The Comichron: The Blog of The Comics Chronicles

Digital comics: 40 million paid downloads a year?

2013-06-14T11:24:00.000-05:00

by John Jackson Miller

Comichron specializes in the print comics business, not digital — and as I've noted many times before, the amount and quality of data about digital sales lags far behind what we know about print. Diamond releases a monthly report which can be converted into unit count estimates for print comics in the Direct Market; and there are other resources we can tap to guess at comics orders outside comics shops.

Meanwhile, apart from top-seller lists that appear without numbers attached, we don't see much from the digital side — apart from the odd leak now and again from within the trade. In a response to a Comicsbeat post about one of my pieces here on Comichro, Torsten Adair contributes a nugget that went past in a Wired interview with DC Entertainment President Diane Nelson: "Just three years ago, we weren't in the business of digital publishing at all, or not meaningfully... Now there are a million downloads a month of DC stories from our digital publishing. It's not an insignificant business anymore."

This is a significant revelation, because it puts a unit sales number to something we've only been talking about in dollar terms. And while market shares between print comics and digital comics are certainly going to be different, it allows us to make some guesses about the size of the (authorized!) digital market as a whole.

Torsten, in his response, notes that the one million figure is about half the number of DC comics in the Top 300 sold to comics shops, as seen each month in the Diamond chart. If that comparison holds — and if the print and digital market shares were identical — you'd arrive at something like 40 million downloads annually industrywide.

Now, the data point we had received last year was that digital might have been at least a $75 million business in 2012. That figure and the 40 million copy figure for 2013 seem to coexist comfortably. Digital comics pricing varies from the Diamond's sales of print in that there are specials, subscriptions, and other kinds of package deals for older comics; we can't just multiply the 40 million copies by $3.64 (this month's average weighted price of new comics) to find a $145 million digital market. It is likely quite a bit less. And as retailer Brian Hibbs comments in the Comicsbeat thread, "I wouldn’t inherently assume that all of those “downloads” are paid downloads. Far, far from it." So we can't make a one-to-one dollar comparison, but now, at least, possible range begins to take shape. We have a dollar ceiling to discount from. We just don't know how deeply we need to cut.

It is important to make another point: before the 2-to-1 comparison accidentally morphs in anyone's mind into "one in three copies of a new comic is sold digitally," consider that Nelson's digital figure may include DC's entire digital backlist, however deep that is. It could instead be that "the rate of all digital copies sold is half the unit sales rate of brand new print comics in the Direct Market." Then, we're not comparing digital sales of the current Superman with print sales of the current Superman — but digital sales of all Superman comics put together with print sales of the current issue.

This is relevant because Diamond only floors copies of physical comic books for a short while after their initial month (and the Top 300 only captures first month releases in most circumstances) -- so the periodical list on the print side is a very limited subset of offerings. The data point about units finally gives us apples and apples, but I would expect the 2-to-1 thing is comparing a sack of selected just-from-the-tree apples versus a giant barrel including those apples and a whole bunch more. And add to that total things like DC's digital-only releases, that aren't yet available in print.

This is all back-of-the-envelope analysis, and requires some study by someone who's looked more deeply into digital market shares and prices paid. But while I suspect it will never be possible to draw an exact comparison between digital and print sales, but it does appear that digital is continuing to grow, and not, as far as we can tell, at the expense of print.

Update 6/17: As was pointed out to me, Comixology released two data points in a different Comicsbeat post (one that actually mentions me, which shows how infrequently I ego-surf, as I completely missed it). Comixology cited having reached its 50 millionth download in January 2012 and its 100 millionth in October 2012— which would put that service alone in the 60-70 million download range for last year, or five to six million a month by the end of the year.

The problem this introduces is that it makes a million downloads a month in 2013 from DC improbably low, given what we'd expect from its market share and the existence of other services. There are a couple of possible explanations: the million-a-month could have been a general figure, understating the case; or if the Comixology figure was a mix of paid and unpaid downloads, Nelson could have been referring to paid downloads only. I tend to think the reference was probably to paid downloads, but it'd help to have more specifics from all parties.

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May 2013 comics estimates: Dollar orders nearly double what they were 10 years ago

2013-06-10T16:04:00.001-05:00

by John Jackson Miller

There may not have been as many blockbuster titles selling into the six figures in the month of May — just two, versus five last year — but the Direct Market still managed to eke out a slight increase against what was a very hard comparative to beat. Click to see the estimated comics sales for May 2013.

X-Men #1, the top seller at nearly 178,000 copies, is the second title by that nomenclature in just three years, readers will recall; this year's version outsold the 2010 version by more than 30,000 copies. (Though it still lagged behind the 1963 version — which likely sold more than 200,000 copies — and, of course, the 1991 version, which at 8 million copies ordered was the best-selling comic book in history. Or, at least, the most-ordered one!)

An Adventure Time original graphic novel led the collected edition charts. In a change from what was the case for much of last year, graphic novel sales beneath 300th place performed significantly better than the top of the list; the Top 300 were off 5%, but the entire graphic novel category was up 1% overall.

As noted on Friday, a greater variety of publishers than usual appears to have contributed to sales this month. There were also some new publishers in the Top 300 comics list for the first time in a while: Black Mask and Storm King.

It's worth noting that this month's $45.12 million in comics and graphic novel orders represents an increase of 90% over the $23.7 million ordered for the same month in 2003. I think we can all reasonably agree that inflation has not doubled over the course of ten years, so there has definitely been substantial growth in the market.

