Sales Review: October 2016

In the States, the Friday after Thanksgiving is known for its crazy store sales so I figured why not review last month's sales numbers today.

Also it is a pretty dry topic and on a day when I suspect traffic is going to be low, this isn't a big post to miss. As always, I think the coverage is best over on ICv2 so I will provide the link:
http://ift.tt/2gsYLKp

The idea of Rebirth had fueled a nice bump in sales for DC and they actually led the market throughout the summer. October saw Marvel reassert itself as the top dog. But DC still was pretty robust in sales. That said, the novelty of some of these titles might be wearing off and books are slowly receding to what I think are expected numbers.

You might recall that the Supergirl Rebirth Special sold over 100K and Supergirl #1 sold just over 90K. These were incredible numbers, maybe too good to be true. But with the popular show on the small screen and the rejiggering of the character in the book to sort of mirror the show's themes, maybe this was a sales bonanza that could be maintained?

Supergirl #2 came out in October and continued the Cyborg Superman arc, a story which (I assume) will once again have Supergirl declare Earth as her new home and put Krypton behind her. Of course, the problem is we already have had this as a story in the New 52 ... maybe even twice within that run. So this Rebirth has a little more of a reboot feel.

So how did it sell?

While I anticipated a drop in sales, I didn't expect it to be such a precipitous fall.

Supergirl #2 sold just over 45K, a drop of 50% from the prior issue.

Now 45K in the current market is a healthy number. But a 50% drop in orders isn't something to be cheered by. In fact that is downright scary.

It is still better than the 28K that Supergirl #40 sold. In the end, I think Supergirl as a book is probably a 30K seller. I hope DC recognizes that as a solid number, especially when, even in the New 52, the readers were loyal and kept sales around that number throughout.

I would love if the book sold around 45K monthly. Then we wouldn't have to worry.

As for the Superman books, they are also inching towards a new norm.

The Action Comics book, written by Dan Jurgens with art by Patch Zircher and Stephen Segovia, is enmeshed in the Mr. Oz mystery. This is the book that seems to be most tied in with the future of DC and whatever the next big crossover is going to be.

Superman, by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason, seems to be a bit more stand-alone. Less invested in the bigger DCU, this has been a title exploring the Super-Dad/Super-Son relationship and included the wonderful New Frontier homage.

Both books are selling well.

Action Comics is hovering over 50K in sales.

Superman is leading the pack, selling just under 70K.

Both books seem healthy in their sales especially given these are twice a month books.

I don't know if I will always comment on this book but as a fan of Shade The Changing Man and as someone intrigued by the Young Animal imprint in general, I wanted to see how Shade The Changing Girl #1 sold.

This is peripherally attached to the Shade character but is a sort of new character.

I think that 32K in sales for a wonky character like Shade is pretty good. In my mind, this will settle out in the 15K range. Will that be good enough for DC to continue publishing? My guess is Young Animal will have some room to run a bit. I doubt books will be canceled early.

Hope the holiday weekend is treating people well here at home.

Posted in: Reviews