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.

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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.

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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 sales bump from both “Civil War” and “World War Hulk” while “52″ provided no such sales bumps due to it being a self-contained series. And the current “Countdown” series seems to lack that sort of solid sales pitch other than it counts down to something, apparently another “Crisis.”

While we know readers love our comparative sales charts compiled monthly by Paul O’Brien and Marc-Oliver Frisch, we also know not everyone is a fan.

Several professionals have suggested in the comments section and elsewhere that the charts are a self fulfilling prophecy: retailers see a comic sliding down the charts, decide it’s a goner, start ordering less and sure enough, the book is cancelled.

We took these comments seriously enough to ask several retailers at the recent Diamond summit what they thought of this idea. The notion that we are somehow killing worthy books by running these charts is a distressing one, and we were open to taking action based on the reactions we got. Did retailers, in fact, base their orders on what comics were doing on the charts?

Among the folks we talked to, the answer was a clear no. “I make my decisions based on what sells in my store, not what’s on a chart,” said one, summarizing the general consensus. However, one person did allow that a BAD store might base their orders on something they read on the internet as opposed to actual sales charts. Depending on the number of bad stores, this could be a factor.

This is something that the advent of POS systems MAY (accent MAY) alleviate. We’ll have more on that in a future post, but for now, suffice to say that anything that gives retailers more accurate sell through numbers is a very good thing for publishers at all ends of the spectrum.

And speaking of these controversial sales charts, Marc-Oliver Frisch addresses many of the main complaints against them in this post:

As it frequently does in this context, the question of the usefulness of the available direct market sales data comes up. And not surprisingly, not everyone’s convinced of it - the most vehement criticisms, in this instance, come from creator Brian Wood (DC Comics/Vertigo’s DMZ, Oni Press’ Local). Wood is arguing, in a nutshell, that the direct market sales index information provided by Diamond Comic Distributors, the sales estimates calculated from it by ICv2.com and others, as well as the frequent publication and analysis thereof, are wrong, harmful and - that’s the impression - generally and wholesomely evil.

You should read the entire post for his thoughts.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

DC Comics’ average numbers slightly recovered in August, thanks to continued strong sales of the “Sinestro Corps War” crossover storyline, solid first-issue numbers of various 52 spin-off titles including the ongoing Booster Gold series by writer Geoff Johns and artist Dan Jurgens, and a sudden, mysterious sales increase for Countdown - or so Diamond would like us to believe, at least. August also saw the final issue of writer Brad Meltzer’s Justice League of America, the debut of the first proper Countdown spin-off title and the latest Flash relaunch.

For the average sales of the publisher’s Vertigo and WildStorm imprints, respectively, August 2007 represented a new historical low, meanwhile - and it’s the third consecutive month you can say that about WildStorm, actually. The number of solicited titles failing to ship went up from none in July to four in August, with All Star Superman, Superman Confidential, Trials of SHAZAM! and Vertigo’s Testament not showing up in stores. To be fair, DC have made a lot of progress lately in that area, but obviously there’s still room for improvement, particularly with the publisher’s line of Superman books.

On an altogether different note, much has been said on the accuracy and usefulness of the Diamond charts, the resulting sales estimates and their analysis of late. Responding to some of the points made goes beyond the scope of this column, so I’ve done it here instead, for anyone who’s interested.

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.

—–

2 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
08/2001: JLA #57            —  69,451*
08/2002: JLA #69            —  62,577*
08/2003: JLA #84            —  59,130
08/2003: JLA #85            —  58,380
08/2004: JLA #103           —  61,719
08/2004: JLA #104           —  60,750
08/2005: JLA #117           —  87,995 [ 89,163]
————————————–
08/2006: Justice League #1  — 212,581 (+ 30.9%) [251,266]
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%)
—————–
6 months:   n.a.
1 year  : - 38.2%
2 years : + 76.7%

The conclusion of writer Brad Meltzer’s run gets a nice little sales increase. It’s probably gimmick-driven for the most part, though, because there were three different cover editions of the issue, instead of the usual two; in addition to the usual 1-for-10 one, there was also a 50/50 variant cover edition this time around.

