In case you missed the discussion going on in our comment section, the comparative sales charts for January have been delayed because the numbers from Diamond are a bit odd. Marc-Oliver Frisch explains:

For the record, if you’re waiting for the January month-to-month sales columns, it’ll probably be a while. Since everyone’s fairly sure now that there’s been a glitch in Diamond’s source data, we’re holding off on the columns until the numbers have been corrected.

Looking at the Top 300 charts, there are a few very odd things going on. Not only does there seem to be an inexplicable five-percent increase across the board, as I noted a few days ago, but the index points for individual books also seem to be a mess.

We’ll keep you posted.

Newsarama has started a new columns by noted sales figure collector John Jackson Miller. there is much to absorb in his maiden outing, but here’s a snippet: then and now.

January 2008 sales are up over those of January 1998, a month from deep in the comics recession when the “dead quarter” very definitely lived up to its name.

Jan. 2008 final orders versus Jan. 1998 preorders (est.)
Top 300 units: +3% (7.18 million copies vs. 7 million copies)
Top 300 dollars: +34% ($22.33 million vs. $16.6 million)
Average cost of comics in the Top 300: +23% ($3.22 vs. $2.61)
Average cost of comics in the Top 300, weighted by orders: +31% ($3.11 vs. $2.38)

Most, but not all, of the difference in dollars represented by the Top 300 comes from the increase in cover prices. But the overall market is certainly larger today — Diamond did not release indexed trade paperback data for the month, but the category was certainly far smaller than it is now.

Perhaps the biggest thing to happen while we were away was this wholescale lid-ripping by Brian Hibbs who gets hold of the Bookscan graphic novelssales chart for all of 2007 and analyses the top 750 items. We’ve seen Dirk’s response, and a briefer analysis by Tom Spurgeon, but we’re still digesting the numbers and don’t want to rush our own findings.

In any event, Hibbs does the unthinkable and reveals actual sales numbers on a ton of books — we’ve seen numbers from time to time, but this is a wholescale rumble. We’ll have our own comments tomorrow but in the meantime, here’s the most quoted part of Hibbs’ piece:

Not one of the Minx titles makes the Top 750, nor does any CMX title except for Megatokyo, which is OEL. Looking deep into the Long Tail, Minx’s Plain Janes sells 3201 copies, none of the other four Minx titles even manages to crack a meager 800 copies sold in the bookstore environment. Aren’t those books specifically designed for the bookstores, and the customers that shop there?

There’s a lot of conventional wisdom that suggests that things like the Minx and Vertigo books sell oodles and oodles better in the bookstore market than the do in the DM, but I have to tell you, now that I’m looking at the “full” BookScan list, I can guarantee you that this is simply false. Now that I can see into the Long Tail, what I can tell you is that, while the bookstore market can (potentially) sell more copies of the “top” of the “bookstore-oriented” material, on anything else the DM beats them handily.

Here’s just one example: none of the three American Virgin trades charted more than 400 copies sold on BookScan; we can pretty definitively state that each of those three sold at least 2000 copies in the DM (because their first month, alone, sold-in more copies than that) Many many Vertigo titles are selling 3-5x as many copies in the DM, as they did through BookScan.

Discuss. Meet you back here tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: The Industry

Over at CBR, John Mayo does a monthly sales analysis which charts the ups and downs of sales trends. His report on the December figures cuts right to the chase:

A friend of mine is planning on opening up a comic book store in the near future and we had a recent exchange on the health of the comic book industry. His reasoning was that since the total sales of the top 300 comics have been trending up over the past few years, then the industry must be doing well. My monthly analysis focuses more on the sales trends of the individual titles over how the total sales of the top 300 comics and top 100 trades are doing. While the total sales do seem to be trending up, most individual titles are trending down. As a result, I’m not convinced that the industry is doing well.

Mayo’s column is as fine a primer on comics seeming downward sales spiral as we’ve seen. Over all sales are UP due to events and new #1’s and so on. But more books than ever are down.

In December 2007, the total of the advances was 30,618 units and the total of the declines was 507,048 units. That works out to an average of 1,530 units for each of the 20 advances and 2,654 units for each of the 191 declines. The net difference is a net decline of 476,430 units as compared to the previous issues of each individual title. Note that this is not the change in the total for the top 300 comics from the previous month. The total estimated sales for the top 300 comics in December 2007 was an estimated 7,024,971 units which was an increase of approximately 74,081 units from the estimated total of 6,950,890 units for the top 300 comics for November 2007.

This seems a bit confusing, but as Mayo points out, “They just measure different things.” Mayo goes over a lot of territory in his column, so you’d best go over and read the whole thing. What it does seem to point to (der) is the fact that regular creators on a regular book for a reliable reader experience is almost besides the point in today’s drop it like it’s hot market. Nothing will ever be the same again!

