Elsewhere: Beat Marvel Chart Analysis Jan. 2014

Over on the Beat, Jason Enwright takes over from Paul O'Brien for the Marvel month-to-month Diamond comics sales analysis article, starting with the January 2014 releases.

What the Cavewomen read... (part 2)

After their inaugural Top 100 in #169, THE COMIC READER (editor: Michael Tiefenbacher publisher: Jerome Sinkovec) continued running the feature monthly.  It would be a bit much to comment on every one, so here's the chart from exactly one year after the first one, representing books on sale in March 1980, as published in TCR #181. Here's a partial list of comics released that month.

There are considerably more and different stores responding to the survey this time around, so you can't really compare the actual numbers. Remember, these are 34 year old numbers from a small self-selected sample of a small fraction of the market, so please, no wagering.

That Letterman reference is almost as old as these numbers...

As you can see, Archie and Harvey are listed this time, which had the result of knocking anything from Charlton and Gold Key off the Top 100.  All of their books are clustered at the bottom of the list, from #72 to #100 (with only Marvel black-and-white magazine CRAZY from other publishers in that range) with close to identical sales ranging from 100 to 123. That's less than half the next lowest book, Marvel's short-lived FUN AND GAMES puzzle and features publication.

Back to the top of the chart, X-MEN is pretty solidly the best selling book in these markets, over 60% higher than the #2 book. The Marvel Universe titles in general seem to have improved against the Marvel licensed books in the last year, although the launch of KING CONAN seems to have done well, at $0.75 per issue it's close to tied in retail value with X-MEN at $0.40. The launch issue a few months earlier was #1, with sales almost 150% of X-MEN, so I guess the history of big second issue drops began early in the direct market.

First non-Marvel on the book is again DC's WARLORD, this time at #27. I guess it could be seen as an improvement that this time a few of DC's super-hero books (LEGION and JLA) come in just ahead of the worst selling of Marvel's non-reprint colour comics, like GHOST  RIDER. WONDER WOMAN is DC's worst selling super-hero book, other than SUPER FRIENDS which is again in the middle of DC's western, war and mystery titles. Interestingly, TIME WARP, DC's short-lived $1 science-fiction title, was selling better in these markets than the other non-super-hero titles, and many of the super-hero titles, but was cancelled after five issues this month. Guess it wasn't doing as well in other markets.

HEAVY METAL is again the best selling non-DC/Marvel comic at #51.  The Warren magazines fall below it, in the range of the non-super-hero DC books and Marvel reprint books

And again, not a single first issue this month.  Even when they did launch new books back then, they didn't do it in March, I guess.

Elsewhere: Beat DC Chart Analysis Jan. 2014

Dave Carter takes over the DC month-to-month analysis over at the Beat from long-time columnist Marc-Oliver Frisch, starting with the January 2014 numbers. Carter also does a weekly look at Amazon's graphic books sales over at his own site.

IDW's 2013 publishing graphic

IDW has the above graphic on their website (adapted from the art of Gabriel Rodriguez for the LOCKE & KEY series he created with Joe Hill).  Thought I'd save it here for posterity and highlight a few of the numbers for 2013.

Over 5 million comic books sold
Over 1 million graphic novels sold
Over 1 million ebooks sold
Over 1,000 thousand unique comics published
Over 400 graphic novels published

These are all kind of vague terms, of course.  It's not clear if ebooks are considered a subset of the comic book or graphic novel sales, or entirely distinct from them, or partially overlapping with one category or the other. Even assuming distinct, that's a pretty good percentage of their sales in a market that didn't exist just a few years ago.

IDW had about 500 different comics available through Diamond in 2013 and 250 graphic novels, and I assume they don't publish a lot that isn't available through Diamond even if that's not the primary market for a particular book, so I'm not sure if the numbers they give include variant covers (and thus the "unique comics" wording) or new printings of older books, or they count digital releases as distinct from print releases.

Just going by Diamond's top 300, that accounts for about 4 million comics and 220 thousand graphic novels.  The recent months where we see the top 400 for comics indicates that there's probably at least another 50 thousand a month in comics, so call that 4.6 million. Adding in a ballpark estimate of 10% for sales outside of North America gets you into that over 5 million category. Brian Hibbs' look at the BookScan numbers indicates another 180,000 graphic novels can be accounted for there, still leaving a majority that were sold in the non-BookScan reporting mass market and in the below the top 300 ranking direct market.

