Comic sales continue to be a dicey affair as May 2011 was a sort of Great Depression month. Sales were down significantly when compared to May of 2010. Fear Itself #2 was the top selling title but did not break 110K in sales. And Flashpoint #1 came in second, perhaps an ominous sign for DC. Here is the always helpful link to ICv2's list of the top selling comics: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20296.html
Sales for Supergirl remained relatively stable, a good sign
Supergirl #64 was the last chapter of the James Peaty and Bernard Chang 'Good Looking Corpse' arc. The book ranked #82, selling 22,411 units, down a smidge from last month's 21,598.
Overall, the arc last about 1000 in sales over its 5 issues. This book seems to be stable, but still suffering slight erosion. I will be interested to see what happens to next month's sales, not only of Supergirl but of all DC books. Will there be a mass exodus since 'the stories don't matter' with the upcoming relaunc? Will Kelly Sue DeConnick bring in new readers?
And given the new digital initiative, is it worth reporting sales like this anymore. The actual issue sales might be 15K, but what if there are 10K in downloads? Will we know those numbers?
Anyways, I enjoyed the work Peaty and Chang did here and I am glad most of the Supergirl fans before the arc stuck around to enjoy it.
5 comments:
Well I plan to finish out this current Supergirl series.
I will give DC 3 to 6 issues to win me over with this new version of Supergirl.
IF and I mean IF the new Supergirl series is truly bad.
I will simply drop it and go to Supergirl Comic Box Commentary and read the reviews Anj posts here and when he says it's good again. Then I may pick it back up.
@ valerie21601 - over on deviantART, SUPERGIRL #1's very own official artist Mahmud Asrar has an actual account there (only he goes by a different online username) to which a good number of Supergirl's world wide fans have gone and expressed their many fears and concerns (only a minority address the fact of her redesigned by Jim Lee costume not including an actual dress) they have mainly from what they've read thus far of the "DCnU" relaunch's description come Supergirl to which Mahmud himself has kindly gone and addressed in stating that PTB up at DC as well as the editor, the writers and himself in charge of her book's relaunch have taken this extreme honor very seriously to insure that the rightful utmost respect, care and dignity is given to the icon and that a lot of fans fears should be put to rest upon during and even having after having had read her title's relaunched first issue. =)
These are some of the most popular well known characters in the world. I mean put up a billboard featuring Supergirl from Moscow to Johannesburg and pretty much everyone will point and shout "SUPERGIRL".
And Kousin Kara isn't even in DC's Holy Trinity for Rao's Sake.
Yet her book and indeed a good chunk of DC's current line sell about 22,000 issues per month on average. some way more and some way less.
So what we have here is a vast panoply of popular characters' whose primary venue is increasingly a niche market, by that I mean floppy comics.
Go to your local tonight, how many fans UNDER THE AGE OF TWENTY will be picking up their books tonight?
Damn few I will warrant.
The market for floppies is aging despite manful attempts to change the situation.
Meanwhile at almost every comicon you will see thousands of younger fans, cosplayers, gamers, fans of the animated series etc out in force. The floppies just aren't a huge part of their experience of these characters. So I'm thinking this mass relaunch at DC is doomed to failure simply because they'll end up hyping the same old readers with the same old dodges (more violence more Marvel style rubbish til the readership cries "Uncle" or the sales plummet).
What is the answer?
I don't know.
But I do think the 800 lb gorilla in the room is the big generational disconnect between the comic readership and the larger cohorts of fan-dom, and just how long are the Big Two gonna keep subsidizing a niche market subject to actuarial pressures on a monthly basis?
Just sayin' for purposes of discussion thass all.
John Feer
But I do think the 800 lb gorilla in the room is the big generational disconnect between the comic readership and the larger cohorts of fan-dom, and just how long are the Big Two gonna keep subsidizing a niche market subject to actuarial pressures on a monthly basis?
I think this is part of the problem. And the 'next generation' of readers is what they seem to be courting with this reboot and digital push.
But I am part of that 'older' Wednesday Crowd and I am introducing the Supergirl to comics. The problem is there simply isn't stuff out there for them.
Looking at the Sept relaunch, I don't know which comics I could share with the supergirls. And heck, we know that isn't the market DC is pitcing to anyways. Without a product, my kids might tire of comics.
That is why I keep hoping that some sort of mid-level comic, something for the 8-12 yr old crowd will appear on the DC lineup. Something like the Billy Batson book, or (of course) Supergirl Cosmic.
I mean looking at the revamp based on the squibs and press releases, it seems clear that the 8-12 market is not a big factor in their calculations. It looks like they wanna hype the readers they've got and maybe pull some forty year olds away from Marvel. Which was the game plan back in 1985 with the COIE, except it was a bigger younger market then. I doubt it's gonna work this time quite frankly. As for yr progeny, DC seems content with "The Brave and the Bold" TV show being the "gateway drug". In which case maybe the "Cosmic Adventures" SG ought to make a featured cameo there...Might get the ball rolling.
John Feer
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