you would have to think puting out all kind’s of ad’s across all diffrent media’s has to increse sale’s,it is ignorance to deny it.how much it increse’s sale’s is another matter but when you think about it if you hook one person and he buy’s comics for 10 year’s,he could be spending 10k pretty easly on comic’s over time,I think sadly comic company’s have never looked at it that way.

Here is my analogy…. It is currently like cable tv. People wouldn’t buy the outdoor network (most people) unless it was part of a bundle. Right now you are seeing a ton of retailers do promotion for groups of DC books. Buy X get Y free. DCBS has the entire line for like 75 bucks or something.

Also people are looking at this as one shared universe. It always was one but now they are all kindof starting at the same point in time. They want to see what is going to happen and that curiosity will be there for the first issue. Example – I didnt give a crap about Excalibur around the time of AOA but I picked it up during AOA to check out the shared universe and see what it was like. I continued to collect it after AOA once i was invested in the characters/story

Add to that people just trying something new and you have your reasons. The real test will be if Hawk and Dove sell anywhere near what they need to sell around issue 7 or something like that (to choose one randomly)

I dont think the TV ads have anything to do with this. They can help but they are not the big reasons

“Or maybe DC are just producing smaller runs now, which leads to easier sellouts.”

Yep. They quietly switched to print runs closer to the incoming orders a while back. Keep in mind that when they announce these sellouts, they are at the publisher level, not the retail level. (That’s not to say that comics aren’t flying off the shelves–I don’t know.) That said, they usually don’t do second printings unless there is a need. So there is obviously demand, even for the lower tier titles.

My aunt told me two days ago that she’s really interested in trying out a bunch of comics. She’s never been into it until she saw Green Lantern. I alwasy thought it was ridiculous when I heard people say starting with issue 254 (or whatever) was daunting to new readers, but that’s exactly what she told me. The new #1 approach has her all excited. Of course, with all the sell outs I’m probably going to push her toward the digital end. Good job, DC.

Some of you are missing the point — that they’re sellouts isn’t what Graeme’s talking about. The fact that they’re selling more copies than most comics, and across the board, is the accomplishment. The fact that a book sells out isn’t nearly as important as the fact that it sold $106K copies.
I think DC’s media’s onslaught attracted the exact audience they needed for this to work: lapsed comic book readers. The thousands of fans we’ve lost every year for the past decade are still out there, and DC went after them. That was the smartest move they made.

“Always. What matters is whether the sales will trail off very quickly, as they always have these many past years, which is what has led to so many relaunchings at both of the Big Two.”

Agreed. I want to see the numbers 3 months, 6 months, a year from now to know whether this actually did anything positive long term, and not just for yet another issue labeled #1.

Selling out or just retailers are ordering more? I’m hearing conflicting reports of people seeing excess stock at their store from various boards. And this not just haterz11 but from legit boards with people who read comics for enjoyment and don’t have a vast political agenda against fictious characters like some people on the internet.

I don’t know if it is the advertising. It certainly isn’t the case here across the pond in the UK with regards to the marketing campaign. I first learned of the reboot from sites like newsarama and others. Since then, they have been the only source of any additional information on the reboot here. My initial thought was that here is finally a chance to get into some of DC’s title from the ground level. I cannot profess to speak for other UK readers, but my interest was also piqued by an adverse reaction to the blatant sales exercise taking place over at Marvel with all their Next Big thing tie-ins which really put me off their titles. And with DCnU, it felt like there will finally be some good character driven books to be enjoyed, as opposed to the pornographic level of tie-in books peddled by Marvel that seemed to be about sales numbers and not stories.

I believe the digital day and date release is a LARGE factor here.
You’ve got geek-centric blogs and podcasts, like The Totally Rad Show doing a new DC comic review two weeks in a row, who knows if they will continue.
Also comiXology is boasting on twitter that they’re the second highest grossing app for two weeks running, with the company specific apps filling in a few more slots of the top ten.

Personally I’m trying out about half of the releases for the next two months, then based on buzz about titles I haven’t been picking up, and my impressions of the first couple issues I’ll probably cut my DC pull list down to 10.

The best thing about the day and date release is that I feel like i’m getting in on the ground floor, if only Marvel would start with regular continuity day and date release…..

These sell outs are at the distributor level, meaning they’ve been bought by retailers. It remains to be seen whether this will translate to actual reader sales, or whether the stores will be left sitting on stacks of these books.

I think everyone is missing the point. Lapsed or close to be lapsed readers wanted this to work. For this industry to survive it HAD to work. Marvel and DC had been selling more titles but achieving the same collective sales. There’s also the collectibility of the first issues. Sales will go down with the second issues but by how much? Whatever happens DC created the biggest comic event for a long, long time. I’ve gone from 3 titles a month to probably 30 this month and then settling down to around 15-16 books. Now let’s see how long they have me for.

I don’t watch commercial TV nor listen to commercial radio, so I don’t know if their ads are successful. I have heard people who either have never read or have not read DC in a long time, so I think they’re working.

We don’t know, but I’d suspect the sellouts have to do with tighter print runs and was probably a calculated strategy so they could claim the sellouts.

As for why there’s so much demand, I think it’s much more to do with the huge promotional push that retailers are giving this launch where folks are getting the whole 52 for ~50% off. We’ll see what it’s like in months 2 and 3 when those promotions go away.

I strongly don’t think TV commercials are a good way to advertise comics. They’re expensive and their target audience (mostly men of the geek persuasion) fast forwards through commercials.

The retailer gains a lot of customers by offering sales. Some people will still come back when prices go back. It’s all about disposable income and the willingness to pay a certain price for a product. Right now, some retailers can’t sell these books fast enough and are pounding at the door of DC & Diamond for more stuff before the customers get tired of books being sold out. Everyone’s winning right now.
As for ads, the internet is the best place for it. TV ads have been on BBC America, SyFy, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network and MTV2 and I haven’t really seen it since I don’t watch as much TV.

I think it’s kind of asinine for Marvel to not have some kind of tv promo now and then for their books, especially when they now have sister company tv channels that they could probably exploit for a lowered chance of financial risk. Anyone that’s watched a Disney owned channel for a long period knows that the company loves to cross promote. Just this summer, I remember seeing promotion for Captain America on Disney XD, ABC Family, and even radio Disney, and that’s a movie that was owned but not even distributed by Disney. Would it really hurt to try to get them to run a 15 second ad every now and then or a “Check Out Marvel Comics” footer at the bottom of the screen during one of the many marathons for their cartoons ? To just dismiss that you’re even trying and to just stick with headlines on the 10 O’ Clock news seems a little silly to me.

nice and incredibly insightful details.