Judging the New 52: June 2013, Part VII: The Dark

The Dark is rattling along with four reasonably solid titles and three books spiralling towards cancellation. The top seller in June was Constantine, which is not unexpected as its only four months old. It declined 9% from May, which isn't too dangerous as long as that drop slows down over the next few months. I can see Constantine surviving quite successfully in the long term with about 20-23,000 readers.

Packed in around the 23-25,000 mark are Swamp Thing, Justice League Dark and Animal Man. Of the three Justice League Dark seems the most stable - not real change in sales since May and down only 26% since June 2012. On top of that it's got a high-profile tie-in with Justice League in July and August, which should add more than a few thousand new readers for a while. Both Swamp Thing and Animal Man declined 8% over the past month.

Demon Knights and Dial H have both been cancelled already, and no wonder: Dial H is down by 57% since June 2012 and Demon Knights down by 39%. Neither is selling more than 12,000 copies.

Phantom Stranger, now retitled to Trinity of Sin: Phantom Stranger - because those missing three words were clearly in the way of its success, shipped 17,241 copies in June. That was actually 6% above May 2013 thanks to a shift of writer from Dan Didio to J.M. DeMatteis. It's still unlikely to last much longer I suspect. The character concept and design is woefully out of date and it shows.

Title	Shipped	Since 05/13	Since 06/12
Constantine	26,417	-9%	-
Swamp Thing	25,186	-8%	-33%
Justice League Dark	24,663	0%	-26%
Animal Man	23,862	-8%	-32%
Phantom Stranger	17,241	+6%	-
Dial H	11,905	-4%	-57%
Demon Knights	11,627	-5%	-39%