{"id":5647,"date":"2009-07-28T18:23:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-28T18:23:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-07-28T03:06:58","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T03:06:58","slug":"june-comics-sales-flashbacks-to-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/28\/june-comics-sales-flashbacks-to-past\/","title":{"rendered":"June comics sales: Flashbacks to the past"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Continuing the look at what came before <a href=\"http:\/\/www.comichron.com\/monthlycomicssales\/2009\/2009-06.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">June 2009<\/span><\/a> \u2014 when <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Batman &amp; Robin <\/span><span>#1<\/span><\/span> topped the charts with approximately 168,500 copies ordered by comics shops through <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diamondcomics.com\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Diamond<\/span><\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;\">June 2008<\/span>&#8216;s top seller was Marvel&#8217;s <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Secret Invasion<\/span> #3<\/span>, with first-month orders of approimately 175,700 copies in the direct market. Check out the sales chart <a href=\"http:\/\/www.comichron.com\/monthlycomicssales\/2008\/2008-06.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">here<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 132px; height: 200px;\" src=\"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/200406IdentityCrisis1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363568544995458626\" border=\"0\" \/><span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\">June 2004<\/span>&#8216;s top-seller was <span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Identity Crisis <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">#1<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">, <\/span><span>which <\/span><span>stands just before the most recent wave of free-standing limited series, rather than ongoing series, serving as the hubs for events impacting entire comics universes. Issues of such series topped the charts five times in 2005 (<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Infinite Crisis, House of M<\/span>), eight times in 2006 (<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Infinite Crisis, Civil War<\/span>), six times in 2007 (<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Civil War, World War Hulk<\/span>), eight times in 2008 (all Secret Invasion). Despite the &#8220;Crisis&#8221; name, <span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Identity Crisis<\/span> is probably not properly considered as part of that wave \u2014 being more of an independent story without the kinds of tie-in issues we saw for some of those later, more purely cross-over events \u2014 but it appears to have set the stage for later success this decade. The first issue had<\/span><span> first-month orders of 163,100 copies <\/span>copies in the direct market. It was boosted considerably by later reorders \u2014 5,900 copies in July, 4,400 in August, Check out the sales chart <a href=\"http:\/\/www.comichron.com\/monthlycomicssales\/2004\/2004-06.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">here<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px;\" src=\"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/199906UncannyXMen371-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363573721713144114\" border=\"0\" \/><span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\">June 1999<\/span>&#8216;s top-seller was <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Uncanny X-Men<\/span> #371, <\/span>with preorders of approximately 125,600 copies in the direct market. 1999 was, by contrast, a year where not much at all was happening with major events, and <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Uncanny<\/span> topped the charts ten months in a row. Check out the sales chart <a href=\"http:\/\/www.comichron.com\/monthlycomicssales\/1999\/1999-06.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">here<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 130px; height: 200px;\" src=\"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/199406XMen35-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363573483019146498\" border=\"0\" \/><span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\">June<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\"> 1994<\/span>&#8216;s top seller was another X-Men issue \u2014 <span style=\"font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;\">X-Men<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">#35<\/span>, from &#8220;adjectiveless&#8221; version of the series. It was the consensus leader at both Diamond and Capital City Distribution, outselling the original X-title by nearly 10%. Capital City alone sold 108,650 copies. While the Statement of Ownership reported overall sales of 614,075 copies, that&#8217;s deceptive, as it&#8217;s an average of months going back into the second half of the blockbuster year 1993; <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">X-Men<\/span> sales for the second half of 1994 were far lower, as evidenced by the next Statement that appeared, reporting average sales of 332,889 copies per issue.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 130px; height: 200px;\" src=\"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/198906Batman436-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363573140423450306\" border=\"0\" \/><span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\">June 1989<\/span>&#8216;s top seller at Capital City was <span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Batman #436, <\/span>beginning Marv Wolfman&#8217;s &#8220;Batman Year Three.&#8221; It was the first of two issues of <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Batman<\/span> that sold that month, #437 coming in second place. The first <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Tim Burton<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Batman<\/span> film was released on June 23rd (the sneak preview was June 22) \u2014 and it <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.comichron.com\/2009\/06\/batman-at-20-and-how-comics-movies.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">had a significant impact on the direct market<\/span><\/a>, with Batman titles topping the charts for the entire rest of 1989, including the multi-cover <span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight<\/span>, regarded by many (including this commenator) as the title launching the 1990s comics boom in earnest. Capital City&#8217;s preorders on the issue were 118,650 copies, and the true total is at least in the neighborhood of half a million.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;\" src=\"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/198406SecretWars6-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363573317727801490\" border=\"0\" \/>Finally, <span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\">June<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\"> 1984<\/span>&#8216;s top comic book, both at Capital and likely everywhere else, was <span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">#6<\/span>, continuing the year-long mega-cross-over. As free-standing cross-over series go, this is one of the granddaddies!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Continuing the look at what came before June 2009 \u2014 when Batman &amp; Robin #1 topped the charts with approximately 168,500 copies ordered by comics shops through Diamond&#8230; June 2008&#8216;s top seller was Marvel&#8217;s Secret Invasion #3, with first-month orders of approimately 175,700 copies in the direct market. Check out the sales chart here. June &#8230; <a title=\"June comics sales: Flashbacks to the past\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/28\/june-comics-sales-flashbacks-to-past\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about June comics sales: Flashbacks to the past\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,108],"class_list":["post-5647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-diamond-monthly-reports","tag-the-comichron-report"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5647","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=5647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5653,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5647\/revisions\/5653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}