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I’m not amazed Detective has never been #1 in its history. Pre-Marvel Comics, Superman was always outselling it I believe. Then by the time Batman firmly became more popular than Superman, Marvel was well into existence. What shocks me is that Neil Gaiman’s book would be the first to make it happen. I’d expect a crossover to get the job done.

It makes sense. The first part of that story was SO good that the anticipation was HUGE.

Also… Gaiman has a built in audience outside of comics. He drew in “outsiders” (and also likely existing comics fans who hadn’t read a Bat book in years).

Face it. He’s a bigger draw than Morrison, Dini, any of those folks. Maybe Joss Whedon might have a bigger draw, but not many others.

has this been confirmed? I mean isn’t there a good chance that a celebratory issue didn’t take that crown? 500 didn’t finish first?

Actually I don’t even think Whedon would have been more of a draw, since Gaiman doing superheroes is a much rarer even than Whedon doing them. Yeah, more I think of it maybe it does make sense. I think only Alan Moore would have been a bigger deal.

I’m not surprised that the top two comics were DC. I’ve been looking at DC for the past couple years, always a big Marvel fan that I was, and I think they’ve been putting out better stuff. Their stories are more focused and even with their multi-year crossovers they seem to actually pay stuff off once in a while. This is why there are two big companies and it’s better than having one big company. It’s competition!

Who came up with the idea of Whedon writing Batman. Seems strange to me. Maybe that’s just me. He doesn’t seem like a Bat-writer to me.

” Who came up with the idea of Whedon writing Batman. Seems strange to me. Maybe that’s just me. He doesn’t seem like a Bat-writer to me. ”

He gave Angel, another brooding avenger of the night ( albeit of a much more supernatural nature ), a spinoff show with a detective theme; it doesn’t seem that big a stretch to me, and could probably work well ( provided it came out on time ).

I don’t want to start a shitfight here but its a interesting argument that sales = quality.

Thats like saying the Dancing Frog or Bob the Builder are all time great recording artists.

Seems every discussion always ends up in a discussion about the Big Two and who is better also.

Capt USA: As the article notes, there aren’t monthly records available at the time #500 came out (1981). (That’s why there are qualifiers applied to these statements.) All that’s available is the circulation statement, which lists the average sales for the previous year; while there was an increase in average sales in 1981, even if all the increase came from #500 it would still have sold less than an average issue of X-Men from that period. (At the time Detective was averaging under 90K, and X-Men was selling around 250K.)

I checked the Standard Catalog of Comic Books (which JJM co-edited) and discovered something interesting. By the late 80s, we have data from Capital City Distributors (which is good because DC had changed the way they mailed their subscription copies by then and was no longer required to run circulation statements. Capital City records aren’t as definitive as data from Diamond is now, but it’s more useful in some ways than circ statements because it’s comparing apples to apples, as opposed to depending on self-reporting by different companies, and it covers individual months rather than years).

Anyway, Detective was selling well in 1989, in part due to increased interest from the Burton movie. I was curious if some of the anniversary issues from this period had experienced noticeable spikes (#600 was written by the screenwriter of the Burton movie, and #627 was an anniversary issue celebrating the, um, 601st appearance of Batman in the title). They did, but not enough to put them over X-Men sales from the same month. (I didn’t check against every possible title, but Uncanny X-Men was a fairly safe bet). Interestingly, the issue that had the highest spike in Cap City orders wasn’t either of these; it was #604, the first issue of the Mud Pack crossover (which was heavily promoted at the time, but I hadn’t realized there was that much interest).

#604 had orders of 84,150, compared with #600′s 62,050 and #627′s 66,900. In comparison, the Uncanny X-Men with the same cover date as #604 (which may not have been the same calendar month; interestingly, it’s Jim Lee’s first issue) had orders of 74K. Amazing Spider-Man (still drawn by McFarlane at this point) had two issues out that month, which each sold 49K. Punisher sold about 45K. Can anyone think of another title that might have outsold it in that month? Because, while the Cap City data isn’t definitive, that issue might be another candidate.

Checking on the obvious title that I overlooked, Batman had orders of 107K in the same month. So while the Batman books may have been the best sellers with a cover date of September 1989, Detective still wasn’t on top.

The first time it’s been the highest-selling for April 2009?

I should hope so.

Who cares how much it sold…it still is no Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

Yeah, I don’t care about that either. It was damn good.

“So while the Batman books may have been the best sellers with a cover date of September 1989, Detective still wasn’t on top.”

Yeah, I think part of the assumption is that, in any given month, without a specific reason, ‘Batman’ will outsell ‘Detective Comics’, because it’s got the name brand on it. Gaiman’s name (coupled with his ‘Batman’ not being in the same month) gave it enough of a boost to overcome the natural little kid bias towards the comic that’s named after the hero.

it still is no Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

Well of course not – it’s not trying to tell the same kind of story…

“He gave Angel, another brooding avenger of the night ( albeit of a much more supernatural nature ), a spinoff show with a detective theme; it doesn’t seem that big a stretch to me, and could probably work well ( provided it came out on time ).”

Sure, if you want Batman making smirk-y quips all the time and talking in dialogue that reads okay, but would sound completely stupid coming out of somebody’s mouth.

“I don’t want to start a shitfight here but its a interesting argument that sales = quality.”

But no one actually said that…

Which I guess is why no “shitfight” was started.

I’m not surprised that i’s never beennumber one, but I am surprised that it suddenly made number one now. I guess the most popular character in comics combined with one of the most acclaimed writers in the business (who rarely does comics, especially superheroes, and who also has non-comic cred) goes a long way.

I really, really enjoyed the comic. Kubert outdid himself. He hasn’t impressed me for some time, but I think Detective 853 may be his best work ever. Now, if only his brother could make an equally stunning return. Man, I loved his Hulk run.

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