As someone correctly pointed out last month, by the way, that’s indeed “1-for-10,” and not “1-in-10.” After all, the point is that retailers have to order ten units of the regular edition to get one copy of the limited edition from DC. I think I’ve been wrongly referring to them as “1-in-10″ editions for months now, and you have my apologies for that.

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by Paul O’ Brien

I usually like to start this column by running through the big events of the month. But this month, frankly, there’s not much to point out. WORLD WAR HULK is still going, of course, and the X-Men have a little crossover of their own underway, with the “Endangered Species” back-up strip. But there are no new ongoing titles, and only a handful of miniseries. The biggest of those is HALO: UPRISING, and it’s a big step down from there. Overall, it’s one of the quietest months I can remember.

Even so, Marvel retain a comfortable lead over DC in the US direct market - 41% to 32% in dollar share, and by 46% to 35% in units. That’s the smallest gap in some time, partly due to the mysterious chart jump of COUNTDOWN, which Marc discusses over in the DC column. But it’s still a substantial margin.

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

1,252.  WORLD WAR HULK
05/07  Prologue               - 111,153
06/07  World War Hulk #1 of 5 - 193,868  (+74.4%)
07/07  World War Hulk #2 of 5 - 163,095  (-15.9%)
08/07  World War Hulk #3 of 5 - 156,526  ( -4.0%)

WORLD WAR HULK moves up to take the top spot for this month - not because it’s going up in sales, but because bigger projects like the FALLEN SON miniseries have ended. Still, sales on this book are stabilising nicely, and it’s doing as well as Marvel could realistically have hoped for.

There are three versions of this issue, and thanks to a quirk of the chart, one of them is listed separately. The number one chart listing refers to the main cover and the John Romita Jr variant, with estimated sales of 151,523. But way, way down at number 252, there’s the David Finch sketch variant, produced for the Toronto Comicon, which adds another 5,003 sales. Why is it listed separately? Because it’s got a lower price tag than the other two, and Diamond only list multiple covers together if they have the same price.

The book is also seeing reasonably significant re-orders on the earlier chapters. Issue #1 shifts another 5,264 copies, and issue #2 adds 7,773 to its total. As always, they’re included in the numbers above.
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After a day of rest, we’re back to everyone’s favorite topic. Sales Charts! Crazy ass mofo that we are, we prefer to get nuts with actual data as opposed to making snide remarks to back up our own biases, so let’s begin! We had actually meant to dig up Diamond’s graphic novel bestseller list from 2006, but one of our correspondents helpfully dug it up for us. We’ve taken the top 25 books and highlighted the superhero titles, as before. (Click for larger version.)

8 of the top 25 books are superhero. (V for Vendetta is in a grey area, but we’re going with dystopic sci-fi.) The rest are genre heavy, but basically dominated by popular writers: Brian K. Vaughan, Robert Kirkman, Joss Whedon, Alan Moore. People can’t get enough of these guys! Sign them up! The complete lack of manga speaks for itself, of course, but that’s an entirely different matter.

We linked to a post on Tom Brevoort’s blog a while ago where he looked at Marvel sales charts from 1990 (when the average comic sold a more than they do now in the direct sales market) and was surprised to see the diversity in titles. John Jackson Miller’s Comichron site has US mail sales figures and other data for comics, and CBG has more data, but but regrettably sales from the 70s and 80s are still not readily available.

Not here’s where we speculate to back up our own biases: It’s a given that comics sales dipped to all time lows in the period of about 1996-1999 following the distributor war debacle. This is also the period in which sueprhero comics dominated the market as never before.

It would be interesting to plot comics sales against the diversity of the titles available for the last few decades, if such a thing could be done. We think a decent case could be made that years when the comics industry becomes superhero centric are the years in which the fewest comics sell, and the sales and diversity graph would coincide vairly closely.

To us it seems like a no brainer…but what do YOU think?

