October 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 the Overall charts and those from Diamond.

October 2020 was the fourth full month in which retailers had to order DC comics from Lunar Distribution or UCS Comic Distributors or one of those firms' subdistributors, such as Universal Distribution in Canada. On October 19, UCS announced it would end its distribution relationship with DC by the end of the year, leaving only Lunar, but October still had a full slate of DC titles at UCS.

Once again, Batman and Death Metal-related titles dominated retailer orders from the two distributors: Comichron projects that the $6.99 Black Label title Batman: Three Jokers #3 was the top-ordered comic book from DC's distributors in the month in units and dollars. The anniversary issue Batman #100 placed second, but unlike Detective Comics #1000 in the previous month, it was only priced at $6.99, so it didn't overtake Three Jokers as the top dollar item for DC.

Once variants are removed, DC only had 49 new comics releases, its smallest non-pandemic slate since May 1991, when it had 45 new comics on the racks. It's one less than its recent-history low in June 2019 level of 50 releases.

The performance of Three Jokers #3 followed the success of its first issue, which continued to appear atop the Best Sellers section on the UCS website through October. (The snapshot from October 19 can be seen at right.) As in previous months, the charts in that section co-mingled both preordered items and those 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. Lunar, meanwhile, released no data at all.

Given the lack of official information, 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.

Note, further, that our process only looks at first-month orders for comics, so no reordered titles from the month before or reprints appear in the chart below. Thus, Batman: Three Jokers #1, which might have charted again on a Diamond-style report, does not reappear.

The chart below features every new comic book released by DC in October 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 #54, which has been chosen as the order index issue for DC's distributors this month, as well as for Diamond. Sales below are expressed in relation to that issue. For example, for every 100 copies of Justice League #54 in the order set, there were 74 copies of Batgirl #50.

DC offered eight 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. Dollar rankings are based on the combined sales of the component variants.

Things to remember: A difference of a single point on the chart may not be meaningful, due to rounding; projections for issues at the lower extremes are 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 18, 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 #54s that were ordered.
Differently priced variants appear fused together by default near where they'd have ranked if together.
The component variants are sorted to the bottom of the chart by default.
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.

October 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

Comichron did not sample retailer sales data for DC's Direct Market graphic novel sales, but UCS Comic Distributors did break out graphic novels in its bestsellers page on its website. As mentioned above, the UCS charts appear to include both items which had shipped and had not yet shipped.

Based on UCS's charts appearing in September and October, the top graphic novel that shipped for the first time in October appears to have been Doomsday Clock: The Complete Collection.

A list of all the graphic novels DC released appears below.

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