Sales Charts

One year after the big relaunch, DC wanted to give its superhero line another jolt by borrowing a gimmick from the glory days of 1994 and releasing "zero" issues of all of the "New 52" titles. In terms of average sales, this means an increase of more than 1,000 units compared to August. Of course, these are sales to retailers, and increases based on this type of gimmick never stick around for subsequent issues, but the fact that retailers have enough faith in DC to support the initiative to this degree is good news, certainly.

The AVENGERS VS X-MEN crossover built towards its finale in September (though the actual final issue slipped to the next month). And - well, yes, that's about it in terms of notable releases in September. Schedules don't get much quieter than this, and with many of the titles also on their way to an imminent relaunch, the main points of interest on this month's chart really involve seeing how recent launches are getting on.

So what's news?  Besides the large number of titles ranking within the Top 1000? The season three premiere of The Walking Dead doubled the ratings...

Walking Dead continues its reign at the top of the indie chart, if not quite at the figures it sold last month, with Saga, Buffy and surprise-hit Doctor Who/ Star Trek following up. Valiant’s latest hit, Archer and Armstrong is well up there as well. Buffy spin-off Spike, a new Star Wars title, an RPG adaptation and are the only other high charting debuts. Elsewhere, all-ages books continue to show stronger than average sales, headed-up by the bonkers Adventure Time.

I imagine that most people read articles about comic book sales in a darkened room, in a enclosed and private space - perhaps curtained...

by Marc-Oliver Frisch August was another strong month for DC -- that's always worth pointing out, given the rather dire numbers of the publisher's comic-book...

The September sales estimates are out.  DC had jumps across the board for their Zero Month promotion, so the retailers certainly responded to that....

Here's my piece for PW on The ICV2 conference with coverage of the white paper, kids panel, digital panel and worldwide publishing panel. Analyzing...

I hate to differ with Torsten but I think Wednesday still counts as a Day Zero becuase of the ICv2 conference—a lot of people...

The AVENGERS VS X-MEN crossover continues to dominate most of Marvel's major titles in August, but this month also has the launch of two new titles - GAMBIT and HAWKEYE - plus the official 50th anniversary issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and the start of Neal Adams' FIRST X-MEN mini. DC had a slightly greater share of the North American direct market this month. But it was close, leading Marvel by 36% to 35% in terms of units, and 33% to 32% in dollars.

DC was the top publisher in September by a solid margin, with it's month of Zero issues convincingly beating Marvall, which had the #1 book in AvX #11. The comparative statistics are an interesting case -- sales are down significantly against August, but that was a five week month. Year-to-year this is the first time we're comparing New 52 to New 52, and comcis sales are down while GN sales are up in double digits. Year to date is up for 2012 however. In general, a strong year continues, and Marvel better print up some more variant covers.

It’s the beginning of the month and given the recent talk about Chris Ware's bestseller, I thought I'd check to see how it was...