The aggregate sales:

TOP 300 COMICS UNIT SALES

May 2013: 6.97 million copies
Versus 1 year ago this month: -5%
Versus 5 years ago this month: -1%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +22%
Versus 15 years ago this month: unchanged
YEAR TO DATE: 34.69 million copies, +11% vs. 2012, +6% vs. 2008, +21% vs. 2003, unchanged vs. 1998

ALL COMICS UNIT SALES
May 2013 versus one year ago this month: -2.62%
YEAR TO DATE: +12.25%

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TOP 300 COMICS DOLLAR SALES

May 2013: $25.4 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: -1%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +10%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +61%
Versus 15 years ago this month: +50%
YEAR TO DATE: $124.88 million, +15% vs. 2012, +20% vs. 2008, +56% vs. 2003, +48% vs. 1998

ALL COMICS DOLLAR SALES
May 2013 versus one year ago this month: +0.97%
YEAR TO DATE: +15.04%

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TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES

May 2013: $7.83 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: -5%
Versus 5 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: -11%
Versus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 50 vs. the Top 50: +14%
YEAR TO DATE: $39.38 million, +19% vs. 2012

ALL TRADE PAPERBACK SALES
May 2013 versus one year ago this month: +1%
YEAR TO DATE: +12.01%

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TOP 300 COMICS + TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES

May 2013: $33.24 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: -2%
Versus 5 years ago this month, counting just the Top 100 TPBs: +6%
Versus 10 years ago this month, counting just the Top 25 TPBs: +40%
YEAR TO DATE: $169.26 million, +16% vs. 2012

ALL COMICS AND TRADE PAPERBACK SALES
May 2013 versus one year ago this month: +0.98%
YEAR TO DATE: +14.07%

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OVERALL DIAMOND SALES (including all comics, trades, and magazines)

May 2013: approximately $45.12 million (subject to revision)
Versus 1 year ago this month: +1%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +23%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +90%
YEAR TO DATE: $208.17 million, +14% vs. 2012

The average comic book in the Top 300 cost $3.59; the average comic book retailers ordered cost $3.64. The median and most common price for comics offered was $3.99. Click to see comics prices across time.

You can see what was selling in comparative months of the past in our May Flashbacks column, which is now online. May was the 25th anniversary of the publication of V for Vendetta #1 by DC, among other notables.

We're in a slower stretch for Comichron posts as I've been busy with my own fiction projects (Overdraft: The Orion Offensive and Star Wars: Kenobi, which ships Aug. 27), but I have some interesting research that should be coming along later in the summer. Stay tuned!

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Wide range of publishers help May 2013 comics orders top $45 million

2013-06-07T12:03:00.000-05:00

by John Jackson Miller

Last May was, as the just-posted Flashback column reminds us, a blockbuster — using attention from the Avengers film release and the first of the DC relaunch hardcovers to post the largest bottom line number, unadjusted for inflation, since at least 1994.

That figure would be only eclipsed in October 2012 — and again by 1% now, one year later. Direct Market orders for comics and trade paperbacks topped $45 million for only the second time in the Diamond Exclusive Era, according to Comichron's interpretation of data released today by Diamond Comic Distributors.

October 2012, at $47.2 million, still is the best mark, but the $45.1 million of this May seems built upon orders from a wide variety of publishers.

The total market share of the Top 5 producers — Marvel, DC, Image, IDW, and Dark Horse, just topped 80%, the lowest sum for that grouping since November 2005, when IDW was still around 1% of the market. It's not that the larger publishers sold less merchandise: remember, the pie is larger, so all five are in the middle to high end of their historic ranges. But nearly $9 million came from publishers outside the top five, and that is a figure we have not seen since the 1990s, when we had a "Big Six" (with Valiant and Malibu in the IDW slot). Some of the help came from Boom, which topped the trade paperback market with its Adventure Time graphic novels.

The aggregate change figures are as follows:

	DOLLARS	UNITS
MAY 2013 VS. APRIL 2013
Comics	6.95%	5.42%
Graphic Novels	15.79%	5.88%
Total Comics/Graphic Novels	9.76%	5.46%
MAY 2013 VS. MAY 2012
Comics	0.97%	-2.62%
Graphic Novels	1.00%	3.17%
Total Comics/Graphic Novels	0.98%	-2.15%
YEAR-TO-DATE 2013 VS. YEAR-TO-DATE 2012
Comics	15.04%	12.25%
Graphic Novels	12.01%	11.45%
Total Comics/Graphic Novels	14.07%	12.19%

The market shares:

PUBLISHER	DOLLAR SHARE	UNIT SHARE
Marvel	33.36%	37.44%
DC	28.27%	30.84%
Image	7.48%	8.11%
IDW	6.28%	4.77%
Dark Horse	4.73%	4.36%
Dynamic Forces/Dynamite	3.50%	3.30%
Boom	2.97%	2.63%
Eaglemoss	1.57%	0.37%
Avatar	0.92%	0.76%
Zenescope	0.90%	0.82%
Other	10.02%	6.60%

Marvel's relaunched X-Men #1 — the fourth title by that name, by my count — led the market, with six Marvel and four DC titles in the Top 10. The top comics:

RANK	DESCRIPTION	PRICE	VENDOR
1	X-Men #1	$3.99	Marvel
2	Batman #20	$3.99	DC
3	Justice League #20	$3.99	DC
4	Age of Ultron #7	$3.99	Marvel
5	Age of Ultron #8	$3.99	Marvel
6	Superior Spider-Man #9	$3.99	Marvel
7	Superior Spider-Man #10	$3.99	Marvel
8	Justice League of America #3	$3.99	DC
9	All New X-Men #11	$3.99	Marvel
10	Detective Comics #20	$3.99	DC

The top graphic novels:

RANK	DESCRIPTION	PRICE	VENDOR
1	Adventure Time Vol. 1 Playing Fire	$11.99	Boom
2	Saga Vol. 1	$9.99	Image
3	Walking Dead Vol. 1 Days Gone Bye	$14.99	Image
4	Superman Earth One Vol. 1	$12.99	DC
5	Adventure Time Marceline & The Screamqueen Vol. 1	$19.99	Boom
6	Deadpool Vol. 1 Dead Presidents	$15.99	Marvel
7	My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Vol. 1	$17.99	IDW
8	Superior Spider-Man Vol. 1 My Own Worst Enemy	$17.99	Marvel
9	Superman Action Vol. 1 Superman Men of Steel	$16.99	DC
10	Girl with the Dragon Tattoo HC Vol. 2	$19.99	DC

The final estimates will be along next week.

