The DC month-to-month sales column for June 2006 is up and can be found here….

“Not surprisingly, the numbers took a considerable step down the chart in June, following the departure of high-profile creators Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness with issue #25 and the subsequent “jamâ€? issue #26, which was produced by a roster of superstar creators including Jim Lee, Michael Turner, John Cassaday and Joe Madureira. (The latter issue, incidentally, sold another 11,256 units in June.)”

“Given that Verheiden — even with the help of several “Infinite Crisisâ€? tie-ins — never managed to crack 72K in terms of estimated first-month sales during his recent tenure on Superman, 95,717 copies are still a very respectable number, however. Then again, Superman/Batman #27 co-starred Power Girl, a character whose re-introduction in JSA: Classified enjoyed surprisingly high sales last year, so that might well be another significant factor in the book’s sales. We’ll find out in the next few months.”

Well, I’d expect re-orders of this issue to be spectacular. It was literally sold out of my LCS (and its satellite stores in the area) within an hour of hitting the shelf. Re-orders followed the same trajectory. Took four full weeks for re-ordered copies to remain on the shelf for as long as a single day.

Power Girl — especially in an E-2 milieu (and more especially under Kevin Maguire’s loving care) — may well be the most popular DC character not to have held her own title, not even her own mini, in the post-Reagan era.

Remember when only X-Men and Uncanny ever regularly reached 90,000 copies? And now a consistent 100,000+ is disappointing for a big event. Times change…

As far as the slightly disappointing numbers on the b-list OYL books, I don’t find it surprising. During Infinite Crisis all the attention and attendant sales were tightly focused on maybe six to twelve books. There’s no way to that can be carried over to the entire DC line on a consistent basis. The best that could have been hoped for is a big boost for the initial month or two of all the series and that there are a couple breakouts from the lower ranks, and I think DC has mostly accomplished that. You can’t make 70-something books all sell like the top titles.

“DMZ” - I picked up the first collection and liked it quite a bit. I hope there are more.

“Manifest Eternity” - This sounded so utterly generic, I didn’t even think twice about ignoring it. Someone please find other work for Dustin Nguyen.

“Lucifer” - Yeah, time to put the Sandman franchise to bed. A spinoff as competently done and long-running as Lucifer is more than could have been hoped for.