Elsewhere: Beat Indie Chart Analysis Dec. 2013

Paul Mellerick has the latest instalment of his month-to-month analysis of the "Indie" (non-DC/Marvel for these purposes) comics sales on Diamond's charts, covering December 2013. It was a fairly quiet month, without any surprisingly big launches, lots of huge second issue drops.

What the Cavemen read... (part 1)

From 1979 to 1982, THE COMIC READER, under editor Michael Tiefenbacher and publisher Jerome Sinkovec, ran a regular chart based on survey reports from comic shops on what was selling in their stores. The first one ran in #169, the June 1979 issue, and reported on books on sale in March 1979, with about 20 stores reporting (and given the tools available in that day, I give them credit for getting it done that fast). For some reason Archie and Harvey comics weren't included (they would be in later charts), so there are only 93 entries, from Marvel, DC, Gold Key, Warren, Charlton and Heavy Metal.

By the way, I think stores were responding with their sell-through numbers (actual sales to customers) and not their sell-in (their purchases from their distributors, the numbers the current Diamond charts represent), but I'm not 100% sure.

Here's a fairly complete list of books published that month.  And no, your eyes are not playing tricks, there really were that many RICHIE RICH titles published at once. In fact, since most of them were bi-monthly, there were actually almost twice as many individual titles.

There's little real value to any of the data, being a self-selected sample of stores that report, and at the time the nascent specialist comic store being just a small fraction of the market (based on most figures I've seen, this probably represents less than 1% of the sales for most of these books, far less for some of them), but they're still an interesting snapshot of that market.

As you can see, Marvel pretty much owned this section of the market.  You have to go down to #21 before you get a DC book, and I'll bet almost no one would be able to guess that that DC book would be WARLORD.  And that handily outsold the second DC book, at #29, DC COMICS PRESENTS, which puts it below every non-reprint standard sized comic Marvel was publishing (GHOST RIDER at #27 being the lowest of those).

The licensed books were tops at Marvel for this market, with four of the top six entries, with X-MEN being the top Marvel Universe book.

The DC books are pretty much ranked as you'd expect except for WARLORD up top. The main super-hero books, fairly tightly clustered with WONDER WOMAN last, followed by a mix of the western, war and mystery books, with SUPER FRIENDS mixed in with those.

HEAVY METAL at #31 is the first entry not from DC or Marvel.  And given it was $1.50 when most of the higher entries were $0.40, it might have been near the top in total dollar sales, along with the $1 SAVAGE SWORD and $1.50 MARVEL SUPER SPECIAL that placed higher. The $2 tabloid sized MARVEL TREASURY EDITIONS were probably also bringing in as much for these stores as the top sellers.

Gold Key first shows up at #47, with WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES.  There's quite a spread on their sales, not surprisingly the books likely to have Barks reprints way up on the other stuff, except the recently revived FLASH GORDON comic which also does relatively well. And, in the "things I did not know" department, there was a HAPPY DAYS comic.

The Warren black-and-white magazines are pretty tightly clustered. And very clearly this segment of the market has no interest in Charlton, which was by now pretty much entirely publishing reprints. The bottom ten entries are the Charlton line, with the top book selling less than half the next worst seller. They'll pretty much drop off the list once the Archie and Harvey titles are listed.

And one thing kind of sticks out compared to today. Check out how many first issues were published that month.  None. In fact, there are only a handful of books in single digits. It wouldn't be long before being a #1 was seen as a positive.

Diamond Graphic Novels Chart - Semi-Perennials and more

Previously, books which appeared on every monthly Diamond Top 300 in 2013, and those that appeared in 10 or 11 months.  Now those that appeared in 8 or 9 months (sometimes still all the months they were available, for new releases), 23 books in all.

Dark Horse
AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER TP VOL 04 SEARCH PART 1 - 14234 copies, 9/10 months (around 1580 per month)

Appears to be quite solid, following the same sales pattern as Vol 1, so I'm sure we'll see it again for a while.  And Vol 7 starts another storyline, so if the pattern holds it'll sell well throughout 2014.