After some correspondence yesterday, John Mayo at CBR has taken the info for the year and made that years to date graphic novel sales chart :

Marvel dominates the rankings in 2007 thus far, doing very well with the “Civil War” TPB and the numerous trades collecting the tie-in series. Of the currently projected top 50 graphic novels and collected editions, nearly 40% of the list was “Civil War” or related material. Outside of “Civil War,” Marvel had other strong sellers thus far in 2007 with the third “Astonishing X-Men” trade paperback and the second “Ultimates 2″ trade paperback.

Here’s our yellow analysis:

Superheroes in yellow, and Marvel clearly rules this chart.

BUT — see Brian Wood’s comments:

Then this one pops up on CBR, that is supposedly the cumulative sales on graphic novels to-date this year. Sounds good, right? Well, the only number that I myself can verify is DMZ Vol.2’s, which this chart claims has sold so far this year:

5,488

I look through my emails and find the number of initial orders that DMZ v2 got back in early February:

5,489

So it seems like from February to now I have sold -1 copy of DMZ v2.

Somethings fishy, right? So I check my royalty sheets, and the most recent statement I’ve received for this book reports sales through April of this year. So three months of sales. Wanna know the number?

9,798

Year-to-date my ass. I get so sick of these charts and flawed estimates and subsequent analysis. They aren’t just off - sometimes they are WAY off.

EDIT: I’ve corrected the Marvel/52 error which was entirely my own.

For those of you who haven’t been glued to the computer, there has been a bit of a comment war raging here on the Beat in the wake of Eric Reynolds’ report of a less-than-up to date comics shop. A frequent argument posited by those outraged is that folks like Reynolds are being completely irrational in their demands that struggling comics shops carry material that no one wants to read like Chris Ware and Peanuts. While this argument seems logical on the face of it, is it really true that all people want to read is Marvel and DC?

We noticed that CBR’s John Mayo just posted his monthly sales analysis of the Diamond figures. While not as chatty as the sales charts supplied by Marc Oliver Frisch and Paul O’Brien here at the Beat, these charts are worth looking at for another take on the raw data. Mayo also supplied estimated sales figures for all 100 graphic novels on the Diamond charts, and he also keeps a running total of sales to date. We thought it would be interesting to look at the top 20 books on the charts based on their sales to date. It’s completely unscientific (these are not the top 20 books for the year just the ones that charted in July) but no more so than all the anecdotal evidence everyone has been throwing around in the comments. We’ve made a cunning little table, calculated the dollar totals, and highlighted the superhero books in yellow. (Click for a readable version.)

What’s immediately interesting is that only 8 of the books on the chart are superhero books. Transformers are a gray area, admittedly, but if you include them, it’s still only 10 or 50%. (And, honestly, The Boys is about as much a superhero book as BLADES OF GLORY is a sequel to ICE CASTLES, but it certainly trades on the superhero audience so it stays in the yellow.)

Far from being dominated by Marvel and DC, the chart includes titles from Image, Tokyopop, IDW, Dynamite and even Gemstone. One of DC’s books isn’t even superhero — it’s manga. And the titles that dominate the chart? WALKING DEAD and FABLES. Marvel’s tally includes ANITA BLAKE, which is already closing on six figures in print (through both channels.)

Like we said, this isn’t completely scientific. These are total estimated sales, and NOT, as far as we can make out, the 2007 sales to date. But we look at the charts enough to know that a list of actual year-to-date bestsellers would be just as diverse.

DIVERSE.

Say it with us.

DIVERSE.

We are quite sympathetic to the very real plight of underfunded comics shops that live on tiny margins. They cannot afford to take a flyer on ordering 20 copies of the Comics Journal. They need to move books. But if this chart is any indication, diversification is a way to do just that.

Okay, let the comment storm begin.

UPDATE: John Mayo of ComicBookPage.net was kind enough to supply the ACTUAL best sellers for 2007 through July which I’ve included as a clipping once again. (Sorry my html isn’t good enough to post it as a table.)

OOPS LIST DELETED PENDING NEGOTIATIONS

This list is MUCH more Marvel-centric than the inaccurate one posted above — only 7 books are non-superhero. It’s still a not insignificant showing, however. At least from where I sit.

