Chart time, as Diamond has just released their sales charts for July 2019. And what a month it was, with the new dynamic duo of House of X and Powers of X leading the periodical charts, and the final issue of Walking Dead and Batman’s various books combining for a pretty strong month. Sales were up in all comparisons, although it was a five-week month. Marvel led publishers by their usual healthy margin.
The graphic novel charts consintued to show the kind of wildly eclectic titles. The Joker, a paperback edition of the Azzarello/Bermejo hit from a few years back, now under the Black Label banner, led graphic novel sales. This book was originally published in 2008, and as I recall was something of a surprise sales smash for DC, led by Bermejo’s stunning art. It’s no wonder the duo teamed up again for Batman Damned, with more controversial results.
Further down the units list, we see the Brubaker/Phillips effort Bad Weekend, followed by the new Deadly Class then the NYT bestselling They Called Us Enemy, and then two more all ages-ish book, Adventures Zone #2 and Dear Justice League. A few years back the idea of seeing a First Second graphic novel in Diamond’s top ten would have seemed unlikely, but these are different times. Die Die Die, the Ahmed/Garon Miles Morales, Conan and Zdarsky’s Daredevil finish the top ten. Like I said, an ecelctic mix. GNs are still down 4.5% in units from last year, but they seem to be closing the distance.
After I gave him some mild ribbing in my last sales column, John Jackson Miller’s sales column this month has his own take on what is making 2019 a hard year to nail down. Quoted with permission:
Value judgments are tough to avoid in describing economic activity, even when the changes under discussion are very small. One person’s “stable” is another person’s “stagnant.” Much depends on expectations: if you think comics stores should be proliferating like sandwich shops, then “flat” is a bad word. If you think over-fast growth often leads to chaos, “steady” sounds just fine.
The Comichron position is often seen as defaulting toward the positive — at least in headline copy! — but it’s a bit more nuanced than “ties go to the runner.” For the last 20 years, monthly periodical sales in comics shops have oscillated around a mean of about 7 million copies a month — all while the dollar volume of the comics market overall has nearly tripled thanks to graphic novels collecting those monthly comics. If you believe that a desirable level of comics sales is “whatever allows Direct Market stores to subsidize the serialization of enough stories to keep the bookshelves full,” then sales volume has clearly hit that level most years, and “unchanged” is, very much, “stable.” (Inherent in that is the strong belief that serialization is not just a necessary part of the publishers’ toolkit, but a valuable one; monthly comics amortize as they advertise, and feed a secondary market which many retailers also realize revenue from.)
Whichever way your adjectives go, a market constantly dipping above and below “no change” throws a constant series of choices at headline writers — and thus far, 2019 has been a workout for those of us looking for new descriptive terms. This year and last year haven’t tracked exactly, but the deviations have been small, like January, which saw the release of a lot of comics delayed from 2018. Or the fact that while Action Comics #1000 came out in April 2018, this year’s anniversary blockbuster, Detective Comics #1000, dropped in March. We see now from Diamond Comic Distributors that July, aided by a fifth shipping week, had another wobble, this time to the plus side; look here on Monday for the estimates for individual comics sales in July 2019.
I agree that we’re looking as incremental gains and losses at times, and we haven’t hit midnight on that Doomsday Clock just yet. But what does seem significant to me is the change in product mix – DC’s lessened output, the increase in material for younger readers. It’s a very different audience.