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

DC Comics’ successful “Sinestro Corps War” and “Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul” crossovers both concluded in December, and with Green Lantern #25 and Justice League of America #15, two bestselling stragglers from November helped to touch up the performance. The big new launch in December was the weekly Countdown: Arena miniseries, whose numbers don’t particularly impress, but are better than those of previous Countdown spin-offs. In other news, Birds of Prey and The Legion of Super-Heroes got new creative teams, and the Western miniseries Bat Lash debuted. The average periodical numbers of the mainstream DC Universe line weren’t especially high compared to the rest of the year, but were up from their low point in November.

The publisher’s Vertigo and WildStorm imprints continued a slow recovery in December, meanwhile, in terms of average periodical sales. At Vertigo, the modest increase was due to Brian Wood’s ongoing Viking saga Northlanders, which launched with fairly decent numbers. At WildStorm, as there were no new launches in December, the slight upturn was mostly due to the absence of a number of low-selling titles. Overall, DC’s average sales in December were stronger than they had been for most of the year, rebounding from their low point in November. It’s safe to say that 2007 wasn’t a banner year for DC’s periodical business, compared to previous years and to the competition, but they’re ending it on a moderately optimistic note.

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.

—–

6/8 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
12/2001: JLA #61 — 67,491*
12/2002: JLA #76 — 61,557*
12/2003: JLA #91 — 58,981
12/2004: JLA #109 — 63,791 [64,747]
12/2005: JLA #123 — 76,899
————————————–
12/2006: Justice League #4 — 136,709 (- 3.0%) [139,123]
12/2006: Justice League #5 — 132,460 (- 3.1%) [133,924]
01/2007: –
02/2007: –
03/2007: Justice League #6 — 130,099 (- 1.8%) [131,754]
04/2007: Justice League #7 — 154,984 (+19.1%)
04/2007: Justice League #8 — 130,365 (-15.9%)
05/2007: Justice League #9 — 129,285 (- 0.8%)
06/2007: Justice League #10 — 129,265 (- 0.0%)
07/2007: Justice League #11 — 122,823 (- 5.0%)
08/2007: Justice League #12 — 131,420 (+ 7.0%) [137,181]
09/2007: Justice League #13 — 119,471 (- 9.1%) [124,006]
10/2007: Justice League #14 — 101,763 (-14.8%)
11/2007: –
12/2007: Justice League #15 — 100,234 (- 1.5%)
12/2007: Justice League #16 — 95,557 (- 4.7%)
—————-
6 months: -24.3%
1 year : -27.3%
2 years : +27.3%

As Justice League of America catches up with its schedule, another top-selling DC title drops below the 100k mark (as far as the estimates are concerned, at any rate; given that they’re traditionally a little on the low side, the real number may still be slightly above 100,000). And, as before with titles like All Star Batman, All Star Superman, Justice, 52 or Superman/Batman, there’s nothing on the horizon that looks like it could plug the resulting gap.

That said, the drop-off was to be expected after star writer Brad Meltzer’s departure, and it’s also worth mentioning that the current run, unlike Meltzer’s, isn’t supported through variant cover editions. Bearing all this in mind, the book is still holding up quite well.

—–
(more…)

By Paul O’Brien

The big new launch for December was ULTIMATES 3, returning after a seven month hiatus with the new creative team of Jeph Loeb and Joe Madureira. And thanks to the magic of delays, December, also saw AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #545, the concluding part of “One More Day.” Otherwise, it’s a relatively quiet month. “Messiah Complex” continued to boost the X-books, and ULTIMATE IRON MAN returned for its second miniseries.

Once again, Marvel took the top spot in the direct market by a comfortable margin. They beat DC by 39% to 33% in dollar share, and 43% to 37% in units. DC’s one-off lead from a few months back seems to have been a blip.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2 for permission to use their figures for these calculations.

1.  ULTIMATES
12/02  Ultimates #9        - 101,811
12/03  Ultimates #12       - 104,572
12/04  Ultimates 2 #1      - 146,271
12/05  Ultimates 2 #9      -  94,493
=====
12/06  —
01/07  —
02/07  —
03/07  —
04/07  —
05/07  Ultimates 2 #13     - 105,745  ( +6.2%)
06/07  —
07/07  —
08/07  —
09/07  —
10/07  —
11/07  —
12/07  Ultimates 3 #1 of 5 - 131,401  (+24.3%)
                              6 mnth  (  — )
                              1 year  (  — )
                              2 year  (+39.1%)
                              3 year  (-10.2%)
                              4 year  (-25.7%)

You won’t be surprised to hear that the two big titles charted at numbers 1 and 2. And naturally, ULTIMATES gets a healthy boost for its new series. It’s not quite as good as ULTIMATES 2 #1 from December 2004, but 130K is a fine number by any standards.

