{"id":4810,"date":"2013-10-04T17:38:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-04T17:38:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-08-01T15:12:49","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T20:12:49","slug":"villains-propel-september-2013-comics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/04\/villains-propel-september-2013-comics\/","title":{"rendered":"Villains propel September 2013 comics orders to record levels"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DC’s <\/b>“Villains Month” prompted North American comics retailers to order in record volume in September, according to preliminary data released today by Diamond Comic Distributors<\/b><\/a>. The event, which saw many DC titles splitting for the month into several issues featuring different stories and 3-D covers<\/b><\/a>, spearheaded a $48 million month for the trade overall.<\/p>\n

That figure is the largest non-inflation adjusted dollar amount for orders seen in the 2000s, beating both last month and last September by more than $9 million. Despite the high month-to-month volatility recently, the quarter overall was up 7.64%. That looks a lot more like the rest of 2013.<\/p>\n

In the 1980s, September was called “Black September” in the comics market, owing to a back-to-school dropoff in volume \u2014 but the last three years have seen major publisher events during the month, including the DC relaunch in 2011. Based on the comparative statistics below, Comichron estimates that the periodical sales, which were up an astonishing 34% year-over-year in dollar terms, likely topped 8.5 million copies, with DC contributing 4 million copies or more. That would put the month just beneath December 1997<\/b><\/a> (the 11-cover Darkness<\/i> #11<\/b> month) in periodical orders.<\/p>\n

The category comparisons are as follows:<\/p>\n