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 October 2019. All numbers presented in this article are from the October 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
There was a smorgasbord of main TBU books in October, but I’m just going to pull out few interesting ones. The best selling TBU book of the month was Joker: Year of the Villain, with almost 130K in sales. Batman #80, which sees the return of Batman and Catwoman to Gotham, raised sales a little, 3%, for the book, which has been on a slow decline. But, by #81 sales went back down. Though first issues usually do much better than the subsequent issues, Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy #2 went down a very painful 54% in sales from its debut issue.
There are a lot of books in the cancelation zone right now. The ongoing series, Batgirl and Red Hood: Outlaw, are all in danger of being canceled or getting a new creative team. This writer loves Red Hood, but I do think Batgirl needs something different. Batman: Universe, a six-issue limited series, will probably get a pass from DC since it is reprinting a story originally found in the Walmart Giant.
Secondary TBU Books
*indicates the position in units sold adjusted to combine the standard and card stock sales
There were a lot of new series and specials this month. The two new Joker titles, Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity and Joker: Killer Smile, opened very strong with 81K and 70K in sales, respectively. Harleen is still doing very well, losing only about 23% from #1. The second facsimile issue was up almost 18% from the previous month. However, the last issue was a Poison Ivy issue, and this was a Joker one, so seeing as how this month was basically “Joker Month”, with no less than nine books featuring The Joker, it would make sense. October saw a bit of a miracle…Batman Beyond sales went up! Issue #37 featured a Beyond Batwoman, introduced in the last couple of pages. Could that have boosted sales a whole 31% from the previous issue? ‾\_(ツ)_/‾. My vote is on the fact that Batman isn’t actually in this issue. #pessimism.
Main DCU Books
*indicates the position in units sold adjusted to combine the standard and card stock sales
Though going down in sales significantly since the beginning, DCeased ended very strong at 93K. Justice League appears to have a pretty steady readership, with sales more or less leveling out. Event Leviathan, Young Justice, and Teen Titans are on a steady decline, getting closer and closer to the cancelation zone.
Marvel dominated most of the sales this month, but the market as a whole did very well, selling 10% more books than the same month last year, and it was one of the best months in three years. This month we will take a break from doing a Numbers Spotlight, so check back in next month for the sale report for November.
