Comichron

 

July 2020 DC Comic Book Sales

Projections for DC Comics Ordered by North American Comics Shops

This data refers only to sales by DC's distributors. Click to see the Diamond and Overall charts.


#1 Most Ordered Issue
#1
#2 Most Ordered Issue
#2
#3 Most Ordered Issue
#3
#4 Most Ordered Issue
#4
#5 Most Ordered Issue
#5

Covers and issue links on this page lead to current eBay listings. This site may be compensated if you make a purchase.

On June 5, DC announced that it was cutting ties with Diamond Comic Distributors altogether, forcing retailers who wanted its comics to go through Lunar Distribution or UCS Comic Distributors (or one of those firms' subdistributors, such as Universal Distribution in Canada), and to go through Random House for its graphic novels. June 30 was further declared a skip week to give more retailers time to set up accounts.

So as of the July 7 ship date comics, every DC comic book was shipped through UCS or Lunar; it was the first time since the April 1997 that a retailer could not order all major publishers' comics from Diamond. The Joker War story arc was big for DC in July; Comichron projects that Batman #95 was its top seller to retailers in dollars and units, once all versions were merged.

During July, UCS had a Best Sellers section on its website, including sections for comic books, graphic novels, magazines, books, and promotional items. They were simple top ten lists, without any indexed sales figures, and appeared to co-mingle both preordered items and those that had shipped. (For example, the July 7 snapshot, seen at right, included items that had not shipped yet.)

 

UCS did not include information about what specific timeframe was being measured in the rankings, and the titles listed updated dynamically through the month. As such, while Comichron archived several instances of the reports, the UCS data on comic books was too limited in detail to be of much use to retailers.

With UCS releasing little official information about its DC sales and Lunar releasing none at all, Comichron has drawn upon a subset of known retail orders both to determine approximate rankings and to project the relative order volumes of comic-book releases. The subset represents a sizable number of copies, but it is not possible at present to know what portion of the overall population of store orders it represents, particularly as many stores were closed, had their accounts on hold, or had not established accounts with DC's distributors. Only periodicals were examined, and order totals are believed to be as of Final Order Cutoff. No statistical adjustments have been made for returnability and no later returns have been subtracted out.

The chart below features every new comic book released by DC in July 2020. Variant editions have been merged into single entries, following longtime industry practice. The release dates are from UCS. We make no attempt here to distinguish between the distributors DC sold through; the intent is to describe DC's business in the Direct Market.

The order volumes are expressed in relation to Justice League #48, which has been chosen as the order index issue for DC's distributors this month, as well as for Diamond. (There are Justice League issues without cardstock variants in the May and June lists for both Diamond and DC's distributors, so it's a good choice if you're trying to refer between charts.) For example, for every 100 copies of Justice League #48 in the order set, there were 119 copies of Batgirl #47.

DC offered 10 comic books with cardstock variants at a different price; their sales have been fused by default below. You can find the component versions at the bottom of the chart.

Things to remember: The retail order subset represents a sizable number of copies, but it is not possible at present to know what portion of the overall population of store orders it represents, particularly as many stores were closed, had their accounts on hold, or had not established accounts with DC's distributors. For example, Justice League had been seeing Diamond orders of more than 40,000 copies per issue in North America the first quarter of 2020, but we do not advise using that number to extrapolate overall sales for other titles — not until we have a better idea how the market size has changed.

We're sticking with whole numbers until we have a better handle on the margin of error. As such, note that a difference of a single point on the chart may not be meaningful, due to rounding. Projections for issues at the lower extremes are thus subject to more error due to the small quantities involved. Projected relative sales levels here are likely most reliable for regular series issues in the middle of the chart: orders for the highest sellers and first issues may tend to show more variation.

Rankings in these charts should also be expected to differ — often significantly — from the sales-to-consumers charts available at other outlets. Those report sell-through and not sell-in, and different retailers are sampled in each, with no known overlap in reporting stores as of the generation of the below charts.

