Tag: david carter

Yes, that's right: Image. I know I usually do the DC Comics sales summaries here at The Beat, but while Heidi looks for someone to step in and handle the Indy comics chart I volunteered to do a column focusing on Image. With around seventy titles each month they're about as large (titles-wise) as Marvel or DC, so I figure they should have their own column, yes? Warning: The commentary may be even more mis-informed than usual...

The important thing to remember when looking at Image's sales numbers is that they're not really playing the same game as other comics companies. My understanding (and I'm sure you'll all correct me if I'm wrong in the comments below...) is that Image charges a flat fee for producing, listing and distributing comics, so that after that fee and the printing costs, whatever is left over goes directly to whoever supplied the comic. (This may be different for the official Image partners...)

Greetings, sales charts fans! It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures. (Warning: This month's column contains a higher amount of ranting than usual...) July was not a good month, sales-wise, for DC Entertainment. Compared to June, the average sales per title dropped by over 8K, and they sold 300K fewer total units in the NA direct market, despite offering nine more titles. Sales were down across the board, in many cases significantly, except for one title: Batgirl. Why did things drop so significantly? Three main reasons:

By David Carter Greetings, sales charts fans! It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures. With Convergence now in the rearview mirror, the DCU returned to normal as returning series picked back up where...

Greetings, sales charts fans! It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures.

After last month's large (with an asterisk) sales in the first month of Convergence, things calm down somewhat in May. Nothing that wasn't expected as the second half of the weekly and the second issues were bound to sell less than the first, and the drop-offs were fully within expectations.

by David Carter Greetings, sales charts fans! It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures. Last month (March 2015) was the worst month for DC sales since the start of the New 52, but this month was quite a turnaround! Convergence has turned out to be a sales success for DC: Each issue of the core weekly Convergence title sold over 110K (though note that each issue was returnable...) The first issue of each Convergence tie-in title sold between 30K & (nearly) 70K, with most in the 30K to 40K range. While 30K - 40K might not seem like a lot, compare that to the fact that in March there were twenty-four regular DCU titles that sold below 30K. So essentially the Convergence event resulted in DC lopping off the lower end of their DCU sales and replacing them with moderately-selling comics, which rises the average sales considerably. Not bad for a stunt that was allegedly conceived simply as a way to give DC's regular editorial team a two-month break to move across the country to their new West Coast headquarters!

by David Carter Greetings, sales charts fans! It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures. March 2015 was not a good sales month for DC in the North American direct market. Average sales per title for the DCU books (28,559), Vertigo (7,055), and DC as a whole (23,466) were all the lowest they've been since the New 52 started back in September 2011. Most of their sales problems were due to books that missed shipping in March, including their two top sellers, Batman and Justice League, and two other books that are in their top 30% (or so), Wonder Woman and Superman/Wonder Woman. A similar tune plays at the Vertigo label; with Sandman Overture MIA until May, the perpetually delayed American Vampire Second Cycle also not around, and Fables pretty much over (except for the oversized finale coming in July). That leaves Astro City as the regularly-shipping standard bearer for the imprint.

reetings, sales charts fans! It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures. While DC's top seller, Batman, slid to #5 on the Diamond chart--behind the debut issues of Orphan Black (Loot Crate-enhanced), Darth Vader, and Spider-Gwen; and the second issue of Star Wars--things were in fact a bit rosier for DC in February. Especially compared to January, as the Harley Quinn freely-orderable variant was a good deal more popular with those doing the ordering than last month's Flash variant. In most cases adding 2K - 4K more copies for those titles with the HQ variant. (A couple, Batman & Flash, went up about 8K; while Batgirl mysteriously dropped instead.) For the most part, DC is in a holding pattern right now, as many titles are coming to a close next month and the move-induced mega-event Convergence on the slate for April & May followed by a sizable relaunch in June. So you'll have to forgive the brevity of many of the comments below, as their just isn't that much to say this month that hasn't already been said before. Don't worry, I promise that the next few month's DC sales charts will have plenty more excitement!

