Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Dan Didio's Run as Writer of the Outsiders is Officially a Failure

In January of this year, newly demoted co-publisher of DC Comics Dan Didio took over as writer of The Outsiders series, a team of superheroes who do not fit the norms of the mainstream superhero community, namely the Justice League of America.  But with three issues out so far, it's hard to categorize his efforts as anything but a failure.  Just look at the numbers:

  • In March 2009, The Outsiders had monthly sales of roughly 28,000 copies, which was a typical sales figure for the title.
  • In the wake of Batman's apparent death in Final Crisis, a new team of Outsiders was created, and the title was "relaunched" to great success.  Sales for the November release jumped to roughly 51,000.
  • One year later, in March 2010, Dan Didio's version saw sales of a mere 19,600 copies. 

So Didio not only lost every single one of the new readers who jumped on board for the post Final Crisis reboot, he lost more than 40% of the traditional fan base who could be counted on to pick up the title month in and month out. 

When Didio was doing his press tour in November regarding his taking over of The Outsiders title he said "If I felt that the book was not achieving, I would not be on that book. As simple as that. I'd cancel myself."

Since it seems that once again, Dan Didio has lied to the loyal fans of the DC Universe.  The only question left is will it be Jim Lee or Geoff Johns who gets to tell him he's fired

1 comment:

  1. Not to nickpick too much, but comparing the sales figures for the relaunch issues doesn't mean anything. A lot of people will buy that one issue with no intention for buying any more issues. I'd more interested to see the trend from month to month after that issue because comparing an average month to an average month make more sense than comparing an average month to a "stunt" issue.

    That's not to say that your point isn't valid, it very well could be, but I'd like to see more numbers.

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