Tag: DC

I'm in Iowa for the holidays, so I thought I'd drop in to the local (brand new) Books-A-Million and see what kind of comics they had after they joined Barnes & Noble in removing the boycotting the 100 DC graphic novels made exclusive to the Kindle. There were a lot more Marvel books there than DC and, of course, no Grant Morrison Batman or Batman: Hush or... uh, oh. What's that on the shelf?

Just like the girl in the above panel from SWAMP THING, the New DC Universe is beginning to BRANCH OUT (haw haw) and get ENTANGLED (hee hee) in the vines of....continuity and crossovers! This according to hints and forebodings from EIC Bob Harras:

Continuing the quest for a follow-up to Smallville, Booster Gold is the latest DC superhero to get a TV development deal, this time at the SyFy channel, under Greg Berlanti's production banner. The script is being written by Andrew Kreisberg, formerly of Fringe. Booster Gold appeared on the final season of Smallville, so he isn't a complete TV virgin.

Remember good old Vertigo, the imprint where all the top writers for the New 52 got discovered and DC graphic novel book store sales were practically invented? Well, they are still at it! Plucky old Vertigo. And just to prove they still have what it takes, they have announced their book collections for the second half of 2012, including some truly awesome stuff, like a HUGE one-volume edition of THE INVISIBLES by Grant Morrison and his all stars (Quitely, Jimenez, Thompson, Weston, Buckingham etc., etc., etc.) that will weigh in at a mere 1536 pages and $150. Frankly, we didn't know they could print books that big and wide. Given that THE INVISIBLES is one of our favorite mainstream comic of the 90s, we are there. Make room, make room! They also announced two NEW gns, including Get Jiro! by Anthony Bourdain, Joel Rose and Langdon Foss, planned for June and Right State, just announced by Mat Johnson and Andrea Muti.

October was a first litmus test for the good "New 52" relaunch numbers, as it was the first month that allowed retailers to react to customer feedback on DC's "New 52" initiative in a meaningful way. As a result, Marvel won a little less of the market share than usual got really spanked by DC in October, which took the Top 6 spots, along with a whopping 17 out of the Top 20 (and 32 out of the Top 50, and 60 out of the Top 100), as well as 50.97 percent of the unit market share and 42.47 percent of the dollar share. DC's average periodical numbers were down a bit from September and are now in the exact same area as right after the line-wide "One Year Later" event in May 2006, which had been DC's high-water mark before the current relaunch. Back then, the average new DC comic book (not counting the now-defunct WildStorm) sold an estimated 50,519 units, the average new DC Universe comic book 59,505. In October 2011, now, it's 51,280 and 59,146, respectively. These numbers don't suggest we need to build a new ball park quite yet, but DC certainly did a great job of filling up the old one in a way that hasn't happened since, well, 2006. While a slight drop-off from September was to be expected, it turns out to be very slight indeed, because 16 of the "New 52" titles didn't drop at all, but rather increased in sales. They're led by Animal Man, which, on the back of good reviews, saw an impressive second-issue increase of 16 percent. And even most of the rest of the bunch displays much slighter drops than we're used to, for that matter. Only 16 of the percentage drops are in the double digits, and only four of those -- Action Comics, Men of War, Superman and Blackhawks -- are in the area you'd usually suspect. As a result, the average second-issue drop for the "New 52" is a tiny 5.2 percent -- a dream figure by any standard. (Also, it's worth noting that many of the books with the bigger second-issue drops came out in the last week of October. Technically, this means that they were disadvantaged, because all subsequent re-orders slipped into November. On the other hand, the first issues of those titles shipped in the last week of September, too, of course, so it should have evened out. In any case, we'll get a clearer picture of what's going on with the November chart.)

A new variant cover for month FOUR of the New 52.

Poring over the February solicitations this week has revealed several bits of news. For instance, the Old New 52 gang is breaking up some more as Ron Marz is no longer writing VOODOO, to be replaced by Josh Williamson. Although VOODOO's cameltoe-tastic art by Sami Basri had drawn criticism, most observers agreed that for a story about a stripper who is really an alien, Marz had done a decent job. However, editors wanted a different take, even though editor Rex Ogle was leaving to take a job at Scholastic, as Marz told Newsarama.

Over on their blog, DC has announced the rollout for the New 52 collections. Instead of dumping 52 trades in one month, they will be staggered from May-November, with 7 or 8 books released a month. Justice League, Batman, Green Lantern, Detective, Batman & Robin, Batgirl, Batwoman, Batman: The Dark Knight, Aquaman, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: New Guardians, Action, Superman and Flash are all getting hardcovers; the rest get TPBs. Missing from the list: Wonder Woman.

September was business as usual for DC Comics' periodical sales, as... oh, wait. The "New 52" project, a relaunch of its complete superhero line via 52 #1 issues, made September 2011 a record-breaking month for DC Comics -- and a joyously eventful one for the people watching their sales. It's not often that publishers attempt something on this scale, unfortunately, so it's nice not to come up with 52 different ways of expressing that sales have mostly been going down, for a change. It's a little bit like that myth about Eskimos and the words they have for snow. Anyway: The average DC comic book sold an estimated 57,224 units in September, the average DC Universe comic book a whopping 67,411 units. That's more than double what it was in August for both, as well as more than in any previous month since sole distributor Diamond started releasing information on actual sales to specialty retailers in March 2003. The month that comes closest is May 2006, when DC's line-wide "One Year Later" initiative kicked off, with 44,554 (DC total) and 59,505 (DC Universe) units, respectively. And, while we're breaking records: May 2006 was also the only previous time when the total dollar value of DC's periodical comic books exceeded 10 million, with an estimated $10,157,965. In September 2011, the amount was $10.9 million for DC total and $10.5 million for the DC Universe line, which never broke the 10-million mark on its own before. (Average cover prices were about the same, by the way: $3.05 for DC total and $3.04 for DC Universe in 2006, and vice versa in 2011.)

Well, DC has had a spectacular Fall so far, launching the New 52 comic books.  But what of their strong graphic novel line?  What's new (and old) on bookshelves this season? Quite a bit!  Absolute editions, omnibuses, deluxe editions, licensed products, and the usual titles.

Converse and DC have teamed for the DC Comics x Converse Chuck Taylor All Star Hi Collection,, which features high top sneakers based on Batman, Superman, the Flash and the Joker. We like! More pics in the link. A DC comics poster comes with each shoe purchase.

Wow, the number of women working in the New 52 just jumped 33%...or something. We're no good at percentages. Anyway, Nicola Scott will be filling in for Jesus Merino on Superman issues 3, 5 and 6 of the George Pérez written book, working from Pérez's layouts. It's definitely a fill-in in many ways. Merino will be the regular penciller from isues 7 on, although Perez is leaving the books. And Scott is pencilling a JSA book, written by James Robinson, with an indeterminate launch date SUPERMAN #3 goes on sale November 23.