COVID-era sales data: take 1

Our good friends over at Comichron have crunched the numbers with their mighty number crunching machines and have come up with, well, something for the missing sales data for April through July 2020. You'll recall that LSH v8 #5 was the last issue released on a normal schedule, coming out literally the day before the comic shops shut down around the country (where I live, DC authorized the sales on Tuesday March 17, the day before New Comic Book Day, because things were going to be shut down starting Wednesday March 18).

Back in the olden days BC (Before COVID), Legion was a solid seller for DC. Here's what it looked like up through issue 5:

LSH v8 sales and rank

Issue	Total sales (all covers)	overall #	DC #	#1 book
1	75,611	10	3	138,434
2	35,653	50	17	117,926
3	34,732	44	15	167,377
4	30,675	51	18	190,568
5	29,058	59	18	142,089

For the moment, the important column is the DC #, meaning that's what rank it had compared to all of the other DC books published that month. Outside of issue 1 with its #1-ness and 5 different covers, issues 2-5 were remarkably consistent relative to the rest of DC's output. When DC announced its cutbacks (titles such as Constantine, Hawkman, and Suicide Squad), it was the titles selling under 20,000 copies that went on the chopping block.

But COVID-19 changed the comics world with the shutdowns across the industry, and DC took the opportunity to switch from Diamond to Lunar and DCS as distributors. That one-two punch led to upheavals in the marketplace and a sense of "we're not quite sure exactly which title sold how much anymore", at least to the public. What they do have now are relative sales, at least for the time being. What that means is that we don't know how many copies of issue 6 were sold, but we do know how many issues were sold relative to that month's issue of Avengers or Justice League (which Comichron is calling the "index book", and it has less volatility in sales due to special issues or events).

Combined sales charts for June 2020 and July 2020 from Comichron, plus read this that explains just what the hell happened from April to July.

What we see is that when LSH v8 #6 came out in June, it was the overall #23 book for the month (remember, though, Marvel only had a handful of books out) and the #17 DC book, selling 85 copies (combined, that includes 63 regular covers and 22 cardstock covers) for every 100 of Justice League #46. The overall top-selling book in June was Dark Knights Death Metal #1, with 544 copies sold for every 100 copies of Justice League. Higher selling books included 8 Batman family, 2 each of Green Lantern and Justice League, and 1 each of Death Metal, Strange Adventures, Batman/Superman, and Superman.

July 2020 was the first month where Lunar/UCS were completely split from Diamond, which had some DC books in June. The top-selling book, Batman #95, sold 490 copies for every 100 copies of Avengers #34. LSH v8 #7 sold 105 copies (78 regular, 29 cardstock), was the #41 book overall and the #18 DC book. This was the Gold Lantern sellout issue. Books ahead include 8 Batman family books, 2 Justice Leagues, 2 Supermans, and one each of Death Metal, DCeased, Strange Adventures, Superman/Batman, and Green Lantern.

So here's what our table looks like now, with the limited insight into sales:

LSH v8 sales and rank

Issue	Total sales (all covers)	overall #	DC #	#1 book
1	75,611	10	3	138,434
2	35,653	50	17	117,926
3	34,732	44	15	167,377
4	30,675	51	18	190,568
5	29,058	59	18	142,089
6	TBD	23	17	TBD
7	TBD	41	18	TBD

Starting with issue 2, it has been AMAZINGLY consistent in terms of where it sits on the relative DC chart.

More data as it comes in.....