Sales Charts

by Paul O'Brien

Event season is upon us again. FEAR ITSELF launched in April, together with its spin-off anthology FEAR ITSELF: THE HOME FRONT. Further down the charts, "Death of Spider-Man" and "Age of X" are also underway. April also sees the relaunches of THOR and HERC, as well the de facto launch of a new series, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, continuing from THOR's previous numbering.

It's also worth noting Marvel's increasing trend towards shipping extra issues of ongoing titles, apparently in place of low-selling miniseries. Now that the hordes of Captain America and Thor minis which were used to generate movie tie-in material are out of the way, it's actually thinning out quite a bit at the lower end of the chart.

As usual, Marvel had the largest share of the North American direct market, leading DC by 40% to 27% in dollars and 48% to 27% in units. Of course, FLASHPOINT doesn't start until next month, so you'd expect the gap to be larger than normal in April.

IDW's new Godzilla series grabbed the top spot this month, knocking The Walking Dead from their throne after only one month. Meanwhile Dark Horse released a Dollhouse comic based on the Joss Whedon series of the same name, Dynamite launched a Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris comic with a "Risqué Nude Art" variant cover, and Boom! launched a Hellraiser comic.

Led by the top-selling Batman: The Dark Knight and Batman, Inc., which were back on the racks after a two-month absence, and a double-shipping Green Lantern, DC Comics' periodical sales continued a slow recovery in February. Notably, the February numbers also show modest increases across the rest of DC's line-up. Maybe the company's decision to cancel around 25% of its current ongoing titles and stick to a $ 2.99 price point is encouraging retailers, after all.

It's been a while since we took a look at The New York Times' Graphic Novel best sellers lists. Let's take a peak shall we?

This is the busiest month Marvel have had in quite some time. The big release for March was the relaunch of FANTASTIC FOUR as just plain FF, but the month also sees the prologue to upcoming mega-crossover FEAR ITSELF, two new ongoing titles in VENOM and IRON MAN 2.0, the revival of CrossGen titles RUSE and SIGIL, and issues from the "Death of Spider-Man" and "Age of X" crossovers. We also have the second month of Point One issues - more on that below. As usual, Marvel had the largest share of the direct market, both in terms of dollars (leading DC by 40% to 28%) and unit sales (45% to 32%).

Digital comics, Dark Horse layoffs, why SPX doesn't reach the civilian, royalties...wow, it's all coming out now, folks.

The Walking Dead finally becomes the top selling non Marvel/DC book in the direct market, the second True Blood book from IDW debuts lower than I'd have expected, the Garth Ennis written Jennifer Blood launches from Dynamite, and Dark Horse launches another Conan series.

The Walking Dead finally becomes the top selling non Marvel/DC book in the direct market, the second True Blood book from IDW debuts lower than I'd have expected, the Garth Ennis written Jennifer Blood launches from Dynamite, and Dark Horse launches another Conan series.

Publishers Weekly reports that E-book sales were up sharply for February, with TRIPLE digit growth, up 202.3% with $90.3 million in sales, the leading segment as reported by the AAP. Thanks to ebook readers given as gifts over the holidays, ebook sales now equal trade paperback sales.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

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Unit and dollar sales of DC Comics' periodical business remained at the lower end of the spectrum in February, despite a slight recovery from January's all-time low in average unit sales. However, the direct market as a whole has seen better days, and so DC still managed to snatch the three top spots of the chart and six out of the Top 10 in February, regardless of the company's lackluster sales.

For the publisher's mainstream DC Universe line, the absence of major titles Batman Incorporated and Batman: The Dark Knight continued to be a problem, while the hangover from the discontinued WildStorm imprint kept dragging down the average. Average comic-book sales of DC's Vertigo imprint were still hovering above the 10k mark, meanwhile.

See below for the details, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com's estimates can be found here.

Okay, so comics sales were kinda crap in March, based on year-to-year comparisons, although better than February. Plus, the top book popped its head above the 100,000 mantle. But ICv2 reports that GN sales were even more problematic:

February sees Marvel's "Point One" programme get under way, with issues of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, WOLVERINE and IRON MAN. The Age of X crossover starts in X-MEN LEGACY and NEW MUTANTS. And there's a new ongoing series, IRON MAN 2.0. As usual, Marvel had the largest share of the North American direct market. It's a pretty wide margin over DC this month - 45% to 31% in unit terms, 41% to 28% in dollars. Thanks as always to ICV2.com for permission to use these figures.