The interesting question is whether it can sustain those sales. In its favour, ULTIMATES has big name creators, and a large inherited audience. On the other hand, ULTIMATES has previously been sold more on the strength of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch (and their style) than on the characters as such, and the new book is quite different. And, let’s be honest, the reviews haven’t exactly been stellar.

I suspect sales will hold up pretty well for the duration of this five-issue miniseries, but I’m not so sure what will happen after that. Much depends on how well Marvel can build interest for the upcoming “Ultimatum” event, which is clearly intended to revitalise the flagging Ultimate imprint, and has to be seen as something of a make-or-break story.

(more…)

Diamond has released the figures for its top selling individual comics periodicals of ‘07. Marvel took 23 out of the top 25, with BUFFY #1 and JLA #7 to break up the string. It affords a bit of closure to see comics based on works by Stephen King doing so well here, because everyone always said “If only we could get best selling authors to write comics, we’d be okay!” It’s also interesting how much more publisher variety there was on the Top 100 Graphic Novel list. That’s the key to the whole ballgame right there.

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Following up yesterday’s charts, our HTML is still less than desired, but here is Diamond’s year end chart for the Top 50 Manga. Although Viz dominates, Tokyopop claims the top spot with FRUITS BASKET Vol. 16.

Diamond has released its year -end figures for 2007, and as soon as we figure out the HTML, we’ll be putting up more of them. In the meantime here’s how to publishers shook out — it was Marvel’s year all the way as it widened its lead in both unit and dollar share over DC.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #25 was the top selling periodical of the year and CIVIL WAR was the best selling graphic novel.

Johanna does the heavy lifting of checking out the postal statements in some Archie comics. You can see the whole list in the link, but the best seller is Archie’s Double Digest #185 with 104,056. That’s less than Archies used to sell, at least anecdotally. We would love to find the actual figures. John Jackson Miller has some 60s sales figures up which show, for instance, Archie’s Madhouse selling 209,897 copies. It’s pointless to compare 60s sales to now, however; surely someone else has been compiling those postal records over the years?

UPDATE: Well ask and ye shall receive: Johanna runs down several sources of more recent Archie sales figures via postal statements, including this marvelously titled thread from Usenet, c. 2001 reporting on figures from 1997:

Comic Books, R.I.P.?:

JUGHEAD DOUBLE DIGEST
Total Paid Circulation (average past 12 months): 106,257
Total Paid Circulation (most recent issue): 114,769

BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST
Total Paid Circulation (average past 12 months): 140,086
Total Paid Circulation (most recent issue): 144,000

Steve Rowe posted a more recent sales figure to Comicon.com in April
(presumably for 2000)

ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST
Total Paid Circulation (average past 12 months): 143,250
Total Paid Circulation (most recent issue): 155,437

According to the Archie website (www.archiecomics.com

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

Many of DC Comics’ ongoing problems throughout 2007 persisted in November. With Justice League of America, Justice Society of America and Green Lantern, the publisher’s three best-selling titles on the October chart all failed to come out. The year-long, weekly Countdown to Final Crisis, dragging along a deluge of spin-off titles and producing another major commercial dud with the debut of the Salvation Run limited series, continues to underwhelm as the “spine” of the DC Universe line. And, once again, the most favorable thing you can say about the majority of periodicals released under the publisher’s Vertigo and WildStorm imprints is that they exist.

Still, there also are some glimmers of hope for DC on the November charts. Most notably, the “Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul” crossover running through four Batman-related books shows signs of being a hit with retailers. And, despite the failing WildStorm Universe line, November was actually a great month for the WildStorm imprint, thanks to the release of the highly successful Heroes and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier hardcover books. Even in terms of periodicals, WildStorm seems to have landed a rare hit in November, though, with the debut of the videogame adaptation World of WarCraft.

In other news, November saw the launch of Batman and the Outsiders - delayed from October due to a last-minute, wholesale creative team exchange - as well as the arrival of new creative teams on Wonder Woman and Supergirl. The number of periodicals released by DC was a little lower than in October, but remained higher than in any other previous month since the beginning of the available direct market charts. The publisher’s average periodical sales kept going down, meanwhile, with a slight increase for Vertigo (thanks to an issue of Y: The Last Man) and a significant increase for WildStorm. See below for the details.

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.

—–

9 - ALL STAR BATMAN & ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER
07/2005: All Star Batman #1 -- 261,046 [306,976]
09/2005: All Star Batman #2 -- 178,592 [184,962]
12/2005: All Star Batman #3 -- 162,993 [166,218]
05/2006: All Star Batman #4 -- 160,401
--------------------------------------
11/2006: --
12/2006: --
01/2007: --
02/2007: --
03/2007: --
04/2007: --
05/2007: All Star Batman #5 -- 114,302 (-28.7%)
06/2007: --
07/2007: All Star Batman #6 -- 105,991 (- 7.3%)
08/2007: --
09/2007: All Star Batman #7 -- 100,582 (- 5.1%)
10/2007: --
11/2007: All Star Batman #8 --  97,037 (- 3.5%)
----------------
6 months: -15.1%
1 year  :  n.a.
2 years :  n.a.