As is the case with all data on Comichron, it is subject to revision without notice in the event more authoritative and complete information about orders becomes available.

—John Jackson Miller
Updated March 17, 2021


This list includes all items on Diamond's Top 500 charts, plus any post-#500 items from its Top Independent Publisher charts.
If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.
The Order Index Number by each comic book indicates how many copies were ordered within the sample for every 100 Justice League #48s that were ordered.
Distributor charts are regional commodity reports, not measures of a work's total reach. Read our FAQ.
Title links below lead to current listings for the issues on eBay. As an eBay Partner, this site may be compensated if you make a purchase.


UnitDollarComic-book TitleIssuePriceOn salePublisherOrder Index
12Batman95 (All)$3.9907/21/20DC408
23Batman94 (All)$3.9907/07/20DC378
31Dark Nights Death Metal2$4.9907/14/20DC369
46DCeased Dead Planet1 (All)$4.9907/07/20DC309
57Detective Comics1023 (All)$3.9907/07/20DC198
64Detective Comics1024 (All)$3.9907/21/20DC154
78Nightwing72$3.9907/14/20DC135
85Strange Adventures3$4.9907/14/20DC131
99Batgirl47$3.9907/21/20DC119
1010Batman The Adventures Continue2$3.9907/07/20DC106
1113Justice League48$3.9907/07/20DC100
1214Justice League49$3.9907/14/20DC99
1315Action Comics1023$3.9907/21/20DC98
1416Superman23$3.9907/07/20DC97
1511Batman Superman10 (All)$3.9907/28/20DC97
1619Flash757$3.9907/07/20DC94
1720Flash758$3.9907/21/20DC94
1817Green Lantern Season 25 (All)$3.9907/07/20DC91
1918Batman's Grave8 (All)$3.9907/07/20DC90
2022Catwoman23$3.9907/14/20DC88
2121Wonder Woman759 (All)$3.9907/28/20DC85
2224Justice League Dark24$3.9907/21/20DC84
2323Wonder Woman758 (All)$3.9907/07/20DC78
2425Legion of Super-Heroes7 (All)$3.9907/28/20DC75
2528Harley Quinn74$3.9907/07/20DC70
2626Shazam13 (All)$3.9907/21/20DC69
2729Young Justice16$3.9907/07/20DC68
2812Joker Harley Criminal Sanity Secret Files1$5.9907/21/20DC68
2930Plunge5$3.9907/28/20DC64
3031Suicide Squad7$3.9907/28/20DC64
3132Lois Lane12$3.9907/07/20DC57
3233John Constantine Hellblazer8$3.9907/28/20DC55
3334Batman Beyond45$3.9907/21/20DC51
3435Daphne Byrne6$3.9907/14/20DC50
3536Aquaman61$3.9907/14/20DC50
3638Justice League Odyssey22$3.9907/07/20DC46
3739Teen Titans43$3.9907/14/20DC46
3840Hawkman25$3.9907/07/20DC43
3941Red Hood Outlaw47$3.9907/28/20DC41
4042Batman And The Outsiders14$3.9907/07/20DC39
4137Last God7$4.9907/21/20DC37
4243Supermans Pal Jimmy Olsen12$3.9907/14/20DC34
4344Metal Men8$3.9907/14/20DC33
4427DC Cybernetic Summer1$9.9907/28/20DC29
4548DC Classics The Batman Adventures2$1.9907/07/20DC25
4645Amethyst4$3.9907/21/20DC25
4746Books of Magic21$3.9907/21/20DC23
4847Doom Patrol Weight of the Worlds7$3.9907/07/20DC21
4949Looney Tunes255$2.9907/14/20DC6
n.a.n.a.Batman94 Regular$3.9907/07/20DC236
n.a.n.a.Batman94 Card Stock$4.9907/07/20DC142
n.a.n.a.Batman95 Regular$3.9907/21/20DC256
n.a.n.a.Batman95 Card Stock$4.9907/21/20DC152
n.a.n.a.Batman Superman10 Regular$3.9907/28/20DC74
n.a.n.a.Batman Superman10 Card Stock$4.9907/28/20DC23
n.a.n.a.Batman's Grave8 Regular$3.9907/07/20DC67
n.a.n.a.Batman's Grave8 Card Stock$4.9907/07/20DC23
n.a.n.a.DCeased Dead Planet1 Regular$4.9907/07/20DC126
n.a.n.a.DCeased Dead Planet1 Card Stock$5.9907/07/20DC183
n.a.n.a.Detective Comics1023 Regular$3.9907/07/20DC150
n.a.n.a.Detective Comics1023 Card Stock$4.9907/07/20DC48
n.a.n.a.Detective Comics1024 Regular$3.9907/21/20DC105
n.a.n.a.Detective Comics1024 Card Stock$4.9907/21/20DC49
n.a.n.a.Green Lantern Season 25 Regular$3.9907/07/20DC71
n.a.n.a.Green Lantern Season 25 Card Stock$4.9907/07/20DC20
n.a.n.a.Legion of Super-Heroes7 Regular$3.9907/28/20DC55
n.a.n.a.Legion of Super-Heroes7 Card Stock$3.9907/28/20DC20
n.a.n.a.Shazam13 Regular$3.9907/21/20DC53
n.a.n.a.Shazam13 Card Stock$4.9907/21/20DC16
n.a.n.a.Wonder Woman758 Regular$3.9907/07/20DC46
n.a.n.a.Wonder Woman758 Card Stock$4.9907/07/20DC32
n.a.n.a.Wonder Woman759 Regular$3.9907/28/20DC52
n.a.n.a.Wonder Woman759 Card Stock$4.9907/28/20DC33