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May 2013 Comics Flashbacks: V for Vendetta at 25

2013-06-06T17:50:00.000-05:00

by John Jackson Miller

With May 2013 comics sales data forthcoming, let's take a look at comics sales in previous Mays. Again, I've added a snapshot of what one major retailer is charging for the top-sellers; Comichron isn't a price guide site, but it's interesting to see how once-popular titles held up.

As always, this reflects what Diamond Comic Distributors (and, in earlier times, other distributors) sold to retailers, not what the retailers themselves sold. In recent times, retail inventory is much more tightly controlled, so the numbers are more representative of actual sales. In the distant past, not so much.

1 YEAR AGO

May 2012 had Free Comic Book Day, the Avengers movie, Marvel's Avengers Vs. X-Men event, DC's release of its first hardcover collections of its relaunch issues, and continued strong sales from Images Walking Dead trades. The result was a $44.7 million month for comics shop orders of comics and graphic novels — which made it the single largest month to that point in non-inflation-adjusted dollar terms since Diamond began reporting Final Order data in 2003.

It was also, regardless of the overall estimate, the largest year-over-year increase for any month seen since Diamond began reporting Final Order data in 2003. Retailers spent 43.76% more on comics and graphic novels in May 2012 versus May 2011. That percentage year-over-year increase appeared at the time to have been the largest to date since 1993.

Avengers Vs. X-Men #4 led the market with 178,330 copies sold in its first month. By the end of the year, that figure would be 187,500 copies, and the issue would be the ninth best-seller of the year.

As of this posting, the main version of Avengers vs. X-Men #4 had an aftermarket price of $4 in Near Mint at MyComicShop.com.

Trade paperbacks and hardcovers were exceptionally strong, too, with the DC reboot volumes topping the charts.

Click to read the original Comichron analysis for the month. And check out the sales chart for the month here.

5 YEARS AGO

May 2008 was led by Secret Invasion #2, with 182,390 copies sold to the direct market in its first month. Later sales in the year would bring it up to at least 198,800 copies. It was Diamond's second-best selling issue of the year — and the 30th best-seller of the decade of the 2000s. (See the whole list here.)

As of this posting, the main version of Secret Invasion #2 had an aftermarket price of $2 in Near Mint at MyComicShop.com.

The month also included Final Crisis #1, Diamond's ninth-best seller of the year.

The top graphic novel for the month was Dark Horse's Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Vol. 2, with first-month orders of nearly 9,500 copies.

Find the sales chart for the month here.

10 YEARS AGO

May 2003 was a slowdown overall from the previous year, when Transformers had been all the rage. For the first time in a while, a title overtook an issue of “Hush” in Batman — though it involved restarting a long-running series to do it. Wolverine Vol. 2 #1 was the top-ordered comic book for May 2003, at approximately 157,700 copies ordered in its first month. By contrast with May 2007, only five titles topped the 100,000-copy mark.

At the time of this posting, Wolverine Vol. 2 #1 had an aftermarket price of $2.30 in Near Mint at MyComicShop.com.

The top-ordered trade paperback for May 2003 was DC’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Book 1, with first-month orders of 10,500 copies in the direct market.

Marvel had increased its output in the intervening years since DC led the market share race; in May 2003, Marvel accounted 35.62% of dollars sold versus 21.89% for DC. There were seven comics publishers above 2.5% shares, including Viz, Dreamwave, and Crossgen with the traditional Big Four.

Check out the sales chart for the month here.

15 YEARS AGO

The month of May 1998 looked like a major disappointment when compared to the same month in 1997 — that had been Marvel’s “Flashback” month with its “-1” issues, when the market had sold nearly a million more copies. There were worse days to come, however, as the market would lose another half-million copies in the following May.

The top-ordered comic book through Diamond in May 1998 was Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men #357, with orders of approximately 143,000 copies. Seven items had preorders above 100,000 copies. DC’s top seller was JLA #20, just shy of 100,000 copies preordered in its first month. The month also saw the return of Thor, after “Heroes Return,” with a new #1 issue.
At the time of this posting, Uncanny X-Men #258 had an aftermarket price of $2.60 in Very Fine at MyComicShop.com.

We run into definitional challenges when looking for the top trade paperback for the month. Made Men had preorders of 13,900 copies in its first month, but at $5.99 it may well have belonged in the comic book section. The Spawn VI trade, next down the list, had first-month preorders of 7,700 copies. Even with some comics items in the trade list, it’s noteworthy how the top 25 items in the category perform now versus then, bringing in more than double the dollars.

DC’s market share topped Marvel’s slightly, with 24.22% of final orders versus Marvel’s 23.67%. The fifth-largest comics publisher was Topps, although the X-Files phenomenon in comics had nearly played out by this time.

Check out the sales chart for the month here.

20 YEARS AGO

Twenty years ago, May 1993 was a month after the peak of the boom times — but few yet knew it. Marketing to comics shops was big business. With Comics Retailer magazine a year old and trade publications coming from Wizard (Entertainment Retailing) and eventually Hero Illustrated publisher Sendai (Comic Book Business), distributors Diamond and Capital City added enhancements to their own retailer monthlies.

Capital City Distribution’s sales figures appeared in Internal Correspondence (the nominal progenitor to ICV2, incidentally), which had started as a small newsprint magazine several years earlier. With May 1993, Capital added a full-color art cover (the first, feting Malibu’s Ultraverse) and spot color inside. Diamond had added color already to Diamond Dialogue’s cover, and would soon take the entire magazine to glossy paper. The reporting of sales charts was only one part of those various publications’ missions, but for a time it had become a big business.

And while the Diamond and the Capital City sales charts did not always arrive at a consensus top-seller, in May 1993 — one month after the huge return-of-Superman month — they did agree on Image’s Spawn #13 as the market-leader. Capital sold 207,400 copies of that issue, and the direct-market sales for the issue overall may have been in the 700,000 to 800,000 copy range.

