February 2021 DC Comic Book Sales

Projections for DC Comics Ordered by North American Comics Shops

This data refers only to sales by DC's sole distributor, Lunar. Click to see the Overall charts and those from Diamond.

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

January 2021 saw DC release through its exclusive distributor Lunar Distribution the smallest new DC comic slate in 30 years, not counting the months of the spring 2020 pandemic shutdown. February's slate was the same size — just 42 new comic books — but initial orders for new comic books in our retail order dataset were down significantly because of what those issues were.

January had seen the launch of the Future State event, replacing most DC series with new ones renumbered at #1; February saw mostly second issues of those series — or third and fourth issues in the case of its apparent top seller, Future State: The Next Batman — and consequently initial orders were lower overall. It's a familar dynamic with full-line or partial restarts when the renumbering isn't staggered across several months. February's DC total new comics initial orders in our retail order dataset were down around the size they were in July 2020, coming out of the pandemic. But the month more than likely came out well for DC on balance given that the Joker War Saga hardcover came out, as well as several other significant graphic novel releases. Periodicals aren't the whole story in any month, this one more than others.

As in January, 26 issues had more expensive cardstock variants; there were 124 different variants released by DC in the month overall.

Our retail order dataset found Future State: The Next Batman #3 the top comic book by units and dollars in initial orders; the lower order levels for these later issues allowed one of the few ongoings, Batman/Catwoman #3, to make the top five on both the unit and dollar rankings.

Despite the lower number of new releases, the number of units ordered in our retail order dataset improved over December and November levels; it helped that 23 releases, more than half the slate, were all first issues.

While Lunar added a consumer-facing website in December, it still did not report anything about sales. Given the lack of official information, 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; only initial orders for periodicals were examined. No statistical adjustments have been made for returnability and no later returns have been subtracted out.

Note, further, that our process only looks at first-month orders for comics, so no reordered titles from the month before or reprints appear in the chart below. Thus, comics like January's Dark Nights Death Metal #7, which might have charted again on a Diamond-style report, do not reappear.

The chart below features every new comic book released by DC in February 2021. Variant editions have been merged into single entries, following longtime industry practice. The release dates are from Lunar.

As noted, DC offered 26 comic books with cardstock variants at a different price; their sales have been fused by default below. Dollar rankings are based on the combined sales of the component variants.

Things to remember: A difference of a single point on the chart may not be meaningful, due to rounding; projections for issues at the lower extremes are 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.

We also have a page breaking out ship dates for second printings.

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 May 17, 2021

This list includes all DC items released by Lunar Distribution in the month.
Differently priced variants appear fused together by default near where they'd have ranked if together.
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.

February 2021 DC Graphic Novel Sales

Graphic Novels and Trade Paperbacks Ordered by North American Comics Shops

Comichron did not sample retailer sales data for DC's Direct Market graphic novel sales, and Lunar Distribution did not release any sales data.

The highest-profile DC graphic novel releases during the month were the Joker War Saga hardcover and the Batman: The Joker War hardcover, collecting DC's big event for 2020.

Those would likely have topped orders overall for DC graphic novels, with Joker War Saga having an edge in dollars due to its higher price (and Batman: The Joker War an edge in units for the same reason.

The list of all the graphic novels DC released appears below. DC released 28 new graphic novels in December, seven more than in December.

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