by Marc-Oliver Frisch
Thanks to strong debut numbers of the revamped Batman line and the perpetually solid Green Lantern franchise, June brought the expected recovery for DC Comics’ periodical sales. Led by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s Batman and Robin, which claimed the top spot in the Top 300 chart, the publisher managed to place four titles in the top ten, while average periodical sales remained well within the usual spectrum of the last few years. June also saw the debut of back-up strips and a higher cover price for several DC Universe series, but without any significant impact on sales.
Over at Vertigo and WildStorm, June was business as usual. Despite “The Great Fables Crossover,” average Vertigo sales remained just above 11K. At WildStorm, the six-part horror-property crossover Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash: Nightmare Warriors debuted with surprisingly good numbers, but the imprint’s average figures were still stuck below the 9,000 mark.
See below for the analysis, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.
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1 - BATMAN AND ROBIN06/2009: Batman and Robin #1 — 168,604
As expected, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s new Batman flagship is the best-selling DC series in June, also outselling everything else on the chart by a wide margin. Marvel’s highly promoted Captain America #600, which came in second, sold an estimated 112,287 units, for instance.
On the surface, 170K looks like a great number, certainly. There have been comics that shifted more units in recent years, but those were all Marvel books and part of special events (such as the “Obama issue” of The Amazing Spider-Man, or Civil War). Looking for either a new ongoing-series launch or a DC book that sold in equal or better numbers, one has to go back almost three years, to the release of Justice League of America #1, which moved an estimated 212,581 copies in August 2006.
In this context, Batman and Robin #1 looks like one of the greatest successes in the periodical comics market in quite some time.
On the other hand, there’s a wildcard involved in its numbers, because the book was promoted with two variant-cover schemes. The first involves a 1-for-25 edition, which, though it’s probably boosted sales quite a bit, has been relatively common for a while. The second, though, is a 1-for-250 edition; this means, in other words, that retailers who wanted to get one of those editions had to buy 250 non-returnable copies of Batman and Robin #1. The prospect was received controversially among retailers, not surprisingly.
Right now, we don’t know how many retailers swallowed the pill and upped their orders to get those particular variant editions. But considering that the scheme only applies to issue #1, I suspect we might get a reasonably good idea of that next month, when the figures for issue #2 are released. If sales are insanely inflated due to the variant, it will show on the chart.
So, for now: a great-looking number, but take it with a pinch of salt.
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