DC Comics October 2021 Solicitations

[Digifiend]

That's really not at all what saying...



I'm a bit confused as to what you're trying to say here. It's not as if Tom Taylor being given the chance to write Nightwing and Superman is a bad thing. Also, from what I can tell, Jeremy Adams has actually been receiving some pretty consistent praise for his Flash run thus far. So, I wouldn't say that DC made a bad choice in having him take over the title.

Yeah, the only thing they did wrong is not renumbering it. There's probably people out there who aren't buying it because they don't realise that it's now Adams writing Wally and not still Williamson writing Barry.

[MajorHoy]

Yeah, the only thing they did wrong is not renumbering it. There's probably people out there who aren't buying it because they don't realise that it's now Adams writing Wally and not still Williamson writing Barry.

It's really a shame that DC decided to honor how long a book starring "The Flash" has been around by resuming use of the old numbering (with some juggling) but now there are people who think that they should have ended that and gone with "Issue #1!" for the gazillionth time.

[Sacred Knight]

It's clear that the people who complain about this on the net are, by and large, a minority of the people who are buying the comics. I think the Batbook over saturation will stop when the market doesn't want those books anymore and wants to buy something else.

Oh it certainly is. My issue is that its a direct condemnation of DC's ability to promote and foster its other properties on a long-term scale. That mismanagement is what led to this reliance in the first place. Its not just the fact that Batman is the most popular, its that they can't put forth the effort to drive up the popularity of anything else.

What can you do when all of DCs bat books are their top selling

Foster your other properties well. I'm not pretending I have all the answers of course, I don't. But looking at the results its more than clear they don't either. That they haven't is why they have to oversaturate with Bat stuff. I mean, Batman would be the popular regardless. And you still capitalize on that, that's just good business sense. But most popular doesn't have to mean the only popular thing. Marvel isn't forced to oversaturate its line with Spider-Man.

[Vordan]

It's really a shame that DC decided to honor how long a book starring "The Flash" has been around by resuming use of the old numbering (with some juggling) but now there are people who think that they should have ended that and gone with "Issue #1!" for the gazillionth time.

You aren’t going to enjoy that warm glow of seeing a big number for long if they cancel the book because it’s not selling. They can always just put the legacy number on the cover too, just smaller, like how Marvel has been handling it.

[Lee Stone]

You aren’t going to enjoy that warm glow of seeing a big number for long if they cancel the book because it’s not selling. They can always just put the legacy number on the cover too, just smaller, like how Marvel has been handling it.

They could also do away with numbers altogether, and just list them by month and year.
Then just note on the cover the 'First Part' of a major story.

[CaptCleghorn]

It's really a shame that DC decided to honor how long a book starring "The Flash" has been around by resuming use of the old numbering (with some juggling) but now there are people who think that they should have ended that and gone with "Issue #1!" for the gazillionth time.

Yeah. DC's been fairly frugal with its use of legacy numbering for books. Only those (but not all) which had started in the Golden Age got that treatment. We're only talking about Action, Detective, Flash, and Wonder Woman here. Both DC and Marvel recognize the need for both renumberings and the magic of big round numbers as the odometer rolls over (yes, I am that old). Marvel has it both ways for some books with a legacy number put in smaller print on the cover which keeps at least me happy. But when numbering conventions have lasted since 1940 and earlier, that in itself is special. Does anyone really believe that a new Flash 1 would be the first Flash comic book, especially after years of the TV series?

[Restingvoice]

I hate returning to old numbering after deciding it's a new number #1 because once time passes long enough, it gets confusing. I'm here right now when Action and Detective return numbering so I know what happened, but when I was looking up Marvel, between Thor and Journey Into Mystery I think, I was like... wait... should I read this first or that first?

Of course, new number 1 has its own problem too. Which number #1 is first again? However, now it's easier since the series is recorded digitally by their year. So there's the 40s #1, the 2000s #1, the 2010s #1, so as long as they don't change titles it's easy to follow.

They do change titles though. The story went from Batman to Batman Inc to Batman Eternal back to Batman... so it's still the same confusion whether it's old numbering or not, but I guess in my brain it's easier to track new number #1 by year of publication.

Renumbering adds extra confusion on top of different titles and different years.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Oh it certainly is. My issue is that its a direct condemnation of DC's ability to promote and foster its other properties on a long-term scale. That mismanagement is what led to this reliance in the first place. Its not just the fact that Batman is the most popular, its that they can't put forth the effort to drive up the popularity of anything else.


Foster your other properties well. I'm not pretending I have all the answers of course, I don't. But looking at the results its more than clear they don't either. That they haven't is why they have to oversaturate with Bat stuff. I mean, Batman would be the popular regardless. And you still capitalize on that, that's just good business sense. But most popular doesn't have to mean the only popular thing. Marvel isn't forced to oversaturate its line with Spider-Man.

