Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, dc, marvel, numbercrunching, reboot, sales

Further Numbercrunching DC Comics And Marvel In September 2011

So the Diamond figures have come through. DC has grabbed the top spot in both volume and dollars spent on comics in September, for the first time in six years. But some have pointed out that despite the millions in publicity both spent and earned, as well as the natural sales bump from a first issue, DC have only just pipped Marvel.

But it's not quite as easy as that.

First, consider that DC published around sixty single comic books in September. Marvel, over a hundred.

Second, I understand that Britain responded as a whole to the relaunch greater than America as a whole, and those numbers are never reported by Diamond.

But thirdly, the reported figures include an expected 20% return for DC's returnable comics, making up much their line, but returns are expected to be minuscule. And once you fix that, lots of things start to change.

Let's say, just for a little fun, that no copies are returned. Obviously there will be some, but they will affect the lower sellers more, probably. But what does it do to the Diamond released figures if there are no returns for each title listed?

Well now DC takes the whole of the top ten. Superman now jumps over both Green Lantern and Flash, Batgirl now jumps into the top 10, with both Fear Itself and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #1 pushed out, indeed now the only non-DC books in the top twenty. And at the bottom OMAC is now the 74th best seller rather than the 82nd.

And when you look at the marketshare as a whole, if the DC could quite easily have a five point lead in terms of dollars and fifteen points in terms of units sold.

Unless Diamond Comic Distributors release new figures taking into account what actually happened after the returns, if any, are taken into account. this will only be a bit of fun.

I say fun. I've spend the afternoon numbercrunching this… but the results also justifying the plus 200,000 and plus 100,000 figures given to books by DC Comics when you consider that Britain adds around 15% onto sales reported by Diamond, and last month, Fear Itself #5 was listed by Diamond at around 90,000 without. Suddenly it all fits a little better…

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