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I’d like to see the trades inserted into the monthly listing, to see the related sales, as well as any increase in circulation of the monthlies afterwards.

For example:
88 – OUTCAST BY KIRKMAN & AZACETA ($2.99)
07/2014: Outcast #2 — 55,126 (- 23.2%)
08/2014: Outcast #3 — 46,717 (- 15.3%)
09/2014: Outcast #4 — 45,401 (- 2.8%)
10/2014: —
11/2014: Outcast #5 — 39,967 (- 12.0%)
12/2014: Outcast #6 — 36,354 (- 9.0%)
01/2015: TP, Vol. 1 (1-6) $9.99 — 8,436 [12,707]
02/2015: —
03/2015: Outcast #7 — 38,077 (+ 4.7%)
04/2015: Outcast #8 — 36,188 (- 5.0%)
05/2015: Outcast #9 — 28,961 (- 20.0%)
06/2015: —
07/2015: Outcast #10 — 28,012 (- 3.3%)

Does the trade give the next issue a “#1” effect?
It would be interesting to chart the monthly sales of The Walking Dead, with inserts for trades and television episodes.

Invincible 118 was the $0.25 issue, that’s why it wasn’t in the top300. It doesn’t seem to have made any difference.

Any big difference I mean. it did kept 1.000 with issue 119 but it’s almost back to where it was.

I very much agree with Torsten, I’d love to see the charts reflect the trades. Many of these comics are almost unreadable month-to-month and are much better read arc by arc in trade form, including Walking Dead, Trees, Descender, and Copperhead. There might be a lot of people who are doing that and going uncounted, and it can get complicated. I for one have gone both ways, collecting initial issues of Fatale and then switching to trades, and getting the first Manhattan Projects trade along with issues 7 and 8 and then continuing on. It really has a lot to do with both story structure and how much enjoyment you can get out of the single issues.

In some cases it would seems the “TPB halo effect” is real. Saga sales grow with any new arc first issue (and usually mantain the new level). Walking Dead seemed to do the same until some time ago (maybe now it has just reached peak levels, after all it’s selling as much or more than the flagship JL, Avengers and X-Men titles). Sex Criminals had a big increase at the starting of the second arc after the big success of the first TPB, this new bump though may be due to the special variant cover. It’s a trend that’s probably easier to notice when the TPB has massive sales, WD or Saga sell ten of thousands of copies in TPB and that can translates to a noticeable +5% for a new arc first issue.

Remender is absolutely killing it on Deadly Class, Low and Black Science. I really wish more people would give Image comics a try and not just buy books from the big two. Southern Bastards and Lazarus are also selling far lower then they should be. Hopefully the announced movie/TV adaptations of these books will help increase their sales as Walking Dead has done.

Surprised to see Stray Bullets selling so poorly.

I think the main problem is simply the saturation of the market Marvel has done with Star Wars and Secret Wars. They’ve SOAKED the market with those books, which are also priced pretty high. Fans simply can’t afford to buy everything at $4, $5, and $6 a pop — and something has to give. Unfortunately for DC, it’s their books — because no one wants to miss out on the “event that changes everything” for Marvel or their new “canonical” Star Wars series. A bit of a shame, since DC has put out some good books with their DCYou initiative — but no real surprise.

“(And yes, DC did all of those free eight page previews, but did anyone outside of the regular comics community even know that they existed?)”
Probably not. I’m on the margins of the regular comics community, and I only knew about the previews from reading their reviews on The Beat. So, I went to the site, and looked each and every one of them myself. And then I bought none of those comics. I’m not sure what kind of crap shoot strategy is going on at DC these days, but none of the newest stuff makes me want to buy.

Agreed on all points about the failures of marketing and outreach, and DC’s burning readers and retailers alike repeatedly, not only with their waning annual non-events and seemingly neverending trudge of increasingly homogenized weeklies that don’t even tell bloody stories when they’re through, but with the utter disaster that was Convergence, effectively stopping stopping their line, among it several promising nascent titles, in its tracks for a full two months when the tepid Futures End month wasn’t even far back enough to be a distant memory. And I echo that it’s a shame, because there are legitimately good, interesting, and *fun* books on the stands. Check out Doctor Fate — Levitz is back in form, and Sonny Liew’s art is just to die for; there’s energy, a sense of danger, and an endearing uncertainty from the youthful lead, who I can’t wait to grow with from issue to issue! Fletcher and Wu’s Black Canary is just a crackling rock opera! And Prez is a roaring satire, blazing with invention and imagination! I honestly wish I had the cash to invest in some of these books from a creative standpoint myself, but I don’t. I’m just a reader, there’s a lot I want to read, and if DC decide that my money, attention, and good word of mouth that I’m trying to spread, not just to comics readers, but to people who might not be walking into a shop otherwise, aren’t worth my time, then that’s on them. I was excited, now as rumors fly about meat and potatoes, I’m wary; if they aren’t willing to see how this plays out in trade sales, I’ll happily leave too, because I’m obviously not the kind of reader they’d want.

Although I should add that part of the reason Star Trek/GL is selling the GL books is that it’s a number one issue. Hard to compare issue one of a book and issue 43 of a book.

Fables: Wolf Among Us is at least going to issue #16 as they’re soliciting 8 issues a trade and the Vol 2 trade was in the latest Edelweiss catalog. After that, I expect it to be done.

The most unfortunate thing, for me, is that DC continues to have no idea what to do with Superman. Why are Superman books selling in such lower numbers than they did a decade ago? Is he too old-hat? The elementary school kids I teach know who he is as well as they know Batman, Hulk, the Minions, the Ninja Turtles, Spongebob, etc… so he’s popular with kids. Of course, maybe two out of the thousand kids in my classes read comics. But the adult comic readers just aren’t into Superman comics, I guess?

Convergence – an odd case of the PUSHER forcibly breaking the ADDICT of the habit by eliminating the supply.

After two months of being clean, some addicts decide they don’t want to go back to being a junkie.

@Aaron: Ten years ago the Superman titles were crossing over in the “Sacrifice” storyline (Max Lord mind controls Superman, is killed by Wonder Woman) as part of the lead-up to Infinite Crisis. It was a surprise hit, with 2nd printings selling an additional 13K each for both Superman & Action (and a whopping additional 39K for Wonder Woman.)

Quick note to AwesomeDude : good analogy!
And I know it’s beyond the scope of this analysis- but I’d love to know (1) what other comics lapsed-DC fans are spending their money on and (2) does the $3.99 price point deter sales? Seems crazy to me that Image can offer so many cheaper books. And does that price threshold work differently for Marvel than it does for DC? I wonder if part of what we’re seeing is the emergence of Marvel & Image as the new big two…?
I’d also agree with your initial idea that new marketing was/is needed to attract new readers, Dave.

These steep drops even for something as guaranteed as Johns’ Justice League/Snyder’s Batman highly suggests to me that there is something fishy going on at the retailer level. I know DC has made some questionable moves in terms of returnability for DC books and it really sounds like retailers are ordering light on DC books in retaliation.

What a god damn shame.