, and it’s clear who the true superheroes are, and why DC was number 1 (despite my love for Wolverine) https://www.comichron.com/monthlycom...5/2005-11.html

Top Selling Title]

All Star Batman & Robin: Yes Frank Miller’s epic series. What? Were you expecting something else? !? What are you dense or retarded or something? It’s the goddamn Batman!!! Issue 1 in the fall, over 261,000 copies sold, Jim Lee on art.

100,000 plus range:

Infinite Crisis: (Mini Series) Geoff Johns on script (Can’t say it’s his best work) Phil Jimenez art & the legendary George Perez on some cover art. Top selling issue over 249,000 copies sold.
Justice: (Mini Series) Jim Krueger on story and Doug Braithwaite’s amazing art. Over 190,000 copies sold for issue 1.
All Star Superman (Mini Series) : Grant Morrison’s All Star Superman first issue sees sales of over 170,000 copies. Sidenote, for UK fans, I believe the artist Frank Quitely drew for the Beano and Dandy. Once upon a time they were somewhat popular in Canada, not so much in the US I imagine.
Green Lantern: (Hal Jordan) First issue sells over 168,000 issues sold Geoff Johns
Green Lantern Rebirth (Hal Jordan) Geoff Johns
Supergirl: Jeph Loeb, first issue over 123,000 copies sold.
Superman/Batman: Jeph Loeb


80,000 Range

Superman? It’s hard to gauge where to put Superman, up to May when Jim Lee was on art and Azzarello sales where in the six figures, after they left it doesn’t appear that they had a stable creative team come in, so sales started to sink into the
60,000/70,000 range.
OMAC Project (Mini Series) The most brilliant Greg Rucka
Villains United (Mini Series) Gail Simone

70,000 Range

JLA – It bounced around a lot, at the beginning of the year it remained in the 60,000’s but then they started to juggle some good writers into the mix it was averaging in the 80,000’s
Rhann Thanagar War (Mini Series)– Gibbons – high 70’s
Day of Vengeance (Mini Series/Spectre/Infinite crisis) – Willingham – high 70’s

60,000 Range

Teen Titans: High 60’s Geoff Johns
Green Lantern Corpse Recharge (mini series)
Batman: They put Judd Winick on Batman and sales began to decline to the low 60’s by the end of the year, if your a Green Arrow fan, than you’ll understand this writer’s off putting trend.

50,000 Range

JSA – Geoff Johns/ Champagne – mid low 50’s
Superman/Shazam (mini series) Judd Winick

40,000 Range

Flash (Wally West) mid 40’s
Outsiders
Seven Soldiers of Victory (Mini Series)
JLA classified – low 40’s
Wonder Woman – Greg Rucka
Action Comics

30,000

Legion of Superheroes – high 30’s Mark Waid
Adventures of Superman
Detective Comics
Nightwing
Birds of Prey – low 30’s Gail Simone
Batman Gotham Knights
More Batman titles
Green Arrow

20,000

Robin – High 20’s
Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) mid 20’s
Jonah Hex
Hawkman
Catwoman
Batman Legends of the Dark Knight
Legion – mid 20’s cancelled
Captain Atom (Mini Series)
A Batman title or two or three or 80 thousand

19,000 – 10, 000

Aquaman
Firestorm (Jason Rusch)
Question (Vic Sage) (Mini series)
Gotham Central
Blood of the Demon (Jason Blood)
Doom Patrol
Hellblazer John Constantine (Vertigo Title Limited Prints)
Manhunter (Kate Spencer)
Vigilante

10,000 less

Swamp Thing (Vertigo title limited prints)
Richard the Dragon – cancelled (Bombs out hard 1 year run)

[Digifiend]

All Star Superman (Mini Series) : Grant Morrison’s All Star Superman first issue sees sales of over 170,000 copies. Sidenote, for UK fans, I believe the artist Frank Quitely drew for the Beano and Dandy. Once upon a time they were somewhat popular in Canada, not so much in the US I imagine.

Wonder Woman – Not sure when Greg Rucka took on Wonder Woman, but if this is any sign of his quality of work, sales go from the high 20,000 to the 50,000 by the fall. Could be a result of Infinite Crisis? But Rucka is a great writer!

