Is it that time of the month again already? Last week, Paul O’Brien and Marc-Oliver Frisch posted their monthly analysis of Marvel Comics and DC Comics sales figures, assembled from ICv2.com’s numbers, at Publisher Weekly’s The Beat.

And then I read the results. And had some thoughts while reading those results. And I wrote them down. And now I’m going to post them on the Internet. And then you can read them and we can all talk about these figures, and what they mean.

But not here, in public like this. Let’s meet after the jump and do it there, okay?

Okay.

—The drops on the second issues of Marvel’s two Ultimate Comics comics were shockingly large to me, considering how well received the number one issues of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man and Ultimate Comics Avengers were (In terms of sales; critical reaction seemed more nonexistent than positive or negative). The former lost over 30-percent of its sales from the previous month (and is about where it was with Ultimate Spider-Man #133), while the latter also lost about 30-percent of its sales, but since there’s never really been an ongoing Ultimate Avengers title, I suppose all of its sales are gravy.

I was skeptical that the relaunch of the line would do more good than harm, but I thought the evidence of that would take some months to start to materialize, not be instantaneous like this.

Is the market rejecting $3.99, 22-page comics (I hope I hope I hope)? And is Mark Millar finally starting to cool off after being so hot for so long? As O’Brien mentions, this follows Millar’s run on Fantastic Four as being a second Millar book that doesn’t seem to be doing Millar book numbers.

—The Hulk title, the one by Jeph Loeb and whatever high-profile artist he has for an arc, has dropped rather precipitously and is now doing less than 60K in business, which O’Brien said is around where the previous Hulk flagship title was before this one even launched.

I would be surprised, but then, I’ve recently read the first two volumes of the trade collections of this series, and it is not a very good comic book, despite some really great artists lining up to work on it.

I was frustrated reading the story in two big chunks; I couldn’t imagine taking it in 22-pages a month or three, and paying $4 a pop for the privilege.

Maybe making some progress on the mystery of the Red Hulk’s identity—if you can even call it a mystery, since it’s not like there are ever any clues or anything to think on—would engender more good will in the market, but it seems like Loeb is instead introducing a Red She-Hulk into the mix. (Or should that be She-Red Hulk?)

—The fact that Models Inc and Marvel Divas are both performing so poorly wasn’t at all a surprise, but I thought it interesting that the latter launched about 4,000 units higher. Marvel readers clearly prefer their female ensemble comics to feature superheroines than models.

—More people bought the first issues of Models Inc and Marvel Divas than bought the first issue of the long-awaited, super-hyped Strange Tales anthology, in which some of the greatest cartoonists in the world get to do short strips featuring Marvel characters. How is that possible? Is it another “Wow, singles sure are expensive, I guess I’ll wait for the trade” kind of thing?

—Frisch refers to Jeff Lemire’s new Vertigo series Sweet Tooth as “post-ap-oddball-yptic.” Take note, Vertigo trade collection blurb compilers! That one’s a keeper.

— Grant Morrison quite clearly seems to be the big draw on Batman and Robin, since artist Frank Quitely leaving and Philip Tan taking over on pencils didn’t really cause any catastrophic plunge in numbers (although it did go down). Tan replacing Quitely did result in a huge upsurge in me complaining about the art in Batman and Robin, though!

—Check out what Frisch had to say about sales on Justice League of America, which is still DC’s top book that doesn’t feature a Bat-person or a Green Lantern fighting zombies:

Sales data prior to 2003 isn’t 100 percent compatible with the recent ICv2.com numbers, but it looks like Justice League sales have now dropped to their lowest point since Grant Morrison relaunched the book as JLA back in 1996. Ever since Brad Meltzer left, the series has been sliding down the charts.

Hmm…whatever is the lesson here?

—Writer James Robinson’s crime against writing, Justice League: Cry For Justice, is being out-sold by JLoA, as of September (even if just by about 1,000 units). I found that pretty amazing, given that JLoA was a fill-in arc by a fill-in writer and more fill-in artists than you’d think necessary to draw 66 pages in the course of three months, and it features the least popular Justice Leaguers available at the moment. Cry, on the other hand, is written by James Robinson, has some big(ger) guns in the line-up and essentially became the core JLA book by virtue of Robinson’s next assignment as soon as it was announced.

So what’s going on here? Is it the $3.99-for-22 pages (with a bunch of random stuff better suited to dccomics.com or as extras in a trade edition in the back)?

—People don’t seem to be digging the Bill Willingham/Matt Sturges Justice Society of America so far, which seems to lose about 2,000 orders a month. And they’re spinning a second JSA ongoing out of it? Good luck with that, guys! (By the way JSA fans, what’s the verdict on the five-page preview of that new title, All-Stars?)

—Gotham City Sirens is way, way down the list, and the lowest-selling Bat-book by quite a ways. My personal hope is that it gets canceled soon, and Guillem March, who  far out-awesomes some of the other Bat-artists of the moment, will get a bigger, better ongoing assignment on a book I don’t mind reading as much as I do Sirens.

—Holy crap, did you see how poorly J. Michael Straczynski’s Brave and the Bold debut sold? It weighed in just under 27,000, which is better than it sold in a while, but no better than it was selling at the start of the ten-month stint of fill-ins between the “regular” creators.  And that issue featured Batman and the Joker…I can’t imagine what JMS’s second issue, the controversial Flash-joins-the-army Blackhawk team-up, is going to end up selling.

—Oh hey, Magog #1, the first issue of a new ongoing series based on a version of a character who was designed to be an off-brand, political cartoon version of Cable and have a small role in an Elseworlds project last decade, did not sell very well.

I’m not quite sure what to make of Magog. It ’s one of several titles DC has recently rolled out or announced that I couldn’t believe that anyone at DC actually thought might be popular, or even last a year or two. The first issue sold 26, 352 units, which was with the benefit of a variant cover scheme and being a #1 issue.

Since sales declining with subsequent issues is almost as certain as an object falling to the earth when you drop it on account of the gravity, this is very likely the most issues of Magog that will ever be sold in a month.

Frisch said it’s “still selling much better than it has any right to” though, so is it a success? (I honestly expected it to be more like 20,000 at the highest, and if DC did too, then I guess it is surpassing my expectations). Is it so cheap to produce and expected to sell so few copies that such a relatively low number is still considered a success?

Red Tornado, the other completely perplexing new DC title of late, is moving around 20,000. Of course, that’s just a miniseries, so there will be no shame in DC no longer publishing in a couple more months.
Both are doing a lot better than The Shield (about 17K with #2) and The Web (about 15.5K).

—Okay, as for this month’s “If the free market chose the Justice League,” in which we’ll designate DC’s “Big Seven” as the solo superheroes whose titles sell the most issues, these are the folks who’d be sitting around a table on chairs with their logos on the backs:

1.) Green Lantern Hal Jordan

2.) Batman Dick Grayson

3.) Batwoman

4.) Superman

5.) Red Robin

6.) Batgirl

7.) Supergirl

The only change from last time was that there was now issue of Flash: Rebirth out in September, so Barry got bumped and replaced by Supergirl.

Looking down the list, I see that Wonder Woman, traditionally part of the “Big Seven” for her place in comics history and within the fictional structure of the DC universe, would be #9 on this particular list, based on the sales of her title.

Despite being the oldest and most recognizable, she’s actually the fifth best-selling superheroine at DC, behind the three mentioned above and even Power Girl. Does that speak to Wondy’s relative unpopularity, or DC’s relative success with multiple female-fronted titles?

This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 9:30 am and is filed under DC Comics, Marvel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.