The book has found its level, more or less - probably thanks to the bimonthly schedule of the last six months. As usual, there was a 1-for-10 variant cover edition.

On the one hand, sales of 97k aren’t bad for a Batman book. For a Batman book by Frank Miller and Jim Lee, it’s rather underwhelming, however. Looking at the title’s history, in any event, it’s quite clear that All Star Batman has been doing a very poor job of keeping its audience around.

(more…)

By Paul O’Brien

Unlike the previous month, Marvel shipped most of their big titles in November, and managed to complete their autumn crossover. It was another light month for new titles, with only a few miniseries hitting the shelves. But the “Messiah Complex” crossover in the X-books got into full swing, WORLD WAR HULK wrapped up, and “One More Day” continued.

Most of the Marvel Universe superhero titles are, by this point, between events. They completed their WORLD WAR HULK crossovers as originally scheduled, and they’ve stopped carrying “Initiative” banners on the front. Although November saw the first book to carry a “Secret Invasion” banner - NEW AVENGERS: ILLUMINATI #5 - the event proper is still months away. This is presumably the main reason why a lot of former Initiative titles have gone into a dramatic sales decline over the last couple of months, which continued in November.

Still, with Marvel’s major titles reaching the shelves, we’re back to business as usual in terms of market share. Once again, Marvel was the largest publisher in the direct market, leading DC by a tight 37% to 36% in dollar share, and a slightly more comfortable 42% to 36% in units.

Thanks as always to Milton Griepp and ICV2 for permission to use their figures for these calculations.

1.  WORLD WAR HULK
05/07  Prologue               - 111,153
06/07  World War Hulk #1 of 5 - 204,823  (+84.3%)
07/07  World War Hulk #2 of 5 - 165,402  (-19.2%)
08/07  World War Hulk #3 of 5 - 156,526  ( -5.4%)
09/07  World War Hulk #4 of 5 - 148,610  ( -5.1%)
10/07  —
11/07  World War Hulk #5 of 5 - 145,821  ( -1.9%)
                                 6 mnth  (+31.2%)

Although WORLD WAR HULK hasn’t sold in the numbers of CIVIL WAR, nobody really expected it to. When you consider that the parent title generally sells around 47K, these are astronomical numbers. By any reasonable standards, the book has to be considered a huge success.

The next question is how well Marvel can capitalise. They have a new HULK title in the wings, while INCREDIBLE HULK is being relaunched (presumably temporarily) as a Hercules series. There are also a couple of spin-off miniseries from the crossover: WARBOUND and DAMAGE CONTROL.

Issue #5 has a variant cover, like the rest of the series.

(more…)

We mentioned this in a comment, but thought it was worth a more prominent item — it’s pretty much a banner week for American comics on Bookscan, as American GNs take 3 of the top 10 spots, including Dark Tower at #1. And Buffy is “bubbling under” as they say, at #11. Here’s the entire top ten:

1. Dark Tower The Gunslinger Born (Marvel Comics)
2. Fruits Basket: Volume 18 (Tokyopop)
3. Heroes Volume 1 (Wildstorm)
4. Naruto: Volume 24 With Sticker (Viz Media)
5. Naruto: Volume 27 With Sticker (Viz Media)
6. The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier (America’s Best Comics)
7. Naruto: Volume 23 (Viz Media)
8. Naruto: Volume 25 Viz Media)
9. Naruto: Volume 26 (Viz Media)
10. Naruto: Volume 22 (Viz Media)

Of course, don’t get us wrong, it’s a spectacular showing for perennial champ Naruto, and Viz absolutely dominates the chart, as usual. However this strong showing (and ongoing strong sales for all four books we just mentioned) are a definite sign that America’s top three publishers are finally figuring out this bookstore thing, and getting the distribution and visibility that they need to make these books sell up to their potential. And remember — all but Buffy are $20+ hardcovers not $9.99 (or $7,95 in the case of Naruto) paperbacks — Dark Tower beats Fruits Basket in dollars 4 to 1.

Also in the top 50: the Don Martin collection, 52: Volumes 4 and Marvel Zombies vs Army of Darkness.

And now cue Dirk to complain in five, four, three………..

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

At first glance, October was a great month for DC Comics. For starters, for the first time in ages, the publisher’s market share, both in dollars and in units, was slightly higher than Marvel’s. More significantly, though, the dollar volume of DC’s October 2007 direct market periodical sales - as usual, not counting reprints, reorders shipping after the initial month of release, Johnny DC titles and magazines - was the second-highest since the beginning of the current statistics in March 2003. (The highest was achieved in May 2006, when they launched 52.) That’s plenty to be happy about, certainly.

