by John Jackson Miller
The full estimates for June 2014 comics sales are now online, and as reported last weekend, at “halftime” we see a market that has rebounded from winter to bring this year’s sales even with last year.
Retailers spent almost the exact same amount of money on comics and graphic novels in the period in the first halves of this year and last year, but this year they bought slightly more graphic novels and slightly fewer comic books. But the losses in comic books mainly came during the winter; they’ve perked up since. We were down 4% in overall sales in the first quarter and up 4% in the second. (So there’s no “comics recession,” at least in the two-negative-quarters definition of the term.
Further, the “long tail” in comics has outperformed the Top 300. This is even more true of the long tail in graphic novels, though there is a caveat: the fact that Top 300 graphic novel revenue reads as off 8% for the year while Diamond says that the category overall is up 3% is partially explained by the fact that there were larger quantities of graphic novels dumped on the market at deep discount in the first half of 2013. We’re seeing fewer graphic novels in the itemized charts, yes, but Diamond is seeing more wholesale revenue — which is what it bases its percentages on.
June itself was led by Batman #32 — and saw some upward movement by several titles, including Harley Quinn. The top graphic novel, as noted on Friday, was Afterlife with Archie Vol. 1, the first Archie graphic novel to top the book list with orders approaching 12,000 copies.
The comparison data:
June 2014: 6.46 million copies
Versus 1 year ago this month: -8%
Versus 5 years ago this month: -2%
Versus 10 years ago this month: -1%
Versus 15 years ago this month: -1%
Q2 2014: 20.09 million copies, -3% vs.Q2 2013
YEAR TO DATE: 38.39 million copies, -8% vs. 2013, +8% vs. 2009, +6% vs. 2004, +1 vs. 1999
ALL COMICS UNIT SALES
June 2014 versus one year ago this month: -4.51%
Q2 2014 vs. Q2 2013: -1.29%
YEAR TO DATE: -6.36%
June 2014: $23.75 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: -7%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +5%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +28%
Versus 15 years ago this month: +43%
Q2 2014: $76.77 million, +2% vs. Q2 2013
YEAR TO DATE: $144.77 million, -4% vs. 2013, +20% vs. 2009, +41% vs. 2004, +49% vs. 1999
ALL COMICS DOLLAR SALES
June 2014 versus one year ago this month: -2.93%
Q2 2014 vs. Q2 2013: +3.9%
YEAR TO DATE: -1.43%
June 2014: $6.93 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: +2%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +15%
Versus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: +25%
Versus 15 years ago this month, just the Top 25 vs. the Top 25: +27%
Q2 2014: $21.77 million, -7% vs. Q2 2013
YEAR TO DATE: $42.4 million, -8% vs. 2013
ALL TRADE PAPERBACK SALES
June 2014 versus one year ago this month: +8.09%
Q2 2014 vs. Q2 2013: +4.33%
YEAR TO DATE: +2.93%
June 2014: $30.68 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: -5%
Versus 5 years ago this month: -2%
Versus 10 years ago this month, counting just the Top 100 TPBs: +15%
Versus 15 years ago this month, counting just the Top 25 TPBs: +52%
Q2 2014 vs. Q2 2013: $98.54 million, unchanged vs. Q2 2013
YEAR TO DATE: $187.18 million, -5% vs. 2013
ALL COMICS AND TRADE PAPERBACK SALES
June 2014 versus one year ago this month: +0.33%
Q2 2014 vs. Q2 2013: +4.04%
YEAR TO DATE: -0.08%
OVERALL DIAMOND SALES (including all comics, trades, and magazines)
June 2014: approximately $41.68 million (subject to revision)
Versus 1 year ago this month: unchanged
Versus 5 years ago this month: +13%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +91%
Q2 2014 vs. Q2 2013: $132.94 million, up 4% vs. Q2 2013
YEAR TO DATE: $249.53 million, unchanged vs. 2013
RELEASES
New comic books released: 424
New graphic novels released: 246
New magazines released: 34
All new releases: 704
The average comic book in the Top 300 cost $3.72; the average comic book
retailers ordered cost $3.67, a considerable drop. The median and most common price for comics offered was $3.99. Click to see comics prices across time.
Look here tomorrow for the release of the long-awaited 2013 end-of-year data, including the direct market, outside channels, and digital, the product of our first-ever joint analysis with ICV2.
John Jackson Miller has tracked the comics industry for more
than 20 years, including a decade editing the industry’s retail trade
magazine; he is the author of several guides to comics, as well as more
than a hundred comic books for various franchises. He is the author of
the New York Times bestseller Star Wars: Kenobi and the upcoming hardcover Star Wars: A New Dawn. Visit his fiction site at http://www.farawaypress.com. And be sure to follow Comichron on Twitter and Facebook!
Anyone know why Diamond only seems to have released the top 300 this month, instead of the top 400 like they have the past few?
I meant to mention that. I don’t know why they went back to 300 — that was what was provided. I had already decided to continue just using the Top 300s for comparison, given that’s what we had in the past, though I always pass along whatever items they provide info for.
It’s so weird that a comic written by Jimmy Palmiotti is actually selling.
Kind of frustrating that there was just starting to be enough months of the #301-#400 rankings being released to begin making some meaningful observations on that range, and now it’s back to 300.
Does Diamond release the retail rank for the full Top 300? None of the sites that release estimates based on the charts seem to include that, so I assume not, but it would be useful in picking out which books were sold at massive discounts (looks like about two dozen DC books on the chart this month, including some Absolute editions which shipped more copies last month than they did in their initial month of release. That was a lot of big expensive books sitting in a warehouse for 3 to 7 years).
So in the last fifteen given or taken periodic crisis/fluctuation unit sales stayed at the same levels? And, even adjusting for inflation, dollar sales are better now than in the last 15 years?
Ha! That made me giggle.
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