Welcome back to TBU By The Numbers. Here we take a look at the sales numbers for DC comics, in particular, the TBU books, as outlined by the TBU Roundups for August 2019. All numbers presented in this article are from the August 2019 Comichron page. These numbers only represent comics distributed by Diamond to the United States comic book stores. They do not include sales outside the US, digital, newsstand, or any other distribution method.
DC and TBU Overall Numbers
* Includes ALL DC comic sales, including reorders
** TBU titles are defined by that month’s releases as featured on TBU Weekly Roundup articles and does NOT include reorders
Main TBU Books
*indicates the position in units sold adjusted to combine the standard and card stock sales
Card Stock covers threw the numbers off a bit this month. DC didn’t see much of the top ten this month, regardless or adjustment, due to Marvel’s Marvel Comics #1000 which, incidentally, sold 206K, about 320K short of their goal of outselling Detective Comics #1000. Marvel also released House of X and Powers of X #2 and #3, Absolute Carnage #1 and #2. All these took up seven of the top ten slots, leaving only Batman/Superman #1, Batman #76, and DCeased #4. Batgirl sales are up quite a bit from last month and on average, but this could have something to do with the card stock covers. Catwoman sales are up from last month as well but is staying steady overall, despite the cardstock covers that were meant to boost sales. The Catwoman and Batgirl Card Stock covers both outsold the standard which indicates to this writer that people might be in for the covers more than the book. Some Discord members had been hoping that the boosted sales of the cardstock Batman #75 would boost sales overall, and while it did a little, 85K for #76, but #77 was at 81K, bringing us back under the sales for #73.
Secondary TBU Books
There is nothing very exciting to report for the Secondary TBU line of books. Curse of the White Knight dropped a bit for its #2 but is still doing very well. Batman Beyond continues to drop and hang loose in the cancelation zone with no signs of stopping. The trade paperback Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass did very well in comparison to Dear Justice League in comic book shop sales, selling about twelve times as much.
Main DCU Books
Though DCeased continues to see a steady decrease, sales remain over 100K and the book in the top ten. Justice League #30 saw a tiny boost from the card stock covers, but not much, and sales are still down on average. Teen Titans has entered the danger zone and is fast approaching the cancelation zone, which is a shame because the storyline is actually really good, in my opinion. Dear Justice League is showing only 359 sales nationwide, but these are also sold online, in bookstores, and more, so this number doesn’t properly represent how it did.
Overall, sales were not great for August. DC’s market share took a big hit while the overall industry headed down as well. Card stock variants may temporarily boost sales, but it is not having a lasting effect on DC’s output. In this month’s Number’s Spotlight, we will be looking at “Do Movie Releases Really Affect Comics Sales?” Early predictions say no, but we’ll see what the numbers say.