Quitely worked for Judge Dredd Megazine, the 2000AD spin-off, but not Beano or Dandy (which were entirely humour titles by that point, Beano dumped it's last adventure strips, Billy the Cat and Katie, and General Jumbo, in the mid 1970s, and Dandy ended it's Black Bob, the Dandy Wonder Dog story in the 80s). Perhaps you're thinking of The Greens, his first work, which was a parody of Beano and Dandy publisher DC Thomson's Broons newspaper comic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Quitely

Rucka's first Wonder Woman was #195 in August 2003.
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Wonder_Woman_Vol_2_195

[Noodle]

It amazes me that a guy that can't even put out one book on time now (Johns) was writing about 5-7 books between ongoings and minis in 2005.

[The no face guy]

Quitely worked for Judge Dredd Megazine, the 2000AD spin-off, but not Beano or Dandy (which were entirely humour titles by that point, Beano dumped it's last adventure strips, Billy the Cat and Katie, and General Jumbo, in the mid 1970s, and Dandy ended it's Black Bob, the Dandy Wonder Dog story in the 80s). Perhaps you're thinking of The Greens, his first work, which was a parody of Beano and Dandy publisher DC Thomson's Broons newspaper comic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Quitely

Rucka's first Wonder Woman was #195 in August 2003.
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Wonder_Woman_Vol_2_195

Thanks, I scrubbed the Wonder Woman comment. I like the character, but I've never read a run. Batman aside... I do not own much from the other big three (Superman/Wonder Woman) Beano & Dandy! I remember Beano and Dandy becoming tame and unfunny, as a result of having to change with the times. I'm Canadian so my perspective might be different, but looking back I don't think that Dennis the Menace, The Bash street Kids and Minnie the Minx where the best role models for young British children to emulate, but they were humorous and got the slipper in the end until that was banned from comics alongside the sling shots, and beating up on softies.

It amazes me that a guy that can't even put out one book on time now (Johns) was writing about 5-7 books between ongoings and minis in 2005.

Funny back in the day, my friend and I were worried that he was starting to take on too much, and that his quality would begin to drop. I remember my friend raving about this new writer on the Flash who was better than Mark Waid, so I started to check him out, and picked up the new JSA run, and than later on Hawkman. A few years later he had so many balls in the air, we were wondering how long he would be able to consistently put out quality stuff. I think today, as a big wig, Geoff has a lot of responsibility and projects he has to attend to. I'm sure if he was strictly a writer, he'd produce more.

[Timothy Hunter]

]

Question mini series – I am a huge fan of this character, but to this day, I think it’s one of the worst comics I’ve ever read, I couldn’t even stomach buying the 2nd issue and that’s saying a lot . Around the time he was immensely popular in the JLA cartoon. Does not reflect nicely on Veitch’s writing.
Richard the Dragon
Gotham Central
Hellblazer (John Constantine) (Vertigo limited prints)
Plastic Man(kids comic)
Manhunter (Kate Spencer)

For the longest time Rick Veitch rubbed me the wrong way with the work he did. He's not a bad writer, in fact his greatest comics are on par with Moore.

However only reading his early 2000s DC Comics, no one would come to this conclusion. In my opinion he was writing some of the worst books on the stands such as his Aquaman and his issue of JLA after the Obsidian Age.

He has written some great comics: His fill in issue during Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run involving Metron was phenomenal, as well as his 90s dream inspired comic Rare Bit Fiends and the two part Eclipse anthology series Bedlam he shared with Stephen Bissette.

[Digifiend]

Beano & Dandy! I remember Beano and Dandy becoming tame and unfunny, as a result of having to change with the times. I'm Canadian so my perspective might be different, but looking back I don't think that Dennis the Menace, The Bash street Kids and Minnie the Minx where the best role models for young British children to emulate, but they were humorous and got the slipper in the end until that was banned from comics alongside the sling shots, and beating up on softies.

They've modernised nowadays. The characters now have proper names (for example, Roger the Dodger - my avatar - is called Roger Dawson, and Minnie the Minx is Hermione Makepeace). No more Dennis's Mum and Dennis's Dad - their names are now Sandra and Dennis Menace. Dennis Sr is actually meant to be the Dennis from 30 years ago. Walter is no longer a softy, he's now Walter Brown, son of Mayor Wilbur Brown, a sneaky telltale who wants to spoil the other kids' fun (as a result, Dennis menacing him is no longer always bullying, but instead can be justified as him defying a grass). And Dennis has two new female friends in his gang, sporty JJ and wheelchair using inventor Rubidium von Screwtop (who has her own strip, Rubi's Screwtop Science). Curly was eliminated when those two were introduced. With Dandy's demise as a weekly (they still do annuals and summer specials), Bananaman is now a Beano character.

