Comichron

 

June 2020 DC Comic Book Sales

Projections for DC Comics Ordered by North American Comics Shops

This data refers only to sales by DC's distributors. Click to see them Diamond and Overall charts.


#1 Most Ordered Issue
#1
#2 Most Ordered Issue
#2
#3 Most Ordered Issue
#3
#4 Most Ordered Issue
#4
#5 Most Ordered Issue
#5

On June 5, DC announced that it was cutting ties with Diamond Comic Distributors altogether, forcing retailers who wanted its comics to go through Lunar Distribution or UCS Comic Distributors, and to go through Random House for its graphic novels.

June 30 was further declared a skip week to give more retailers time to set up accounts. So while June had five Tuesdays — and so technically, one more ship week for DC — it was effectively just four, the same as all the other publishers at Diamond.

In the meantime, Diamond continued to ship DC titles through the month. Comichron projects that when orders across all three distributors are combined, Dark Nights: Death Metal #1 was likely the top comic book in units and dollars for DC.

During June, UCS had a Best Sellers section on its website, including sections for comic books, graphic novels, magazines, books, and promotional items. They were simple top ten lists, without any indexed sales figures, and appeared to co-mingle both preordered items and those that had shipped. (For example, the June 1, 2020 snapshot, seen at left, included items that had not shipped yet.)

 

UCS did not include information about what specific timeframe was being measured in the rankings, and the titles listed updated dynamically through the month. As such, while Comichron archived several instances of the reports, the UCS data on comic books was too limited in detail to be of much use to retailers.

With UCS and Diamond releasing little official information about their DC sales and Lunar releasing none at all, Comichron has drawn upon a subset of known retail orders both to determine approximate rankings and to project the relative order volumes of comic-book releases. The subset represents a sizable number of copies, but it is not possible at present to know what portion of the overall population of store orders it represents, particularly as many stores were closed, had their accounts on hold, or had not established accounts with DC's distributors. Only periodicals were examined, and order totals are believed to be as of Final Order Cutoff. No statistical adjustments have been made for returnability and no later returns have been subtracted out.

The chart below features every new comic book released by DC in June 2020. Variant editions have been merged into single entries, following longtime industry practice. The release dates are from UCS. We make no attempt here to distinguish between the distributors DC sold through; the intent is to describe DC's business in the Direct Market.

The order volumes are expressed in relation to Justice League #46, which has been chosen as the order index issue for DC's distributors this month, as well as for Diamond. (There are Justice League issues without cardstock variants in the May and June lists for both Diamond and DC's distributors, so it's a good choice if you're trying to refer between charts.) For example, for every 100 copies of Justice League #46 in the order set, there were 118 copies of Strange Adventures #2.

DC offered 10 comic books with cardstock variants at a different price; their sales have been fused by default below. You can find the component versions at the bottom of the chart, or by sorting by "Units" to see where its variants would have placed. Another cardstock comic book, Flash #754, appears without a regular variant because that version shipped in May. Its sales can be found there.

Things to remember: The retail order subset represents a sizable number of copies, but it is not possible at present to know what portion of the overall population of store orders it represents, particularly as many stores were closed, had their accounts on hold, or had not established accounts with DC's distributors. For example, Justice League had been seeing Diamond orders of more than 40,000 copies per issue in North America the first quarter of 2020, but we do not advise using that number to extrapolate overall sales for other titles — not until we have a better idea how the market size has changed.

We're sticking with whole numbers until we have a better handle on the margin of error. As such, note that a difference of a single point on the chart may not be meaningful, due to rounding. Projections for issues at the lower extremes are thus subject to more error due to the small quantities involved. Projected relative sales levels here are likely most reliable for regular series issues in the middle of the chart: orders for the highest sellers and first issues may tend to show more variation.

Rankings in these charts should also be expected to differ — often significantly — from the sales-to-consumers charts available at other outlets. Those report sell-through and not sell-in, and different retailers are sampled in each, with no known overlap in reporting stores as of the generation of the below charts.

