uh-oh, someone's losing here
From Dan DiDio's Countdown interview at Newsarama
Sure, there's damage control, there's plausible deniability...
...and then there's the old 'if we smile and reassure them,+ noone will notice the iceberg'
That was Dan DiDio, in the blue corner.
And over here, in the red, we have Reality
(courtesy of the Beat and DC Comics month-to-month sales)
Meanwhile COUNTDOWN launched (with #51) at 91k sales (lower than the lowest-selling issue of 52.From Dan DiDio's Countdown interview at Newsarama
Sure, there's damage control, there's plausible deniability...
...and then there's the old 'if we smile and reassure them,+ noone will notice the iceberg'
NRAMA: [...] so lets go through that door of fan reaction to Countdown. You and I have talked about this before – that online fan response and reaction is different from personal fan response and reaction, and neither is necessarily connected to sales for any given project. I don’t want this to get into a discussion of the validity of the groups of responses, but rather, and again, from your chair, what have you heard, and what channels is that coming through?
DD: The channels that are carrying a lot of the reaction that I’m seeing are coming from the stores themselves and from fans that I’m at conventions with. I attend multiple conventions throughout the course of the year, and I’ve gotten a very positive reaction to what’s going on.
Given that there seems to be a very vocal – and I don’t know its size – group of fans online that is counter to that hasn’t really affected sales at all. I find it humorous that information that comes to me from online is erroneous in regards to the actual sales figures. I find it humorous that certain retailers decide to make blatant statements about how they’re going to be striking back at the book by making returns, when in fact the portion of books that they’re actually returning is less than 0.01% of the books that we sold. The reality is that the sales are there, the strength is there, and I have a lot of faith in regards to how the series works and how it’s moving forward. [...]
[...]For me, Countdown is the best-kept secret success we’ve got going right now. It’s a book that people are enjoying, reading, and looking forward to. I still have people telling and showing me that they like the weekly comics. People are not “tired” of weekly comics – they buy comics on a weekly basis as it is. [...]
That was Dan DiDio, in the blue corner.
And over here, in the red, we have Reality
(courtesy of the Beat and DC Comics month-to-month sales)
By the 7th issue of 52, sales had stopped declining and had leveled off, with small increases and decreses here and there. The 1st issue sold a phenomenal 140k, and the lowest sales of an issue were 92k for issue 4705/2006: 52 Week 1 — 140,971 [143,611]
05/2006: 52 Week 2 — 128,393 (- 8.9%) [130,704]
05/2006: 52 Week 3 — 123,982 (- 3.4%) [126,913]
05/2006: 52 Week 4 — 121,440 (- 2.1%) [125,297]
06/2006: 52 Week 5 — 111,895 (- 7.9%)
06/2006: 52 Week 6 — 110,028 (- 1.7%) [111,732]
06/2006: 52 Week 7 — 110,188 (+ 0.2%) [112,618]
[...]
03/2007: 52 Week 47 — 92,676 (- 0.9%) [ 94,151]
04/2007: 52 Week 48 — 94,715 (+ 2.2%)
04/2007: 52 Week 49 — 94,681 (- 0.0%)
04/2007: 52 Week 50 — 97,073 (+ 2.5%) [100,214]
04/2007: 52 Week 51 — 94,934 (- 2.2%)
05/2007: 52 Week 52 — 102,075 (+ 7.5%)
05/2007: Countdown #51 — 91,083
05/2007: Countdown #50 — 83,752 (-8.1%) [85,564]
05/2007: Countdown #49 — 81,484 (-2.7%) [83,188]
05/2007: Countdown #48 — 79,810 (-2.1%) [81,828]
06/2007: Countdown #47 — 77,504 (-2.9%)
06/2007: Countdown #46 — 76,362 (-1.5%)
06/2007: Countdown #45 — 74,918 (-1.9%)
06/2007: Countdown #44 — 73,971 (-1.3%)
It has kept losing readers steadily with every issue with no real sign of leveling off, already beneath the 75k barrier. That's 20,000 pissed off readers voting with their wallets in 8 short weeks.
Yes, Dan, the itnernet is crazy and shouldn't be taken into account.
I particularly admire the Newsarama interviewer's noble efforts every week trying to get the point across to the editor, that Countdown IS an inaccessible mess, filled with continuity errors, in dire need of editorial boxes to help the readers understand where they can get the full story to be able to understand what exactly is happening.
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