TOP COMIC BOOK PUBLISHERS
|
PUBLISHER |
DOLLAR SHARE |
UNIT SHARE |
| MARVEL COMICS |
41.38% |
45.49% |
| DC |
26.79% |
27.63% |
| IMAGE COMICS |
8.43% |
8.64% |
| IDW PUBLISHING |
4.22% |
3.99% |
| DARK HORSE COMICS |
3.10% |
2.42% |
| DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT |
2.31% |
2.19% |
| BOOM! STUDIOS |
2.05% |
1.86% |
| VIZ MEDIA |
1.51% |
0.58% |
| TITAN COMICS |
0.74% |
0.68% |
| ARCHIE COMICS |
0.68% |
0.75% |
| OTHER NON-TOP 10 |
8.80% |
5.77% |
COMPARATIVE SALES STATISTICS
|
|
DOLLARS |
UNITS |
|
JULY 2019 VS. JUNE 2019 |
||
| COMICS |
15.75% |
12.25% |
| GRAPHIC NOVELS |
5.58% |
4.42% |
| TOTAL COMICS/GN |
12.93% |
11.72% |
| TOYS |
48.78% |
61.20% |
|
JULY 2019 VS. JULY 2018 |
||
| COMICS |
4.99% |
-0.73% |
| GRAPHIC NOVELS |
12.83% |
0.08% |
| TOTAL COMICS/GN |
6.91% |
-0.68% |
| TOYS |
72.30% |
84.85% |
|
YEAR TO DATE 2019 VS. YEAR TO DATE 2018 |
||
| COMICS |
0.97% |
-4.36% |
| GRAPHIC NOVELS |
-0.25% |
-6.20% |
| TOTAL COMICS/GN |
0.63% |
-4.50% |
| TOYS |
32.17% |
35.90% |
NEW TITLES SHIPPED
|
PUBLISHER |
COMICS SHIPPED |
GRAPHIC NOVELS SHIPPED |
MAGAZINES SHIPPED |
TOTAL SHIPPED |
| MARVEL COMICS |
105 |
45 |
0 |
150 |
| DC |
86 |
24 |
0 |
110 |
| IDW PUBLISHING |
45 |
20 |
0 |
65 |
| IMAGE COMICS |
50 |
10 |
0 |
60 |
| DARK HORSE COMICS |
18 |
20 |
0 |
38 |
| BOOM! STUDIOS |
15 |
16 |
0 |
31 |
| VIZ MEDIA LLC |
0 |
23 |
0 |
23 |
| DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT |
16 |
5 |
0 |
21 |
| ARCHIE COMICS |
13 |
3 |
0 |
16 |
| ONI PRESS |
4 |
5 |
0 |
9 |
| OTHER NON-TOP 10 |
143 |
150 |
23 |
316 |
| TOTAL |
495 |
321 |
23 |
839 |
TOP 10 COMIC BOOKS BY UNITS SHIPPED
|
RANK |
DESCRIPTION |
PRICE |
ITEM CODE |
VENDOR |
|
1 |
HOUSE OF X #1 |
$5.99 |
MAY190690 | MAR |
|
2 |
POWERS OF X #1 |
$5.99 |
MAY190703 | MAR |
|
3 |
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #25 |
$7.99 |
MAY190815 | MAR |
|
4 |
THE WALKING DEAD #193 (MR) [*] |
$3.99 |
MAY190111 | IMA |
|
5 |
BATMAN: LAST KNIGHT ON EARTH #2 |
$5.99 |
MAY190360 | DC |
|
6 |
BATMAN: CURSE OF THE WHITE KNIGHT #1 |
$4.99 |
MAY190356 | DC |
|
7 |
THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS #7 |
$4.99 |
JUN190448 | DC |
|
8 |
BLACK CAT #2 |
$3.99 |
MAY190834 | MAR |
|
9 |
IMMORTAL HULK #20 |
$3.99 |
MAY190775 | MAR |
|
10 |
BATMAN #74 |
$3.99 |
MAY190383 | DC |
TOP 10 COMIC BOOKS BY DOLLARS INVOICED
|
RANK |
DESCRIPTION |
PRICE |
ITEM CODE |
VENDOR |
|
1 |
HOUSE OF X #1 |
$5.99 |
MAY190690 | MAR |
|
2 |
POWERS OF X #1 |
$5.99 |
MAY190703 | MAR |
|
3 |
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #25 |
$7.99 |
MAY190815 | MAR |
|
4 |
BATMAN: LAST KNIGHT ON EARTH #2 |
$5.99 |
MAY190360 | DC |
|
5 |
THE WALKING DEAD #193 (MR) [*] |
$3.99 |
MAY190111 | IMA |
|
6 |
