At the website of IO9 (via The Beat), while what they report is primarily a rumor, it may be that we’re getting good news at last for DC…

Check out the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, in which they rank their top 100 “books” of the past 25 years. The list includes several comics, including Maus (#7), Watchmen (#13), Persepolis (#37), and Sandman (#46).

EW regularly mentions comics–a couple weeks ago there was even a reference to DC’s new Trinity series. You know, one of those American superhero comics….

http://www.comichron.com/Home/tabid/171/EntryID/237/Default.aspx

My initial “overall” guess for the month was high — it’s the year-to-date for which the DM is off about 2%. Something new is that we’re now able to do 10-year comparatives for the trade paperbacks; the Top 25 trades in May 2008 outpaced the Top 25 in May 1998, $2.25 million to $934,000. There’s some inflation in there and the product mix has changed some, but it shows the category’s growth very visibly.

I said it before, and I’ll keep saying it until the people running the Big 2 get it. Marvel and DC need to RETURN to making ALL of their IN CONTINUITY INTERCONNECTED MU AND DCU SUPERHERO TITLES (AND RELATED TITLES) both suitable for and appealing to a wide kids/all ages audience WITHOUT SUGAR COATING AND TALKING DOWN TO THE READERS.

Not good.

These numbers don’t surprise me. Do they expect the 40 year old fan (Babyman?) to still be reading this stuff when they are 80? Get some new blood in there and make these comics all ages and story accessible! I stopped reading this shit years ago. I buy trades and MAYBE 6 monthly books, and all of them are mostly Marvel Adventures stuff. I’ve been saying this for over 10 years…it’s not going to be any better. I’ve seen well run comic stores that have no kids in them except for FCBD and that’s one day per year…sad.

1. Marvel may be kicking DC’s butt, but the Big Two are basically still crushing everyone else. They control 83 percent of the monthly sales. The only independently published comic to sell anywhere near the top was a four-color version of TV’s popular “Buffy the Vampre Slayer,” by Dark Horse. The first Image comic didn’t appear until no. 101; and Image controls a tiny 2.5 percent of the monthly market, which still makes it a leading indie publisher. ONI Press controls 0.04 percent of the monthly market.

2. The WATCHMEN trade sold more than 2,600 copies last month. It always interests me to see this comic continue to sell so well 20-plus years after it first appeared. And wait until the publicity for the movie really cranks up.

One doesn’t look at a rainy day and say the drought is over — so by the same token, I find it hard to locate the end of civilization in a couple of flat months, when overall the market is up 43% over the same period five years ago. But if you’re looking to restore readership to what it was in the 1950s, yeah, you’d be searching for growth at a much different pace.

John and I were just talking about that — he’s looking again at his data set. I have SI #2 close to 182,500 across all variants.

I’ll have all the various measures on Comichron.com and Newsarama soon.