Sales Charts

by Paul O'Brien INFINITY remained the main feature of Marvel's October schedule. Meanwhile, the X-Men continued their own "Battle of the Atom" crossover, and...

It was kinda a three-way tie in October's sale charts, according to Diamond's just released statistics. THE WALKING DEAD #115 was the best selling...

It’s a very strange month this month. With DC producing two versions of all of their Villains Month books, there are only 109 indie titles charting in the top 300, down on last month’s 153. Lots of titles missed the top 300 this month, but will no doubt return next month. Despite that, they sold an estimated 1,521,695 comics, only 60,000 less than last month’s 1,581,067, on 44 titles less. This was mainly due to a lot of big new titles, seven of the top 14 titles are new entries, selling over 20,000 copies each. It also means that the average sales this month are 13,960, massively up from last month’s 10,333. If it hadn’t been for Villains month, it would have been a big month for indie.

While DC's Villains Month was the main talking point of the direct market in September, Marvel moved into their own event season. September saw the second month of INFINITY, with more tie-in books popping up across the line, while the X-Men titles began their own separate crossover, BATTLE OF THE ATOM. We also have the debut issue of MIGHTY AVENGERS, which launches as part of the big event.

First things first: September 2013 is, by quite a margin, the most successful month ever for DC Comics since Diamond started providing data on actual comic-book sales to retailers in March 2003. In September 2013, DC Comics sold an estimated 4.2 million new comic books to specialty retailers, for a total of $15.3 million in retail sales value. To date, the record was held by October 2011, with 3.8 million new comic books for a total retail sales value of $11.9 million, followed by September 2011, with 3.6 million new comic books for $10.9 million.

Due to unprecedented demand for the DC Comics Month-to-Month Sales Column, The Beat announces that broadcasts of the August 2013 DC Comics Month-to-Month Sales Column will be allocated. This column is now FUBAR-Late at the writer level.

Diamond has released their sales charts for the record setting month of September, but instead of offering just the Top 50 Indie Comics, they...

With all the rushing around, I never got to the Top 10 charts for September. I've posted the relevant charts below—short version: another good...

Kind of a quiet month this month, with only two notable debuts, JMS’s new book Sidekicks, and this month’s Aspen debut, Overtaken, amongst the usual high flyers. In fact there are only 10 new books charting all month. The return of Saga is the only other big news, going from strength to strength.

It occurred to me this month that many of Image’s new books are getting some form of returnability. However, I’ve decided that, unlike my colleague MOF on the DC column, I’m not going to adjust the figures to reflect that, I’m going to stick to the raw data.

Crossover season is upon us again, as INFINITY launches, and the first tie-ins appear. Naturally enough, Marvel don't want to distract from it with any other major launches, and so it's a pretty quiet month across the rest of the line. As usual, Marvel had the largest share of the North American direct market, though it was relatively close - they led DC by 36% to 33% in unit terms, and 34% to 30% in dollars.

Marvel was the winner again in August according to today's just released figures from Diamond. Infinity #1 was the top comics and Marvel meat...

A triumphant return for Fathom, albeit one backed by a price-promotion, and a full price relaunch for Red Sonja join Matt Fraction’s Satellite Sam as the big debuts this month, and East of West and Lazarus cement their places in the upper part of the chart. Elsewhere are a clutch of strong mid-level launches, and a slightly worrying series of drops for Valiant.