At the time of this posting, Spawn #13 had an aftermarket price of $1.49 in Near Mint at MyComicShop.com.

Capital reported sales on 676 comics-related items in the month, with an average cover price of $2.70. That figure is not a weighted average, and it is distorted by the presence of trade paperbacks in the listing. But eight out of Capital’s top ten items had $2.50 price tags — all from Image — and the other two were at $3.50. So the comics of 15 years past were not so cheap as one might imagine!
Capital co-owner Milton Griepp (who today runs ICV2), writing during the market peak month of April, expressed concerns about that month’s surge in orders, which he called the biggest he had seen in 20 years. “Overall, it seems inevitable that there is going to be unsold product in the marketplace when the dust settles,” he wrote. “Conditions will have to be exactly right for all the product ordered to be absorbed in a short period of time. Although the market is growing, it is hard to believe it is growing at the rate indicated by these orders.”

Griepp wrote that he hoped the slower May would allow everyone to sell out of their April product, but warned that the practices of many stores in this period were not helpful. “Encouraging speculation, bulk purchases, and touting investment value will invariably lead to long-term trouble for those retailers that use those practices."

While certainly not the first warning in this vein, Griepp’s was unusual in that it came from a distributor. Capital ultimately became one of the firms that fell as a result of the market crash and the events that followed it.

Check out the sales rankings for the the overall year here.

25 YEARS AGO

The Capital City sales chart for May 1988 reported that Marvel Comics Presents #1 had taken its top slot. Marvel’s anthology series, its frequency was decided with input from retailers, who chose biweekly over weekly (which Action Comics had gone to the month before). Capital City sold 70,100 copies of the issue; Diamond did not yet publish indexed sales reports.

Statements of Ownership did not begin for the title until one published for 1989, which reported average per-issue sales across all channels of 163,525 copies. By 1990, Capital represented about a quarter of Marvel Comics Presents’ direct-market sales each month, which suggests direct-market sales of #1 may have been in the 280,000-copy range. At $1.25, it was one of the more expensive Marvel titles.

At the time of this posting, Marvel Comics Presents #1 had an aftermarket price of $2.40 in Very Fine at MyComicShop.com.

By this second full month of Action Comics Weekly, the individual issues of that title had dropped to the 40s in Capital’s rankings, selling a little less than third at that distributor of the copies that Marvel Comics Presents was selling. But DC’s sales at Capital were also disproportionately lower than they were at other distributors, by many reports. DC’s third-best-selling comic book for the month, according to Capital, was V for Vendetta #1, which placed 25th.

Capital reported 375 comics items that it had sales on, with an average cover price of $2.13. However, this figure was not weighted by orders, and the list included a handful of larger collections and even some posters. It’s not easy to pick out what would have been the top-selling collection, but it might have been Gladstone’s Disney Album #9.

30 YEARS AGO ... and more

We're back before the Direct Market distributor charts — the ones I have from Capital start running data in 1984 — but May 1983's leader was Uncanny X-Men #173. Statements of Ownership put that as the likely top-seller for the month, averaging 336,824 copies across all channels for the year, including newsstand and subs.

At the time of this posting, Uncanny X-Men #173 had an aftermarket price of $5.60 in Very Fine at MyComicShop.com.

Once we get to 35 years ago, the data is incomplete, and it becomes trickier to judge what items came out in the same month. (I'm not looking at cover dates here, but likely ship dates, to keep things squared up with present practice.) The known information is incomplete enough that most of what follows is conjecture. A good guess for March 1978 would be Marvel's Star Wars #14, which between newsstand and Whitman bagged editions would have likely sold between 350,000 and 400,000 copies. The issue has an aftermarket price of $1.20 in Fine at MyComicShop.com.

Back 40 years ago, the top-selling issue was likely Archie #227. The title's average monthly issue that year sold 345,087 copies.

And again, relying on the Postal Statements, for 45 years ago we're likely looking at Superman #208 (636,000 copies average in the year).

And 50 years ago we don't have DC data, because the publisher didn't publish any. The best-seller would likely have been Superman #162, which was selling in excess of 750,000 copies. The issue has an aftermarket price of $35.10 in Fine+ at MyComicShop.com.

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April 2013 comics sales big, even without blockbusters

2013-05-06T11:50:00.000-05:00

by John Jackson Miller

Diamond Comic Distributors has released the main wave of comics sales statistics for April 2013 comics sales, and the estimates are now online here at Comichron. Click to see Comichron's estimates for April 2013 comics sales.

As reported here on Friday, North American comics shop retailers ordered just over $41 million worth of comic books and graphic novels in April 2013, an increase of more than 18% over the same month last year. That figure brings the year-to-date total to $163 million, up more than $25 million from 2012 at this point. The market would just top $500 million for the year if the next eight months were completely flat.

Batman #19 from DC led the comics sales list in the month, with first-month orders of more than 132,000 copies. This is, in fact, the lowest figure for a top-seller since May 2011, as we can see from the list of top-sellers by month; it's significant that the month is as far ahead as it is, without having a major blockbuster issue. Marvel placed several Age of Ultron issues in the Top 10.

The Top 300 graphic novels again posted a huge number — up 30% over the same dollar value from last year — but as with last month, there is a significant caution. Marvel offered many hardcovers to the market at a deep discount during the tracking period, contributing to the total value. But Diamond calculates its market shares based on wholesale value — what retailers paid, not the cover prices of the items they bought — so we do not see an outsized influence of those sales on the market shares.

As usual, Diamond also released lists of its Top 50 Small Publisher comics and graphic novels; many of these fell outside the Top 300 lists, and have been added to Comichron's tables. (Don't ask to see the missing entries, because they're from the larger publishers and weren't on the lists Diamond released.) The graphic novel list contains data this month going almost to 500th place, where Diamond was still selling about 300 copies of each title.

