Now that DC’s weekly test of endurance 52 is into its third month, retailer Ryan Higgins has decided that it’s time to talk sales, over at Your Mom’s Basement:
Issue #7, which hit shelves on June 21, revealed Booster Gold as a phony, and gave us the first appearance of the soon-to-be Batwoman—Kate Kane. Naturally, one would expect this issue to fly off the shelf.
Wrong!
Issue #7 only sold 69 copies [at my store] in its first week, easily the series’ weakest performance yet. Customers know what to expect with 52: A new issue, every single week, for 52 weeks. Of all the times to jump ship, why did readers pick this issue? For the answer, let’s take a quick look at what else came out this week.
The week of June 21 was a gigantic one for big releases, with All-Star Superman, Astonishing X-Men, Captain America, Eternals #1, Flash #1, Justice, New Avengers, Superman/Batman, and Uncanny X-Men. Is 52 a book people just throw on their stack if it’s a light week? The majority of the customers I’ve talked said they’re in for all 52 issues, for better or for worse. After last week’s amazing sales, a drop like this worries me. Maybe casual customers are giving up on 52 already…and maybe it’s good that we lowered our orders to 100 copies from here on out.
With Rich Johnston reporting that “52 has been such a big success that there’s talk at DC about it continuing it in some form or another, to keep the momentum, possibly as a bi-weekly,” perhaps DC might want to wait for a few more months of sales figures before making such a decision…
July 25th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
To be fair, Ryan Higgins is one retailer while DC has sales data from a ton of retailers. Mr. Higgins’ experience may differ from other retailers.
So who knows?
July 26th, 2006 at 9:38 am
What are we up to now – issue 12? How can DC know one way or another whether this will be successful or not?
We aren’t even halfway through the “event” yet — folks might want to wait for just a bit longer before deciding whether it’s an “unqualified success” or not (and whether there will be demand for a sequel).
I myself only bought the first few issues, and have decided that it will inevitably be collected into trade, so I’ll put my money towards books that might not make it into trade (Manhunter, I’m looking at you – and Atom, you too) in the hopes that my pitiful $3 might be better spent convincing DC to keep publishing those books. 52 really isn’t a “must have” book for me, I guess.
July 26th, 2006 at 11:42 am
I think a lot of people wanted to know what happened during the year OYL skipped, but after reading 10 or so issues, and not really getting any answers…
July 26th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
If they gave you the answers now, why would you keep reading? And with them getting unqualified success by keeping folks in the dark, why would they want to get around to a reveal?
July 26th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Ah, but you forgot the part where sales went pretty much right back up with the next issue
#11 did better than most, but probably not as well as DC was expecting with the big push by the media of Batwoman, but that’s for the next column.
August 1st, 2006 at 8:59 am
And then there’s how special ed the revised history of the DCU is as th back up story. Now that’s really a waste fo space which could have been devoted to more of what happened in the dcu in the missing year because they’re concentrating on squat all as it is.
I’m dread to imagine the ammended biographies of the lesser heroes ahead.