Sales Charts

Yes, yes, I know. June? It's August. This column is horrendously late. The July sales are already out. So I'm going to focus on the big events this month and otherwise keep the commentary pretty brief. Then we'll be back on track, the sun will shine, and everything will be lovely.

The big news in June is, of course, the death of a Spider-Man. (Don't worry, they've got a spare.) FEAR ITSELF continues to sprawl across the Marvel Universe line, and there's also the first issue of a new GHOST RIDER series.

As normal, Marvel had the largest share of the North American direct market, leading DC by 43% to 33% in unit share and 39% to 28% in dollar terms.

Eiichiro Oda's ONE PIECE continues to be the fastest selling comic book of all times, with the new Vol. 63 selling at a record breaking clip:

Eiichiro Oda’s “One Piece” manga continues its strong sales record with the latest volume 63 passing the 2 million sales mark just within 4 days of its release. This amazing result outshine the performance by Vol 60 & Vol 61 which only managed to pass the 2 million mark after 1 week.

A previous volume of ONE PIECE, #60, set another record by selling 3 million copies in an 8-day period.

Comics sales remained fairly soft in July, ICv2 reports with sales down a bit in dollars but nearly steady in units:

Spider Island and 1969 topped July's sales figures, just released by Diamond, with AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #666 topping the periodicals, and LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN CENTURY #2: 1969 topping the GN sales. Sales were down from 2010 and down sharply from June -- however, June was a five week month, and July only four. The overall market is down about 7% in both units and dollars for the year. IDW was the #3 publisher in dollars, while Image was #3 in units; DC has closed the gap against Marvel quite a bit from the dismal May that is what many say unleashed the relaunch plans. Tables, charts and more info below.

June was another down month, with periodical comics sales down 4.62 percent from June of 2010. The GN picture was more complicated. Overall, these numbers paint a pretty dicey picture for the Fantasy Economy. (See Larry Marder's comment's here). June 2010 may have been an abnormal month for GN sales but there is a need for more franchises like Hellboys, Chews and Narutos.

It was a great month for being ultimate, being afraid and flashing.

It's a mix of publishers at the top of the charts for the month of June, led by The Walking Dead and Buffy.

The indestructible beat of NARUTO led the way.

The death of a Spider-Man and shuffling zombies led comics and GN sales in June, according to Diamond's just released figures. Sales were up from a dismal May, but still lag last year about 7% overall.

While we can't answer that question, one creator, Michael Jasper has been making his percentage of sales available for IN MAPS AND LEGENDS, a fantasy comic with touches of steampunk and SF. It got its start as a Zuda competition winner but has since returned to the creators and they've been selling it digitally everywhere. Since IN MAPS AND LEGENDS is available on every platform, and is in a universally popular genre it's an interesting chart:

The Walking Dead gets a huge boost this month as the recent storyline is a big hit. The number two issue this month is Kirby Genesis from Dynamite, though as a one dollar title its sales are somewhat inflated. Coming in at number three is the IDW launch of a Rocketeer anthology. Further down the chart we have new Star Wars comics from Dark Horse, the most recent GI Joe relaunches from IDW, a new Megaman title from Archie, and a bunch of Image comics with increased sales.

Despite the debut of this year's big blockbuster series Flashpoint, average DC comic-book sales were down in May. In part, that's because Flashpoint itself came in 13,000 units below the magical 100K mark and ended up charting second after Marvel's Fear Itself #2, which has to be quite a disappointment for DC. On the other hand, most of the rest of DC's line didn't join in the crossover until June, so the overall numbers may still pick up. The other notable thing about DC's May output is that there wasn't a lot of it. The number of new comic books released by DC in May was 59, which, along with January 2004, holds the record for the fewest number of books released by the company since Diamond started publishing data on actual sales. Looking at the solicitations, it's not hard to find the reason: None of the five Green Lantern film tie-in books scheduled for May came out (one of them still hasn't been published as I'm writing this), while the launch dates of Static Shock and Batwoman were pushed back to September. And, while we're at it, the David Finch vehicle Batman: The Dark Knight remained in limbo in May. DC's Web site currently lists issue #3 for July 13 and issue #5 for August, with no information on #4. So not even DC seems entirely sure what's going on with the book.