However, the performance improvement isn’t due to any general sales increase across the company’s various lines of titles. Rather, DC simply increased their output volume, and quite drastically so. There were a whopping 95 new DC periodicals in October - that’s 15 more than in September, and it’s also the highest number of new DC periodicals ever published in a given month since the beginning of the current charts in March 2003. Marvel, by contrast, had 63 new periodicals out in October. (Again, we’re not counting reprints, reorders shipping after the initial month of release, Johnny DC/Marvel Adventures titles, magazines and the like.)

As long as the books keep selling and the market is willing to carry the product, there’s nothing wrong with that, of course. But a closer look at the numbers suggests that the wisdom of flooding the market may be questionable at this time: Despite the good showing where market share and dollar volume are concerned, DC’s average periodical sales were down again in October, the average being the third-lowest of the past year, with average Vertigo sales reaching another new all-time low. The average sales of DC’s WildStorm sublabel saw another increase, meanwhile, thanks to the latest relaunch of their WildStorm Universe line.

Looking at DC’s major releases individually, the worrying trends of the past year continued in October. Barring a significant trend reversal, it seems that the publisher is losing its last title capable of reliably shifting more than 100,000 units every month. And out of the 13 new series debuts or one-shot specials released in October - many of which tied in with current event storylines - only one managed to crack the 50K mark, most of them selling below 25,000 units. Sales of the latest attempt to relaunch the tottering WildStorm Universe line are a far cry from the last one in October 2006, while the first issue of Vertigo’s newest ongoing title, The Vinyl Underground, fell short of 11,000 units, marking the lowest-selling of their more recent launches.

See below for the details. As usual, some commentary may be loosely adapted from The Bard. (More on Vertigo’s collection sales is up here, by the way.)

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.

—–

3 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
10/2001: JLA #59            —  67,744*
10/2002: JLA #73            —  60,352*
10/2002: JLA #74            —  60,148*
10/2003: JLA #88            —  59,448
10/2003: JLA #89            —  59,007 [59,955]
10/2004: JLA #107           —  65,225 [68,082]
10/2005: JLA #120           —  82,892
10/2005: JLA #121           —  78,869 [81,316]
————————————–
10/2006: –
11/2006: Justice League #3  — 140,939 (-  1.7%) [143,310]
12/2006: Justice League #4  — 136,709 (-  3.0%) [139,123]
12/2006: Justice League #5  — 132,460 (-  3.1%) [133,924]
01/2007: –
02/2007: –
03/2007: Justice League #6  — 130,099 (-  1.8%) [131,754]
04/2007: Justice League #7  — 154,984 (+ 19.1%)
04/2007: Justice League #8  — 130,365 (- 15.9%)
05/2007: Justice League #9  — 129,285 (-  0.8%)
06/2007: Justice League #10 — 129,265 (-  0.0%)
07/2007: Justice League #11 — 122,823 (-  5.0%)
08/2007: Justice League #12 — 131,420 (+  7.0%) [137,181]
09/2007: Justice League #13 — 119,471 (-  9.1%) [124,006]
10/2007: Justice League #14 — 101,763 (- 14.8%)
—————-
6 months: -28.7%
1 year  :   n.a.
2 years : +25.8%

Here’s the big drop-off I’d expected for last issue, following superstar writer Brad Meltzer’s departure with issue #12. One reason for the delayed reaction may be that there were two variant cover editions of issue #13, while the October issue was the first of the series which wasn’t promoted with that gimmick. Largely, though, it seems that retailers simply ordered new writer Dwayne McDuffie’s debut as a first issue, with an obligatory second-issue drop-off in October. As such, that’s not a horrible drop, and the book is still selling at a perfectly acceptable level. (Issues #12 and #13 sold another 5,761 and 4,535 units in October, respectively.)

On the other hand, as mentioned in the introduction, this means that DC are likely about to lose their last consistent 100K+ seller. And to date, there doesn’t seem to be anything in the pipeline to replace it. Of course, this doesn’t say much about the company’s overall performance, but it still seems worth noting.

(more…)

by Paul O’Brien

Well, it was bound to happen eventually. DC were the number one publisher in the direct market in October - the first time they’ve been able to say that since May 2006. It’s close, mind you. The margin is 34.2% to 33.7% in dollar share, and 39% to 37% in unit share. But it’s DC’s chart, nonetheless.

Marvel had a rather bad month in terms of delays. In theory, October was supposed to be the final month of WORLD WAR HULK, but the series slipped into the start of November, taking several tie-in issues with it. So, there’s not many WWH crossover books on this chart.

“One More Day” continues to drag on far beyond the original schedule, leaving Marvel with only one Spider-Man book instead of the scheduled three. ASTONISHING X-MEN and THOR both missed shipping as well, along with a raft of lesser titles that slipped into the start of November. None of this did Marvel any favours in the charts.

