201007090204.jpg

Diamond has released the Top Ten and market share information for June. Here are the periodical and GN lists. Marvel and DC split the periodicals while DC, as usual, dominated the GN list.  

TOP COMIC BOOK PUBLISHERS

PUBLISHER UNIT SHARE DOLLAR SHARE
MARVEL COMICS 42.99% 37.80%
DC COMICS 34.60% 31.15%
DARK HORSE COMICS 3.53% 5.30%
IMAGE COMICS 3.38% 3.88%
IDW PUBLISHING 3.07% 3.67%
DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT 2.52% 2.47%
BOOM! STUDIOS 1.82% 2.00%
VIZ MEDIA 0.84% 1.59%
ARCHIE COMICS 0.73% 0.58%
ZENESCOPE ENTERTAINMENT 0.67% 0.55%
OTHER NON-TOP 10 5.85% 10.99%

TOP 10 COMICS

RANK DESCRIPTION PRICE VENDOR
1 NEW AVENGERS #1 $3.99 MAR
2 BATMAN #700 $4.99 DC
3 AVENGERS #2 $3.99 MAR
4 BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #3 $3.99 DC
5 GREEN LANTERN #55 $2.99 DC
6 BRIGHTEST DAY #3 $2.99 DC
7 BRIGHTEST DAY #4 $2.99 DC
8 SECRET AVENGERS #2 $3.99 MAR
9 UNCANNY X-MEN #525 $2.99 MAR
10 AVENGERS PRIME #1 $3.99 MAR

TOP 10 GRAPHIC NOVELS & TRADE PAPERBACKS

Diamond has released the top ten and publisher market share information for June. Here’s the periodical and GN lists.

RANK DESCRIPTION PRICE ITEM CODE VENDOR
1 BATMAN ARKHAM ASYLUM: MADNESS HC $19.99 DC
2 CHEW VOLUME 2: INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR TP (MR) $12.99 IMA
3 HELLBOY VOLUME 10: THE CROOKED MAN & OTHERS TP $17.99 DAR
4 NARUTO VOLUME 48 TP $9.99 VIZ
5 FINAL CRISIS TP $19.99 DC
6 BATMAN: R.I.P. TP $14.99 DC
7 JONAH HEX: NO WAY BACK HC $19.99 DC
8 DMZ VOLUME 8: HEARTS AND MINDS TP (MR) $16.99 DC
9 JACK OF FABLES VOLUME 7: THE NEW ADVENTURES OF JACK & JACK TP (MR) $14.99 DC
10 CRIMINAL VOLUME 5: SINNERS TP (MR) $15.99 MAR

1 COMMENT

  1. For anyone who’s interested, Diamond also has the top 100s for both comics and graphic novels on their site, with sales indexes. While Marvel and DC split the top 10 comics half-and-half, Marvel have 30 of the top 50 to DC’s 19, and 53 of the top 100 to DC’s 43. Only 4 non-BigTwo books in the entire top 100: A Serenity one-shot from Dark Horse at #50, Image’s Walking Dead and Dynamite’s The Boys and Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet.

  2. What do you guys think DC would have to do to beat Marvel on a regular basis? Not that I’m saying I want them to, but what steps would you suggest they take if they want to reach that goal?

  3. For starters, DC needs to fix JLA which should be their flagship book. They need to have to big 7 in it. They also need to put Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman back in the center of their universe. What’s going on in their universe right now just isn’t new or interesting. They also need to get some new writers with new ideas. Recycling old Marvel plots isn’t going to get them on top.

  4. Looks like the DC/Marvel thing is about the same as it’s always been, Batman usually a top selling book, Superman nowhere to be seen, and Marvel up there with the Bendis books. And Uncanny never leaving. Haven’t been paying attention to the lists lately, but I guess Spidey books aren’t selling like they used to?

