Unwritten #1Marc-Oliver Frisch writes at The Beat:

Overall direct-market sales crashed in May, and DC Comics contributed its share. Like Marvel, though, DC has a pretty good excuse. While Batman: Battle for the Cowl and The Flash: Rebirth continued apace, May was basically an in-between month for the publisher. There were no big launches, and everybody kept waiting for June's revamp of the Batman line and July's debuts of both Blackest Night and Wednesday Comics, which can all be expected to be sales juggernauts. So, with all that in mind, there's no reason to panic just yet. If anything, there are some signs that things might actually be looking up for DC in the second half of the year.

At Vertigo, average periodical sales received a much-needed shot in the arm in May and rose to their highest level in more than two years. The two main reasons for the boost were "The Great Fables Crossover" and the debut of Mike Carey and Peter Gross' new series The Unwritten. At a cover price of one dollar, of course, The Unwritten #1 was two thirds a promotional item and is unlikely to have made Vertigo any money as a single issue. Still, it sounds like a perfectly reasonable idea to market a new comic. It should be interesting to watch the effects.

Diamond's "Graphic Novel" chart, meanwhile, was topped by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen — Century: 1910, the latest chapter of another best-selling property that DC's WildStorm imprint no longer publishes. May should have been a good month for WildStorm: With a new StarCraft series, one of their more promising licensed properties debuted; and both of the imprint's long-running creator-owned titles, Astro City and Ex Machina, came out. In practice, though, WildStorm's average periodical sales once again failed to escape their limbo significantly below the 10,000-unit mark.