What does that leave us with? Well, there are a few WORLD WAR HULK titles still around, and there’s the start of the X-Men crossover, “Messiah Complex.” There are a scattering of unusual new miniseries, including three old Steve Gerber concepts - FOOLKILLER, HOWARD THE DUCK and OMEGA THE UNKNOWN.

And there are zombies, as MARVEL ZOMBIES 2 reaches the stores. In celebration, and on the grounds that October includes Hallowe’en, Marvel have commissioned even more gratuitous zombie variant covers that usual, on some of the most unlikely books imaginable. We’ll be seeing them scattered throughout the list.

Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures.

1.  NEW AVENGERS
10/01  Avengers #47     -  58,771
10/02  Avengers #59     -  53,772
10/03  Avengers #70     -  58,878
10/04  —
10/05  New Avengers #12 - 127,949
=====
10/06  New Avengers #24 - 136,811  (-12.0%)
11/06  New Avengers #25 - 136,504  ( -0.2%)
12/06  New Avengers #26 - 122,670  (-10.1%)
01/06  —
02/07  New Avengers #27 - 132,109  ( +7.7%)
03/07  New Avengers #28 - 119,514  ( -9.5%)
04/07  New Avengers #29 - 125,378  ( +4.9%)
05/07  New Avengers #30 - 126,425  ( +0.8%)
06/07  New Avengers #31 - 160,911  (+27.3%)
07/07  New Avengers #32 - 122,991  (-23.6%)
08/07  New Avengers #33 - 117,906  ( -4.1%)
09/07  New Avengers #34 - 112,815  ( -4.3%)
10/07  New Avengers #35 - 111,481  ( -1.2%)
                           6 mnth  (-11.1%)
                           1 year  (-18.5%)
                           2 year  (-12.9%)
                           3 year  (  — )
                           4 year  (+89.3%)

It’s a fairly quiet month at the top end of the charts, so NEW AVENGERS leads the pack. After some unusually high drops over the last couple of months, the book seems to be levelling out again.

(more…)

We were hanging out with some people in the graphic novel biz earlier this week and the subject of the new DARK TOWER hardcover from Marvel came up — this book has shipped a LOT of copies and could even be a national bestseller based on the name of Stephen King. Shocker there, eh? It was also discussed that graphic novels in bookstores are not just competing with other graphic novels — they are competing with Danielle Steele and other Stephen King books in the eyes of readers who are not fans.

In our continuing obsession with charts, graphs and rankings, we checked the Top 10 best selling graphic novels on Amazon to see where they ranked in books overall. Of course, Amazon’s sales rankings are as capricious and mercurial as anything, (and tend to be a tad more nerd-centric than brick and mortar sales) but it’s a good way to pass a cold evening. Amazon’s overall rankings are in parentheses,

1. Stephen King’s Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born by Peter David (Author), Stephen King (Author), Robin Furth (Author), Jae Lee (Illustrator) (#63)

2. Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis (Author) (#111)
[Not a comic, oh well.]

3. Heroes, Volume One by Various (Author), Tim Sale (Illustrator) (#136)

4. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier by Alan Moore (Author), Kevin O’Neill (Illustrator) (#145)

5. Snakehead (Alex Rider Adventure) by Anthony Horowitz (Author) (#183)
[As far as we can make out, this isn’t a graphic novel either. There IS an Alex Rider gn, but this isn’t it. Oh well.]

6. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon (Author), Georges Jeanty (Author), Andy Owens (Author), Jo Chen (Author) (#197)

7. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (Author) (#286)

8. The Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories by Nicholas Gurewitch (Author) (#453)

9. The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 2 by Neil Gaiman (Author), Dave McKean (Illustrator), Colleen Doran (Illustrator), P. Craig Russell (Illustrator), Shawn Macmanus (Illustrator), Kelley Jones (Illustrator), Alisa Kwitney (Introduction) (#484)

10. Dancing With Werewolves: Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator by Carole Nelson Douglas (#502)
[Not a graphic novel.]

Amazon’s ranking change every hour, so this is just a snapshot of one particular Thursday evening. Our analysis? The graphic novels that are ranking high on the Amazon chart are selling respectably. For comparison, Naruto #24, the top selling manga on USA Today’s charts came in at #1,578. As we said, bookstore and online sales patterns are completely different.

Brian Wood is the loudest critic of the various “comic book sales chart” out there (including the ones run here), and he’s always clear about why that is: the numbers aren’t accurate. In this post, he looks at the numbers again, and addresses the controversy, we think, pretty fairly all around.

Thought I would update, as I got new royalty statements in the mail.

