Monthly Comic Book Sales Report: August 2015

The numbers for August were released about a week ago, but I was holding off on posting this so that I could give Josh the honor/sadness of announcing the upcoming cancellations. Now that the cat is out of the bag, I can present to you the numbers that set these events in motion.

Below you will find a chart detailing the 30 comics that this site reviews, along with the total sales for this month and several previous months. Numbers displayed are in the thousands. Keep in mind that these numbers represent physical copies sold. Numbers for the sales of digital comics are not currently being reported to the general public. Also, be aware that comics like Injustice are available in the digital format before print. This means that the bulk of their real sales are hidden to us.

[table “24” not found /]

If you read last months report, you know that sales took a terrible hit from June to July. There was a strong indication by the readership, that lack of variant covers had something to do with it. While I’m not sure about that, what I can tell you is that this month saw 20 of the titles continuing their downward trend. Of the ten titles that saw an increase in sales, only one was able to jump back up to above the June sales: Secret Six (Wow, that is pretty random?!?!). The other comics that came close to reclaiming their losses were Catwoman and Teen Titans.

Now let’s talk about those cancellations: Batman66, Gotham by Midnight, and Justice League United. Going strictly from a numbers standpoint, Batman66 and Gotham by Midnight are at the absolute bottom of the list, so it makes sense that they were cancelled. However, they were fabulous books that only failed because they didn’t have enough word of mouth or company advertisement backing them up. It wasn’t because they were bad or inferior, just under-read. In regards to Justice League United, I’ll admit to dropping the ball on this title. It’s so off my radar that I didn’t even remember that we were reviewing it here. Which is why you won’t find numbers for it in my sales reports. I did take the time to look up July and August, and they are at 23k and 24k. This makes the books cancellation somewhat peculiar since there are several other books on our list far below them that would have made for more likely cancellations than them. But whatever.

What might be next on the cutting block? Bat-Mite is already ending at issue six, so we will overlook that, along with Injustice which has a health dose of sales coming from the digital medium. That means the next three titles at the bottom of our list are: Midnighter, Justice League 3001, and Gotham Academy. GOTHAM ACADEMY!!?!?!?!??! NNOOOOOOOOooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok people, I don’t want to see one of my favorite books get cancelled. Much in the way that Batman66 and Gotham by Midnight only got cancelled because of lack of readership and not because of lack of quality, if Gotham Academy ends up getting cancelled, it will be for the same reason.

Since there was a lot of talk about Omega Men in Josh’s article, the sales for that from August were 13,246, which is quite low in the greater scheme of things. Ultimately, the fans rallied and it got 5 more books. Lesson learned! If Gotham Academy gets cancelled, I need to complain to no end.

In light of good books getting cancelled, I have decided to implement a new section in the Monthly Sales Report. In the past, I have highlighted the top 5 best selling books from the month in question. It occurred to me that if they are the top selling books, chances are you have already read them, so they don’t need further attention. What does need attention are the low selling issues that don’t deserve to be where they are. So going forward I will highlight them instead.

Links:

For your consideration, the lowest selling books that need your help. Both of these books were low on the sales list but received incredibly high scores by the reviewing team. I’m not including Justice League 3001 since Sean gave it a 6, so maybe it deserves to be where it is. If not, feel free to sound off in the comments as to why this book deserves your support.