You can see what was selling in comparative months of the past in our April Flashbacks column, which is now online. April was the 20th anniversary of the return of Superman from the dead, the top month for comics orders in the history of the Direct Market.

The aggregate sales:

TOP 300 COMICS UNIT SALES

April 2013: 6.79 million copies
Versus 1 year ago this month: +11%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +1%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +13%
Versus 15 years ago this month: -3%
YEAR TO DATE: 27.72 million copies, +16% vs. 2012, +7% vs. 2008, +20% vs. 2003, unchanged vs. 1998

ALL COMICS UNIT SALES
April 2013 versus one year ago this month: +11.71%
YEAR TO DATE: +16.85%

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TOP 300 COMICS DOLLAR SALES

April 2013: $24.28 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: +14%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +13%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +45%
Versus 15 years ago this month: +38%
YEAR TO DATE: $99.48 million, +20% vs. 2012, +22% vs. 2008, +54% vs. 2003, +48% vs. 1998

ALL COMICS DOLLAR SALES
April 2013 versus one year ago this month: +13.87%
YEAR TO DATE: +19.44%

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TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES

April 2013: $8.77 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: +30%
Versus 5 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: +10%
Versus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 50 vs. the Top 50: +10%
YEAR TO DATE: $31.55 million, +27% vs. 2012

ALL TRADE PAPERBACK SALES
April 2013 versus one year ago this month: +14.83%
YEAR TO DATE: +15.85%

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TOP 300 COMICS + TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES

April 2013: $33.05 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: +18%
Versus 5 years ago this month, counting just the Top 100 TPBs: +11%
Versus 10 years ago this month, counting just the Top 25 TPBs: +26%
YEAR TO DATE: $131.02 million, +22% vs. 2012

ALL COMICS AND TRADE PAPERBACK SALES
April 2013 versus one year ago this month: +14.18%
YEAR TO DATE: +18.32%

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OVERALL DIAMOND SALES (including all comics, trades, and magazines)

April 2013: approximately $41.11 million (subject to revision)
Versus 1 year ago this month: +14%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +12%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +54%
YEAR TO DATE: $163.05 million, +18% vs. 2012

The average comic book in the Top 300 cost $3.55; the average comic book retailers ordered cost $3.58. The median and most common price for comics offered was $3.99. Click to see comics prices across time.

IDW once again saw its highest dollar market share yet, 7.54%: the update has been made to the list of Diamond Exclusive Era records.

The pages for monthly top sellers and 300th place titles across time have been updated.

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April 2013 Comics Flashbacks: Superman returns from the dead, 20 years later

2013-05-03T20:11:00.002-05:00

by John Jackson Miller

With April 2013 comics sales data just posted, let's take a look at comics sales in previous Aprils. Again, I've added a snapshot of what one major retailer is charging for the top-sellers; Comichron isn't a price guide site, but it's interesting to see how once-popular titles held up.

As always, this reflects what Diamond Comic Distributors (and, in earlier times, other distributors) sold to retailers, not what the retailers themselves sold. In recent times, retail inventory is much more tightly controlled, so the numbers are more representative of actual sales. In the distant past, not so much.

1 YEAR AGO

April 2012 sales figures were reported the same weekend that the Avengers movie opened to a record $200.3 million in the United States. So there was already a lot of buzz about the good fortunes of the comics industry at the time. Retailer orders for comic books and graphic novels in April 2012 rose 15% in North America versus the year prior, and several titles pushed past the 100,000 copy mark.

Marvel's Avengers Vs. X-Men #2 led the market with orders of nearly 159,000 copies. By the end of the year, those orders were up to 200,300 copies, making it the 5th best-selling title of the year. (Click to see the full list.)

As of this posting, the main version of Avengers vs. X-Men #2 had an aftermarket price of $18 in Near Mint at MyComicShop.com.

Image's Walking Dead trade collections completely dominated their category, giving Image an 8.6% market share, its highest since February 2003.

Click to read the original Comichron analysis for the month. And check out the sales chart for the month here.

5 YEARS AGO

April 2008 saw Marvel’s Secret Invasion #1 leading the pack with 250,000 copies ordered in its initial month to kick off the summer event season. Later orders brought it up to at least 263,000 copies, making it the 12th best-selling comic book of the decade of the 2000s. (See the whole list here.)

As of this posting, the main version of Secret Invasion #1 had an aftermarket price of $2.70 in Near Mint at MyComicShop.com.

The Marvel trade Secret Invasion Infiltration had orders of approximately 7,250 copies in its first month to lead the trade paperbacks list.

Click to read the original Comichron analysis for the month. And check out the sales chart for the month here.

10 YEARS AGO

April 2003 was Diamond's third month of reporting final orders rather than preorders, and in that month, Jim Lee’s "Hush" phenomenon continued to roll on. Batman #614 topped the charts with 153,600 copies sold to retailers in its first month; it would continue to pile up reorders afterward. Later orders brought it up to at least 165,200 copies, making it the 66th best-selling comic book of the decade of the 2000s. (See the whole list here.)

It was only one of three titles to sell more than 100,000 copies. The 10,000-copy mark was at 180th place; the 300th place comic sold only 1,600 copies.

At the time of this posting, Batman #614 had an aftermarket price of $2 in Near Mint at MyComicShop.com.

Diamond only published reports for its Top 50 trades in 2003 — so to compare apples to apples, the 2008 numbers have been pared back to the Top 50 to show a clear comparison.

The Batman: Hush hardcover had first-month orders of 7,300 copies, slightly eclipsing the more expensive Orbiter hardcover with its 7,200 ordered copies. A bigger dollar performer than either was the third-place item, the $49.95 Hellboy: Art of Mike Mignola.

Check out the sales chart for the month here.

15 YEARS AGO

The month of April 1998 saw Uncanny X-Men #356 as the market leader at Diamond, topping the charts with 149,500 copies preordered. Eight comics had preorders in the six figures, while the 10,000-copy mark was at 178th place.