DC
AQUAMAN TP VOL 01 THE TRENCH (N52) - 8527 copies, 8/8 months (around 1070 per month)
ARKHAM ASYLUM ANNIVERSARY ED SC - 5087 copies, 9/12 months (around 570 per month)
BATMAN HC VOL 02 THE CITY OF OWLS (N52) - 16505 copies, 8/10 months (around 2060 per month)
NIGHTWING TP VOL 01 TRAPS AND TRAPEZES (N52) - 6135 copies, 8/12 months (around 770 per month)
SANDMAN TP VOL 03 DREAM COUNTRY NEW ED - 5440 copies, 8/12 months (around 680 per month)
TRANSMETROPOLITAN TP VOL 01 BACK ON THE STREET - 4580 copies, 9/12 months (around 510 per month)
Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 01 UNMANNED - 7754 copies, 9/12 months (around 860 per month)

Another batch of the more popular "New 52" books.  The CITY OF OWLS hardcover was on the charts steadily until the softcover came out, which will probably replace it on the chart next year. Old standby ARKHAM ASYLUM isn't going anywhere, and SANDMAN might actually pick up some steam if they ever release another issue of the SANDMAN OVERTURE series.

We also have the first volumes of two long-running Vertigo books. Most of the subsequent volumes of those usually sell below the threshold to be on the top 300, but steadily enough that sometimes they show up on the year-end list. For example, Y VOL 04 and Y VOL 10 never appear on the top 300 in 2013, but John Jackson Miller's year-end estimate is that they shipped around 3000 and 1700 copies respectively through Diamond.  Which makes sense, that means they averaged 250 and 140 copies per month, well below the threshold to make the chart, but enough to add up over time.

IDW
LOCKE & KEY TP VOL 01 WELCOME TO LOVECRAFT - 7228 copies, 9/12 months (around 800 per month)

The first IDW book that's close to being a perennial. It'll be interesting to see if it can sustain sales like this now that the serialization is over.  Sometimes books tend to fade away after that point, other times they become permanent fixtures. By the way, for reference, John Jackson Miller's estimate of total direct market sales for the book are 7700 copies, so it averages about 150 copies on the three months it didn't make the top 300.

If the bubble doesn't burst by then, expect MY LITTLE PONY to join or replace this on the list for 2014.

Image
FATALE TP VOL 01 DEATH CHASES ME - 5552 copies, 9/12 months (around 620 per month)
MANHATTAN PROJECTS TP VOL 02 - 10947 copies, 9/9 months (around 1220 per month)
REVIVAL TP VOL 01 YOU'RE AMONG FRIENDS - 6975 copies, 9/12 months (around 780 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 11 FEAR THE HUNTERS - 7424 copies, 9/12 months (around 820 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 12 LIFE AMONG THEM - 6904 copies, 9/12 months (around 770 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 13 TOO FAR GONE - 6777 copies, 9/12 months (around 750 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 14 NO WAY OUT - 6833 copies, 9/12 months (around 760 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 15 WE FIND OURSELVES - 7351 copies, 9/12 months (around 820 per month)

The balance of the WALKING DEAD books from the middle of the run, selling a little bit less the early and more recent once, but better than 90% of everything else. A few other books there that seem to have potential to keep appearing on the list on a regular basis.

Marvel
DEADPOOL TP VOL 01 DEAD PRESIDENTS NOW - 12979 copies, 8/8 months (around 1620 per month)
INFINITY GAUNTLET TP - 5340 copies, 9/12 months (around 590 per month)
KICK-ASS 2 TP - 10228 copies, 8/10 months (around 1280 per month)
KICK-ASS TP - 5856 copies, 8/12 months (around 730 per month)
SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN TP VOL 01 MY OWN WORST ENEMY NOW - 9459 copies, 8/8 months (around 1180 per month)
X-MEN DAYS OF FUTURE PAST TP - 6960 copies, 9/12 months (around 770 per month)

DEADPOOL and SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN appear to be the two big successes after HAWKEYE of Marvel's current book program.  It probably helps that those books go to softcover first (eventually followed by a thicker hardcover), instead of a quick thin hardcover followed by a softcover almost a year later. INFINITY GAUNTLET got a big bump up to near-perennial status thanks to the Avengers film, and Marvel seems to be doing a better job of keeping it available. The KICK-ASS books probably benefited from the second movie, unless there's a third movie I'd expect those books to start fading away.