DMZ v2: Body of A Journalist, as of June 30: 12,588

So from the end of April to the end of June, two months, that’s 2,790 additional copies (and counting, since many more have been sold in the last four months). And just to further beat you all with the point we’ve been making all this time, that these sales charts are fiction - they would tell you that this book has sold, to date, significantly less than half of the actual amount. The writer of the CBR article, John Mayo I think, had gone and amended some of the language in his article to reflect how incomplete the numbers were, but I wanted to post this info anyway. I’ve gotten many demands to “leak” numbers, since I am so vocal on this subject, but telling you my orders and sales numbers is something I have always done, not just for Vertigo, and often against the wishes of some (past) publishers.

(also, my royalty statements show that the DMZ single issues are still selling, even all the way back to #13, which is a year ago. on average, the singles sell between 1,300 and 2,000 ((and counting)) over what the reported numbers say)

I share a lot of people’s desire to see the real numbers released to the public. Well, I should say I wish there wasn’t such a public demand for them - not sure why readers feel they are OWED private information - but I do want them to be public because I think it would change, in a massive way, the perception of Vertigo as a line and maybe end a lot of this chatter and snark on the subject, OR at least change the way these information is analyzed…

After all the recent chatter about sales charts, and trends and whether the “wait for the trade” mentality is to blame for the attrition in sales, I noted Brian Hibbs’ comment:

I’d suggest that this is the best evidence that retailers HAVE been, historically, ordering “right” — that there IS a 2nd (and 3rd) issue drop off, and its not merely that retailers are a Cowardly and Superstitious Lot.

Given that this pattern can be observed going back as long as there have ever BEEN sales charts — which absolutely and emphatically predates even the CONCEPT of “waiting for the trade” — this would suggest that Jesse’s analysis is incorrect.

I wondered how the pattern would look ten years ago, so dug up one of Matt High’s original analysis posts from long ago Usenet. It’s from May 1997, a date I chose arbitrarily, just because it was there. The formatting on the chart is a bit wonky because of all the pyrotechnics I had to go through to get the text reformatted for HTML. (And I’m not that big of a web whiz.) Note that Column 4 is the sales, in 1000s. Column 5 is percentages, but someone an extra zero got added to pad it to two decimal places. I did go in and change the negative numbers to red so you could easily see all the declines. This was just as comics were beginning their big slide, so the declines are perhaps a bit more dire than they would have been a few years earlier.

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Last week’s Tilting at Windmills by Brian Hibbs was a particularly meaty one as he delved once more into the periodical vs trade debate currently going on, and even questioned if TOO MUCH product was going out:

One of the tests that I think should be put into place is “When volume 1 (or 2 or 3) goes out of stock, will it be reprinted?” If not, then, most likely, the work shouldn’t be collected in the first place, other wise we’re just creating more “orphans” clogging up the system and the shelves – and we have far too many of those as it already is.

But let’s say that you’re a publisher and you’re willing to make a serious commitment to keeping a work in print and available, what then? How do you handle both the serialization and the eventual collection?

Hibbs also discusses why Vertigo’s sales are going steadily down for quite some time. I talked a little bit last week on the difficulty of launching new characters, but the figures from this month’s sales charts state the case even more starkly. (Those who point out that these figures are low — add +/- 15% and you have more accurate final sell-in, and just as dismal a picture.)

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by Marc-Oliver Frisch

As Paul O’Brien points out in the Marvel column, the margin between Marvel and DC Comics’ market shares in September is smaller than it’s been in months. The reason for that has more to do with Marvel’s performance losing steam than with DC gaining momentum, however. In fact, DC’s total and average sales were both down from August, despite September being a pretty packed month for DC’s mainstream line. There was a deluge of new one-shots and series, including three specials devoted to the wedding of characters Green Arrow and Black Canary, as well as five new series total spun off of the 52 and Countdown titles and the “Sinestro Corps War” story, among others. Additionally, DC’s perennial best-seller Justice League of America got a new writer, The Flash stopped being supported with gimmicks and incentives, and Outsiders concluded.

The company’s Vertigo and WildStorm imprints, meanwhile, both managed to increase their average and total sales in the North American periodical market in September, for a change. That’s not due to any sudden trend reversals or successful new launches either, mind you, but simply because three of their best-selling titles - the now bimonthly, soon-to-be-concluding Y: The Last Man for Vertigo and the irregularly shipping, dwindling Astro City and Ex Machina for WildStorm - all showed up in stores that month. Speaking of showing up, the number of DC books failing to do so was down to a manageable three in September, with Action Comics #856, Green Arrow: Year One #6 and Green Lantern Corps #16, and the former two only slipped by one week and came out in the first week of October. See below for the details.

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.