At the time of this posting, Uncanny X-Men #258 had an aftermarket price of $3.30 in Near Mint at MyComicShop.com.

Significant for tracking purposes is that April 1998 was the first month in which Diamond reported indexed preorder figures for its Top 25 trade paperbacks, permitting us our first ten-year comparisons this month.

Interestingly, dollar sales for the same grouping of items more than doubled in the following decade — although part of the comparison is skewed because in April 1998, Diamond was still working out what belonged on the trade paperback list and what belonged with the comics. The top item, for example, was the $6.95 Verotik Illustrated #3, with its preorders of 8,600 copies; where the top traditional trade was probably Image’s $9.95 Kabuki: Skin Deep, with preorders of approximately 4,200 copies. Diamond even included a $4 Vampirella ashcan in the April 1998 list. In later tables, Diamond would tend to move such items into the comics listing.

DC bested Marvel 25.25% to 23.31% in dollar shares at Diamond, the second time it had done so since Diamond began its “final order” share reporting in October 1997. DC had 71 comics in the Top 300, to the bankruptcy-limited Marvel’s 51.

Check out the sales chart for the month here.

20 YEARS AGO

Twenty years ago, April 1993 saw the peak of the early 1990s comics boom — and what was likely the single most financially lucrative month in the history of the industry. When Superman “died” in November 1992, the result was a $30 million dollar day in the business — quite comparable to blockbuster movie openings at the time. With Superman set to return in April 1993, retailers ordered big in an attempt not to be caught short of copies.

The result, according to one internal publisher estimate made available to The Comics Chronicles, was direct market preorders of 48.18 million copies. The biggest single month of the 1990s comics boom — and more than 13 million copies more than the totals for the two months on either side of it.

Was April 1993 the biggest month in comics history? Going back to 1952, the peak year in the pre-Silver Age period for the number of copies offered, we find an average of about 250 new comic books coming out each month. Just comparing with that direct-market figure, those 1952 comic books would need to average 180,000 copies to match the April 1993 total. That’s very possible; the average circulation for comic books publishing Statements of Ownership in 1960 was around 315,000 copies. Not all titles had sales like Superman, but it’s a safe bet that, by units sold, quite a number of months in the 1950s would have topped April 1993.

Dollarwise, however, April 1993 is almost certainly the peak — both adjusted for inflation and not. With all the premium covers around, Capital City Distribution found the average cost of the 630 new titles it offered to be $2.65. That figure is certainly higher than the weighted average, but even at that, a direct-market total of $100 million is not out of the realm of possibility for the month. According to one inflation calculator, that equates to $18 million in 1952 dollars — which would require a mind-boggling 180 million 10-cent copies to be sold, or a per-title average of 720,000 copies. While there were likely quite a few titles above that average, there were considerable distribution-related disparities between the performances of publishers in the 1950s that make that average seem high. And, again, we’re not counting the newsstand for April 1993 — or the aftermarket, next to nonexistent so long ago. (On the other hand, we have no way of knowing what sell-through was in 1993, either, so the real dollar total would be lower to some degree.)

Adventures of Superman #500 was the #1 comic book both at Diamond and at Capital City. Capital sold 717,800 copies of the $2.95 collector’s cover and 161,250 copies of the newsstand cover; Diamond also saw the newsstand cover enter the Top 10. One existing calculation suggests a direct-market total of 3.45 million copies for the collector’s version; that’s a huge number, but not out of line with what else was on the charts. Diamond sold 8.6 times as many Adventures #500s as it sold Amazing Spider-Man #378s — a book that had sold 400,000 direct-market copies several times in the previous year.

At the time of this posting, Adventures of Superman #500 had an aftermarket price of $1.10 in Near Mint at MyComicShop.com.

At both publishers, the Superman titles took all five Top 5 spots. That performance helped DC to top the market shares at Diamond for only the second time in the distributor’s history, with 33.07% of dollars preordered; at Capital, where DC generally sold disproportionately fewer copies, the 27.55% share was still enough for first place.

The top trade paperback was likely Image’s WildC.A.T.S. Collection, priced at $9.95.

Check out the sales rankings for the the overall year here.

25 YEARS AGO

Capital City reported that Uncanny X-Men #232 was its top-selling comic book of April 1988. Marvel sold 420,100 copies of the issue through all channels, including 261,200 direct-market copies and 111,100 newsstand copies, and copies in subscription, foreign, and other special markets sales. Capital preorders for the issue were 66,600 copies, meaning it was responsible for just over a quarter of the issue’s direct market sales.

At the time of this posting, Uncanny X-Men #232 had an aftermarket price of $2.60 in Very Fine at MyComicShop.com.

Marvel led DC in Capital’s dollar market shares, 41.25% to 32.38% — although, again, Capital is believed to have sold disproportionately fewer DC comics relative to Diamond.

The average cost of the 352 items on Capital City’s sales charts was $2.30 — a consequence of the combining of comic books with larger items, like Fantagraphics’ $49 Mars Attacks Mini Comics Box. That said, Marvel had recently gone from 75¢ to $1 on its most popular titles, so if the average comic offered wasn’t above $1 before, it certainly was in 1998.

The top-selling trade paperback item was likely the Crash: Iron Man Graphic Novel, which at $12.95 nonetheless placed 97th among units sold at Capital.

30 YEARS AGO ... and more

We're back before the Direct Market distributor charts — the ones I have from Capital start running data in 1984 — but April 1983's leader was Uncanny X-Men #172. Statements of Ownership put that as the likely top-seller for the month, averaging 336,824 copies across all channels for the year, including newsstand and subs.

At the time of this posting, Uncanny X-Men #172 had an aftermarket price of $4.80 in Very Fine at MyComicShop.com.

Once we get to 35 years ago, the data is spare, and it becomes trickier to judge what items came out in the same month. (I'm not looking at cover dates here, but likely ship dates, to keep things squared up with present practice.) The known information is incomplete enough that most of what follows is conjecture. A good guess for March 1978 would be Marvel's Star Wars #13, which between newsstand and Whitman bagged editions would have likely sold between 350,000 and 400,000 copies. The issue has an aftermarket price of $3.80 in Very Fine- at MyComicShop.com.

