There’s something kind of amazing to see in the Beat’s regular month-by-month comparison of Diamond sales estimates, in regards to sales of The Walking Dead:
10/2011: The Walking Dead #89 – 31,351 (-1.5%)
10/2011: The Walking Dead #90 – 31,778 (+1.4%)
11/2011: The Walking Dead #91 – 31,813 (+0.1%)
12/2011: The Walking Dead #92 – 31,496 (-0.1%)
01/2012: The Walking Dead #93 – 31,596 (+0.1%)
The sales seem to have reached a point where they’re essentially self-correcting, with each month’s order numbers undoing whatever change happened the month before. Never mind the fact that a black and white horror book has such impressive order numbers in the first place, the fact that they’re pretty much entirely consistent in such a changable market is genuinely impressive – and more than a little surprising, too.
(As an aside: How much of this title’s sales consistency can be attributed to it being by the same writer/artist team every month, and being a story that’s self-contained in one series without crossovers, tie-ins or the need to read anything else?)
March 2nd, 2012 at 1:04 pm
I tried two issues but I couldn’t get into it.
March 2nd, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Could be faked. Would be nice to see if the same correction happened around the shows premier. I would expect new readership after the show premiered or at least a small bump up as the show ramped up its premier advertising.
Just wondering how consistent it has been.
March 2nd, 2012 at 3:55 pm
The bump happens at the beginning of each new story arc, because that’s the place all the trade readers can jump on. I expect a pretty big leap coming at #97, since #96 will become the last issue in the second Omnibus.
-B
March 4th, 2012 at 6:04 am
What I also take from that list is that it shipped regular for 5 issues, which is amazing for the walking dead.