Wonder Woman Sales Figures - Now to 1942

**DHacker615** · 12-27-2009, 01:55 PM

Originally Posted by AndyMangels

Found one more SOO for Series 2, but since DC stopped running them in 1988, this is all there was. Still, it shows that the Perez run was a HUGE jump forward in sales from the previous series.

1987 Wonder Woman #15 SOO 118,550

Also, thanks to the Standard Catalog of Comic Books (2nd Edition), I found some Capital City orders of almost all of the Series 2 issues. These are ONLY one distributors' orders, and did not factor in orders from Diamond, Heroes World, Second Genesis, or others, nor newsstand sales. My bet is that these were probably around 1/4 of total sales.

The CC orders do, however show trends in sales. I've marked a few spots where artist changes were made. Surprisingly, while sales declined after Perez left the book, it was not immediate, and Perez sales were often less than 1/3 of when he had started. The Deodato sales didn't immediately pick up, but were rising already before "The Contest" issues, and peaked as those showed up. And Byrne's sales started strong.

I tried to add these CC orders into posting #2 below, but was unable to due to too much material, so it's in this post. You can now see SOME figures for all but thirteen issues. It isn't likely that Diamond will ever release their numbers prior to 1996, and the other distributors are out of business, so this is most likely the closest look we'll ever actually get at sales.

Still, I'll eventually do a lot of digging in storage to pull out old Capital City Internal Correspondances and catalogues, as well as Diamond and Heroes World catalogues, to see if I can find more sales figure. Don't expect that to happen anytime too soon though!

What might be helpful is an index number of Wonder Woman sales against a "basket" of like titles. Use WW in the numerator and an average of Superman, Batman and (maybe) Captain America numbers as the denominator. The story is how WW is performing against other comic properties. The basket is obviously better the more titles that are included, but the number of characters that have endured from the Golden Age is very small.

It would mitigate the "noise" of the market effects, allow you to use the various data sources and highlight the performance of the title during different era.

**SJNeal** · 12-27-2009, 02:09 PM

Originally Posted by Peter Svensson

I don't think you understood what he meant. Byrne sold well. But sales started falling after Byrne left and we got the interim period of Priest doing a few fill-ins and then the short Erik Luke run. Byrne, love him or hate him is a big name creator and DC didn't have anyone of similar quality ready to take over the series. Luke was critically acclaimed for his work at Dark Horse but didn't have the name recognition that a Byrne or Perez would. Sales dropped because there wasn't an immediate changeover to a permanent creative team, and said eventual creative team just wasn't as big a draw.

I do wonder what would have happened had Byrne stuck to his original plan and kept on the book longer, since he left the book early when he was told that Kupperberg was leaving and wanted to bow out with him. Since Kupperberg ended up staying longer, Byrne ended up leaving prematurely. In a world where Byrne's run lasted another year, who knows what would have happened? With more advance notice, who could DC have gotten to take over the title? Jurgens?

I was being sarcastic

. I do know Byrne was a big seller, I just couldn't stand his WW stuff and almost dropped the book during the "Goddess of Truth" stuff until I heard he was leaving. So I stuck it out.

I realize a lot of readers probably left with him (or soon after, once they read a Priest issue or two.) But in my perfect world I like to think they left because they, too, were fed up with Byrne...

**AndyMangels** · 12-27-2009, 02:25 PM

Originally Posted by DHacker615

What might be helpful is an index number of Wonder Woman sales against a "basket" of like titles. Use WW in the numerator and an average of Superman, Batman and (maybe) Captain America numbers as the denominator. The story is how WW is performing against other comic properties. The basket is obviously better the more titles that are included, but the number of characters that have endured from the Golden Age is very small.
It would mitigate the "noise" of the market effects, allow you to use the various data sources and highlight the performance of the title during different era.

If someone wants to do that, they're welcome to check out the links I posted in #1, and compile the requested figures against the Wonder Woman materials.

As noted elsewhere in the thread, Wonder Woman's standing in the top 100 has remained pretty unvaried with the exception of "sales spikes," so what we're actually seeing is that ALL comic sales are falling at approximately the same rate.