BATMAN: CURSE OF THE WHITE KNIGHT #1 |
$4.99 |
MAY190356 | DC |
|
7 |
THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS #7 |
$4.99 |
JUN190448 | DC |
|
8 |
BLACK CAT #2 |
$3.99 |
MAY190834 | MAR |
|
9 |
IMMORTAL HULK #20 |
$3.99 |
MAY190775 | MAR |
|
10 |
VAMPIRELLA #1 [*] |
$3.99 |
MAY190996 | DE |
TOP 10 GRAPHIC NOVELS & TRADE PAPERBACKS BY UNITS SHIPPED
|
RANK |
DESCRIPTION |
PRICE |
ITEM CODE |
VENDOR |
|
1 |
THE JOKER TP |
$14.99 |
APR190556 | DC |
|
2 |
BAD WEEKEND HC (MR) |
$16.99 |
MAY190040 | IMA |
|
3 |
DEADLY CLASS VOL. 8: NEVER GO BACK TP (MR) |
$16.99 |
MAY190047 | IMA |
|
4 |
THEY CALLED US ENEMY TP |
$19.99 |
MAR190630 | IDW |
|
5 |
ADVENTURE ZONE VOL. 2: MURDER ON ROCKPORT LIMITED GN |
$19.99 |
MAY191698 | FIR |
|
6 |
DEAR JUSTICE LEAGUE TP |
$9.99 |
MAR190470 | DC |
|
7 |
CONAN THE BARBARIAN VOL. 1: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CONAN BOOK ONE TP |
$19.99 |
APR190960 | MAR |
|
8 |
MILES MORALES VOL. 1: STRAIGHT OUT OF BROOKLYN TP |
$17.99 |
APR190958 | MAR |
|
9 |
DIE DIE DIE VOL. 1 TP (MR) |
$19.99 |
MAY190041 | IMA |
|
10 |
DAREDEVIL BY CHIP ZDARSKY VOL. 1: KNOW FEAR TP |
$15.99 |
MAY190967 | MAR |
TOP 10 GRAPHIC NOVELS & TRADE PAPERBACKS BY DOLLARS INVOICED
|
RANK |
DESCRIPTION |
PRICE |
ITEM CODE |
VENDOR |
|
1 |
CONAN THE BARBARIAN: ORIGINAL MARVEL YEARS OMNIBUS VOL. 2 HC |
$125.00 |
JAN191082-M | MAR |
|
2 |
THE JOKER TP |
$14.99 |
APR190556 | DC |
|
3 |
MONSTRESS VOLUME 1 HC (MR) |
$49.99 |
APR190054-M | IMA |
|
4 |
BAD WEEKEND HC (MR) |
$16.99 |
MAY190040 | IMA |
|
5 |
DC UNIVERSE: BRONZE AGE OMNIBUS BY JACK KIRBY HC |
$150.00 |
NOV180560 | DC |
|
6 |
ADVENTURE ZONE VOL. 2: MURDER ON ROCKPORT LIMITED GN |
$19.99 |
MAY191698 | FIR |
|
7 |
THEY CALLED US ENEMY TP |
$19.99 |
MAR190630 | IDW |
|
8 |
SUPERMAN: THE GOLDEN AGE OMNIBUS VOL. 6 HC |
$125.00 |
NOV180575 | DC |
|
9 |
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: CAPTAIN AMERICA VOL. 11 HC |
$75.00 |
JAN191092-M | MAR |
|
10 |
THANOS BY DONNY CATES HC |
$34.99 |
JAN191088 | MAR |
TOP 10 BOOKS BY UNITS SHIPPED
|
RANK |
DESCRIPTION |
PRICE |
ITEM CODE |
VENDOR |
|
1 |
OVERSTREET COMIC BOOK PRICE GUIDE VOL. 49 SC |
$29.95 |
APR191757-M | GEM |
|
2 |
GEARS OF WAR RETROSPECTIVE HC |
$49.99 |
MAY192131 | UDO |
|
3 |
OVERSTREET COMIC BOOK PRICE GUIDE VOL. 49 HC |
$35.00 |
APR191758-M | GEM |
|
4 |
THE ART OF TEKKEN: A COMPLETE VISUAL HISTORY HC |
$39.99 |
AUG181195 | DE |
|
5 |
I AM SHE-RA LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK |
$4.99 |
MAY191727 | RAN |
|
6 |
I AM HE-MAN LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK |
$4.99 |
MAY191726 | RAN |
|
7 |
DARK SOULS DESIGN WORKS VOL. 1 HC |
$39.99 |
AUG131470 | UDO |
|
8 |
ART OF DARKSIDERS III |
$49.99 |
DEC188955 | UDO |
|
