It is that time of the month again, a time becoming consistently depressing. Over on ICv2, the sales numbers from August 2010 were released. In some somewhat shocking news, the comics world as a whole took a bath last month with sales plummeting and no comic topping 100K in sales. Here is the link: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18352.html
And the top 300 comics are listed here: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18350.html
Now if the whole comic world sank last month, I shouldn't have been surprised to see Supergirl #55 fall a bit as well. Down 4% from July's sales, Supergirl #55 sold 25,891 units. This issue continued the BizarroGirl story arc and was the first issue with Amy Reeder as cover artist.
I have decided not to read too much into these things anymore. I have simply decided that the book is healthy and hopefully has a long healthy future in front of it. Almost all comics fell last month, this was just one of them. But I wonder if I might be whistling past the graveyard.
As I have said before, the sad thing is that this is the book I think many of us have been clamoring for, free of weighty crossovers with strong stories and great art. So I am perplexed by the erosion into sales here. Hopefully persistent good word of mouth and recognition by the pro web sites will bring people to the title.
I don't follow the sales that closely (in fact, you are my main source of info in that regard) but Bleeding Cool has something to say about that a day or two ago http://www.bleedingcool.com/2010/09/14/is-this-the-collapse-of-the-direct-market-no/
ReplyDeleteAs long as we keep enjoying it, it will be around in some form or another. :)