Keeping track of Post-Rebirth Superman sales

[Robanker]

DC has been kinda scattershot with their trades. They solicited a Byrne Superman Omnibus then cancelled that and decided to make it a bunch of deluxes. Wasn’t the trade department one of the hardest hit by layoffs?

I prefer ~500 page volumes to the 800+ page megastacks so this actually worked out for me!

I decided to look up how the trades of Bendis' run on Superman have been doing through Comichron and other sources and so far according to what I could find the highest point of any trade of Bendis run on Superman reached was when Vol 1. Unity Saga managed just below the top 20. Compare that to say Superman Smashes The Klan that according to ICV2's Direct Market Graphic, managed to make the top 10 Graphic novels sales for the second quarter (April 1st - June 30) of 2020 (#5 in Unit sales and #10 in invoiced).

If a non canon Superman book managed to outperform the trades of an in-continuity Superman run that was still running, it's not a good look for Bendis' entire Superman in general.

It's the canon conundrum. Everyone wants jumping on points to get into the mainline stuff and the thing that scares them is the long history. So the self-contained stuff hits that sweet spot of "I don't need to know anything" and "there's a starting point."

The reason you probably don't see any turn around in the main line is because after you get that great hit of content from out-of-continuity... You're back to square one.

[manwhohaseverything]

I don't know what people mean by canon?I scratch my head and gets confused.There is no such thing.There is only different continuities with stories of superman,batman...etc.Any book with superman as protagonist is equally valid.How is smashes the klan,inferior?They need to put a rest to mainline thing.Let,creators tell stories with these characters,instead of focus on soap opera status quo shifts and things.

[Frontier]

I don't know what people mean by canon?I scratch my head and gets confused.There is no such thing.There is only different continuities with stories of superman,batman...etc.Any book with superman as protagonist is equally valid.How is smashes the klan,inferior?They need to put a rest to mainline thing.Let,creators tell stories with these characters,instead of focus on soap opera status quo shifts and things.

I think different takes on the property are valid, be they one-and-done GN's like Smashes the Klan or a more sprawling ongoing continuity.

[BBally]

A retailer called Comix Experience made a list of their bestselling titles of 2020 and Superman Smashes The Klan did extremely well.

https://www.comixexperience.com/news...t-sellers-2020

[Vordan]

A retailer called Comix Experience made a list of their bestselling titles of 2020 and Superman Smashes The Klan did extremely well.

https://www.comixexperience.com/news...t-sellers-2020

Excellent! I’m hoping that was true overall for the book’s sales. Hopefully that means Yang will get to do more standalones with Supes.

[BBally]

Comics by Perch uploaded a video analyzing the sales of the Super-Sons book.

[BBally]

Sales of the main Superman line has not been in good shape according to ICv2 since Bendis' run ended after changing so much of the character's status quo.

[Matt Rat]

Sales of the main Superman line has not been in good shape according to ICv2 since Bendis' run ended after changing so much of the character's status quo.

It's not a popular direction at all. Johnson's run is a decompressed borefest with no stakes thanks to Dark Crisis, and Jon's audience simply don't buy comics.

[BBally]

It's not a popular direction at all. Johnson's run is a decompressed borefest with no stakes thanks to Dark Crisis, and Jon's audience simply don't buy comics.

I disagree about Johnson's run at least the current Warworld arc, it's the best run the current main Superman line has had in a while, the issue is that synopsis of the entire arc made a lot of people reluctant to give it a chance.

As for "Jon's audience", they're busy buying LGBTQ manga like D**k Fight Island and Western LGBTQ Graphic Novels like the trades of UK Webtoon comic Heartstoppers for their LGBTQ content (and both examples are major sellers).

[Matt Rat]

I disagree about Johnson's run at least the current Warworld arc, it's the best run the current main Superman line has had in a while, the issue is that synopsis of the entire arc made a lot of people reluctant to give it a chance.

No, I've read all of it and it bores the pants off of me. I don't know or even care to know where this "best run in forever" nonsense is coming from, to me it's overrated as all sin, there's nothing remarkable or high stakes about it, this sort of story has been done before and done so much better, and I'm not going to blame public disinterest in it on a poor synopsis. You can sum up some of the best stories of all time with shoddy synopsises and they can still come out winners.

There is no audience appetite for this, it's had six or so months to win people over and it hasn't. It's a flop and appeals only to a small, niche corner of fandom which kind of just goes to show their tastes and ideas for Superman do not align with those of the greater consumer.

Not everyone's gonna pucker up to PKJ, and if fans truly want this franchise to thrive, I suggest they drop the lip balm and start kicking his rear end into full gear instead of kissing it, because it isn't working.

[NaVi]

In the comics, 99.999999999999% of the stories do not contribute anything to the character or his universe, everything is always the same, it is not just the PKJ comics, that is why the comics sell less every day, every day they have less interest, after All why spend money on a comic if 20 years later everything will be the same. Even the spoiled child of DC (Batman) is unable to advance, so the rest who have many limes either. that a comic is fun is more than enough, to ask for something more is to ask for a miracle.

[Matt Rat]

Even the spoiled child of DC (Batman) is unable to advance

Batman's advanced plenty. That's why he moves the needle when nobody else does.

[NaVi]

Batman's advanced plenty. That's why he moves the needle when nobody else does.

He has more freedom to move, but he always returns to the same point, he is the same character for 30 years.

[BBally]

Update:

The trade release of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow made the Top 20 Graphic Novel charts for both Units and Dollars

https://icv2.com/articles/markets/vi...vels-july-2022

First issue of Superman: Space Age only made the top 20 in the Dollars charts for floppies, though I see this doing better as a trade release down the line.

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/...mics-july-2022

[D.Z]

Just blame the fans and move on.


Ahhahhahahaha.