Aside: I just don’t get all the Fantagraphics hate in the comments. Maybe it’s just because I see all their books at the office, but stuff like I SHALL DESTROY ALL CIVILIZED PLANETS, Krazy Kat, Popeye, HOUSE, PERCY GLOOM, Love and Rockets repackaging, the Ignatz Line, BLAB!, Monte Beachamps new Devil postcard book — it’s not for everyone, but the quality speaks for itself and hardly “drivel.”

ALSO OF NOTE: PW’s monthly graphic novel bestseller listing, which takes into account BOTH Bookscan and DM numbers is also out this week.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

DC Comics’ performance in July was an improvement on the previous month, not unexpectedly. The publisher’s numbers were bolstered by issues of three high-selling titles, Batman, All Star Superman and Action Comics, which were late from June. Then there was the release of All Flash #1, the continuation of DC’s latest Flash revamp, whose numbers were enhanced through gimmicks and retailer incentives. Finally, the “Sinestro Corps War” crossover running through issues of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps continued to be a genuine hit and brought sizeable sales increases to both titles. In other news, July saw the launch of the limited series Green Arrow: Year One and Black Canary.

While DC’s overall position in terms of direct market periodicals improved somewhat in July, the publisher’s Vertigo and WildStorm sublabels had no part in the upturn. Despite the launch of Vertigo’s Faker and WildStorm’s The Programme, limited series by established creators, average sales for both imprints dipped again in July, reaching a new historical low in WildStorm’s case. At Vertigo, there’s a reasonably attractive mix of new and revamped properties in the pipeline. WildStorm, however, are essentially planning to offer more of the same, by less popular creators, and that doesn’t really inspire a great deal of trust.

Credit where credit is due, though: DC are continuing to cut down on late-shipping books. Although several titles remained an issue or two behind their schedules in July, the only series failing to be released altogether were Vertigo’s Deadman and Jack of Fables. 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.

—–

7 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
07/2001: JLA #56            —  69,676*
07/2002: JLA #68            —  59,978*
07/2003: JLA #83            —  58,242 [59,154]
07/2004: JLA #101           —  64,615
07/2004: JLA #102           —  63,249
07/2005: JLA #116           —  87,644 [91,030]
————————————–
07/2006: Justice League #0  — 162,378 (+118.4%) [169,199]
08/2006: Justice League #1  — 212,581 (+ 30.9%) [251,266]
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%)
—————–
6 months:   n.a.
1 year  : - 24.4%
2 years : + 40.1%

Leaving the “Lightning Saga” crossover behind, the book’s sales drop well below 130,000 for the first time since the relaunch. It’s still a great performer, obviously. As always, there was a 1-in-10 variant cover edition to boost the numbers.

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by Paul O’Brien

The era of big events continues apace, as Marvel’s WORLD WAR HULK squares off against DC’s COUNTDOWN. And while WWH isn’t a sales juggernaut on quite the same scale as CIVIL WAR, it’s comfortably enough for Marvel to once again flatten DC in the North American direct market. The gap is narrower than last month, but Marvel still take the lead by 42% to 30% in dollar share, and 48% to 32% in unit share.

Marvel’s biggest new launch of the month was J Michael Straczynski and Olivier Coipel’s THOR, which returns from a period in limbo with vastly increased sales. Other major events include the X-books’ “Endangered Species” crossover; the debut of Matt Fraction and Barry Kitson’s ORDER; the start of the three ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST tie-in miniseries; and the interbrand promotional exercise you’ve all been waiting for, NEW AVENGERS/TRANSFORMERS.

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

1.  THOR
07/01  Thor #39 -  39,454
07/02  Thor #51 -  37,087
07/03  Thor #66 -  33,557
07/04  Thor #82 -  36,094
=====
07/07  Thor #1  - 165,325
                   3 year  (+358.0%)
                   4 year  (+392.7%)

This may be a crossover-driven year, but July’s number one title has nothing to do with any of that. THOR has been in limbo since October 2004, when the previous series ended on sales of 49,000. However, that was due to a last-minute surge of interest, and the book had previously been selling in the 30K range. The lengthy delay in relaunching the title seems to have been caused as much by difficulties in lining up a creative team as by deliberate planning, but it’s certainly paid dividends in building up anticipation for a character who had previously been languishing somewhat.

