Tag: Sales Charts

After an unusual couple of months things are pretty much back to normal this month, with the usual suspects of Walking Dead, Saga, Star Wars and My Little Pony joined by a few new Image titles and Valiant’s best-seller yet. At the bottom end of the charts we finally see a few titles returning, although possibly quite briefly in some cases.

150 indie titles charted in the top 300, up on last month’s 135. The indie chart sold approximately 1,820,321 comics, a bit down on last month’s 2,031,509. That’s all due to the increased numbers that Walking Dead added last month. It also means that the average sales this month are 12,153, down on last month’s 15,048. Out of the 150 books, only 20 went up in sales and 112 went down, with the rest made up of one-shots and debuts.

UPDATE: Folks I have a bunch of fantastic candidates for this position, so no more resumes please.

November was more of the same for DC, basically, with the "Forever Evil" and "Zero Year" crossovers rolling on, along with a couple of smaller ones. Oh, and Harley Quinn debuted.

Everyone knows you can check out a "rolling" best-seller list on Amazon in any category—including comics and graphic novels— any time you want. But...

Event season rolled on in November, as INFINITY reached its climax, while the Ultimate imprint's CATACLYSM got under way. Meanwhile, ASTONISHING X-MEN was relaunched as AMAZING X-MEN, and the MARVEL KNIGHTS X-MEN and LONGSHOT SAVES THE MARVEL UNIVERSE minis kick off. Though DC had four books in the top five - BATMAN, HARLEY QUINN, SUPERMAN UNCHAINED and FOREVER EVIL - Marvel still edged them in their share of the North American direct market, leading by 34% to 32% in unit terms, and 30% to 29% in dollars. As has already been pointed out on The Beat, this means Marvel and DC's combined dollar share dips below 60% - something that hasn't happened in a decade.

Most significantly, October 2013 was the month after the month in which DC mounted its most aggressive and focussed attempt yet to single-handedly destroy the comics market, by shipping millions of random comics to retailers who had not ordered them. Not surprisingly, sales snapped back to more regular levels as a result.

By Paul Mellerick Far more indie titles this month after DC’s Villains month stunt last month, that added 52 extra DC titles into the chart....

by Paul O'Brien INFINITY remained the main feature of Marvel's October schedule. Meanwhile, the X-Men continued their own "Battle of the Atom" crossover, and...

It’s a very strange month this month. With DC producing two versions of all of their Villains Month books, there are only 109 indie titles charting in the top 300, down on last month’s 153. Lots of titles missed the top 300 this month, but will no doubt return next month. Despite that, they sold an estimated 1,521,695 comics, only 60,000 less than last month’s 1,581,067, on 44 titles less. This was mainly due to a lot of big new titles, seven of the top 14 titles are new entries, selling over 20,000 copies each. It also means that the average sales this month are 13,960, massively up from last month’s 10,333. If it hadn’t been for Villains month, it would have been a big month for indie.

While DC's Villains Month was the main talking point of the direct market in September, Marvel moved into their own event season. September saw the second month of INFINITY, with more tie-in books popping up across the line, while the X-Men titles began their own separate crossover, BATTLE OF THE ATOM. We also have the debut issue of MIGHTY AVENGERS, which launches as part of the big event.

First things first: September 2013 is, by quite a margin, the most successful month ever for DC Comics since Diamond started providing data on actual comic-book sales to retailers in March 2003. In September 2013, DC Comics sold an estimated 4.2 million new comic books to specialty retailers, for a total of $15.3 million in retail sales value. To date, the record was held by October 2011, with 3.8 million new comic books for a total retail sales value of $11.9 million, followed by September 2011, with 3.6 million new comic books for $10.9 million.

Due to unprecedented demand for the DC Comics Month-to-Month Sales Column, The Beat announces that broadcasts of the August 2013 DC Comics Month-to-Month Sales Column will be allocated. This column is now FUBAR-Late at the writer level.