  5. Marvel got spanked in the Top 10 trades. If DC wanted to be number one, all they would have to do is flood the market with a bunch of junk titles that the die-hards would buy and price it at $4 for 22 pages. Like what Marvel does.

  6. @Jeffy, I’m sure if there was an answer to that DC would be all over it.

    I can only speak anecdotally, but when I worked at shop years ago, a lot of the guys who read mostly Marvel would pull virtually everything and the big DC readers would be more selective (e.g. just all Bat-Titles). I’d even ask periodically if they enjoyed or even read all of the issues they picked up and was often met with shrugs of indifference. I don’t subscribe to a lot of stereotypes, but you can see where the “Marvel Zombie” one would come from.

    That’s not to say that we didn’t have obsessive DC fans either, but the Marvel ones had a more prevalent “Buy ’em All” mentality in general.

  7. Only bought one issue in the top ten (Batman 700, only for nostalgia purposes). Haven’t really bought a single issue in a long time, one of those dreaded trade waiters.

  8. @Micah – “If DC wanted to be number one, all they would have to do is flood the market with a bunch of junk titles that the die-hards would buy and price it at $4 for 22 pages. Like what Marvel does.”

    I think DC already does this. How else do you explain the 15+ Batman family titles a month. Or Outsiders. How about 3 Legion books? Two Teen Titans books? Numerous Superman books without Superman in them? Wonder Woman? Three Red Circle monthlies? Three pulp monthlies? Arsenal? Green Arrow? Power Girl? Justice League/Society/All-Star/Who Cares? How about a bunch of Joker one-shots? Please! Who but a mindless DC Didiot would be buying all of this garbage. DC needs to cancel their entire line and hire some decent writers to restart it and stop relying on sales stunts that went out of fashion in the 90s to sell their line.

  9. How can DC beat Marvel in the Diamond ranks? Without a huge change in the population of the Wednesday crowd (an influx of DC fans or exodus of Marvel ones) I don’t see how. The charts have looked like this for decades. So I’d say DC’s best bet is to find a breakthrough product that brings people in. Maybe a Twighlight or Harry Potter monthly?

  10. What makes Marvel Comics just default to selling more? Obviously putting a top creator on a book at either company will move units, witness Millar on Civil War and Kevin Smith on Green Arrow. But what makes a character like Iron Man pretty much always sell more than Flash?

  11. “What makes Marvel Comics just default to selling more? Obviously putting a top creator on a book at either company will move units, witness Millar on Civil War and Kevin Smith on Green Arrow. But what makes a character like Iron Man pretty much always sell more than Flash?”

    Well both have been around for 50+ years so most fans have already formed an opinion, just like we already decided coke or pepsi, whopper or big mac.

    In the short term sure a hot creator might boost one or the other but all things being equal people go with the brands they like.

    So to change the game we need a ton of new people who never thought of Flash vs Iron Man (or whatever) and then need them to form a pro-DC opinion.

  12. Actually I was just referring to the total number of titles produced on a monthly basis, comparing Marvel to DC. Marvel puts out about 20 to 25 more titles a month than DC. Marvel’s marketshare is directly tied to the mass of books it produces.

    In the coming months, according to solicits, DC is adding 10 to 15 $4 war books to the schedule. This will be a decent test to see if flooding the market with product will increase DC’s marketshare.

  13. Given all the people who say they won’t be $4 books, maybe a couple would be better off making more $3 books.

    selling 10,000 $3 books beating 5,000 $4 books, right?

  14. Those DC war books are one-shots. They won’t have any effect.

    To the “why does Marvel outsell DC” thing – you have to remember that, up until a few years ago, Marvel had a very strict no-reprint policy on their books. Meaning, they all but forced retailers to OVERorder on their books for fear of not having enough. I believe that policy has been eased back though.

    And, once again for the uninitiated, these numbers have less to do with readers and more to do with retailers. Retailers always order heavy on Marvel books. Have for decades. Doesn’t mean they sell them (I go to enough conventions where I see tons and tons of Marvel overstock in the dollar bins almost on a linewide basis. For DC, it’s more selective). Retailers overorder on Marvel because DC’s reprint/reordering policy is much more retailer-friendly.

