Here’s another one I missed from this weekend because I was at WonderCon … Marc-Oliver Frisch, who does the month-to-month analysis of DC’s books over at The Beat, says there are some problems with Diamond’s January source data:
For the record, if you’re waiting for the January month-to-month sales columns, it’ll probably be a while. Since everyone’s fairly sure now that there’s been a glitch in Diamond’s source data, we’re holding off on the columns until the numbers have been corrected.
Looking at the Top 300 charts, there are a few very odd things going on. Not only does there seem to be an inexplicable five-percent increase across the board, as I noted a few days ago, but the index points for individual books also seem to be a mess.
Take, for instance, the performance of the weekly Countdown to Final Crisis and the bi-weekly WildStorm: Revelations. According to the January chart as it currently stands, Countdown to Final Crisis #17 was supposedly outsold by the title’s four subsequent issues in January, without any readily apparent explanation. And, even more oddly, WildStorm: Revelations #1 was outsold by issue #2, if you believe the chart. This is bizarre, at very best, and it flies in the face of everything we know about comics sales
In the comments section of that post, John Jackson Miller, whose numbers-related column debuted on the main ‘rama site recently, wonders if Diamond will reissue the data:
As noted on Heidi’s site, I suspect first-week February reorders entered the picture somehow. If Diamond reissues, I’ll recalibrate — but I’m wondering whether they’ll do that. In any event, if the error is what I suspect, we might see February’s numbers reflecting it in the opposite direction.