There’s a variant cover on this issue, of course, but that’s largely beside the point. I had this down as a surefire top ten book, and a probable top five, but I’m surprised to see it doing quite as well as this. A very promising start.

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by Marc-Oliver Frisch

June was a relatively quiet month for DC Comics: There was the Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special #1 and, at the publisher’s WildStorm imprint, The Highwaymen #1, and that’s it, in terms of new launches. Other notable developments at DC included the final issues of Justice, Green Arrow and - somewhat surprisingly - Flash: The Fastest Man Alive, as well as the debut of new creative teams in Superman/Batman and Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes. There also were the first couple of official Countdown tie-in books, with less than flattering results. And “Amazons Attack,” the other current big event going on in the DC Universe, introduced a whole new concept into the direct market: It’s a crossover that makes sales go down, instead of up. No, seriously.

While we’re at it, much has been made of the fact that DC’s market share was dwarfed by Marvel’s in June, shrinking to a mere 27.02% in dollars and 28.57% in units. This looks dire at first glance, but there are a few factors that should be considered. One, a number of DC titles failed to come out in June, among them major performers like All Star Superman, Batman and Action Comics. Two, no DC titles failed to come out in May, meaning that the usual bunch of stragglers was missing in June. And three, as a logical result, DC only shipped 61 periodicals in June (not counting reprints, magazines and the Johnny DC cartoon adaptations), instead of the usual 70 to 80. Obviously, those factors won’t apply in July, so, while I agree DC aren’t having a banner year, the sky isn’t falling just yet. It’s just tottering menacingly.

The state of DC’s sublabels remains depressing, meanwhile. At Vertigo, nothing noteworthy happened, where periodicals are concerned. WildStorm average sales hit their lowest level yet since Diamond started providing data on actual sales back in March 2003, with nothing on the schedule which might reverse or even stop that trend. 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.

—–

6 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
06/2001: JLA #55            —  70,637*
06/2002: JLA #67            —  59,684*
06/2003: JLA #82            —  58,480
06/2004: JLA #100           —  75,434 [78,140]
06/2005: JLA #115           —  95,375
————————————–
07/2006: Justice League #0  — 162,378 (+118.4%) [169,199]
08/2006: Justice League #1  — 212,581 (+ 30.9%) [251,266]
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%)
—————–
6 months:  - 4.0%
1 year  :   n.a.
2 years :  +35.5%

This was the final chapter of “The Lightning Saga,” the crossover with Justice Society of America (which, by the way, was on a scheduled skip month in June - not late, as I wrongly suggested in the May column). And again, there’s virtually no change from the previous issue.

Obviously, both the title and the crossover are huge successes for DC. Given that “The Lightning Saga” is now finished and that high-profile writer Brad Meltzer is off the book after issue #12, I’m skeptical whether Justice League will be able to hold on to its impressive numbers.

As usual, there was a 1-in-10 variant cover edition which additionally boosted sales.

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By Paul O’Brien

After a comparatively quiet May, Marvel went all out in June. The major event of the month, WORLD WAR HULK, involved three miniseries and a slew of crossover titles. It would have been a pretty big deal on its own. But June also saw the much-hyped NEW AVENGERS #31, the start of the X-Men’s “Endangered Species” crossover, the start of ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST, and three new ongoing titles - NEW WARRIORS, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS and AVENGERS CLASSIC.

On top of that, the death of Captain America is still pulling in sales, the Initiative books are continuing to benefit from the fall-out of CIVIL WAR, and Spider-Man is still in emo mode. And that’s before we even get to the other new miniseries. In short, there’s an awful lot going on right now.