All of this probably sounds alien to Americans. There's two big marketing problems. The first, obviously, is that there's another character called Dennis the Menace who debuted in the same week in 1951. This causes trademark complications, so UK Dennis's cartoons always include his dog Gnasher's name in the title, and US Dennis drops the "the Menace" part in the UK (he used to be called Just Dennis or Dennis the Pickle here in the 1960s). The second problem is the comic's name, Beano. It's supposed to mean feast, as in a feast of fun. But Americans when they see the name might think of a alpha-galactosidase supplement, or bingo (i.e. gambling). Neither are something that they'd want to be associated with the comic.

[The no face guy]

For the longest time Rick Veitch rubbed me the wrong way with the work he did. He's not a bad writer, in fact his greatest comics are on par with Moore.

However only reading his early 2000s DC Comics, no one would come to this conclusion. In my opinion he was writing some of the worst books on the stands such as his Aquaman and his issue of JLA after the Obsidian Age.

He has written some great comics: His fill in issue during Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run involving Metron was phenomenal, as well as his 90s dream inspired comic Rare Bit Fiends and the two part Eclipse anthology series Bedlam he shared with Stephen Bissette.

I've heard his Swamp Thing was good, as it appears to be the most notable mark he made on DC, outside of chronicling secret origins and DC's Who's who, but whatever he had he seems to have lost in the early 2000's.

Fair or not, I largely blame him for Vic Sage's demise. The Question was a cult favourite that was gaining steady popularity from Denny O Neil's run, to Greg Rucka's Cry for Blood and the JLA animation series, but his momentum seems to have been was squashed in this horrible, horrible written mini series that pretty much tanked. It is conceivable for me to think that if someone else had written the series, that he may have not have been killed off and replaced in 52. I realize though, I speak as a passionate fan of the character, and logically, his fate in 52 may have simply been a Greg Rucka decision.

They've modernised nowadays. The characters now have proper names (for example, Roger the Dodger - my avatar - is called Roger Dawson, and Minnie the Minx is Hermione Makepeace). No more Dennis's Mum and Dennis's Dad - their names are now Sandra and Dennis Menace. Dennis Sr is actually meant to be the Dennis from 30 years ago. Walter is no longer a softy, he's now Walter Brown, son of Mayor Wilbur Brown, a sneaky telltale who wants to spoil the other kids' fun (as a result, Dennis menacing him is no longer always bullying, but instead can be justified as him defying a grass). And Dennis has two new female friends in his gang, sporty JJ and wheelchair using inventor Rubidium von Screwtop (who has her own strip, Rubi's Screwtop Science). Curly was eliminated when those two were introduced. With Dandy's demise as a weekly (they still do annuals and summer specials), Bananaman is now a Beano character.

All of this probably sounds alien to Americans. There's two big marketing problems. The first, obviously, is that there's another character called Dennis the Menace who debuted in the same week in 1951. This causes trademark complications, so UK Dennis's cartoons always include his dog Gnasher's name in the title, and US Dennis drops the "the Menace" part in the UK (he used to be called Just Dennis or Dennis the Pickle here in the 1960s). The second problem is the comic's name, Beano. It's supposed to mean feast, as in a feast of fun. But Americans when they see the name might think of a alpha-galactosidase supplement, or bingo (i.e. gambling). Neither are something that they'd want to be associated with the comic.

Ah yes, I never picked up that your avatar was Roger the Dodger, wow! That takes me back. Well as long as the Beano still provides entertainment for UK youth, that's all that matters, though I'm surprised it's continued to survive in the digital age. Correct me if I'm wrong but the Dandy is now defunct. I always enjoyed the Beano more, but I liked The Jocks & the Geordies in the Dandy, it was kind of like spy vs spy in that you would read to see who would win.

I'm not sure if the Beano and Dandy would have ever sold in the U.S. even if it was advertised there, it's almost too British for them to relate to. Canada is pretty much Americanized culturally these days, but were still two very different countries. I like Americans and cross the line a few times every year, but even in the super blue states, I notice cultural differences, not just in mannerisms and behaviors, but structural layout, architecture and the things they like as well.

Well, better get started on 2006.