In 2011, DC Comics was in dire straits. Their circulation on their comic books appeared to be in a death spiral. Drastic change was needed and DC decided to take the nuclear option. In August of 2011, DC cancelled their entire superhero universe line (commonly called the “DCU”) and relaunched it in September with new #1 issues and a new continuity where not all of their characters’ pasts had happened.

They called this initiative the “New 52” and in slightly over a year since the relaunch, they have kept the number of their core “DCU” titles at 52. In today’s world, the sales of a comic book series are a lot like a radioactive half-life. They decay over time. As some of the sales decay too much, DC has cancelled them and replaced them with new titles, usually in batches and usually calling the replacements a “wave.”

This begs the question, how have the sales the on this 52-title core held up since launch? There are a few different ways to measure sales in a large line of comics. Total sales and per title average sales are the big picture. Sales bands can tell you the vectors and show the effect of sales decay.

Using the Direct Market sales estimates at The Comics Chronicles, here are the sales statistics from the September 2011 launch (plus the Justice League #1 totals from the final week of August), February 2012, June 2012 and October 2012, December 2012 and January 2013.

Sept. 2011 February 2012 June 2012 October 2012 December 2012 January 2013 Total Sales 3,417,090 2,029,419 2,088,331 2,009,478 2,072,709 1,959,150 Per Title Ave. 65,713.27 39,027.29 40,160.21 38,643.81 39,859.79 37,675.96

The September launch numbers are unrealistically high, but at the same time paradoxically low on certain titles. As readers sampled new titles, titles like Detective Comics went through multiple printings of the #1 issues. Other titles had their sales drop off quickly. By February, retailers had a handle on how many comics to order and the process was underway to cull the first batch of low selling titles. In June, the reboot was 10 months old and the “Second Wave,” the titles replacing the first round of cancelled titles, was in its second month. October was the second month of the “third wave of titles,” which replaced the second batch of cancellations.

Next is the chart of sales bands, showing the trends of the individual titles in the line.

Sept. 2011 February 2012 June 2012 October 2012 December 2012 January 2013 100K+ 7 2 2 2 3 2 90K – 99K 1 3 0 1 0 1 80K – 89K 3 0 3 0 1 1 70K – 79K 5 1 2 1 4 2 60K – 69K 4 4 2 5 4 3 50K – 59K 8 3 4 5 4 6 40K – 49K 10 5 7 7 4 4 30K – 39K 14 8 10 7 8 8 20K – 29K 0 7 7 8 5 4 10K – 19K 0 19 15 16 18 20 Under 10K 0 0 0 0 1

It’s important to take both these sets of measures into account to appreciate the challenges DC faces. Looking at the sales bands, there is significant downward movement on the titles, especially in the upper levels. DC has had some success with crossover events in the Batman and Green Lantern families of titles that are helping to stabilize the overall line (Green Lantern is the title that returned to the 90K band in October), but most everything else is drifting downward, some of it swiftly. DC is cancelling titles in that lowest band, titles selling roughly 10K-18K and replacing them with titles that launch anywhere from 70K to 30K and then usually enter the normal path of monthly attrition.

If you ignore the consumer sampling figures of the September 2011 launch month, the variance in average sales per month was a little less than 3%, before jumping to a bit over 6% in January, which is extremely stable—even more so when you consider the downward momentum. The under 19K bands are doing nothing but increase since the initial culling of low-selling titles. This suggests DC may not be able to come up with new titles as quickly as the existing ones are losing sales.

DC is in an interesting position. The management of the popular crossover events has definitely smoothed out the sales attrition in the bottom third of the line, but crossovers don’t last forever and the signs of stress are starting to show.

On the positive side, the new Justice League of America title is set to launch this month and is likely to be DC’s highest selling launch since the New 52 reboot. An as-yet unnamed new Superman title pairing DC’s hottest writer (Batman’s Scott Snyder) with its hottest artist (Jim Lee) has been announced and should easily debut above the 100K sales level.

Looking past those two potential blockbusters, the failure of recent replacement books looms large. DC has shown the tendency to start cancelling titles as they fall under 18K in the Direct Market sales estimates. In February, they announced six cancellations in that sales area, including two titles from their previous wave of replacement titles. A third title from that replacement wave, Phantom Stranger, hovers just above the outer edges of the cancellation zone with 19.9K in estimated sales for January. It’s one thing to have titles fail after a year or two, but many of the replacement titles are crashing swiftly and end up being the ones replaced. There are “traditional” titles DC isn’t publishing right now that might fare better, like a solo title for Robin and a Superman/Batman team-up comic, but the Batman sub-line is pretty crowded as it is.

Also betraying stress to maintain the line average is DC’s April promotion, the slightly off-color “WTF Certified” initiative. WTF Certified entails each title having a fold out cover. Then the reader folds out the second page of the cover, the contents will shock the reader into exclaiming “What the f***?!?”

Hopefully, the readers will be over 18 and not be grounded for swearing in front of their parents. DC seems to have one-upped the old “comics aren’t just for kids anymore” slogan with this one and it begs the question why the publisher would want to co-brand Superman with the acronym WTF just prior to the new film coming out.

Prior to January, DC’s relaunch had remarkably stable numbers. In January, the slide started to show and the bottom third of the line sits in cancellation sales zone, the bulk of the titles already cancelled waiting for their replacements to show up. Six of those replacement titles aren’t arriving until June. It takes time to prep replacement titles and the stillborn titles aren’t helping the line average. The Batman titles are due for a lull between crossover events, which also won’t help the bottom line. June is a big month for DC with six new series, presumably including the Jim Lee/Scott Snyder Superman and a new set of creators for its Green Lantern family of titles. June is when the new tone will be set. The question is, can they get a handle on the bottom third of the line or will that bottom third offset the gains in the top third?