CBR: The Mayo Report: Analyzing DC Comics' September Sales

[CBR News]

John Mayo crunches the numbers and analyzes what September's big relaunch means for DC Comics, comparing it to their last universe-wide reboot, One Year Later.


Full article here.

[Sentinel Supreme]

I am honestly surprised that Animal Man #1 did not sell better, especially considering that it has been a fan favorite title and was one of the best reviewed books of the New 52.

Support this book people! Give Jeff Lemire your money!

[beetlebum]

I am honestly surprised that Animal Man #1 did not sell better, especially considering that it has been a fan favorite title and was one of the best reviewed books of the New 52.

Support this book people! Give Jeff Lemire your money!

I wholeheartedly second this post.

[RolandJP]

Unofficial LCS owner Poll is that sales have been disastrously low for issues 3 and beyond. Half the DC 52 wont make it.

I am saddened.

[The_Ronin]

Unofficial LCS owner Poll is that sales have been disastrously low for issues 3 and beyond. Half the DC 52 wont make it.

I am saddened.

hey dude, while you are in the future can you get some lotto numbers or something?

[stevelabny]

I am honestly surprised that Animal Man #1 did not sell better, especially considering that it has been a fan favorite title and was one of the best reviewed books of the New 52.

Support this book people! Give Jeff Lemire your money!

I honestly am surprised that people still don't understand how comic book sales numbers work.

Sales numbers are how many copies Diamond sold to retailers for the original print run. PERIOD. Since retailers order 2-3 months before the book is released, it is IMPOSSIBLE for word of mouth to have any impact on sales.

Sales of these #1 issues are based on comic-shop owners guesswork, and nothing more. Flash outsold Aquaman simply because most comic shop owners don't understand that its Geoff Johns that makes books interesting.

Everyone hears "sell-out" and think this is GREAT NEWS. But its not so hard to imagine the lowest tier titles selling out when there's only 30,000-40,,000 copies is there?

And sales on every single one of these books will DROP no matter how good word of mouth is. Because #1s and specifically these universe-relaunching #1s were scooped up by speculators like crazy, and by samplers.

These numbers are actually pretty UNIMPRESSIVE. But we still won't have a better idea of what's going on until the sales on #4, and a clear picture until the sales on #7-9.

[The_Ronin]

I am honestly surprised that Animal Man #1 did not sell better, especially considering that it has been a fan favorite title and was one of the best reviewed books of the New 52.

Support this book people! Give Jeff Lemire your money!

Animal Man is good, and had an excellent hook. However fan favorite rarely translates into blockbuster.


Hopefully we will see Animal Man drop much less then some of the other titles though, as I cant imagine to many people picking it up and NOT wanting that second issue.

[Iangould]

Unofficial LCS owner Poll is that sales have been disastrously low for issues 3 and beyond. Half the DC 52 wont make it.

I am saddened.

You're also wrong.

[The_Ronin]

I honestly am surprised that people still don't understand how comic book sales numbers work.

Sales numbers are how many copies Diamond sold to retailers for the original print run. PERIOD. Since retailers order 2-3 months before the book is released, it is IMPOSSIBLE for word of mouth to have any impact on sales.

Sales of these #1 issues are based on comic-shop owners guesswork, and nothing more. Flash outsold Aquaman simply because most comic shop owners don't understand that its Geoff Johns that makes books interesting.

Everyone hears "sell-out" and think this is GREAT NEWS. But its not so hard to imagine the lowest tier titles selling out when there's only 30,000-40,,000 copies is there?

And sales on every single one of these books will DROP no matter how good word of mouth is. Because #1s and specifically these universe-relaunching #1s were scooped up by speculators like crazy, and by samplers.

These numbers are actually pretty UNIMPRESSIVE. But we still won't have a better idea of what's going on until the sales on #4, and a clear picture until the sales on #7-9.

God damnit man, drink the cool-aid! Everyone knows next month will be even higher, and marvel will be out of business by december.

[Iangould]

almost every, if not every, #1 was reprinted.

So those issue 1 sales figures are likely an underestimate.

Now, as a rule, you can expect a 50% drop-off over the first 3-4 issues of a new series.

If the New 52 experience that, the lowest-selling titles will remain in the 20-25,000 copies per month which is comfortably profitable.

In practise, given the hype around the #1's we can expect a greater than usual drop from the first issue sales. However, until we have sell-though data on the #2's and see what the orders for #4's and up are like it's impossible to tell what the drop will be.

I'll have a bunch of order data in a week or so but anecdotally sell-through and subs for the #2's are looking encouragingly strong.

Guess what: some titles will probably sell better than people expect, some will probably sell worse. Some will probably be canceled within the next year. That's a pretty natural and normal phenomenon and means nothing more re. the success of DC as a whole than the cancellation of a single TV show in its first season tells you about the success of the TV network that aired it.

[skullduggery]

One correction. The only CrossGen title that Marvel "revived" was Ruse.
The other two comics were brand new concepts completely unrelated to the series titles that they "borrowed". Given those two comics had no ties whatsoever to the series that used those titles before, it was pretty stupid of Marvel to reuse those titles in hopes of drawing in former CrossGen fans.

[stevelabny]

almost every, if not every, #1 was reprinted.

So those issue 1 sales figures are likely an underestimate.

We'll see the exact numbers on the re-orders soon enough (I think they get tacked on to next months list)

However, this DCNU hype seems suspiciously familiar to the Valiant hype of 20 years ago.

Valiant was unnoticed by everyone, but was making quality books. Word of mouth led to sell-outs of low print runs. Speculators started buying so actual fans suddenly couldn't find issues. This led to fans and speculators clamoring to their stores for more copies. A few months later, everyone involved had gotten burned as they realized that only 25,000 people were actually reading each issues and the other 100,000 were trying to make money off it. And this was a big part of the comic industry collapse.

The same thing is happening again. (Inset joke here about the exception being this time the comics aren't even good.) At the first sign of the word "sell-out", everyone panicked. Speculators scooped them up looking for a quick turn-around, idiots scooped them up for a long-term profit that will never happen and fans with mild interest picked them up just to be on the safe side.

I think that these series will wind up having a LARGER than normal dropoff not a smaller one.

[Iangould]

I think that these series will wind up having a LARGER than normal dropoff not a smaller one.

Agreed, but titles that start off at 50-60,000 or so including re-orders and second prints can probably drop 60% or more and remain profitable.