We often wonder what writer/industry analyst John Jackson Miller does for fun. Is it really crunching sales charts? Looking at his extensive 2012 Comic Book Sales Figures roundup, it doesn’t seem to be anything else. The above link will give you his estimates of the top 100 comics and graphic novels for 2012. Here’s his analysis of these charts. Including this interesting metric:
63 comics had orders of over 100,000 copies in 2012
129 comics had orders of 75,000-99,999 copies in 2012
403 comics had orders of 50,000-74,999 copies in 2012
At least 1,100 comics had orders of 25,000-49,999 copies in 2012Compare that with 2010:
26 comics had orders of over 100,000 copies in 2010
68 comics had orders of 75,000-99,999 copies in 2010
209 comics had orders of 50,000-74,999 copies in 2010
648 comics had orders of 25,000-49,999 copies in 2010
In other words, more comics sold more copies in 2012 than 2010. How many? Miller estimates that 6 8 million MORE comics were sold in 2012.
Miller also runs the Top 300 Comics of the Century, noting:
Forty issues from 2012 made the Top 300 for the 21st Century list — that's a big number. There were 24 new entries that made the list in 2011, and only nine in 2010 (some of which were pushed off by this year's entries).
Although Jackson discourages pulling out any excerpts from his tables, here’s the Top 10 for the 21st Century so far:
1 Amazing Spider-Man 583 530,500
2 Walking Dead (including Chromium edition) 100 384,800
3 Civil War 2 341,900
4 Civil War 3 337,000
5 Civil War 1 328,500
6 Captain America 25 317,700
7 Uncanny Avengers 1 305,900
8 Civil War 4 291,000
9 Civil War 5 283,900
10 All Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder 1 276,000
An event like Civil War in 2006 really blasted the chart to smithereens. These days, the dollars are spread way more widely.
