Sales Charts

August 2010 wasn't a great month for the direct market as a whole, and DC Comics was no exception. The current tent-pole title Brightest Day and its tie-in books kept performing solidly overall, but a number of other high-profile books, including Green Lantern, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, Batman and Robin and The Flash missed their August shipping dates, putting a bit of a dent in DC's periodical performance: Overall dollar sales for new comic books were the lowest since June 2009, and average unit sales dropped to their second-lowest point of the last 12 months. For the publisher's Vertigo brand, August was particularly tough, with estimated average unit sales dropping to a new all-time low of 9,094. Again, though, the schedule is the culprit: With American Vampire, Joe the Barbarian and Jack of Fables, some of Vertigo's best-selling comic-book titles didn't come out in August. At the WildStorm imprint, average unit sales crashed back to just above 6K, and in this case, the schedule had little to do with it. At this stage, it's not hard to see why DC is pulling the plug on WildStorm.

Overall, direct market sales for August were substantially down, prompting a bit of handwringing online. And it's true that no title even came close to reaching the 100,000 mark (for only the third time since Diamond achieved their monopoly of the direct market). It's not so much that sales on individual titles suddenly lurched down in August. They've been dropping for a while, and the comparisons with one or two years ago make fairly grim reading at the moment (though bear in mind they don't show books being cancelled and replaced by higher-selling new launches). Rather, it's a month without any really big releases from either company. Marvel's major launch was a new NAMOR series, which lands just outside the top 40, while the biggest story events were the X-Men/vampires affair and the Daredevil-centred SHADOWLAND. As usual, Marvel had the largest share of the direct market, leading DC by 45% to 32% in terms of units, and 41% to 28% in dollars.

It's fitting that September's top selling comic features an image of Wolverine crouching atop a giant turd, because overall, sales were in the crapper, and the whole quarter was in the dumpster, ICv2 tells us. If you think we're exaggerating, the normally understated ICv2's use of the word "Sucked" is a strong indicator.

Buffy regains the top spot this month, though with the lowest numbers for the series since Season eight began. Meanwhile the top launches this...

The "Brightest Day" and Batman titles continued to be the driving force of DC's comic-book line in July. The publisher's overall performance in the periodical direct market remained more or less flat, consequently. The most prominent new release of the mainstream DC Universe line, and maybe a bit of a wildcard for retailers, was the debut of Batman: Odyssey, a six-issue miniseries by writer/artist Neal Adams, who is still something of a high-ticket name, but hasn't actually produced a substantial comics project in decades.

At Vertigo, overall sales were slightly down in July because Fables, for all intents the imprint's flagship series, didn't come out. At WildStorm, the numbers were slightly up because of two new miniseries debuting above the 10K mark.

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.

The business news website ICv2 isn't known for being hyperbolic. So when Milton Griepp said that this month's comics sales had "plummeted" everyone leaped up, screaming, knocking over chairs and spilling drinks everywhere.

Sales of comics and graphic novels through Diamond Comic Distributors dropped substantially in August with periodical comics falling 17% and graphic novels down 21%.  There wasn’t a single comic title even close to the 100,000 in August. 

If it weren't for the continued strength of SCOTT PILGRIM trades, the GN drop would have been even more grisly. On the periodical side, there was no big book, but, said ICv2, Certainly "the lack of one big title can’t account for everything." The grim details immediately set the punditocracy to arms, perhaps sniffing the hint of burning smoke in Tom Spurgeon's Doomapocalyptigeddon which he descried from his aerie high in the Misty Mountains, the same distant smell of charring paper and brimstone that we've been picking up for the last few weeks.

by Paul O'Brien The big launch for July is the new ongoing X-MEN series, which duly makes its debut at the top of the chart. Also this month, as the X-books' "Second Coming" crossover ends, the Daredevil-centred SHADOWLAND event begins. The Young Avengers return in AVENGERS: THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE. And from the Icon imprint, there's the debut issue of Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev's SCARLET. Needless to say, Marvel were once again the top company in the direct market, leading DC by 43% to 35% in terms of unit share, and 39% to 32% in dollars.

Vampires beat zombies this month, as the first issue of IDW’s new series based on the True Blood TV show is the top selling...

ICv2 posted their sales for July yesterday, but bucking a recent trend, periodical sales were down while GN sales were up a bit, mostly...

by Marc-Oliver Frisch After unleashing a deluge of new titles in May, DC Comics' lineup of major periodicals was fairly restrained in June. There were...

by Paul O'Brien It's a month of relaunches and new titles, as the "Heroic Age" branding continues. June saw the relaunch of NEW AVENGERS,...

Buffy may be on a break, but that doesn’t mean that a Joss Whedon book isn’t the top selling “indie” comic this month as Serenity takes the top spot. Further down the list we have lots of Red Sonja comics, a Goon spin-off by Eric Powell, and yet more adaptations of movies and TV shows. Dark Horse had a 3.53% unit share and a 5.30% dollar share, Image had a 3.38% unit share and a 3.88% dollar share, and IDW had a 3.07% unit share and a 3.67% dollar share. I’ve listed every “indie” title in the top 200, every title from Image, Darkhorse, and IDW (ie. “the front of Previews”), and a selection of others. Thanks to icv2.com and Milton Griepp for permission to use these numbers, which are estimates, and can be found here.