Keeping track of Post-Rebirth Superman sales

[Ascended]

Like revive Superman? Well one could dream.

No, I dont necessarily mean that. Maybe that's DC's plan, maybe its not. Who knows? And even if they did bring him back, its not like that'll fix the comics; until management and editorial changes nothing will fix this mess. Yes, I know the last few issues haven't been the worst thing ever, but let's dial it back, we're only three issues in. Give it time.

But if a previous version of Superman does well (Superdad) is it too hard to imagine that DC might decide to publish another out-of-continuity miniseries that uses Kal-L? If Superman is selling well and stuff like American Alien has proven to work, is it so hard to think DC might next try a pulp style Golden Age title? Especially with Morrison's acclaimed t-shirt Superman turning out to be so popular (until Truth killed the look)?

If nothing else, it can mean attracting a higher caliber of talent.

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

Day 5 for Action Comics #959

Remains at number 6.

Minimum sales at 4990.

Day 5 for New Super-Man #1

Remains at number 9.

Minimum sales at 4973

Day 13 for Superman #2

Drops to number 114.

Minimum sales at 12781.

Day 27 for Action Comics #958

Drops to number 248.

Minimum sales at 24737.

Day 34 for Superman #1

Drops to number 273.

Minimum sales at 31966.

Day 40 for Action Comics #957

Drops to 344.

Minimum sales at 44407.

Day 47 for Superman Rebirth #1

Superman Rebirth #1 drops to number 317.

Minimum sales at 44434

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

Day 6 for Action Comics #959

Remains at number 6.

Minimum sales at 5988.

Day 6 for New Super-Man #1

Moves up to number 8.

Minimum sales at 5969

Day 14 for Superman #2

Moves up to number 108.

Minimum sales at 13676.

Day 28 for Action Comics #958

Moves up to number 193.

Minimum sales at 25547.

Day 35 for Superman #1

Moves up to number 229.

Minimum sales at 32740.

Day 41 for Action Comics #957

Moves up to 307.

Minimum sales at 45103.

Day 48 for Superman Rebirth #1

Superman Rebirth #1 Moves up to number 232.

Minimum sales at 45205



New Super-Man moves up the charts again on its first week.

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

Day 7 for Action Comics #959

Remains at number 6.

Minimum sales at 6986.

Day 7 for New Super-Man #1

Moves up to number 8.

Minimum sales at 6965

Day 15 for Superman #2

Moves up to number 108.

Minimum sales at 14571.

Day 29 for Action Comics #958

Moves up to number 193.

Minimum sales at 26357.

Day 36 for Superman #1

Moves up to number 229.

Minimum sales at 33514.

Day 42 for Action Comics #957

Moves up to 307.

Minimum sales at 45799.

Day 49 for Superman Rebirth #1

Superman Rebirth #1 Moves up to number 232.

Minimum sales at 45976

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

Day 1 for Superman #3

Starts at number 3.

Minimum sales at 991.

Day 8 for Action Comics #959

Drops to number 27.

Minimum sales at 7952.

Day 8 for New Super-Man #1

Drops to number 34.

Minimum sales at 7924

Day 16 for Superman #2

Drops to number 128.

Minimum sales at 15436.

Day 30 for Action Comics #958

Drops to number 266.

Minimum sales at 27084.

Day 37 for Superman #1

Moves down to number 257.

Minimum sales at 34250.

Day 43 for Action Comics #957

Drops to 418.

Minimum sales at 46374.

Day 50 for Superman Rebirth #1

Superman Rebirth #1 drops to number 265.

Minimum sales at 46704

Comixology's best seller list has changed from listing 1003 comics to listing 993 comics, because of this the minimum sales for whatever takes the number 1 spot will be 993 and it'll go down from there.



The Rebirth hype is starting to wear off for some books. Star Wars and Darth Vader take the number 5 and 6 spots, beating out new DC issues spinning out of Rebirth. DC is still dominating the chart but you can see titles from other publishers closing in.

Superman#3 starts at number 3, it's still doing well and outselling big sellers like Injustice, Star Wars, and Darth Vader.