Back 40 years ago, the top-selling issue was likely Archie #226. The title's average monthly issue that year sold 345,087 copies.

And again, relying on the Postal Statements, for 45 years ago we're likely looking at Superman #207 (636,000 copies average in the year).

And 50 years ago we don't have DC data, because the publisher didn't publish any. It was a skip month for Superman, so Superboy #105, likely to have shipped that month, would probably have led the market at around 600,000 copies. The issue has an aftermarket price of $48 in Very Fine at MyComicShop.com.

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Strong April keeps comics market on half-billion dollar pace for 2013

2013-05-03T11:43:00.000-05:00

by John Jackson Miller

North American comics shop retailers ordered just over $41 million worth of comic books and graphic novels in April 2013, an increase of more than 18% over the same month last year, according to data released today by Diamond Comic Distributors.

That figure brings the year-to-date total to $163 million, up more than $25 million from 2012 at this point. If the later months of the year continue at the same pace, the Direct Market is on track to easily exceed half a billion dollars in orders for the year. In fact, the market would just top $500 million if the next eight months were completely flat. (Last year's total was $475 million.) That's how much ahead things already are.

Batman #19 from DC led the comics sales list in the month, during which IDW once again saw its highest market share yet posted.

The aggregate change figures:

	DOLLARS	UNITS
APRIL 2013 VS. MARCH 2013
Comics	-4.95%	-5.73%
Graphic novels	10.32%	10.11%
Total Comics/Graphic Novels	-0.56%	-4.56%
APRIL 2013 VS. APRIL 2012
Comics	13.87%	11.71%
Graphic novels	14.83%	19.00%
Total Comics/Graphic Novels	14.18%	12.29%
YEAR-TO-DATE 2013 VS. YEAR-TO-DATE 2012
Comics	19.44%	16.85%
Graphic novels	15.85%	14.15%
Total Comics/Graphic Novels	18.32%	16.64%

Age of Ultron took several spots on the top-sellers list for comics:

RANK	DESCRIPTION	PRICE	VENDOR
1	Batman #19	$3.99	DC
2	Thanos Rising #1	$3.99	Marvel
3	Jupiter's Legacy #1	$2.99	Image
4	Age of Ultron #4	$3.99	Marvel
5	Justice League #19	$3.99	DC
6	Age of Ultron #5	$3.99	Marvel
7	Age of Ultron #6	$3.99	Marvel
8	The Walking Dead #10	$2.99	Image
9	Batman and Red Robin #19	$2.99	DC
10	Guardians of the Galaxy #2	$3.99	Marvel

It was a month with roughly equal gains in comics and trades. The perennial best-seller, The Walking Dead Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye returned to top of the graphic novel charts:

RANK	DESCRIPTION	PRICE	VENDOR
1	The Walking Dead Vol. 1 Days Gone Bye	$14.99	Image
2	The Manhattan Projects Vol. 2	$14.99	Image
3	Happy	$12.99	Image
4	Saga Vol. 1	$9.99	Image
5	Punk Rock Jesus	$16.99	DC
6	Batman Detective Comics Vol. 1 Faces of Death	$16.99	DC
7	Batman Detective Comics Vol. 2 Scare Tactics HC	$29.99	DC
8	Batman Killing Joke Special Edition HC	$17.99	DC
9	Swamp Thing Vol. 2 Family Tree	$14.99	DC
10	Hawkeye Vol. 1 My Life as a Weapon	$16.99	Marvel

As noted above, IDW beat its previous market share record, reaching 7.54%. Its previous best mark was in February, 7.09%. The market shares:

Publisher	Dollar Share	Units Share
Marvel	37.95%	41.78%
DC	25.98%	27.72%
Image	9.04%	9.87%
IDW	7.54%	5.59%
Dark Horse	4.35%	4.09%
Dynamic Forces	2.98%	2.60%
Boom	1.92%	1.97%
Valiant	1.04%	1.11%
Eaglemoss	0.94%	0.19%
Zenescope	0.80%	0.72%
Other	7.46%	4.37%

So, at least as of the preliminary charts, April looks to have been a month right in line with the gains of the 2012-13 comics recovery. The full charts will be out next week.

Iron Man 3 is now in wide release: click to check out our historic sales data on the main title. And, of course, Saturday is also Free Comic Book Day: click to read Comichron's history of the genesis of the event. I will be signing my own comics works at Galaxy Comics in Stevens Point, Wis., from 1-4; click here to find out where the events are in your area. And check out Hugh Jackman's video greeting, here!

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Personal plug department: Be sure to check out Overdraft: The Orion Offensive, my new Kindle Serial with 47North. A complete science-fiction novel delivered in eight biweekly episodes, all for only $1.99!

Iron Man comics sales history updated, 1968-present

2013-05-02T16:01:00.002-05:00

by John Jackson Miller

With the release of the third Iron Man film, I've updated one of the features here on the site: postal statement sales figures for the main series. The main Iron Man series, as Marvel numbers the issues, unifies several distinct runs going all the way back to the first Iron Man title in 1968.

When Marvel renegotiated its restrictive agreement with its distributor that year, it was suddenly able to increase its number of offerings. It did so by drawing upon the characters in several of its "double feature" titles. Iron Man and Captain America fissioned from Tales of Suspense, with Captain America continuting the original series' numbering. Iron Man began with a fresh #1, only after a weird one-month gap during which the feature was paired with the Tales to Astonish orphan, Sub-Mariner, in the Iron Man and Sub-Mariner one-shot.

Marvel did not publish sales figures for the title for a very long time, but by the time it did, Iron Man was a mid-range seller along with the other Avengers titles. The series peaked above 200,000 copies in the mid-1980s during David Michelinie and Bob Layton's first run on the title; it approached that level again several times before collapsing during the market recession of the mid-1990s.