  15. Doesn’t basic economic principle state that if DC thought they could sell more books then they would produce them?

    I understand the argument about flooding the market and all but if retailers consistenly over order Marvel books then they would be pissing away money month after month, year after year and probably won’t last.

    I just am not believing that Marvel out sells DC simply because they flood the market or that retailers just over order for the sake of ease.

    My problem with DC books is they rarely cater to someone picking them up for the firs time. A simple recap page would go a long way. As a comic reader with extra $ in my budget I am more likely to buy a $3 Marvel book than a $3 DC one at this point for that reason.

  16. What if having the largest marketshare doesn’t necessarily equate to being profitable? Your business model can still make money even if you don’t have the largest share of the market. That’s how smaller companies stay in business.

    DC could overtake Marvel buy producing more titles and charging more for their comics. But that strategy might make them less profitable, not to mention alienate their customer base, and hinder their long-term consumer growth.

    Keep in mind, digital distribution makes most of this a moot point.

  17. That is the biggest missing piece to the puzzle – profit margin for the publishers. Without that knowledge factoring sales to retailers only tells a tiny bit of the story.

    Digital distribution will make diamond’s top 10 sure look a lot different.

  18. Micah – totally agree. We have no idea of overhead costs, profits, etc. So what if Marvel has a bigger piece of the pie. We have no idea what each company actually does with it. You produce more books – you make more money – but you have to pay more creators. And – since Joey Q and Tommy B were so quick to point it out – apparently Marvel pays well upfront. You don’t think that’s a drain on cashflow?

    Put it this way: perhaps Marvel NEEDS the bigger piece of the pie to cover their bases. In the end, DC could be walking away with more profits.

  19. Good to see almost half the top ten titles were $2.99
    Looks like DC had a pretty good month in the trade category as well, and three of those books came from their Vertigo line.

  20. can DC beat Marvel really brings out the comments. just wanted to note that 4 outta 5 top MU titles were re-launches of existing titles. pointedly, titles that shipped the previous month( or 2 ) with same writers or same lineups. being tied to the Heroic Age is less dubious.. but its a practice in the top selling titles. Uncanny’s just doing its continual x-over thing. and it has a 200-ish roster of characters :P

  21. >>>f DC wanted to be number one, all they would have to do is flood the market with a bunch of junk titles that the die-hards would buy and price it at $4 for 22 pages. Like what Marvel does.>>

    You preach the gospel, sir. Could not BE any more correct.

    >>For starters, DC needs to fix JLA which should be their flagship book. They need to have to big 7 in it.>>

    Also blazingly correct. Could care less about the New Teen Titans Justice League Congorilla Book.

    >>>DC needs to cancel their entire line and hire some decent writers to restart it and stop relying on sales stunts that went out of fashion in the 90s to sell their line.>>

    Ummmm… wow. Can’t even address the raging stupidity of that statement.

    Marvel once again demonstrates it’s editorial policy: find what might be selling and flood the market with 100 variations on a word. Witness the top 10, which contains NEW avengers, SECRET avengers and avengers PRIME. Now pick a word a pair it up and find a team eager to make some $$$. Coming in the months ahead, no doubt: SUBPRIME avengers, STRAWBERRY avengers, CANINE avengers, iAVENGERS (hey, why not rip off the best tech company as well?), NBA avengers, and HOLY avengers for the Christian market.

    Those poor poor X-Titles… now but the ugly, second-best selling line of ugly stepchildren.

  22. Seems like the GN list would be more important, as there’s greater profit margin there, right? I think too many over focus on the battles of the monthlies that are more easily manipulated. GNs have to sell for the entire story, not just because they changed the numbering to #1 again.

    If those % were tabulated, would Marvel even be 2nd or 3rd most months?