Sales Review: September 2011

I have been waiting eagerly for the sales number for the DC Relaunch to be released. All along I thought that DC would get a major bump from the publicity from this massive creative event. Of course, I was most interested in how the new Supergirl comic would fare amongst the 'New 52'.

ICv2 has done it's usual great job breaking down the sales number of last month. DC won the market share for September, sales were up profoundly from the month prior and the prior September. And Batman #1 sold over 188,000 copies. Here is the link for ICv2's coverage: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/21220.html

Now sales for this month have to be taken with a grain of salt. Many of DC's comics were returnable. The speculator market was probably out in full tilt. Even I bought comics that I doubted I would like but was curious about. Will this momentum be sustained over the long haul? Obviously, only time will tell.

As for Supergirl #1, sales were brisk. The title came in at #31 overall and sold 54,052 (that is with a correction factor for returned books factored in).

More more interesting in my mind is that fact that Supergirl came in 21st out of the 52 DC titles that were released. That is pretty encouraging to me. It makes me think that a lot of people think that Supergirl as a character and a concept is worth purchasing and reading. The title did better than 60% of the other titles released.

The question is why did it sell so well? Sure part of it has to be the newness of the relaunch. But that doesn't explain why the book sold so well in contrast to other DC books. I'd like to think that more people are interested in the character. Or it might be that all the pre-release information about the alienated Supergirl with no affection for humanity was intriguing enough to bring people in. Or maybe Mahmud Asrar's tremendous art brought in people. Or some combination of all of them. We won't ever really know.

I will be following sales here. Let's hope more than simple curiosity brought people to Supergirl. Let's hope sales stay as high as this.

I used to follow sales of R.E.B.E.L.S. in this monthly sales review here as well, my 'underdog' title to follow along. With R.E.B.E.L.S. retired, I thought that Hawk & Dove would be a nice title to follow in the 'underdog' status.

I have thought this has been a pretty fun comic so far with over the top action with a bubbling undercurrent about the avatars slowly being revealed here.

Hawk & Dove #1 came in at #68, shipping 38,065 issues, a very healthy number in the usual market. Again, it will be interesting to see just what happens to this title once the fervor of the relaunch dies down. I hope that sales remain strong here because I like the characters, the creators, and the story so far.