Happy Thanksgiving Again! Sales Review: October 2018

As Supergirl fans, I think we should probably give thanks to Stanley 'Artgerm' Lau, someone who seems to be able to wave a magic wand over Supergirl sales. Amazing! So raise a glass of mulled cider or have an extra slice of leftover pumpkin pie today in his honor.

And why am I saying all this today?

Well the comic sales for October 2018 were recently posted. As always head to ICv2 for great coverage: https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/41809/top-500-comics-october-2018

Now October had DC roll out special foil cover variants. So some of what I am about to discuss might be collector zeal for fancy, shiny covers.

Still the numbers are jaw-dropping!

Supergirl #23 was the third issue of the new direction by Marc Andreyko and Kevin Maguire.

Sales weren't exactly brisk with the bold, new direction. And one thing that had changed was that the Artgerm variant covers ended with Supergirl #20. Amanda Conner took over the variant job with the changeover. And hey ... Amanda Conner ain't a slouch. I love her work and her Supergirl work in particular.

Still, Artgerm gave us the above variant, the foil cover.

But Supergirl #22 had 22,115 units ordered through Diamond. This was a bit of an eye opener. We were two issues into a new run and sales had dropped 20% from Supergirl #21. I was waiting to see if the book was in free fall.

Supergirl #23 was ranked 37th in sales, with 44775 units.

You don't need to be good in math to see that is a 100% increase in sales.

Could it be that word on the street about the new direction was so good that new readers flooded to the title?

Could it be that the foil cover alone made people buy it?

Or could the equation of (foil cover + Artgerm) lead to this bonanza?

It has to be the last. But other titles didn't jump this much. So I think Artgerm is the biggest factor.

As always, I hope people who buy for the cover will read the book and learn to love Kara.

But DC, as a business, should read the tea leaves and count their profits and put Artgerm back on covers here.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

As always, thank you all for coming here and hanging out with me!

Posted in: Reviews