{"id":4903,"date":"2013-03-11T17:01:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T17:01:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-08-01T15:35:58","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T20:35:58","slug":"flags-waving-justice-league-of-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/11\/flags-waving-justice-league-of-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Flags waving: Justice League of America #1 sets new high marks"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DC’s Justice League of America<\/i> #1<\/b><\/a> turned in the strongest single-issue sales performance for a comic book in the month of February since at least 1996 \u2014 and the biggest single-month number for a DC title since that time, as well. That’s based on Comichron’s estimates of retailer orders from Diamond Comic Distributors<\/b>. Click to see the complete estimates for comics sales in February 2013.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Released with more than 50 variant covers<\/b><\/a> featuring flags of the individual U.S. states, Justice League of America<\/i> #1 had orders of nearly 308,000 copies. That’s more than 100,000 copies more than any DC relaunch issue reached in North America in a single month \u2014 and enough to rank it seventh on the list of top-selling comics of the 21st Century.<\/b><\/a> (It could still go higher, with reorders.) The issue outranks any DC title in the Diamond Exclusive Era, including Superman: The Wedding Album <\/b><\/i>back in November 1996<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The quantity is also higher than any February release since at least Marvel Vs. DC<\/i> #3 <\/b>in February 1996<\/b><\/a>. We don’t know the actual sales for that issue, as it came during the Distribution Wars period when Marvel was self-distributing, but I would guess that its sales were likely competitive with the February 2013 release. Click to see my column on past best-sellers for the month.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Another interesting cross-time comparison: with the top 300 comics selling just over 7 million copies in February, the figure beats not just the five- and 10-year comparisons, but also the 15-year comparative, as well. Retailers ordered 6.6 million copies in February 1998<\/b><\/a>. By 1998, however, we’re getting to the point where a 15-year beat isn’t as impressive \u2014 the February 1997<\/b><\/a> figure was 8 million copies.<\/p>\n

Graphic novel sales were slightly off from a year ago \u2014 by less than 1% overall \u2014 although when you drill down to just the Top 300 graphic novels, sales were actually up 14% in both dollars and units. That would require, if the figure is correct, for the backlist titles in the “long tail” to have significantly underperformed. It’s within the range of differences we’ve seen between frontlist and backlist figures before. Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s N<\/b>emo: Heart of Ice<\/b><\/i><\/a> hardcover from Top Shelf<\/b> was the best-selling graphic novel.<\/p>\n

The aggregate sales:<\/p>\n

TOP 300 COMICS UNIT SALES<\/b><\/div>\n

February 2013<\/a>: <\/b>7.01 million copies
\nVersus 1 year ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +15%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +12%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +20%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +6%
\nYEAR TO DATE: 13.73 million copies, +16% vs. 2012, +5% vs. 2008, +20% vs. 2003, +1% vs. 1998<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS UNIT SALES<\/b>
\nFebruary 2013 versus one year ago this month: +14.75%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +17.20%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

TOP 300 COMICS DOLLAR SALES<\/b><\/div>\n

February 2013: $20.8 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +21%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +29%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month: +53%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month: +61%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $61.6 million, +21% vs. 2012, +21% vs. 2008, +54% vs. 2003, +52% vs. 1998<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS DOLLAR SALES<\/b>
\nFebruary 2013 versus one year ago this month: +15.91%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +18.95%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES<\/b><\/div>\n

February 2013: $6.5 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +14%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: -3%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 50 vs. the Top 50: unchanged
\nYEAR TO DATE: $13.81 million, +18% vs. 2012<\/p>\n

ALL TRADE PAPERBACK\u00a0 SALES<\/b>
\nMarch 2013 versus one year ago this month: -1.47%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +17.14%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

TOP 300 COMICS + TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES<\/b><\/div>\n

February 2013: $31.82 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +19%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month, counting just the Top 100 TPBs: +29%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month, counting just the Top 25 TPBs: +32%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $63.08 million, +20% vs. 2012<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS AND TRADE PAPERBACK\u00a0 SALES<\/b>
\nFebruary 2013 versus one year ago this month: +10.48%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +18.39%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

OVERALL DIAMOND SALES (including all comics, trades, and magazines)<\/b><\/div>\n

February 2013: approximately $39.58 million (subject to revision)
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +10%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +22%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month: +18%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $80.61 million, +18% vs. 2012<\/p>\n

The average comic book in the Top 300 cost $3.62; the average comic book
\nretailers ordered cost $3.61. The median and most common price for comics offered was $3.99. Click to see comics prices across time.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The pages for monthly top sellers<\/b><\/a> and 300th place titles across time<\/b><\/a> have been updated.\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DC’s Justice League of America #1 turned in the strongest single-issue sales performance for a comic book in the month of February since at least 1996 \u2014 and the biggest single-month number for a DC title since that time, as well. That’s based on Comichron’s estimates of retailer orders from Diamond Comic Distributors. Click to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,4,17],"class_list":["post-4903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2013-sales","tag-dc-comics","tag-diamond-monthly-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4903"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6471,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903\/revisions\/6471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}