As is the case with all data on Comichron, it is subject to revision without notice in the event more authoritative and complete information about orders becomes available.

—John Jackson Miller
Updated March 17, 2021


This list includes all DC items released by its distributors in the month.
The Order Index Number by each comic book indicates how many copies were ordered within the sample for every 100 Justice League #46s that were ordered.
"Fused" combines differently priced-variants; click the "Unit" arrow to do a sort separating them.
Distributor charts are regional commodity reports, not measures of a work's total reach. Read our FAQ.
The links lead to current listings for each item on eBay. You can also find the books at your comics shop.



UnitDollarComic-book TitleIssuePriceOn salePublisherOrder Index
13Dark Nights Death Metal1$4.9906/16/20DC511
24Batman92 (All)$3.9906/09/20DC381
31Joker 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular1$9.9906/09/20DC323
46Batman93 (All)$3.9906/09/20DC278
52Catwoman 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectular1$9.9906/02/20DC266
69Batman The Adventures Continue1$3.9906/09/20DC149
75Green Lantern 80th Anniv 100-Page Super Spectacular1$9.9906/23/20DC135
810Strange Adventures2$4.9906/16/20DC118
911Detective Comics1022 (All)$3.9906/09/20DC113
108Batman The Smile Killer1$5.9906/23/20DC110
1113Batman Superman9$3.9906/02/20DC102
1215Justice League46$3.9906/09/20DC100
1316Nightwing71$3.9906/09/20DC96
1418Action Comics1022$3.9906/02/20DC80
1519Legion of Super-Heroes6 (All)$4.9906/09/20DC74
1620Batman's Grave7 (All)$3.9906/09/20DC74
1722Justice League47 (All)$3.9906/09/20DC72
1823Flash755$3.9906/09/20DC72
1924Superman22$3.9906/16/20DC71
2025Green Lantern Season 24$3.9906/16/20DC70
217Birds of Prey1$9.9906/02/20DC66
2217Batman Secret Files3$4.9906/09/20DC66
2312Wonder Woman Dead Earth3$6.9906/16/20DC63
2428Flash756 (All)$3.9906/09/20DC63
2530Detective Comics475 Facs. Ed.$3.9906/16/20DC62
2627Wonder Woman756 (All)$3.9906/09/20DC62
2729Catwoman22 (All)$3.9906/09/20DC61
2831Justice League Dark22$3.9906/02/20DC60
2933Shazam12$3.9906/02/20DC58
3014Question The Deaths of Vic Sage3$6.9906/16/20DC58
3134Justice League Dark23$3.9906/23/20DC57
3226Flash Annual3$4.9906/16/20DC56
3332Wonder Woman757 (All)$3.9906/09/20DC55
3421Harley Quinn & The Birds of Prey2$5.9906/23/20DC52
3535Far Sector6$3.9906/02/20DC51
3636Suicide Squad6$3.9906/23/20DC51
3737Lois Lane11$3.9906/09/20DC51
3838Young Justice15$3.9906/16/20DC50
3939Plunge4$3.9906/23/20DC49
4040John Constantine Hellblazer6$3.9906/02/20DC45
4141Batman Beyond44$3.9906/23/20DC44
4242Justice League Odyssey21$3.9906/09/20DC42
4343John Constantine Hellblazer7$3.9906/23/20DC42
4444Low Low Woods6$3.9906/23/20DC42
4545Batgirl46$3.9906/23/20DC41
4646Aquaman60$3.9906/23/20DC41
4747Batman and the Outsiders13$3.9906/16/20DC40
4848Harley Quinn73$3.9906/09/20DC36
4949Daphne Byrne5$3.9906/16/20DC35
5050Teen Titans42$3.9906/23/20DC35
5151Supermans Pal Jimmy Olsen11$3.9906/23/20DC33
5252Hawkman24$3.9906/16/20DC32
5362DC Classics The Batman Adventures1$1.9906/09/20DC31
5453Red Hood Outlaw46$3.9906/23/20DC30
5554Superman Giant3$4.9906/09/20DC23
5655Swamp Thing Giant4$4.9906/02/20DC22
5758Amethyst3$3.9906/09/20DC22
5860Metal Men7$3.9906/16/20DC20
5956Last God Sourcebook Tales From The Book Of Ages1$4.9906/02/20DC20
6057Nightwing Annual3$4.9906/16/20DC20
6161Books of Magic20$3.9906/23/20DC19
6259Aquaman Giant4$4.9906/16/20DC16
6363Scooby Doo Where Are You104$2.9906/02/20DC10
n.a.n.a.Batman92 Regular$3.9906/09/20DC235
n.a.n.a.Batman92 Card Stock$4.9906/09/20DC146
n.a.n.a.Batman93 Regular$3.9906/23/20DC226
n.a.n.a.Batman93 Card Stock$4.9906/23/20DC52
n.a.n.a.Batman's Grave7 Regular$3.9906/09/20DC54
n.a.n.a.Batman's Grave7 Card Stock$4.9906/09/20DC20
n.a.n.a.Catwoman22 Regular$3.9906/02/20DC41
n.a.n.a.Catwoman22 Card Stock$4.9906/02/20DC20
n.a.n.a.Detective Comics1022 Regular$3.9906/02/20DC76
n.a.n.a.Detective Comics1022 Card Stock$4.9906/02/20DC37
n.a.n.a.Flash756 Regular$3.9906/23/20DC51
n.a.n.a.Flash756 Card Stock$4.9906/23/20DC12
n.a.n.a.Justice League47 Regular$3.9906/23/20DC58
n.a.n.a.Justice League47 Card Stock$4.9906/23/20DC14
n.a.n.a.Legion of Super-Heroes6 Regular$3.9906/09/20DC55
n.a.n.a.Legion of Super-Heroes6 Card Stock$4.9906/09/20DC19
n.a.n.a.Wonder Woman756 Regular$3.9906/02/20DC38
n.a.n.a.Wonder Woman756 Card Stock$4.9906/02/20DC24
n.a.n.a.Wonder Woman757 Regular$3.9906/16/20DC34
n.a.n.a.Wonder Woman757 Card Stock$4.9906/16/20DC21