Greetings, sales charts fans! It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures. December was a good news/bad news month for DC. The good news is that they had the #1 comic for December (Batman) and they won the unit market share, based mostly on the fact that they pushed out a ton of product. (December was a five week month but most other publishers treated it like a four week month.) The bad news is that sales were down month-to-month across most of the DCU titles, both as a line average and on most of the individual titles as well. (The release of an issue of Sandman Overture kept the average of DC as a whole from going down.) Looking at all of this month's numbers after last month's lends some credence to there having been some sort of small LEGO cover boost in November that is being corrected for in December's numbers. Which seeing as (imho) the December Darwyn Cooke covers were much more interesting than the LEGO covers is a bit disappointing. But hey, LEGO is a known quantity to people outside of the comics club and retailers may have been banking on a few extra sales of the LEGO covers outside of their regular clientele. Or maybe I'm just imagining things in the data that aren't really there.

[David Carter is the author of our monthly DC sales charts but he also hosts his own site, Yet Another Comics Blog, where he catalogs Amazon's graphic novel sales each week. Although these are a rolling average, They do provide some clues to what were the best selling books of the year. Take it away, David!]

Greetings, sales charts fans! It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures. Sales were down in November for DC as compared to October. Though October was a five-week month and more books naturally shipped that month, the average sales for DC as a whole and in each product category were down in November as well. But nothing to be too concerned about, as sales in the second two-thirds of 2014 are up roughly 10% as compared to the first third of 2014. Credit both the weekly Batman Eternal and the freely-orderable variant program for that increase. Speaking of variant's, this month's was LEGO. It's hard to see the month-to-month effects of the different variants and they're now being somewhat subsumed by other effects like attrition, crossovers, creative changes, etc. But there were a few titles with LEGO variants that saw a slight increase in sales for no other apparent reason which may be an indicate that retailers ordered the LEGO covers at a slightly higher level than they did last month's Monsters variants (all other things being equal). Anecdotal evidence from some retailers (e.g. Mike Sterling of Sterling City Comics) points to a definite in-store attraction to these LEGO covers, and suggests that perhaps DC is leaving money on the table by not producing a comic based on the wildly popular LEGO Batman video games. (Though perhaps licensing issues are prohibitive)

Greetings, sales charts fans! It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures. After last month's Futures End 3D cover extravataganza, things return to normal in October. DC continued their freely-orderable variant cover program, with the theme this month being Monster covers. The comics with variant covers are still selling higher than they would have without them, but at this point the month-to-month effects are largely subsumed by regular considerations such as creative team changes, crossovers, and standard attrition. October saw the debuts of several DCU titles, to varying effectiveness. Deathstroke by Tony Daniel and several Batman-related titles did relatively well, while a couple of supernatural-theme books (Trinity of Sin and Klarion) did less so. October was also the debut of the highly-touted revamped Batgirl, which saw the comic jump up to a top-twenty title. DC's third weekly title, Earth 2: World's End, debuted in October. Here are the first month sales of all three weekly series (plus the most recent issue for BE & FE):

by David Carter Greetings, sales charts fans! It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures. As has been their wont for the past few years, DC marks the September anniversary of The New 52 with a publishing stunt. In September 2012 it was Zero Issues; in September 2013 it was Villains Month with fancy 3D covers, weird X.1 numbering, and allocations. And in September 2014 they return to the 3D cover well with Futures End one-shots. This year DC avoided last year's allocation falderal by having retailers get their orders for the Futures End one-shots in a couple of months early, with creative teams announced only a couple of weeks before orders were due, and initial orders only (no Final Order Cutoff). (Retailers were also allowed to order up front as many 3D and standard covers that they wished for each title.) This caused no end of problems for retailers as they had to judge how many to order of these one-shots with no real clue as to how they would sell. Would there be as much demand as there was last year with the highly-publicized 3D cover shortages? How many customers would want to get the fact 3D covers, regardless of whether they were buying the regular titles? How many customers would want 3D covers over standard covers? How many customers would just sit out the one-shots all together?