Action Comics #959 and New Super-Man have the biggest week 2 drops for Superman books Post-Rebirth. They aren't doing badly, but they are doing just slightly better than what most comics that were in the top 12 in the first week, do the following week. Nightwing, Flash, Wonder Woman, and Detective Comics all outcharted it last week, and still remain on the first page.

Action Comics might go to performing like Pre-Rebirth Action Comics when it comes to week 2 drops, in just a few months. Superman is still doing very well and there's no sign of people losing interest in it.

[The Shredder]

Superman & Action aren't what I'd like them to be, but there's a consistency there.

Just the mere fact that there's a consistency is a IMPROVEMENT over what's been going on in recent memory.

The fact is though,given time,all the negative pitfalls of their mishandling of Superdad would have likely been transferred to Nuperman eventually. Heck Truth repeated several of them. It's not and never has been the version of Superman that was the problem. It's the people in charge behind the scenes.

I agree to an extent, but also believe that a character's portrayal thru the years, not months but years, can and will have an affect on the reader, and his or hers own personal partiality towards a specific version of Superman. Which certainly lends itself to the divisiveness argument within the fan base. Sure, it's not fair to the character to have to basically absorb the brunt of likes/dislikes that were ultimately influenced by decisions made by people employed by DC, but it's fair to say that as a consequence, their decisions ultimately bleeds over onto the character, and eventually sets in a perception.

We see examples of endless posts highlighting this all the time.

Salty over Post-Crisis Superman taking over for Pre-Crisis Superman, salty over New52Superman taking over for Post-Crisis Superman, salty over Post-Crisis Superman returning to anchor the books over New52Superman.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

[dumbduck]

Only now, after the end of 52, I understand what an a-hole I was being to Post-crisis fans. I had a pretty good awareness that I was being a manchild in my rants, but not that I was being such a hateful a-hole against PC Supes. Blaming the character for the mishandling of the writers. It's easy to say this with hindsight, but for what is worth, I'm sorry to all PC fans.

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

Day 2 for Superman #3

Remains at number 3.

Minimum sales at 1982.

Day 9 for Action Comics #959

Drops to number 63.

Minimum sales at 8882.

Day 9 for New Super-Man #1

Drops to number 84.

Minimum sales at 8833

Day 17 for Superman #2

Drops to number 156.

Minimum sales at 16273.

Day 31 for Action Comics #958

Drops to number 294.

Minimum sales at 27783.

Day 38 for Superman #1

Moves up to number 254.

Minimum sales at 34989.

Day 44 for Action Comics #957

Drops to 465.

Minimum sales at 46902.

Day 51 for Superman Rebirth #1

Superman Rebirth #1 moves up to number 256.

Minimum sales at 47441

[SuperCrab]

Superman Rebirth #1 moves up to number 256.

Minimum sales at 47441

With all due respect, and I do respect you a lot for taking the time to do this research to make this thread and keep us all up to date, there is no way Superman Rebirth #1 has sold 47,000+ *digital* copies (i.e. downloads and access to issues in a web browser like on Comixology). Something about the metric you're using to figure out how many copies have been sold digitally is way off. I think it would be better to stick with just the rankings when you are just using the Comixology charts (Which don't include sales figures) if the digital sales numbers themselves aren't publicly released by Comixology or DC Comics.

I personally don't buy physical comics at all- my whole collection is digital comics I've purchased. So, there is nothing implied against digital copies when I say this- but they are a small slice of the overall comic book market. 47,441 is more copies than some of the lowest grossing physical or print issues of Superman or Action Comics have sold. There's no way that issue is getting there in just a couple months based on digital sales alone. If it had, they would be trumpeting it's success to the high heavens.

I mean no offense, and will definitely apologize if I'm proven to be wrong, but those sales figures just don't make sense to me given the state of the digital comics market right now.

[Ascended]

Not long after DC began same-day digital they said the digital books were hitting around 10% of physical sales. But that was back in 2012 and digital sales have increased exponentially since then. In 2014 or 2015 (I forget which year unfortunately) digital had already grown from 24 million units sold annually in 2011 to 100 million (industry wide). Add a year or two onto that and we could be looking at perhaps as much as 150 million (though thats likely a high estimate). If that's the case, and given how well the physical copies have sold, I could believe those figures Ina has posted.

