2015-01-20

Observations on the Diamond 2014 Charts

Comichron has the Diamond Top 1000 Comics and Graphic Novels charts over here.

No big surprises in the Comics chart that you couldn't glean from the monthly charts. The two big anomalies are AVENGERS #35 and WINTER SOLDIER BITTER MARCH #1. The monthly charts suggest sales around 50.6k and 31.1k respectively, while the year-end numbers come in at 105.5k and 65.7k, slightly more than double the expected sales. Apparently Marvel double shipped those books to retailers, and Diamond didn't count the free copies in the monthly numbers, but did in the year-end. Another double-shipped book, INHUMAN #8, counted the free copies in both the monthly year-end charts. Other than those anomalies, most books are within a few percentage points of their expected sales from the monthly charts, with a few moving up or down a few places due to their monthly numbers being reduced for returnability or having consistent below-the-radar reorder activity.

The Top 1000 Graphic Novels list is much more interesting, because it's actually possible for a book to never make the monthly Top 300 but still accumulate enough sales over the year to make the Top 1000. The list bottoms out at 1749 copies in 2014, which means an average monthly sale of 146 copies will get you on the list. I discussed the topic for the 2013 charts over here. For 2014, there were 145 titles on the chart that were never on the monthly list.

Three can be dismissed as categorization errors:
46 Minecraft Official Mojang Essential Handbook HC - 10711
824 Mike Mignola Hellboy Artist Ed - 2054
902 Steranko Nick Fury Agent of Shield Artist Ed HC - 1918

Those were put on the "Books" chart by Diamond in their initial release months, but moved to the "Graphic Novel" chart for year-end numbers. Other Minecraft and Artist Edition books were sometimes classed as "Books", other times as "Graphic Novels".

That leaves 142 books which stayed under-#300 during the year but still sold over 1749 copies. The top book in that category is #288, Aquaman Vol. 2 The Others, with 4101 copies, or about 342 a month on average.  Here's the breakdown of the 142 by publisher:

DC -- 90
Marvel -- 14
Image -- 12
Dark Horse -- 10
Oni -- 4
Boom -- 3
IDW -- 2
Scholastic -- 2
Abstract -- 1
Avatar -- 1
Dynamite -- 1
Random House -- 1
Viz -- 1

DC has a lot of Vertigo (Fables, Y The Last Man, Sandman, etc) and a lot of Batman, plus early volumes of their New 52 books and some old crossovers (including Crisis on Infinite Earths).

Deadpool is the most common Marvel book in this category with five books, plus two each of Hulk and X-Men and some single books.

Image has a few later volumes of series like Chew and Fatale, a few first volumes of on-going books and some Walking Dead hardcovers.

Dark Horse has two each of Serenity and Umbrella Academy, plus various single books, mostly first volumes.

Oni is all Scott Pilgrim, the new colour volumes mostly.

Boom has their cartoon adaptations, Adventure Time and Bravest Warrior.

IDW is all Locke & Key.

Scholastic has the first volumes of Bone and Amulet.

Abstract, Avatar, Dynamite, Random House and Viz all are represented by the first volumes of Crossed, Sailor Moon, Boys, Rachel Rising and Legend of Zelda, not necessarily in that order.

More on the charts later.

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