9 |
BIG BIG OVERSTREET COMIC BOOK PRICE GUIDE VOL. 49 |
$49.50 |
APR191763 | GEM |
|
10 |
AVENGERS: BATTLE ON THE MOON LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK |
$4.99 |
MAY191720 | RAN |
TOP 10 TOYS BY DOLLARS INVOICED
|
RANK |
DESCRIPTION |
ITEM CODE |
VENDOR |
|
1 |
MARVEL GALLERY: X-FORCE: TACO TRUCK DEADPOOL SDCC 2019 STATUE | JAN198204 | DST |
|
2 |
MARVEL COMICS EAA-077: SPIDER-GWEN FIGURE | OCT188103 | BEA |
|
3 |
DC GALLERY: SPEED FORCE FLASH SDCC 2019 PVC STATUE | JAN198205 | DST |
|
4 |
POP! MARVEL: NOVA PRIME VINYL FIGURE | OCT188711 | FUN |
|
5 |
MARVEL GALLERY: X-FORCE: X-23 SDCC 2019 PVC STATUE | JAN198206 | DST |
|
6 |
POP! DC HEROES: RED DEATH VINYL FIGURE | OCT188710 | FUN |
|
7 |
POP! RICK & MORTY: PICKLE RICK GLOW-IN-THE-DARK SDCC 2019 VINYL FIGURE | DEC188716 | FUN |
|
8 |
FALLOUT: X-01 POWER ARMOR QUANTUM VARIANT 1/6-SCALE FIGURE | NOV188441 | THR |
|
9 |
DC/TMNT: MICHELANGELO AS BATMAN SDCC 2019 FIGURE | JAN199284 | DC |
|
10 |
MARVEL: VENOM ARTFX+ STATUE | OCT188699 | KOT |
TOP 10 GAMES BY DOLLARS INVOICED
|
RANK |
DESCRIPTION |
ITEM CODE |
VENDOR |
|
1 |
PATHFINDER CORE RULEBOOK HC (P2) | MAY193227 | PAI |
|
2 |
PATHFINDER BESTIARY HC (P2) | MAY193229 | PAI |
|
3 |
PATHFINDER CORE RULEBOOK SPECIAL EDITION HC (P2) | MAY193228 | PAI |
|
4 |
THE EXPANSE RPG HC | NOV182869 | GRE |
|
5 |
PATHFINDER BESTIARY SPECIAL EDITION HC (P2) | MAY193230 | PAI |
|
6 |
PATHFINDER GM SCREEN (P2) | MAY193238 | PAI |
|
7 |
STARFINDER RPG: CORE RULEBOOK HC | JUN173371 | PAI |
|
8 |
MAGIC THE GATHERING TCG: WAR OF THE SPARK BOOSTERS | JAN198652 | WZK |
|
9 |
PATHFINDER CONDITION CARDS DECK (P2) | MAY193236 | PAI |
|
10 |
TOME OF BEASTS HC | JUN168476 | PAI |
Man the sales charts analysis The Beat ran for so many years was the best thing on the site. Those vanish and THIS is what we get now? There’s less and less here that I enjoy and it’s a bummer.
If you’re talking about the month-to-month tracking reports that various freelancers did using the shipping estimates, their accuracy was always in question — since, as we say at Comichron, the underlying estimates should not be used to track individual titles across time. The underlying information is correct, but the shipping calendar and the fact that some reorders are reported and not others means that cross-time tracking of individual titles is not very reliable.
It’s like comparing movie box office when you include only opening weekends for some films, while for others you might include several months.
Dave Carter still does the monthly DC charts on his own site: http://yetanothercomicsblog.blogspot.com/2019/08/dc-comics-month-to-month-sales-july.html
Don’t know about the others.
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