Thursday, January 22, 2015

Sales Review: December 2014



December sales numbers have come out and are available over on ICv2. Here is the link:
http://icv2.com/articles/news/view/30647/top-300-comics-actual-december-2014

Comics sales were a little slow last month. At the very least, DC did the world a favor by creating Darwyn Cooke variants and made them relatively easy to obtain. I bought mostly the Cooke variants last month. So while lovely, they basically didn't change my purchase pattern. The only book I bought both cover versions of was Supergirl.


Supergirl #37 was the second chapter of the Crucible arc by Mike Johnson and K. Perkins. We learned more about the school and Kara got involved. We also had the seeding of some subplots in the school. The art was completely lush by Emanuela Lupacchino.

And DC did a good job of promoting the book.

So how were sales.


Supergirl #37 came in as the 96th best selling title. The issue sold 26,272 issues down from last issue's 28,373. It is hard to know how much of last month's book was bolstered by the Lego cover variant which was not widely available.

Still, 26K is completely solid and still up from the trend at the beginning of the year.

I am very happy that this new direction is doing well.


I always try to pump the tires of a book that I am surprised to find underselling.

I really love the Captain Marvel  by Kelly Sue DeConnick. Carol Danvers is strong and independent. But she sometimes struggles with the events in her life. But I think she finds happiness where she can and continues to strive to improve. The last two issues in particular have been a treat.

So I am surprised to see it selling just under 20K. This is even a reboot/renumbering of the prior volume by DeConnick which started out selling like hotcakes with the new outlook, new uniform, new name, and Ed McGuinness covers taking the world by storm.

With a Captain Marvel movie (or is it movie appearance) around the corner, I can't imagine Marvel giving up on the property. But I still have to think the CarolCorps has to be more than 20K strong.

Folks should give it a try.

4 comments:

  1. The Supergirl sales are encouraging, even though it's a bit hard to determine how much of a difference the variants make. But hopefully this gives people a chance to discover the new team.

    As for Captain Marvel, I don't think you have to worry. First, the sales have stabilised:
    20,692
    19,885
    19,973

    Sales for the last 3 months. As you can see, the december numbers were *up*. Without any variants or suchlike.

    Furthermore, Captain Marvel is doing well digitally. It usually charts fairly high, and the number of people who leave a grade after each issue is more than 2 times that for Supergirl for example.

    And finally, the trades are selling well according to ICV2 and Comichron, the first one for the new series, "Higher, Further, Faster, More" sold 2,902 the first month, 675 the second and 547 now in December, and I don't doubt it'll chart again in january. These are pretty good trade numbers. So Carol is doing better than the individual issue numbers show (I bet she's back over 20k come January). The Marvel Corps are more than 20k, it just doesn't completely show up in individual issue print sales.

    And I agree, Captain Marvel is great.

    Also... Have you bought Ms. Marvel "No Normal" yet??? It is fantastic and very kid friendly. If you haven't, you're really really missing out. :)

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  2. Justice League United drooped to 31,904 units :( I wonder if we will get a Legion book?

    Then again I know Scott Snyder is a huge fan of the Legion and Jeff Lemrie what he wants he gets.

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  3. Hello Anj,

    We do have a Supergirl ! In the person of the beautifully shaped eyed Melissa Benoist.

    http://www.teenvogue.com/images/entertainment/tv/2012-11/Melissa.jpg

    https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2667645967/7c1e7796c93c154b8c7c113b17316ab0_400x400.png

    A Libra... a right choice for sure :)

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  4. Good news about Kelly Sue's Captain Marvel, it's a great book - the Christmas issue was an extra-special treat.

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