—–

3 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
09/2001: JLA #58            —  68,996*
09/2002: JLA #71            —  60,608*
09/2002: JLA #72            —  60,778*
09/2003: JLA #86            —  59,496
09/2003: JLA #87            —  58,678
09/2004: JLA #105           —  60,836
09/2004: JLA #106           —  59,838 [ 60,943]
09/2005: JLA #118           —  89,428
09/2005: JLA #119           —  94,073 [106,305]
————————————–
09/2006: Justice League #2  — 143,412 (- 32.5%) [158,480]
10/2006: –
11/2006: Justice League #3  — 140,939 (-  1.7%) [143,310]
12/2006: Justice League #4  — 136,709 (-  3.0%) [139,123]
12/2006: Justice League #5  — 132,460 (-  3.1%) [133,924]
01/2007: –
02/2007: –
03/2007: Justice League #6  — 130,099 (-  1.8%) [131,754]
04/2007: Justice League #7  — 154,984 (  19.1%)
04/2007: Justice League #8  — 130,365 (- 15.9%)
05/2007: Justice League #9  — 129,285 (-  0.8%)
06/2007: Justice League #10 — 129,265 (-  0.0%)
07/2007: Justice League #11 — 122,823 (-  5.0%)
08/2007: Justice League #12 — 131,420 (   7.0%)
09/2007: Justice League #13 — 119,471 (-  9.1%)
—————-
6 months: - 8.2%
1 year  : -16.7%
2 years :  30.2%

New series writer Dwayne McDuffie’s debut issue is the lowest-selling since the book’s relaunch so far. That said, I have to admit I expected a sharper decline, given the high profile of McDuffie’s predecessor. For all intents and purposes, Justice League of America is still selling in the same ballpark as during the Brad Meltzer run. No doubt DC are very pleased with that.

Oh, and there are two different versions of issue #13, as you may have guessed. It seems that, unlike with issue #12, retailers were able to order as many units of each cover edition as they liked in this instance, though, and didn’t have to buy ten copies of the regular edition for every copy of the variant cover edition.

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by Paul O’Brien
For the second month running, things are fairly quiet at Marvel. The biggest item on their schedule is the continuing WORLD WAR HULK event, and the X-books are also seeing gains from their “Endangered Species” crossover. The solitary new ongoing title is a revived MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS, and there’s a clutch of new miniseries, including CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE CHOSEN and X-MEN: EMPEROR VULCAN.

But Marvel also had a bad month in terms of getting books on the shelves. Nine ongoing titles failed to show, including books like MIGHTY AVENGERS, FANTASTIC FOUR, THUNDERBOLTS and two of the Spider-Man books. And that’s before you get onto the high-profile minis - the much-promoted HALO: UPRISING also failed to get its second issue onto the shelves. Throw in the fact that DARK TOWER finished its run in August and, well, the company has had better months.

The result is that Marvel still took first place in the North American direct market, but they beat DC by only 43% to 37% in unit share, and 38% to 35% in dollars. That’s the smallest margin all year.

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.

1.  WORLD WAR HULK
05/07  Prologue               - 111,153
06/07  World War Hulk #1 of 5 - 204,823  (+84.3%)
07/07  World War Hulk #2 of 5 - 165,402  (-19.2%)
08/07  World War Hulk #3 of 5 - 156,526  ( -5.4%)
09/07  World War Hulk #4 of 5 - 148,610  ( -5.1%)

The big event miniseries is still delivering impressive sales, and takes the top spot for a second month. The second printing of issue #1 shifts a further 10,955 copies, while re-orders add 2,307 to issue #2’s total. As usual, those numbers are included in the totals above.

The final issue has been rescheduled to mid-November, so expect a gap at the top of the charts next month.

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Matt Blind over at ComicSnob has been compiling lists of manga bestsellers from online sources, now he explains how he does it:

While I enjoy compiling the rankings, and am a little proud of the results, I’m the first to admit they’re flawed. Online sales are just one (already distorted) piece of the overall sales picture, and despite all the math involved, we still don’t have any actual sales numbers: we traffic in comparative descriptions. It’s easy enough to find the top 10 or even top 50 manga selling from most sites, and we can trust that #1 is beating #22 by a fair margin — but 1 vs 2, or 27 vs 28? How many more copies does a manga have to sell to gain even one spot in an online bestseller list?

I try to make up for that by looking at several sites. (and with another trick introduced this week; more on that later.) Also, the rankings from each site are weighted — though to date that has been a simple matter of counting the top sites (Amazon and B&N) twice, nothing fancy. It so easy I’m surprised other folks aren’t doing it… well, other than the aforementioned soul-draining tedium of raw data entry.

John Mayo has his August, 2007 Sales Analysis up at CBR, with all kinds of charts and graphs and some changes based on the ngoing online conversation about the veracity (or lack of same) about these charts:

Things do seem to be going well for Marvel these days and perhaps something can be learned from what is working for them. Marvel has been doing exceptionally well recently with events like “Civil War” and now “World War Hulk.” Both of the events had very easily explained plots which were equally easy to sell potential readers on. Meanwhile, DC had “52″ which they sold as “a year without Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman” which was enough to turn off many causal fans. While the series sold very well, particularly for a weekly series, it wasn’t the major blockbuster that “Civil War” was. In addition, most Marvel titles saw a noticeable sa