Sales Charts

It's month three of DC's new variant cover ordering scheme, where retailers can order as many of the month's themed variant covers as they want at the regular price. As previously suspected, the Selfie variants do not attract as many additional orders as the Bombshell or Batman 75th variants did. It's hard to tell if that is because of a perceived lack of interest in the covers, or an adjustment based on the previous months, or a combination of factors. Next month DC will have round two of the 3D motion covers, hoping to recapture some of the magic of last year's 3D cover stunt. This was a down month for DC. Several of their top sellers did not ship in August: Justice League, Superman Unchained and Sandman Overture. Vertigo sales are particularly moribund: the average Vertigo sales of 9,082 per title is the second lowest since Diamond started reporting actual sales back in 2003. (The lowest month was November 2010, at 9,034.) With The Wake over and Sandman Overture shipping sporadically, Vertigo's top seller this month is short-timer Fables.

By Chris Rice A few interesting new entries this month, headed by, of all things, The Death of Archie! That’s joined by Rick Remender’s new...

ICv2 has released its August sales analysis and only two comics were over 100K, Batman and Amazing Spider-Man, as they should be. I'm quoting...

I'll post John Jackson Miller's analysis when it comes in, but sales for the year inched up, although down from Five Wednesday July. Image...

The column is already running late, so I won't belabor too many points here… July 2014 was a record-setting month in many categories for the Diamond NA-served comics market (see John Jackson Miller's analysis for the full skinny). DC shipped a whopping 83 comics this month (up from 68 in June). As expected, the Batman 75th Anniversary covers don't do as well as the Bombshell covers did last month. Whether this is because retailers (as a group) order-ordered on the Bombshell covers and were correcting, or because there was a perceived lesser demand for the Batman covers it is hard to tell; I suspect a combination of factors. It may be several months before things settle down in the new way of ordering variants.

Lots of new entries this month, including smash-hit new books from Robert Kirkman and Kieron Gillen and a first ever official comic for a cult film favourite. Elsewhere Valiant continue to falter despite the new Armor Hunters crossover, and Zenescope seem to be similarly slipping down and off the sales chart with their numbers dropping to new lows.

This is a pretty standard month. Overall, comics sales were strong this month, and while many ongoing Marvel books followed standard attrition rates, they made up for those losses with several anniversary specials and new debuts that posted strong numbers. The big brand to follow is Guardians of the Galaxy which launches several new spin-off series this month to capitalize on the movie release. Let’s look at a breakdown of this month’s Marvel books.

The comics industry in North America moved into positive territory for 2014 with a record-setting month of July, according to Comichron's analysis of data released by Diamond Comic Distributors. Click to see the sales estimates for comics ordered in July 2014.  A much larger number of new comic book and graphic novel releases for the month helped July's sales to set a number ofrecords for the Diamond Exclusive Era, which began in April 1997:

Okay I stand corrected. When I saw the double digit rises in sales for July 2014 vs July 2013 I assumed it had to...

As expected, although still shockingly, Rocket Raccoon #1 by Skottie Young was the #1 comics periodical for July, according to Diamond's just released stats. As reported earlier, RR #1 sold some 300,000 copies—100,000 of them through a single order from bulk seller Loot Crate. Even so, 200,000 copies is a high water mark for a character viewed as a minor oddity a few months ago. As usual, and perhaps comfortingly, Batman #33 took the second spot, but Harley Quinn #8 was also in the top 10, another sign of the audience diversity that is beginning to take hold. Marvel

In yesterday's comments on the Mike Dawson Mid-career assessment, retailer Brian Hibbs stepped in with some comments, including this one

Change is coming! As I researched and wrote this month’s article in the week before Comic Con, Marvel made several huge announcements. Mjolnir will now be wielded by a woman in a new Thor series. The Falcon will wield the shield in a new Captain America. The Avengers will see major Roster changes in Avengers Now.

Now if you’ve been following these sales articles, none of this should have surprised you. Sure the details are exciting and interesting, but we’ve known for a while now that sales on the Avengers books and the big 3 marvel heroes (Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor) have gotten stale. It was time for a change, what is exciting about these announcements is that these aren’t small changes but big changes that garnered national media attention and hopefully will mean big (and hopefully lasting) sales boosts. Let’s look at the numbers for this month.