I will say that it's refreshing to see the Wonder Woman receiving a relatively big focus in these solicits. I never thought I'd see at least 7 Wonder Woman-related titles coming out in a single month. Like...wow. Seriously refreshing to see someone other than Batman getting focus.

And between that and a lot of other titles like the Milestone Season One titles, the two Lobo titles, the Suicide Squad spinoff titles like King Shark, Teen Titans Academy, Titans United, etc., its almost as if...DC is trying to shift focus away from just Batman? Is such a thing even possible??

[D.Z]

I wish the whole line was Batman.

[CaptCleghorn]

I will say that it's refreshing to see the Wonder Woman receiving a relatively big focus in these solicits. I never thought I'd see at least 7 Wonder Woman-related titles coming out in a single month. Like...wow. Seriously refreshing to see someone other than Batman getting focus.

And between that and a lot of other titles like the Milestone Season One titles, the two Lobo titles, the Suicide Squad spinoff titles like King Shark, Teen Titans Academy, Titans United, etc., its almost as if...DC is trying to shift focus away from just Batman? Is such a thing even possible??

I don't think DC is (or even wants to) shifting focus away from Batman. Yes, there is a heavily Bat-oriented set of solicitations, but I think (or at least hope) DC isn't putting all their eggs in one Bat-basket.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

I don't think DC is (or even wants to) shifting focus away from Batman. Yes, there is a heavily Bat-oriented set of solicitations, but I think (or at least hope) DC isn't putting all their eggs in one Bat-basket.

I was mostly being facetious. However, it is still nice to see at least a few other, NON-Batman family characters now with multiple titles out.

[ohfellow]

They could also do away with numbers altogether, and just list them by month and year.
Then just note on the cover the 'First Part' of a major story.

They used to print month and year of publication date on the cover (by the bar code) and I truly wish they still did!

Maybe they thought comics would look fresher on the shelves longer if they weren't dated, though that's a problem for retailers, not DC. But maybe retailers requested it.

[LAWtoyoto 432]

I will say that it's refreshing to see the Wonder Woman receiving a relatively big focus in these solicits. I never thought I'd see at least 7 Wonder Woman-related titles coming out in a single month. Like...wow. Seriously refreshing to see someone other than Batman getting focus.

And between that and a lot of other titles like the Milestone Season One titles, the two Lobo titles, the Suicide Squad spinoff titles like King Shark, Teen Titans Academy, Titans United, etc., its almost as if...DC is trying to shift focus away from just Batman? Is such a thing even possible??

The Flash and Green Lantern fans: But what about us?

Hal, Kyle, Bart and Jay fans: Are we a joke to you?

[ohfellow]

Don't know about them but ICv2 does sales charts based on POS Data. Their charts don't seem that different from Comichron's even if one is Issues ordered and the other is Issues sold.

I agree that Comixology sales charts are very dynamic, there isn't much to gather from them. Especially now that Marvel and DC don't release on the same day anymore. The only thing that can be analyzed is the difference in buying habits of digital comic readers of the US, UK, and EU.

That's a welcome change in ICv2 sales reporting. Maybe they started reporting the data this way this year or late last year? I learned it myself when I clicked on the link earlier in this thread.

Previously they duplicated data from Comichron, and Comichron reported sales figures TO stores provided to them by Diamond.

Now Comichron is collecting data from a sampling of retailers instead, who are reporting their purchase data (not sales data), which I guess keeps the Comichron charts consistent with the older Diamond-based charts. I think one of the stated purposes of Comichron is to let interested parties know how many copies of an issue have been ordered and printed and therefore actually exist somewhere (whether they are yet in the hands of readers, or not). Having that information helps with subsequent pricing for buying and selling of back issues on the secondary market.

Bleeding Cool has been doing a weekly article on the end sales to customers reported by a handful of comic retailers. Not very many, but Rich has an open invitation to shops to participate.

ICv2 is working off the Comichub point-of-sale system, which many comic shops across the US use to manage the whole sales process. Currently the data includes sales to customers from 100 shops, which is far from the 3,000 shops that exist, but perhaps is enough to pretty accurately gauge relative popularity of titles.

[Veni]

"I will say that it's refreshing to see Wonder Woman receiving a relatively big focus in these solicits. I never thought I'd see at least 7 Wonder Woman-related titles coming out in a single month. Like...wow. Seriously refreshing to see someone other than Batman getting focus."

5 of the 7 Wonder Woman-related titles are one-shots ( one is the 80th anniversary (which along with the main wonder woman title will get the most focus), another is a reprint, 2 are samples of graphic novels that have already been released and can be read online and even downloaded and the other is a collection of stories featuring young Diana). I wouldn't call that a relatively big focus but it's better than nothing.