Once again, Marvel dominated DC in terms of direct market share, but this month’s margin is outrageously wide. In units, Marvel won by 48% to 29% - in dollars, 44% to 27%. That margin reflects the fact that Marvel are having a good year in the direct market, and DC… well, DC aren’t.

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  #1 of 5  - 178,408  (+60.5%)

So much for the “event fatigue” theory. WORLD WAR HULK receives a remarkably enthusiastic reception from the retailers, especially when you consider that the Hulk’s monthly title has been selling in the mid-40K range for years. Marvel haven’t even really hyped WORLD WAR HULK on the strength of major continuity-altering events. It’s first and foremost a huge action story, which Marvel have been subtly promoting for the better part of a year. And that strategy seems to have paid off.

Of course, WORLD WAR HULK is not another CIVIL WAR. It’s on a smaller scale, whether you’re looking at the number of tie-ins or the quantities sold. CIVIL WAR #1 shifted an estimated 260,804 copies in the direct market in its first month. This is clearly in the next tier down. But nobody will be complaining about that - and Marvel have probably been smart in setting up WORLD WAR HULK as a change of pace from the Initiative storylines.

Arguably, this is one of the ways in which Marvel has got it right, and DC has got it horribly wrong. Both companies, of course, are basing their superhero books around big events. But for Marvel, that really is “events”, plural. In contrast, DC seems to have put all its eggs in one basket. Their line is essentially one big crossover that’s been running for several years and will continue for at least a year to come. Unfortunately for them, the law of diminishing returns has set in with a vengeance.

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ICv2 has all the usual news and analysis of June’s sales figures, and the star of the show is easy to spot:

Graphic novels sales in comic stores grew by 33% in June versus sales in June of 2006 marking the end of the strongest quarter for graphic novel sales since ICv2 began tracking comic book and graphic novel sales in 2001. During the second quarter of 2007 graphic novel sales rose 48%, while sales of periodical comics managed just a 7% gain.

With WORLD WAR HULK smashing though sales, as Newsarama points out, event fatigue seems to be nowhere near setting in. However, Marvel widened its lead over DC in unit sales considerably:

Marvel recorded 48.42% of the Unit Market Share, nearly 20 percentage points above DC’s 28.57%. Both the size of the “spread” between publishers and DC’s percentage of share are perhaps both historic figures in the Diamond/single distributor era. From a Dollar standpoint, Marvel’s 43.62% to DC’s 27.07% is comparable to May’s figures.

MORE:
Top 300 Comics Actual - June 2007
Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual–June 2007
World War Hulk Lays Waste to June

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by Marc-Oliver Frisch

DC Comics’ big launch in May was, of course, the weekly Countdown. Succeeding the tremendously successful 52 and widely publicized as the “spine of the DC Universe” for the coming twelve months, Countdown seems to be met with high expectations by the publisher: It has to deliver as an event book in its own right; and, unlike 52, it also has to serve as the lynchpin of a large-scale crossover with a plethora of tie-ins and spin-off books coming up, all of which are going to live or die on the popularity of the mother title. Do the first four issues of Countdown live up to those expectations? Well, look below for an answer.

In other news, DC’s average and total periodical sales were down again in May. This comes as no surprise, given that April’s World War III event miniseries was effectively ordered as four extra issues of 52 and resulted in a sizable sales boost. With the perennial bestseller Justice League of America, the erratically shipping All Star Batman and a strong final issue for 52, the publisher had three books selling beyond the 100,000 unit mark in May. However, they remained the only DC titles to make the Top 15 that month. The only new title coming from DC’s sub-labels, meanwhile, was the TV adaptation Supernatural: Origins. In other words, it was yet another very, very, very quiet month for Vertigo and WildStorm, in terms of periodicals.

