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 September 2019. All numbers presented in this article are from the September 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
Marvel’s “…of X” took many of the top spots this month. The #1 book was an Image book, Spawn. After adjusting the sales position for the combined card stock and regular issues, only Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy #1 made it in the top 10, over 100K. Batman #79 went up a bit from previous issues, perhaps because people want to see how this will finish up. Perhaps they wanted the card stock issues. The only other book to see an increase in Catwoman #15, where the card stock sold almost double the number of issues as the regular issue. Batgirl and Red Hood Outlaw are under 20K, placing them in what we call The Cancelation Zone. This isn’t an official cut off, but it is a bad place for books to be. DC may give it a creative team change-up, give the book a re-launch, or take it off the shelf.
Secondary TBU Books
*indicates the position in units sold adjusted to combine the standard and card stock sales
Lots of new stuff this month, but first let’s look at the older books. Curse of the White Knight isn’t doing too hot, going down almost 10% in sales from last month. Batman/TMNT III only has one more issue to go and has been steadily going down in sales. Batman Beyond is still just there. DC rolled out its Dollar Comics this month. They didn’t sell overwhelmingly well, but this was also just the stores’ purchases for the first month. Depending on how they did, or demand, they may go up next month. I couldn’t find any articles about the actual sales reception, but next month should show us how much demand there will really be for the books. Harleen did pretty well with its first issue at 85K, more than double Batman vs. Ra’s al Ghul which was…interesting.
Main DCU Books
*indicates the position in units sold adjusted to combine the standard and card stock sales
Doomsday Clock is still doing pretty well. It is losing a small stream of readers, but all in all, it is staying pretty steady. Teen Titans remains in the Danger Zone despite the book being good in this writer’s opinion. All books are seeing a decline in readership, in spite of the card stock covers for three of them. There are no drastic declines, and Young Justice even seems to be leveling out.
Overall, sales were up for September, but not great for most of the titles we cover here at TBU, with every issue dropping ordered issues except for two. DC’s market share went up slightly, as the entire industry saw a slight increase as well. In this month’s Number’s Spotlight, we will be looking at “How Much Have Comic Prices REALLY Changed?”