X-MEN DAYS OF FUTURE PAST benefits from the upcoming movie taking the title and some plot points from the story, and also from being a well regarded run of comics that Marvel only recently started to keep available in a suitable format. Unfortunately, Marvel is getting ready to obfuscate the issue before the movie by releasing a hardcover also called X-MEN DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, not with the contents of the softcover (the original two issue story and surrounding issues of the comic) but rather the original two issue stories and all the later often misguided sequels and prequels.  Seriously instead of a simple solid run of early 1980s X-MEN, the book they want to put in front of people has "X-MEN (1963) #141, UNCANNY X-MEN (1963) #142, X-MEN ANNUAL (1970) #14, EXCALIBUR (1988) #52 and #66-67, and WOLVERINE: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST #1-3; and material from FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #23, NEW MUTANTS ANNUAL #6, X-FACTOR ANNUAL #5 and HULK: BROKEN WORLDS #2".  Who thought that was a good idea?

Diamond Graphic Novels Chart - Near and Future Perennials

Last time I looked at 25 books which made Diamond's top 300 Graphic Novel chart every month of 2013.  This time the books which just missed that, making the chart 10 or 11 months of the year.  Sometimes this is because the books were first published during 2013, so obviously unavailable in the early months.  Sometimes books will be briefly out of print, when one printing sells out before the next is ready. Sometimes the books will just fall outside of the top 300 for a month.  The threshold to make the top 300 varies from month to month, going from as low as 327 to as high as 510, so it's easy enough to fall below a few times but still have substantial sales. There are twenty books from five publishers in this category.

Boom
ADVENTURE TIME TP VOL 02 - 14673 copies, 10/11 months (around 1470 per month)

Pretty much following in the footsteps of Volume 1, at a slightly reduced rate, I'd expect it to keep making the chart more often then not, but not every month, for the next little while, or until the bubble bursts.

Dark Horse
AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER TP VOL 01 PROMISE PART 1 - 6630 copies, 11/12 months (around 600 per month)

This line has been a pretty consistent seller for Dark Horse for two years now, and is even bigger in the mass-market.  Looks like they did well to pick up the series after the stench of the live action movie wore off.



DC
BATMAN TP VOL 01 THE COURT OF OWLS (N52) - 24273 copies, 10/10 months (around 2430 per month)
JUSTICE LEAGUE TP VOL 01 ORIGIN (N52) - 17300 copies, 11/12 months (around 1570 per month)
BATMAN THE LONG HALLOWEEN TP - 13246 copies, 10/12 months (around 1320 per month)
FABLES TP VOL 01 LEGENDS IN EXILE NEW ED - 10093 copies, 11/12 months (around 920 per month)
V FOR VENDETTA TP - 9144 copies, 11/12 months (around 830 per month)
WONDER WOMAN TP VOL 01 BLOOD (N52) - 8420 copies, 10/12 months (around 840 per month)
BATMAN EARTH ONE HC - 7385 copies, 10/12 months (around 740 per month)
KINGDOM COME TP NEW EDITION - 7059 copies, 10/12 months (around 710 per month)
BATMAN KNIGHTFALL TP NEW ED VOL 01 - 6709 copies, 11/12 months (around 610 per month)
V FOR VENDETTA BOOK AND MASK SET - 6478 copies, 10/12 months (around 650 per month)
JOKER HC - 6200 copies, 10/12 months (around 620 per month)

Mix of stuff from DC.  The top-line "New 52" stuff seems to be doing well in their paperback releases following successful hardcover editions.  A few long-time perennials like LONG HALLOWEEN and KINGDOM COME aren't going anywhere. If you combine the two versions of V FOR VENDETTA it remains one of DC's top books, and would probably easily make the list every month, but people gots to have their corporate rebel masks. Original hardcovers BATMAN EARTH ONE and JOKER have had good runs, but might be getting to the point where being replaced by cheaper softcovers would be a good idea.

Image
WALKING DEAD COMPENDIUM TP VOL 01 - 13777 copies, 11/12 months (around 1150 per month)
WALKING DEAD COMPENDIUM TP VOL 02 - 8840 copies, 10/12 months (around 880 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 10 WHAT WE BECOME - 8811 copies, 11/12 months (around 800 per month)

Surprisingly very little from Image in this range, which I guess means they do a pretty good job of keeping their most in-demand books available.  And those WALKING DEAD COMPENDIA are US$60 books, so for them to sell that consistently is remarkable on several levels.