That said, its true he might be well off. The logic he's using to estimate the sales seems pretty solid, but you never know. However, Comixology, Amazon (who own Comixology) and DC dont seem inclined to share their digital sales data with us so we'll likely never know. But I can understand that too; when fans get an inside peek at the industry it often creates more problems for the publishers. By not sharing the digital data they dont have to prove anything to us one way or another.

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

Not long after DC began same-day digital they said the digital books were hitting around 10% of physical sales. But that was back in 2012 and digital sales have increased exponentially since then. In 2014 or 2015 (I forget which year unfortunately) digital had already grown from 24 million units sold annually in 2011 to 100 million (industry wide). Add a year or two onto that and we could be looking at perhaps as much as 150 million (though thats likely a high estimate). If that's the case, and given how well the physical copies have sold, I could believe those figures Ina has posted.

That said, its true he might be well off. The logic he's using to estimate the sales seems pretty solid, but you never know. However, Comixology, Amazon (who own Comixology) and DC dont seem inclined to share their digital sales data with us so we'll likely never know. But I can understand that too; when fans get an inside peek at the industry it often creates more problems for the publishers. By not sharing the digital data they dont have to prove anything to us one way or another.

The digital numbers I post are definitely rough estimates, but the Superman books should be doing somewhere around what I've posted, as so far they've outperformed Ms. Marvel, which we've been told sells more digitally than in print, and that series does around 30, 000 in print per issue.

On that note, DC and Marvel don't release print sales data either. All we get are estimates.

DC and Marvel usually just tell as us that something is selling great, but don't go into specifics.

[Ascended]

The digital numbers I post are definitely rough estimates, but the Superman books should be doing somewhere around what I've posted, as so far they've outperformed Ms. Marvel, which we've been told sells more digitally than in print, and that series does around 30, 000 in print per issue.

On that note, DC and Marvel don't release print sales data either. All we get are estimates.

DC and Marvel usually just tell as us that something is selling great, but don't go into specifics.

Well, it'd be almost impossible to get actual sales figures from all the shops around the nation. What the shops ordered is as good as is feasibly possible, and for my money that's close enough. A shop owner with half a brain wont be too far off from what he can move when he places his order with Diamond, and for the shops who over order there'll be a shop that under orders. So its an estimate but I think its a decent estimate and is likely fairly close to actual sales. Granted, a big shiny #1 might be over-ordered, but by issue 6 you normally have a good handle on the volume you can actually move.

[ManSinha]

I still collect the physical book (as collector's items) and my LCB person said the other day that digital sales may have peaked across the board - as I may have mentioned before he is a Marvel fan and catches the occasional Batman comic so not sure he has any "dogs in the fight" - again just one individual's opinion from the conversations with their peers

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

Day 3 for Superman #3

Remains at number 3.

Minimum sales at 2973.

Day 10 for Action Comics #959

Drops to number 81.

Minimum sales at 9794.

Day 10 for New Super-Man #1

Drops to number 108.

Minimum sales at 9718

Day 18 for Superman #2

Moves up to number 121.

Minimum sales at 17145.

Day 32 for Action Comics #958

Drops to number 404.

Minimum sales at 28372.

Day 39 for Superman #1

Moves up to number 243.

Minimum sales at 35739.

Day 45 for Action Comics #957

Drops to 535.

Minimum sales at 47360.

Day 52 for Superman Rebirth #1

Superman Rebirth #1 drops to number 259.

Minimum sales at 48175

Action Comics #959 and New Super-Man #1 are placing like books that have been out a week normally place on their 2nd week, and Action Comics #957 is on page 23, so it's past the halfway point on the best sellers list, and looks like it'll be the 1st Post-Rebirth Superman book to leave the list.

Tomasi's Superman book is still going strong and Action Comics isn't doing badly, just that digitally, it's already going back to performing around the level it was before Rebirth.

[Man_of_Tomorrow]

AC is a very old school title. So i expect it will draw the old school fans who primarily buy print. After all even issue 958 went to second print.

Personally while i like it, i think it drags, so I dont know if I keep reading it. I dont know if the dragging is intensional to stabilise and give time to the creative team because of the small advance time they had.