June 2020 DC Graphic Novel Sales

Graphic Novels and Trade Paperbacks Ordered and Preordered by North American Comics Shops Based on Reports from UCS Comic Distributors

DC's Direct Market distributors did not release monthly totals of their graphic novel sales, but it is known that the publisher released 27 new graphic novels to the Direct Market in June.

The Doomsday Clock Part 2 Hardcover with Slipcase, released June 16 at UCS, is a good bet to have been the top ordered new graphic novel in initial-ordered units.

Comichron did not sample retailer sales data for DC's Direct Market graphic novel sales, but UCS did break out graphic novels in its bestsellers page on its website. The title was UCS's top June-shipping graphic novel as of the May 18 snapshot.


This list includes all items on UCS's Top 10 chart as of a snapshot taken May 18, 2020.
If you don't see a book, UCS released no data for it.

The links lead to title details on Amazon (paid links). You can also find the books at your comics shop.


Units Trade Paperback title Price On sale Publisher
1 Doomsday Clock HC Part 2 with Slipcase $24.99 06/16/20 DC
2 Lost Carnival: A Dick Grayson Graphic Novel $16.99 05/05/20 DC
3 Superman Smashes the Klan $16.99 05/12/20 DC
4 Joker: 80 Years of the Clown Prince of Crime HC $29.99 06/02/20 DC
5 Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen $16.99 06/09/20 DC
6 Young Justice Vol. 1: Gemworld $17.99 05/05/20 DC
7 Year of the Villain: The Infected $17.99 06/23/20 DC
8 Crisis on Infinite Earths: Paragons Rising Dlx Ed. HC $17.99 07/07/20 DC
9 Justice League Dark Vol. 3: The Witching War $16.99 05/12/20 DC
10 Harley Quin & Poison Ivy HC $24.99 05/19/20 DC