Sales Charts

For the second year, ICv2's Milton Griepp and Comichron's John Jackson Miller have released a joint report on comics sales in the previous year, and they report that the state of the union is good, with graphic novel sales hitting a 20 year high. Sales are up in all channels except newsstand sales, where Marvel jumped ship and DC may have as well. SO STOP TELLING US TO GO BACK TO NEWSSTANDS, OKAY? Comics are doing just fine without "newsstands."

Note: The distribution numbers used below are estimates, not hard sales numbers.  They're accurate to the trends, but take the exact unit measurements with...

By John Jackson Miller -- Marvel's Secret Wars revival made a big splash in the comics market in May, moving more than 527,000 copies to comic shops in North America. That's according to Comichron's estimates for May 2015 comics sales based on information released by Diamond Comic Distributors. You can find the report here. That's enough to place the issue fourth on the list of best-selling comics of the century, and it could go higher with reorders. It came in a month when strong six-figure launches from A-Force and Old Man Logan, and a dominating performance from Batman: Earth 2 Vol. 2 on the graphic novel charts helped push the market to a 13% increase.

by Xavier Lancel—

Welcome to a new analysis of the Marvel sales. Reminder: I'm French, that's why I'm talking funny. Please address your complaints to my sinking-in-the-middle-age country.
Reminder: those sales are estimates, sales to comics shops located in North America. American comics do get sold somewhere else in their original floppy edition. Keep also in mind that if a copy is sold to a shop that doesn't mean it's sold to a customer. This would be way too easy. Digital sales are not taken into account.

This month is again lead by the Star Wars franchise at Marvel, but, more surprisingly, it is literally invading the lower portion of the chart with 10k to 20k reorder activity on several issues! There really are a lot of Marvel floppy comics on sale this month (a little more than 100!!). There were so many different variant covers things going on this month that I didn't bother trying to understand it.

Marvel is leading the way as the most expensive publisher of floppy comics, its customers have never been asked to spend so much in a month. Well, until next month and its invasion of #1 and famous crossovers!

Secret Wars thumped Convergence in May's sales, according to numbers just released by Diamond. Secret Wars #1 was the top comic for the month, and...

by David Carter Greetings, sales charts fans! It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures. Last month (March 2015) was the worst month for DC sales since the start of the New 52, but this month was quite a turnaround! Convergence has turned out to be a sales success for DC: Each issue of the core weekly Convergence title sold over 110K (though note that each issue was returnable...) The first issue of each Convergence tie-in title sold between 30K & (nearly) 70K, with most in the 30K to 40K range. While 30K - 40K might not seem like a lot, compare that to the fact that in March there were twenty-four regular DCU titles that sold below 30K. So essentially the Convergence event resulted in DC lopping off the lower end of their DCU sales and replacing them with moderately-selling comics, which rises the average sales considerably. Not bad for a stunt that was allegedly conceived simply as a way to give DC's regular editorial team a two-month break to move across the country to their new West Coast headquarters!

One of the stranger trends this month is the release of several comics based on 80’s and 90’s cult properties. The best of these, Jem and the Holograms (written by Kelley Thompson with art by Sophie Campbell) ranked in the top ten indie comics this month, and number seventy-seven on the total list. For those interested in male-led cult properties, check out Bill and Ted’s Most Triumphant Return from Boom! and Miami Vice from IDW. This month 144 titles hit the top 300 list, which is a bit up from last month’s total of 138. Without the near ludacris sales of Orphan Black #1, sales dropped 12.5%. Overall there were 1,723,032 sales in March compared to 1,969,396 in February. This brings the average number of comics sold to 11,966 which is also down from last month’s average of 14,271. Considering the Loot Crate aided numbers of February, March still seems to be holding its own.

Spring has sprung for the indie comics titles this month, with Orphan Black leading the charge. The first issue sold nearly half a million copies, which is almost more than the combined sales of the top fifty selling indie comics this month. Spawn's 250th issue also spurred a selling frenzy, catapulting the title to the top of the chart - between The Walking Dead and Saga. This month 138 titles hit the top 300 list, which is slightly down from last month's 142. The Orphan Black phenomenon brought sales up 41.6%; 1,969,396 sales in February compared to 1,391,241 in January. This brings the average number of comics sold to 14,271, which is also up from last month's average of 9,867. We'll see how next month fairs without a knock-out hit like Orphan Black.

DC scored with Convergence and Marvel scored with Star Wars in the April sales figures just released by Diamond Comic Distributors. Star Wars #4 was the biggest comic of the month, but all five of DC's nü-DC kicking off Convergence mini made the top 10. This led the way to DC's best performance in a while, but they still trailed Marvel in both dollars and units. April was a five Wednesday month so direct comparisons were not useful, however comics remain up in double digits for the year, up 12% in dollars and, perhaps more significantly, 14.47% in units.

by David Carter Greetings, sales charts fans! It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures. March 2015 was not a good sales month for DC in the North American direct market. Average sales per title for the DCU books (28,559), Vertigo (7,055), and DC as a whole (23,466) were all the lowest they've been since the New 52 started back in September 2011. Most of their sales problems were due to books that missed shipping in March, including their two top sellers, Batman and Justice League, and two other books that are in their top 30% (or so), Wonder Woman and Superman/Wonder Woman. A similar tune plays at the Vertigo label; with Sandman Overture MIA until May, the perpetually delayed American Vampire Second Cycle also not around, and Fables pretty much over (except for the oversized finale coming in July). That leaves Astro City as the regularly-shipping standard bearer for the imprint.

Marvel's Princess Leia #1 was the #1 book in March according to Diamond's just released sales charts....another month for a female led title to top the charts following Spider-Gwen last month. Howard the Duck #1 also made the top ten, a pretty strong debut. And yes, I know the Marvel Star Wars franchise is so strong (esp. with variant covers) that they could put out a Nien Nunb #1 and it would probably top the charts, but Spider-Gwen and Ms Marvel also made strong showings elsewhere so this is not a fluke.

Welcome to a new analysis of the Marvel sales. Reminder: I'm the French guy who took over Jason for this column. Less figures, a comparaison with the issue#2 sales and some TPB sales at the end are the only big differences you could notice. Reminder: those sales are estimates, sales to comics shops in North America. American comics do get sold somewhere else in their original floppy edition. Keep also in mind that just because a copy is sold to a shop doesn’t mean it's sold to a customer. This would be way too easy. It's a little hard to be sure what the fate of each title will be after Secret wars: Marvel did release a list of the titles that will come back after the event, and confirmed that The Last Days banner was for titles that will stop publication. But, frankly, it's hard to believe the list, and seeing that a title can be cancelled to be relaunched one month later with no differences, the word “cancellation” can lose some of its meaning. I'm pretty sure they will change their mind on the way and that, in fact, they are not sure yet which titles will come back, waiting for how many copies those Battleword titles will sell before taking their real decisions.