Thursday, March 13, 2008

Hey Dan DiDio: How About Those Sales Figures?

Anyone who pays attention to the "Top 300 Comics" sales lists each month can't help but have noticed recently that DC Comics rarely has more than one or two titles cracking the Top 10. So what, you ask? Well, a year ago the publishers of Batman, Superman and the Justice League of America had at least a healthy three or four entrants among the Top 10. Worse news, still, from last month;s figures was that DC wasn't even dominating the 11 through 20 spots, which was an absolutely horrific situation in the context of trying to be on the same level as Marvel Comics.

Now I read that the average sales on DC Universe titles last month was approximately 33,000. To some, that may sound like a reasonable number (if you sell 33,000 hardcover books, for example, you're doing well unless you're a big name author) but it wasn't that long ago that a DC or Marvel title selling below 40,000 was on the chopping block for cancellation... and now here's DC with the average of their big line existing under that mark! If there's any better indication of just how sad a state Executive Editor Dan DiDio has taken this collection of the greatest, most recognizable set of iconic heroes to... I can't imagine what it would be.

And that's coming from someone who absolutely loves DC Comics, and has preferred them to Marvel for the last 20 years.

1 comment:

David Webb said...

To what do you attribute these miserable sales figures? For me, Countdown has really soured me on the whole universe. I feel like I am waiting for the deck to get reshuffled back to normal. And like the Avengers over at Marvel, I hate having two, or even three JLA titles. Just give me one and I will be so happy. I guess I am feeling overwhelmed with the volume of reading needed to keep up with 52 and Civil war. But I am known to whine.

Your thoughts?