Sales Charts

by Dave Carter Here are the Top 50 Comics & Graphic Novels on Amazon Friday morning. See About the Amazon Top 50 Lists for more...

The lady X-Men led the single issue sales charts for May, while kids comics made a strong showing on the graphic novel chart, with Adventure Time or My Little Pony coming in at 1, 5 and 7. Superman charted with the paperback versions of Earth One V.1 and Action Aomics V.1. The Walking Dead and Saga both had strong backlist showings.

By Paul Mellerick   Mark Millar’s relentless conquering of the entertainment world continues, as his new book Jupiter’s Legacy sets records and charts in the top...

The AGE OF ULTRON crossover anchored Marvel's line in April, with tie-in issues spreading across a range of titles. As often happens when event titles are underway, it's a quiet month for new releases, with the notable exception of the THANOS RISING origin mini. And of course, as the months roll on, we're getting an increasingly clear picture of how the assorted Marvel Now launches and relaunches are working out.

David Carter is a librarian and a bestseller list maker. Every Friday morning he goes to Amazon an makes a bestseller list from their graphic novel listings, which you can read at his blog, Yet Another Comics Blog. David has agreed to let me share his charts here because of there's one thing Beat readers love it's sales chart.

Awfully unsurprising: Jeffrey Brown's Vader's LIttle Princess, a cute follow-up to Vader and Son, which imagines every iconic image in the original trilogy from the viewpoint of the father of a teenaged (or younger) girl—that dad being Darth Vader. It gives even the well worn tropes a fresh, human feeling and to the shock of no one...it's selling like hotcakes:

Recent sales patterns continued in the April comics sales figures just released by Diamond. While DC had the top selling books with Batman #19. Marvel continue to dominate both units and dollars—especially units, where they opened up a 14% lead over DC. In a month without a lot of strong graphic novels, The Walking Dead Volume 1: Days Gone Bye led the charts yet again. while Injustice: Gods Among Us, and DC Collectibles' new Injustice: Deathstroke Vs. Green Arrow Action Figure 2-Pack led the video game and toy categories.

While Walking Dead and Saga lead the chart again, the big story this month is Jonathan Hickman’s East of West, blowing expectations out of the water with a strong debut. There aren’t that many new titles this month, although Image have four strong debuts, headed up by the infuriating Sex (you’ll see). Elsewhere it’s largely a month of consolidation, with many titles holding within a few percentage points of last month’s sales.

Chickens came home to roost in March. With no gimmick-bloated #1 issues, strong crossovers or annuals of high-performing titles driving sales of the company's periodical line, with the Before Watchmen project fading out on a whimper, and despite a deluge of high-selling issues tying in with a recent character death, estimated sales of the average new DC Universe comic book fell to 31,000, the lowest level since the big "New 52" relaunch of September 2011.

The Marvel Now launches rumble on in March, with the first issues of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and the relaunched WOLVERINE, not to mention the long-awaited AGE OF ULTRON event. Meanwhile, as the first wave of Marvel Now launches start to settle into their runs, we're beginning to get a clearer idea of which ones are working. (And which ones, well, not so much.)

Continuing a run of graphic novels on the bestseller charts, Batman Vol. 2: The City of Owls (The New 52) by Scot Snyder,...

Walking Dead continues to dominate, but Star Wars and Saga both go from strength to strength. Strong debuts for Shadow Year One, Legend of the Shadowclan and the new GI Joe book are interspersed with increased sales for My Little Pony, Adventure Time and Hellboy. Elsewhere is the usual clutch of Image debuts, while further down a few series return to the charts after a period away.