>>86321269>>86321329>>86321330Don't get too excited, guys.
DC has switched to a sale or return model, like Archie Comics. Archie typically only sell 40% of the issues they print, and that's been dropping in recent years.
What you would expect with a new entry to sale or return is that initially there's skepticism from retailers, then much larger orders, then - assuming the publisher wants to continue using sale or return - the cover prices go up to cope with the additional wasted printings, or the quality of printing goes down.
The alternative to that end-stage is quite different - the price stays the same, or goes down, as it becomes impossible to shift the additional merchandise at higher prices. Sure, you can assume that the relaunch brought in a lot of new readers and the retailers are magically all selling every issue they order (even though that was never true before) - but there's good reasons to be skeptical about the way this rise has happened, especially since Diamond only records "sales" to retailers - which aren't happening under sale-or-return if those titles are returned.
It would be surprising, for example, to see a total sold copies figure that's higher than 60% of the DC unit share - because 60% is the best even the most popular titles could get back when comics all sold that way and were much more widely read than today - whereas every other publisher in that data set is selling their issues, final sale, to the retailers. If you look at where DC's sales figures have been all year, it does seem to suggest that the new model is simply masking lower sales - but again, we're only what, three months into this and it's not as if Rich Johnston is so on the ball that he's going to even notice this, let alone investigate. Are there even any other comics journalists?