But since this is the Wonder Woman thread, and I'm not a Batman, Superman, or Captain America collector, the "how does she stack up against them" issue is kind of a moot point for me. I have no problem if someone else wants to do the work, and I'm sure it might yield some interesting (though not surprising) results, but it won't be me...

**aegisbearer** · 12-27-2009, 02:38 PM

Originally Posted by AndyMangels

If someone wants to do that, they're welcome to check out the links I posted in #1, and compile the requested figures against the Wonder Woman materials.

As noted elsewhere in the thread, Wonder Woman's standing in the top 100 has remained pretty unvaried with the exception of "sales spikes," so what we're actually seeing is that ALL comic sales are falling at approximately the same rate.

That might appease some of the people who are thinking it's simply WW which is falling. It makes me feel a little more at ease at an across the board drop... which makes sense.

**DHacker615** · 12-27-2009, 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by AndyMangels

If someone wants to do that, they're welcome to check out the links I posted in #1, and compile the requested figures against the Wonder Woman materials.

As noted elsewhere in the thread, Wonder Woman's standing in the top 100 has remained pretty unvaried with the exception of "sales spikes," so what we're actually seeing is that ALL comic sales are falling at approximately the same rate.

But since this is the Wonder Woman thread, and I'm not a Batman, Superman, or Captain America collector, the "how does she stack up against them" issue is kind of a moot point for me. I have no problem if someone else wants to do the work, and I'm sure it might yield some interesting (though not surprising) results, but it won't be me...

I'd love to ... work permitting. Number crunching is a favorite pastime.

**captainwonder** · 01-01-2010, 09:58 AM

Originally Posted by SJNeal

I was being sarcastic

. I do know Byrne was a big seller, I just couldn't stand his WW stuff and almost dropped the book during the "Goddess of Truth" stuff until I heard he was leaving. So I stuck it out.

I realize a lot of readers probably left with him (or soon after, once they read a Priest issue or two.) But in my perfect world I like to think they left because they, too, were fed up with Byrne...

Well I left with Bryne, never to return until I read a Greg Rucka Trade so some of us left with Bryne. I just hated his She-Hulk Wonder Woman! I was gone for over 10 years too. I just didn't bother to look at a comic after Bryne's issue 106, the cover alone was just too bad for me to consider buying it of any other comic til I seen Greg's work and I came back.

I think it takes some time for sales to catch up but still sad to hear Bryne's Wonder Woman was a top seller as I thought it was just awful! Oh well someone liked it.

It's a good thing Wonder Woman pulls in sales with merchandising or we might see the end of Wonder Woman.

**jason_w** · 01-01-2010, 11:40 AM

I've been a WW fan for ages, (31 years this past month) and I can't even imagine dropping the book for any reason. My love for the character outweighs whoever's currently in charge of her adventures.

There have been a few runs that I wasn't that crazy about, but like everything else, it doesn't last forever.

**aegisbearer** · 01-01-2010, 01:00 PM

Originally Posted by jason_w

I've been a WW fan for ages, (31 years this past month) and I can't even imagine dropping the book for any reason. My love for the character outweighs whoever's currently in charge of her adventures.

There have been a few runs that I wasn't that crazy about, but like everything else, it doesn't last forever.

That's exactly how I feel, jason.

**nightforce** · 01-10-2010, 06:24 PM

Thank you so much for that Andy

**aegisbearer** · 02-02-2010, 07:58 PM

In the interest of making room for posts to rise to the top, as it were, I am going to unstick this one. As soon as the Contest is handled, I will unstick that one as well.

**AndyMangels** · 02-04-2010, 02:33 AM

Ah well, another thread with historical content will sink into obscurity.

Hope some people got something out of it while it was here.

**aegisbearer** · 02-04-2010, 02:55 AM

Originally Posted by AndyMangels

Ah well, another thread with historical content will sink into obscurity.

Hope some people got something out of it while it was here.

Andy, I don't think it will "sink into obscurity". Also, I'd like to give others the possibility to have a thread with historical content "stuck" here for a little while. We have to archive some of these threads, so I can take the information from this and put it there with a link for those who wish to see it.

All will not be lost :)