Marvel addressed the decline then — and several more times — with the same strategy: restarting the series from a new #1. The "Heroes Reborn" volume 2 and the "Heroes Return" volume 3 resuscitated sales (and began a run that, later on, included my own year on the title). The Warren Ellis Volume 4 reboot in 2004 similarly gave a big boost to sales.

That title was officially renamed Invincible Iron Man in the indicia with #17 in 2007 and then Iron Man Director of SHIELD with #29 in 2008. That title ran until #35, but a concurrent Invincible Iron Man series had already started from #1 earlier that summer. It was that title that, after Invincible Iron Man #33, assumed the numbering from all the earlier series and continued with #500 in 2011.

(Which complicates matters even further, since all those comics added up to 503 issues. The rationale — further described here — was that the last three issues of Director of SHIELD had War Machine on their logos. That's so, but the indicias never changed, and in fact, the Iron Man Director of SHIELD Statement of Ownership ran in that third "War Machine issue." But if it's weird to not count Director of SHIELD #33-35, it's odd to count #29-32, as well, as those issues were coming out concomitant with the series that numerically would have followed. Ah, renumberings!)

Sales reports on individual issues can be found in the monthly reports. And there are many other Title Spotlights here as well.

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75 years of Superman -- and a whole mountain of comics sold

2013-04-18T14:30:00.002-05:00

by John Jackson Miller

Today is being celebrated as the 75th anniversary of Superman's first appearance, so I thought I would update one of the resources on the site. I now have the information from every single circulation form with sales data ever published in the main Superman title; I had been missing a few of the details when I first posted this material four years ago here, but now it is all online. (I've got everything for Action, too — that post is coming soon.)

Sales data begins in Superman in 1960 and runs until DC stopped publishing postal statements in 1987. By that time, the series had transformed into Adventures of Superman; it may appear to be information for two titles, but as far as the Postal Service regulations were concerned, it's all one series. (It later changed back to Superman with #650.)

Superman, we see in the yearly tables, was the #1 title for several years in the 1960s — and probably in 1963-64 as well, years in which DC published Statements with no sales figures.

While the Statement of Ownership period at DC is only a chunk of the title's long history, I include a little bit about estimated sales before 1960 and after 1987. Everything from 1996 to present can be found in the monthly sales charts here on site; that gives us about 44 years of data.

The main title alone has had total all-time sales in the nine figures, just in North America.

I also have a post from a few years ago getting into how many copies of Action #1 were initially printed and sold.

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March 2013 comics sales estimates now online

2013-04-09T00:54:00.001-05:00

by John Jackson Miller

As noted here last week, sales in the Direct Market were up considerably in March, according to data released by Diamond Comic Distributors. Comics shops in North America ordered $41.3 million worth of comics and graphic novels in March, beating the previous year's total by nearly 23%.

Guardians of the Galaxy #1 led the market, with orders topping 200,000 copies. Click to see the estimated sales for comics for March 2013.

The Top 300 graphic novels posted nearly $9 million in sales, the highest figure for that category ever. However, the figures this month were distorted considerably by heavy discounting. Marvel sold several million dollars worth of hardcovers to retailers in a sale, inflating the total retail value of books sold.

We can partially see this by adding up everything that sold in the Top 300 Comics and Top 300 Graphic Novels categories: if all books were counted at full retail, Marvel's share of those sales would have topped 50% this month. But Marvel's overall dollar share was reported as 40% by Diamond, which makes its calculations based on wholesale dollars. So while Marvel did move more dollars worth of material (unadjusted for inflation) into shops in March than in any month in the last 17 years, an asterisk is probably in order.

It's still a blockbuster month for this time of year, no matter what. The aggregate sales:

TOP 300 COMICS UNIT SALES

March 2013: 7.2 million copies
Versus 1 year ago this month: +20%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +18%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +29%
Versus 15 years ago this month: +1%
YEAR TO DATE: 20.93 million copies, +17% vs. 2012, +10% vs. 2008, +23% vs. 2003, +1% vs. 1998

ALL COMICS UNIT SALES
March 2013 versus one year ago this month: +21.43%
YEAR TO DATE: +18.62%

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TOP 300 COMICS DOLLAR SALES

March 2013: $25.93 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: +25%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +35%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +65%
Versus 15 years ago this month: +48%
YEAR TO DATE: $75.2 million, +22% vs. 2012, +26% vs. 2008, +57% vs. 2003, +51% vs. 1998

ALL COMICS DOLLAR SALES
March 2013 versus one year ago this month: +26.28%
YEAR TO DATE: +21.38%

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TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES

March 2013: $8.97 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: +39%
Versus 5 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: +25%
Versus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 50 vs. the Top 50: +44
YEAR TO DATE: $22.78 million, +26% vs. 2012

ALL TRADE PAPERBACK SALES
March 2013 versus one year ago this month: +14.33%
YEAR TO DATE: +16.22%

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TOP 300 COMICS + TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES

March 2013: $34.89 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: +28%
Versus 5 years ago this month, counting just the Top 100 TPBs: +34%
Versus 10 years ago this month, counting just the Top 25 TPBs: +62%
YEAR TO DATE: $97.97 million, +23% vs. 2012

ALL COMICS AND TRADE PAPERBACK SALES
March 2013 versus one year ago this month: +22.59%
YEAR TO DATE: +19.78%

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OVERALL DIAMOND SALES (including all comics, trades, and magazines)

March 2013: approximately $41.33 million (subject to revision)
Versus 1 year ago this month: +23%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +32%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +69%
YEAR TO DATE: $121.94 million, +20% vs. 2012

The average comic book in the Top 300 cost $3.59; the average comic book retailers ordered cost $3.60. The median price for comics offered was $3.97, and the most common price for comics offered was $3.99. Click to see comics prices across time.

The Flashback column for Marches past is also online here at Comichron: click to read about the best-sellers from March five, ten, 25, and even 50 years ago.

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