Marvel
HAWKEYE TP VOL 01 MY LIFE AS WEAPON NOW - 24401 copies, 10/10 months (around 2440 per month)
AVENGERS VS X-MEN TP AVX - 13306 copies, 10/10 months (around 1330 per month)
DEADPOOL KILLS MARVEL UNIVERSE TP - 12228 copies, 11/12 months (around 1110 per month)
WOLVERINE OLD MAN LOGAN TP - 7470 copies, 11/12 months (around 680 per month)

Mostly recent releases (HAWKEYE v1 and AVX released in 2013, DEADPOOL KILLS MU in late 2012), we'll see if they have the legs to be true evergreens.  I'd bet on HAWKEYE and DEADPOOL over AVX.  Except for CIVIL WAR it doesn't seem Marvel crossovers have staying power. OLD MAN LOGAN has been selling steadily in this format since 2010, it seems to be what the market has embraced as the starter Wolverine book, even moreso than the 1980s mini-series which was partly adapted for the last movie.

Diamond Graphic Novels Chart - Perennials

My favourite of the regular charts is the Diamond "Graphic Novel" chart. Over on the periodical comics side, things are mostly predictable once a series launches.  There's going to be a big drop-off with #2, a smaller one with #3, eventually the series will either keep dropping fast until cancelled or settle into a 1% to 3% drop per issue, so predictable that it's become a running joke, "standard attrition". Every now and then there'll be a crossover or gimmick which will bump up sales, which will almost always be followed by a corresponding drop after the event which will drop the sales trend back in line. It's the rare book which maintains steady sales for an extended period, and an exceeding rare one which increases sales month after month.

Comparatively the "Graphic Novel" side is much more fluid. By the way Diamond seems to define the terms somewhat capriciously, but generally will match at least two of the three criteria: bound instead of stapled, priced $9.95 or higher, having an ISBN. Probably 99% of releases fall firmly on one side or the other, but there are some that could go either way. A good number of the listings each month are re-orders of books which came out before, especially since Diamond increased the number of books they list from 100 to 300 back in 2008. I'll work up some more detailed numbers later, but about 40% of the listings each month are backlist items. Of course, those aren't spread equally.  It looks like about 85% of books only make the charts once and then drop off, another 10% make the charts twice and are never seen from again (and a few of those it looks like the second appearance is just the publisher liquidating excess inventory at bargain prices, the direct market equivalent of remaindering). A very few books show up more often, and add substantially to their first month sales. And then there are a handful which will continue to show up more often then not, often selling better than most new releases. So a quick look at some perennial evergreen sellers.

There were 25 books from four publishers which made Diamond's top 300 list for every month of 2013

Boom
ADVENTURE TIME TP VOL 01 - 19349 copies (around 1610 per month)

A fairly new entry on the list, first published in late 2012. Shows no real sign of slowing down, and the subsequent volumes frequently show up (though not every month).




DC

BATMAN THE KILLING JOKE SPECIAL ED HC - 23366 copies (around 1950 per month)
BATMAN HUSH COMPLETE TP - 16045 copies (around 1340 per month)
BATMAN DARK KNIGHT RETURNS TP - 14703 copies (around 1230 per month)
SANDMAN TP VOL 01 PRELUDES & NOCTURNES NEW ED - 13050 copies (around 1090 per month)
WATCHMEN TP - 11440 copies (around 950 per month)
SUPERMAN RED SON TP - 11345 copies (around 950 per month)
BATMAN YEAR ONE DELUXE SC - 11196 copies (around 930 per month)
SANDMAN TP VOL 02 THE DOLLS HOUSE NEW ED - 8134 copies (around 680 per month)
BLACKEST NIGHT TP - 7852 copies (around 650 per month)

Pretty much what you'd expect from DC.  Six of the nine books are from 20-30 years ago and have been selling pretty consistently ever since (with THE KILLING JOKE joining that list late with the new edition coming out in 2008, but even then the original "prestige format" version was one of the few books in that format DC kept in print, with at least 14 known printings).  Of the more recent stuff, HUSH is pretty much designed to be a standalone intro to Batman, and BLACKEST NIGHT is a fairly straightforward event book.  I wouldn't be surprised it if stops being a consistent top 300 entry soon. RED SON is a bit mystifying, but I guess it's a standalone somewhat attractive Superman book, which is an unfortunate rarity, and the writer is more popular now than when he wrote it.

