by Marc-Oliver Frisch
While the economic crisis still didn’t seem to have any noticeable effect on the periodical comics direct market in November, the unplanned absence of several major titles certainly did. In the case of DC Comics, the offenders were - take a deep breath - Final Crisis, All Star Batman, Justice League of America, Green Lantern, Final Crisis: Revelations and Superman/Batman; and Batman, which was meant to have two issues out, instead of just one. Consequently, in a drop that mirrors the one back in September, the average DC Comics periodical sold a whopping 13% fewer units than it did in October. With the crossover storylines “New Krypton” and “JSA: Kingdom Come” and the debut of the Kevin Smith vehicle Batman: Cacophony, DC had a few potential new top-sellers out in November, but none of them did especially well.
At DC’s Vertigo sublabel, P. Craig Russell’s new comics adaptation of an old Sandman prose story by Neil Gaiman was moderately successful, but not successful enough to noticeably affect the imprint’s flagging average sales. WildStorm tried to tap into two more Hollywood franchises with new comics adaptations of The X-Files and something called Push, meanwhile. Like most of their recent avalanche of licensed properties, however, they were given the cold shoulder by comics retailers.
See below for the details, and please mind the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com’s estimates can be found here.
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2 - BATMAN
11/2001: Batman #597 — 40,682*
11/2002: Batman #609 — 95,065*
11/2003: Batman #621 — 96,784 [100,754]
11/2004: Batman #634 — 63,769
11/2005: Batman #647 — 69,718
11/2006: Batman #658 — 94,349
11/2006: Batman #659 — 90,651
——————————-
11/2007: Batman #671 — 76,764 (- 0.2%) [ 80,440]
12/2007: Batman #672 — 71,189 (- 7.3%)
01/2008: Batman #673 — 69,234 (- 2.8%)
02/2008: Batman #674 — 68,208 (- 1.5%)
03/2008: –
04/2008: Batman #675 — 71,138 (+ 4.3%)
05/2008: Batman #676 — 105,039 (+47.9%) [122,877]
05/2008: Batman #677 — 96,116 (- 8.5%) [111,065]
06/2008: –
07/2008: Batman #678 — 103,213 (+ 7.4%)
08/2008: Batman #679 — 103,588 (+ 0.4%)
09/2008: –
10/2008: Batman #680 — 103,941 (+ 0.3%)
11/2008: Batman #681 — 103,151 (- 0.8%)
—————-
6 months: + 2.6%
1 year : +34.4%
2 years : +11.5%
5 years : + 6.6%
Well, this is very unusual.
All throughout the “Batman RIP” story, Batman managed to sell well above 100K. For the last four issues, it seems like somebody nailed it to 103,000 copies and went away for an extended vacation. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a blockbuster storyline hold on to its audience as consistently well as this one.
In theory, now, this should be very good news for DC. In practice, of course, it’s nothing of the sort. Because, as you may have heard by now, they rather blew it. The solicitation copy for Batman #681, a story titled “Batman RIP: Conclusion,” promised, among other things, “the final fate” of Batman, “the horrifying and shocking truth” about the big villain of the piece and - brace yourself - “an ending you’ll never see coming.” Well, I guess they did deliver on the latter. In case you missed the grand finale: It consisted of a helicopter crash; both Batman and the villain, whose identity remains obscure, were aboard the helicopter when it crashed. And they disappeared.
And that was it. No “final fate” in sight. “Shocking truth” cancelled.
And so, when two hundred thousand eyebrows raised in unison caused a minor earthquake at the DC Comics offices in New York, DC Universe editor Dan DiDio went on Newsarama to defend the lack of a payoff. According to Mr. DiDio, the real ending to “Batman RIP” will, in fact, appear in the delayed Final Crisis #6, currently scheduled for January. But because the eventual “Batman RIP” paperback collection - which, of course, won’t include Final Crisis #6 - will require some closure of its own, Mr. DiDio explains, an inconclusive faux ending was needed for Batman #681. Because, evidently, DC Comics’ extensive probing of the market has revealed that the only people who crave inconclusive faux endings more than the followers of monthly periodicals are those who prefer paperback collections. (The latter is pure conjecture on my part, I should add. DC didn’t share their market research concerning inconclusive faux endings with me.)
So, all in all, whether the great commercial success of “Batman RIP” is a blessing or a curse for DC remains to be seen. Clearly, a lot of people liked this story while it was going on. And clearly, DC utterly and blatantly botched what should have been a big payoff. Who knows, maybe those 100,000 folks who turned up at the store every month will just shrug and move on to Final Crisis #6, as DC would like them to.
I’m rather skeptical, though.
As usual for the duration of the “Batman RIP” story, there was a 1-for-25 variant-cover edition boosting the book’s sales.
(more…)
Kevin Melrose 
It’s the mother of all sales charts! Today’s must reading — and I do mean MUST — is 
And in our final chart based item for the morning, 