July 2020 DC Graphic Novel Releases

Graphic Novels and Trade Paperbacks Released to North American Comics Shops Based on Reports from UCS Comic Distributors


Comichron did not sample retailer sales data for DC's Direct Market graphic novel sales; a list of all the graphic novels it released appears below. Advance reorders taken at Diamond indicated strong presales of Green Lantern Vol. 2: The Day the Stars Fell; the Flash Forward collection would've been another highlight for the month.

The links below lead to title details on Amazon (paid links). You can also find the books at your comics shop.

Trade Paperback title Price On sale Publisher
Batman Beyond Vol. 7 First Flight$16.9907/21/20DC
Batman Deluxe Edition Collection Book 5 HC$34.9907/28/20DC
Batman Vol. 13 City of Bane Part 2 HC $24.9907/14/20DC
Crisis on Infinite Earths Paragons Rising Deluxe Edition HC $17.9907/07/20DC
DC Poster Portfolio Stanley Artgerm Lau Vol. 2 Tp $24.9907/14/20DC
DC Super Hero Girls Weird Science$9.9907/14/20DC
Deathstroke RIP$16.9907/28/20DC
Dreaming Vol. 3 One Magical Moment$19.9907/14/20DC
Flash Forward$17.9907/07/20DC
Flash United They Fall$17.9907/21/20DC
Green Lantern 80 Years of The Emerald Knight HC $29.9907/14/20DC
Green Lantern Green Arrow Space Traveling Heroes HC$49.9907/21/20DC
Green Lantern Vol. 2 The Day The Stars Fell$19.9907/07/20DC
House Of Mystery The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 2 HC $150.0007/21/20DC
Justice League Of America By Brad Meltzer Deluxe Edition HC $39.9907/07/20DC
Lucifer Vol. 3 The Wild Hunt$16.9907/28/20DC
Superboy A Celebration of 75 Years HC$39.9907/07/20DC
Supergirl Being Super New Edition $16.9907/07/20DC
Wonder Woman Come Back to Me$16.9907/28/20DC
Wonder Woman Her Greatest Victories$12.9907/14/20DC
Wonder Woman Through The Years HC$39.9907/21/20DC
Wonder Woman War of the Gods Omnibus HC$99.9907/28/20DC