Image

SAGA TP VOL 01 - 60650 copies (around 5050 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 01 DAYS GONE BYE - 55633 copies (around 4640 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 02 MILES BEHIND US - 32758 copies (around 2730 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 03 SAFETY BEHIND BARS - 22587 copies (around 1880 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 17 SOMETHING TO FEAR - 21318 copies (around 1780 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 04 HEARTS DESIRE - 17934 copies (around 1490 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 05 BEST DEFENSE - 14811 copies (around 1230 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 06 SORROWFUL LIFE - 12571 copies (around 1050 per month)
MANHATTAN PROJECTS TP VOL 01 SCIENCE BAD - 12497 copies (around 1040 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 07 THE CALM BEFORE - 11407 copies (around 950 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 08 MADE TO SUFFER - 10749 copies (around 900 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 16 A LARGER WORLD - 10467 copies (around 870 per month)
WALKING DEAD TP VOL 09 HERE WE REMAIN - 9908 copies (around 830 per month)
CHEW TP VOL 01 - 8644 copies (around 720 per month)

WALKING DEAD is of course what you'd expect, and much discussed elsewhere. The early volumes will continue to sell, the most recent ones will probably drop off a bit, maybe not chart every month, as they're replaced by newer volumes. SAGA is doing remarkably well, and if anything seems to be gaining steam as more new volumes are published. The later volumes of MANHATTAN PROJECTS are also doing well, and CHEW is solid, especially considering the more modest sales it has in serialized form compared to the other books.


Marvel

CIVIL WAR TP - 8972 copies (around 750 per month)

And of course Marvel has always had a reputation for not being able to keep things in print, so the only surprise here is that there wasn't at least one month in the year where this book wasn't available. Anyway, CIVIL WAR seems to have a reputation as the Marvel crossover that reads fairly well with no tie-ins, has all the big-name characters and is attractively drawn, so no surprise that it keeps selling.

And those are the books which you can currently bet on being on the chart every month.  Later, the books which charted on the top 300 in 2013 almost every month, missing only once or twice.

The State of the Stats

Here are the most recent sales charts stuff.

The most useful comic book sales information released is the monthly numbers dump from Diamond Comics Distributors of their top sellers for the prior month in what they call "Comics" (generally stapled comics priced under $10 and without an ISBN) and "Graphic Novels" (generally bound books priced $10 or higher and with an ISBN, also frequently called "Trade Paperbacks", even when they're hardcovers). Various sites take those numbers (which don't give actual sales but rather an order index of relative sales), apply some known sales numbers to them and get estimates of the sales. There used to be a small variation in the estimates from various sources, but rarely more than 1%, and even that has been down to zero for several years now. So presumably whatever publishers are giving them sales numbers to compare are the same publishers.

John Jackson Miller's The Comics Chronicles is an invaluable resource, with comprehensive direct market charts going back almost two decades, and lots of information on earlier stuff as well. Most recently he has the January 2014 Diamond numbers (now including the full top 400 on the comics chart, plus some small publisher entries below that).

John Mayo provides the analysis of the information for Comic Book Resources. Here's his chart for January 2014. He adds a few interesting things, like comparisons with sales of the previous issue and attempts to give accumulated sales figures for books which have been on the "Graphic Novel" chart more than once.

Mayo also does the Comic Book Page Podcast, which includes separate monthly episodes where he takes about each chart.

The comic book industry site ICV2 also posts the numbers and some analysis of the overall market trends based on them.  You can get links to all their charts and reports back to 2001 over here.

News site The Beat includes monthly columns based on the ICV2 comics chart, looking separately at the sales trends for DC, Marvel and other publishers. You can get the most recent ones, and other sales related posts, over here.

Outside the direct market serviced by Diamond, the only source with hard numbers is the annual look at BookScan's reported sales written by Brian Hibbs over at Comic Book Resources.  Here's his look at 2013, which has links to prior years. ICV2 posts the BookScan Top 20 each month, with just ordinal rankings and not sales numbers.

Other mass-market sources lack actual numbers, but are still of interest.  Dave Carter takes a weekly look at Amazon's top 50 over at his Yet Another Comics Blog, and the New York Times has weekly lists of hardcover, softcover and manga bestsellers.

Introduction

Welcome.

I do love comic books. The actual contents of the books more than anything, but for some reason I'm also fascinated by aspects of the business of comics.  Especially sales data. I've found those interesting since the comic shop surveys that used to run in THE COMICS READER back in the early 1980s and the statements of ownership that many comics ran once a year, and going through to the current monthly charts that Diamond releases, and the occasional look we get at mass-market sales.

So here's a blog devoted to such things. I'll post updates whenever new charts and analysis are available from various sources, and since I have years of charts saved, I'll occasionally post some information I find interesting from them.

So if you share the at best idiosyncratic, and at worst perverse, fascination that I have, be sure to check in often, or subscribe through any of the options that should be available from buttons somewhere on this page.