DC Bombshell sales increases

For June, DC had variant covers scheduled for 21 of their books (19 of which actually came out in June) with the theme "Bombshells", modern takes on classic pin-up art. They've been doing such themed variant months for a while, with themes like "Scribblenauts" or "Robot Chicken" or "Batman 66", but previously the orders for the books were limited by retailer orders for the regular covers, usually 1 for 25 (retailers could order 1 variant for every 25 regular covers they ordered). Starting with the "Bombshells" one, they changed that to give retailers the option to order as many of the variants as they wished. This led to a massive across the board increase in sales for those 19 comics, with one interesting exception.

Sorted by percentage increase:

SUPERMAN == +119.9%
BATWOMAN == +81.6%
CATWOMAN == +67.3%
WONDER WOMAN == +57.3%
RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS == +55.6%
JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK == +50.8%
BATGIRL == +49.9%
HARLEY QUINN == +49.3%
GREEN LANTERN CORPS == +43.2%
AQUAMAN == +39.8%
FLASH == +37.8%
EARTH 2 == +36.9%
ACTION COMICS == +34.9%
DETECTIVE COMICS == +33.9%
BATMAN AND == +33.6%
SUPERMAN WONDER WOMAN == +31.1%
GREEN LANTERN == +28.7%
BATMAN == +21%
JUSTICE LEAGUE UNITED == -2%

Of course, SUPERMAN also had a high-profile new creative team, so it would probably have had a big increase anyway, but probably not quite as high an increase.  The only one to drop in sales was JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED, which was the second issue. In normal circumstances, that #2 would have seen at least a 20% drop, so holding at just a 2% drop is effectively a large increase in the range of the other books.

Sorted by units:

SUPERMAN == +48.6k copies

HARLEY QUINN == +30.8k copies

BATMAN == +22.6k copies

DETECTIVE COMICS == +18.5k copies

WONDER WOMAN == +17.6k copies

BATGIRL == +15.8k copies

BATWOMAN == +15.1k copies

SUPERMAN WONDER WOMAN == +14.9k copies

ACTION COMICS == +14.3k copies

BATMAN AND == +14.2k copies

CATWOMAN == +13.6k copies

FLASH == +12.9k copies

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK == +12.9k copies

AQUAMAN == +12.8k copies

EARTH 2 == +12.7k copies

GREEN LANTERN == +12.5k copies

GREEN LANTERN CORPS == +12.3k copies

RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS == +11.8k copies

JUSTICE LEAGUE UNITED == -1.3k copies

Taking out the two special case extreme values, it looks like the gimmick was good for about an average of 15k copies, or a 45% increase.

The same open order variant covers continue with the themes for July ("Batman 75"), August ("Selfie") and October ("Monsters"), with September having the 3-D covers for their "Futures End" one-shots, so we'll see how the sales do with those themes. I suspect that they'll all decrease from the June numbers, but stay ahead of the May base numbers for a few months.