Sales Charts

So is the great comics boom over? DC's New 52 initiative in September 2011 kicked off a boom in comics sales that has seen...

Comics sales continued to look anemic in March, with sales down  4.40% in dollars and 9.85% in units over a year ago for year...

It's time once again to look at DC's sales figures. Once again DC takes the top two slots on the Diamond sales charts. But February is a down month overall for the Diamond NA comics market, and DC follows suit. Forever Evil returns with a new issue in February, but both Sandman Overture and Superman Unchained are still MIA. When retailers tie up their order volume with large orders for comics that don't ship, that means fewer potential sales across the board.

Hello and welcome to an All-New month of Marvel sales numbers NOW! Before we get started let’s look at a breakdown of what we have this month. 69 Marvel comics out this month 8 Titles double-shipped
8 new #1s (I did not count the Annuals) 8 Avengers Titles
6 X-Men Titles (9 if you count X-Force, X-Factor and Marvel Knights X-Men).

This month several titles get relaunches as part of All-New Marvel Now. Some of these are new teams, or characters getting a solo title for the first time in a while. Some are soft relaunches of recently ended titles.

Joining Walking Dead and Saga this month as the best-selling indie titles are a new Serenity book and Rick Remender’s new title, Deadly Class. As with last month, there are a swathe of recent books that are doing well around the top 150, but below that things aren’t looking too healthy. There are very few long running titles (besides Walking Dead of course) that are selling in healthy numbers, and the mini-series as ongoing series model that the likes of BPRD use doesn’t seem to be having any noticeable benefit anymore. Worth keeping an eye on, that.

by John Jackson Miller   February appears to be returning to form. The release ofDiamond Comic Distributors' data for the month was delayed by snow days...

A lot of people pointed out that Marvel and DC failed to chart in ICv2's monthly BookScan chart for February. Instead Image and Manga crushed it with mega franchises The Walking Dead, Saga, Bleach, Naruto and Attack on Titan. Locke and Key and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children also appeared, along with Dark Horse and Boom's perennials, Adventure Time and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

By Jason Enright

Hi everyone! My name is Jason Enright and I am going to be analyzing the Marvel sales charts for you. I have a background as a comic book retailer and now a comic book marketing specialist. As we go along I’ll be adding in my thoughts as to why we may be seeing these numbers and what they tell me as a fan, retailer, and marketing guy. A few things to keep in mind about these charts: 1. The direct market (comic book shops that order through Diamond) does not track sell-through. So these numbers don’t represent what actually sold, but instead represent what retailers ordered. A book can get high orders and sit on the shelf (which often leads to lower orders in later months) and a book can be under-ordered and sell out (see Black Widow further down this chart). These numbers are what retailers estimated would sell in their shops. 2. We currently don’t have any digital sales data so this is only a look at what is selling in stores. Until we somehow convince Marvel and all the other publishers to release their digital sales numbers, we have no clue how well most of these books are really doing, as digital is a very quickly growing marketplace which sees a lot of new first-time comic readers.

Hi everyone! New guy, Dave Carter, here with the first DC sales charts of 2014. I have an introductory write-up down at the end of this column, but since you're all really here for the sales numbers, commentary and snark, let's get to it: On the surface DC seemingly does well to start off the year, with their two premier Batman-starring titles in the #1 & #2 slots, and five of the top ten. But once you start looking a little deeper there is much to cause concern… Three of DC's top selling titles, Forever Evil, Superman Unchained, and Sandman Overture, did not ship this month, contributing to the overall sales decline.

My sincerest apologies for both the lateness and the brevity of this month’s column. I’m in the middle of a move to a new city, and have just started a new job, so time has been especially scarce this month. I’ve not been able to comment on many of the titles towards the lower end of the chart, and I suspect next month will be very similar. Things should be back to normal by the February chart though! It was a relatively quiet December, Bill Willingham’s Legenderry the highest charting new entry amongst the usual bumper-selling Image titles, a couple of Star Wars books and My Little Pony. Elsewhere, it’s a very downward trending chart, with only 11 titles going up in sales and a colossal 123 going down, with the rest made up of new entries and specials.

It's that time of year! SF retailer Brian Hibbs has released his annual analysis of the Bookscan 2013 sales charts. This chart is subscriber only, so technically this is a leak, so if you want to download your own version of the top selling 750 graphic novels of the year, go here. Now, as we all know, Bookscan IS NOT 100% of GN sales, even in bookstores. The numbers do not includes comics shop sales, and are billed as 85% of books sold in regular bookstore outlets. While Walmart has been added to the outlets reporting, I'd hazard a guess that those numbers are still low, as they do not include library sales, book clubs and so on. However, as I always say, these numbers do provide a metric. These are the books that sold in the stores that report to Bookscan, and while they should not be taken as final totals, they do provide a glimpse.

The month of December was dripping with excitement at DC Comics, as the publisher's comic-book line shivered on the brink of a new year of bold opportunities and potential tours de force. DC's œuvre held strong and even grew slightly in total unit sales versus November, as the publisher thrust into an already booming direct market with stiff opposition its new DC Universe title JUSTICE LEAGUE 3000. The Vertigo imprint, alas, which added DEAD BOY DETECTIVES to its arousing line-up in December, continued its refractory period in-between new issues of THE SANDMAN, the second and next of which shall find release no sooner than February.