I have done a statistical analysis of the performance of DC's grand experiment of renumbering their titles to number 1 and rebooting continuity to ground zero, just so everyone could feel like they wasted their time the first seventy years. I used the sales order figures for the first six issues of each title from the only real wholesale supplier, Diamond Comic Distributors. This may not take into account newsstand sales, but I don't know how important that is, How many times in the last decade have you seen any significant numbers of comic books for sale outside of a comic shop?
The results? Not too good. Their most successful title, Justice League, started with sales orders of 239,128 copies, pretty high by modern standards (tragically), descending to 135,374 by issue 6, This represents a decline of 43%. This is not an exceptional number, but representative of the decline of all 52, declining a total of 51% from issues 1 to 6.
Over the first six issues the titles that have declined the least are Batman:The Dark Knight (34%), Detective Comics (36%), Aquaman (37%), Teen Titans (40%) and three titles at 41% - Batman, Batman & Robin, and Nightwing. Overall, the best performers seem to be the Batman titles. Suffering the greatest declines from issue to issue 6, were Blackhawks (75%), Mister Terrific (74%), Captain Atom (71%), followed by Fury of Firestorm and Static Shock at 70%. Many in this bottom group were cancelled at their sixth issue. wise decision.
Of the six months covered, the best selling was Justice League No. 1 with the sales order of 239,128. The lowest was Blackhawks No, 6 with 10,730. The first month there were ten titles that had sales orders over 100,000 copies; by the sixth month there were only two (Justice League and Batman).
Sometimes the large sales of the first issue can overshadow the rate of decline of subsequent issues. Looking at decline form issue 2 to issue 6 revealed little change.Batman:The Dark Knight and Detective Comics declined only 15% and Aquaman 16%. The only newcomer to the top five was third place Justice League at 25%. The largest rate of decline from 2 to 6 was Mister Terrific at 64% (not so terrific, I guess) with the only newcomer to the bottom five being Men at War (62%).
Looking at decline from 5 to 6 shows a slow stabilization, but at significantly less total sales. Batman:The Dark Knight was the only comic to actually increase from issue 5 to 6, a measly 0.41%. Others in the top 5 were Justice League (2.31%), Aquaman (2.53%), Teen Titans (2.72), and I Vampire (3.52%). The bottom five were Mister Terrific (15.95%), Men of War (14.39%), Omac (13.49%), Static Shock (13.11%) and Captain Atom (12.71%).
Outside of the Batman titles, the most relatively successful titles, based on both minimizing decline and exceeding expectations, have been Aquaman, Animal Man, Swamp Thing and Teen Titans. Aquaman is the only other comic besides Batman:The Dark Knight to have months where the numbers actually go up instead of down in one or two months, and has been a critical success. I have not gotten this title, but may have to check it out in graphic novel form.
The first month had combined sales orders of 4,119,073, declining to 2,029,419 by month 6. Do I think it will half again by issue 12? Probably not, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it decline to 1.5 million. Is this enough to sustain the continuation of monthly comics? I don't know, but it can't be what they hoped for.
The major rational for this change was to give a starting point for digital comic sales, trying to give them a better launch so as to not confuse the newcomer's minds. I have heard the digital sales are abysmal, but I have not researched this thoroughly yet. I hope to do that soon, and then explore it in another article.
Yes. I know this has been an article that only a true comic nerd and number cruncher could love. But I enjoyed the heck out of researching it and writing it. And who knows who may blindly waltz into my blog and be entranced? So there you go!
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