On a cautiously positive note, I should mention that, for the first time in ages, all DC Comics periodicals solicited for May actually did come out that month, for a change. With the exception of the supposedly ongoing Doctor Fate monthly, that is, which has been reworked into a different format and is now set to launch in September. And, of course, a few books were an issue or two behind their schedules. And, sure enough, this doesn’t cover the bunch that remain in production limbo and weren’t solicited to begin with, either. Or the ones which were on a planned skip month in May. Or the fact that several major and minor titles solicited for June have already been pushed back to July. But still. It’s a start. 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
05/2001: JLA #54            —  69,390*
05/2002: JLA #66            —  60,581*
05/2003: JLA #81            —  60,316
05/2004: JLA #96            —  70,377 [ 71,546]
05/2004: JLA #97            —  68,170 [ 70,446]
05/2005: JLA #114           —  63,934
————————————–
07/2006: Justice League #0  — 162,378 (+118.4%) [169,199]
08/2006: Justice League #1  — 212,581 (+ 30.9%) [251,266]
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%)
—————–
6 months: -  8.3%
1 year  :    n.a.
2 years : +102.2%

Sales remain high for the second month of “The Lightning Saga,” a crossover with Justice Society of America which runs through both titles. The lack of a boost from the book’s established range suggests that there’s going to be a drop with issue #11, once the crossover storyline is over. So far, though, the book keeps generating great sales.

As usual, retailers were able to order a variant cover edition for every ten copies ordered of the regular edition, which likely enhanced the numbers. A fourth printing of issue #1 sold another 4,375 units in May, meanwhile, and a second printing of issue #2 shifted an additional 3,557 copies.

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by Paul O’Brien

Have you been suffering from withdrawal symptoms ever since CIVIL WAR ended? Well, good news, because WORLD WAR HULK kicked off in May, leading into another few months of crossovers. On top of that, the Spider-Man books are still running “Back in Black” stories, while the “Initiative” banners continue to sprawl across Marvel’s line.

It was a quiet month for new titles, though, with one new ongoing series in the shape of MARVEL ADVENTURES IRON MAN. There were also three new miniseries - SILVER SURFER: REQUIEM, SPIDER-MAN: FAIRY TALES and the first Marvel Illustrated series, LAST OF THE MOHICANS.

But a shortage of big new titles doesn’t prevent Marvel from dominating the direct market once again - perhaps because, for once, almost all Marvel’s books shipped. The biggest title to miss shipping was SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN, which nobody will lose any sleep over. With all their big sellers hitting the shelves, Marvel slaughtered DC, with a margin of 47% to 31% in unit share, and 43% to 28% in dollar share.

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

1.  FALLEN SON: DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA
04/07        Wolverine - 162,106
04/07         Avengers - 146,655  ( -9.5%)
05/07  Captain America - 170,027  (+15.9%)

The death of Captain America continues to rack up the sales, and Marvel’s decision to load this title with big name artists seems to have been justified. The “Wolverine” issue picks up re-orders of 4,815, while “Avengers” gets another 5,873. As usual, both of those figures have been included in the number above.

May’s issue was billed as featuring “Captain America.” It actually has Hawkeye in the costume, and he hands it back at the end. But interest in the storyline, and apparently the belief that this might be a major issue, sees a big increase - unusually for the third issue of a miniseries, this is the highest selling issue to date.

The Spider-Man and Iron Man issues, by David Finch and John Cassaday, were also solicited for May, but didn’t come out.

(more…)

ICv2 looks at Diamond’s may comics sales charts:

Marvel dominated periodical comic sales in the May earning big gains in both dollar and unit market share thanks to a slate that included eight of the top ten best-selling titles. For the second month in a row a Fallen Son: Death of Captain America title (2 covers; 50/50 ratio) was the best-selling title followed in May by the Steven King-derived Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #4. Other Marvel top ten titles included Captain America #26, New Avengers #30, Astonishing X-Men #21, Amazing Spider-Man #540, Mighty Avengers #3 and World War Hulk Prologue, while DC Comics placed Justice League of America #9 in third place and All Star Batman & Robin #5 (originally solicited in the Late Cretaceous) in the ninth sport. DC’s Countdown series appears to be off to solid start, but Marvel’s World War Hulk titles did even better and its looks like they just might keep the mighty Marvel engine roaring across the next few months.

More:
Dollar Trends
Top 300 Comics Sales Estimates
Top 100 Graphic Novel Sales Estimates