Diamond Comic Distributors released their sales data for the month of June yesterday. Surprisingly, coming out on top for comics was Grant Morrison's and Frank Quitely's Batman and Robin #1, which managed to somehow top Marvel's Captain America #600, which featured a great deal of media attention and even a special Monday release date. Hit the jump for a full breakdown of the top 10 comics and graphic novels.A quick note before the charts. The pricing is from Diamond's list, the page count for the DC comics is from their site but the page count for the Marvel comics are from third party sources because Marvel does not actually list the page counts of their comics on their website so they may not be completely accurate.
COMICS
COMICS
- Batman and Robin #1 - $2.99/32 pgs.
- Captain America #600 - $4.99/100 pgs.
- DA/UXM: Utopia #1 - $3.99/46 pgs.
- Batman #687 - $3.99/40 pgs.
- Dark Avengers #5 - $3.99/32 pgs.
- Dark Avengers #6 - $3.99/32 pgs.
- New Avengers #54 - $3.99/32 pgs.
- Ultimatum #4 - $3.99/32 pgs.
- Green Lantern #42 - $2.99/32 pgs.
- The Flash: Rebirth #3 - $2.99/32 pgs.
Not too many surprises here. I was surprised that Detective Comics with Batwoman did not make the Top 10. Not too surprised that Ultimatum outsold Green Lantern. The Flash: Rebirth has fallen pretty far though in only three months. Debuted at #2 and is already down to #10. A pretty weak showing for a Johns/EVS book but whether it is because people have no interest in the Flash or no interest in Barry Allen is hard to know at this point. Again, half of the books were $3.99 books with 32 pages and only three of the books were $2.99 for 32 pages, including the top selling book, Batman and Robin #1.
COLLECTIONS, OGN, AND MANGA
COLLECTIONS, OGN, AND MANGA
- Final Crisis HC
- All Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder Vol 1TPB
- Deadpool Vol 1: Secret Invasion TPB
- Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War Vol 2 TPB
- Green Lantern: Tales of the Sinestro Corps TPB
- Empowered Vol 5
- Dark Reign: Deadpool/Thunderbolts TPB
- Green Lantern Corps: Sins of The Star Sapphires TPB
- House of Mystery Vol 2: Love Stories for Dead People TPB
- Bleach Vol 27
Again, not too many surprises. Both Green Lantern and Deadpool are doing well due to increased interest so it not surprising to see them have multiple trades in the Top 10. Final Crisis has also been doing pretty well and has topped the NYT Best Seller list both times it has been listed so it should be no surprise to see it top the chart.
MARKET SHARE
Marvel - 50%/45%
DC - 28%/27%
IDW Publishing - 3%/4%
Dark Horse - 3%/3%
Image - 2%/2%
The first number is Unit Market Share and the second is Dollar Share. Again, not too many surprises though Marvel's lead over DC is getting larger and larger it seems. IDW is also on the rise as they used to be the #4 publisher not too long along.
MARKET SHARE
Marvel - 50%/45%
DC - 28%/27%
IDW Publishing - 3%/4%
Dark Horse - 3%/3%
Image - 2%/2%
The first number is Unit Market Share and the second is Dollar Share. Again, not too many surprises though Marvel's lead over DC is getting larger and larger it seems. IDW is also on the rise as they used to be the #4 publisher not too long along.
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13 comments:
It's odd that Cap. #600 came in behind Batman and Robin. Even with the bust that was Marvel's "significant media attention plan" it still made a fair bit of news.
I expected DC to close in on Marvel in June with the Batman relaucnh.
It'll be interesting to see the actual sales numbers when they release them. Im curious to see if anyone broke 100k sales this month or not with those two heavy weights coming out in the 1 and 2 spot. If those can't give comics the shot in the arm it needs (dont think weve had a 100k+ sales book in the last 4 or 5 months), I dont know what will.
I am surprised that Batman and Robin did so well but not surprised to see Streets of Gotham not doing so well. Which is a shame.
in regards to the market share breakdown between DC and Marvel , in the direct market
-it will be tough for DC to match Marvel simply because Marvel releases that many more books each week then DC
@Anonymous - But you could argue they put out more books because they sell and that DC would publish more books if there's sold more. It's not a matter of DC just upping the number of books they put out (I think Marvel has ~30 more books per month or so) as they would lose money due to lack of sales. Otherwise, they'd already be publishing that many.
A world where Ultimatum can make the top ten and Detective Comics is nowhere to be seen (or Mighty Avengers for that matter - still the best avengers series around) is a sad world indeed
Andrenn - All of Morrison's recent series have done very well when they launched, I don't see why Batman and Robin would be different. Despite all of the internet complaining, Batman RIP and Final Crisis both sold Top 10 as well.
Flip The Page - Both Detective Comics and Mighty Avengers made the Top 25. 13th and 17th respectively. Of course, Dark f!@$ing Wolverine was #11. Link.
You have to consider that Captain America #600 was 4.99 and Batman and Robin was 2.99, so I am not surprised it outsold it.
@Kirk, I wish I could remember where it was I read it (probably CBR), but there was an analysis where they basically explained that the top sellers book are what make the most difference in the market share, not the ones near the bottom of the list. And all the Marvel titles in the top 10 are above 2.99, so even if the units sold are about the same, Marvel just made a lot more money selling those comics.
I have to say, I am surprised to see Image doing so poorly.
Matt - Not sure if this matters or not but, Image is the only company in the top five that doesn't have any big, licensable properties that it produces comics for.
I'm just surprised because a couple of years ago it was battling the 3rd place with Dark Horse, and now it's all the way down to 5th place (although there isn't that much of a difference between 3rd, 4th, and 5th)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer makes a huge difference for Dark Horse's ranking. Without it, DH would be an easy 5th place ranking.
I think problem with DC isn't the top 10 but top 50 or top 75 where Dc oftern has only a third of the numbers.
I agree DC problem isn't just that Marvel puts out more books. DC has too many of their top and mid-level characters on hold or in limbo.
I am sure Buffy does well for Dark Horse's numbers, but I am betting it is the Star Wars stuff that continues to keep them so high. The monthlies are on every magazine rack I come across and the trades are a library unto themselves.
Add to that things like The Goon, the Mignola Hellboy universe and left field titles like Umbrella Academy and Emily the Strange, plus all of the manga that they put out and the non-comic product branding of all of these.
Dark Horse doesn't get much attention these days in the comic press, but they punch out a bunch of stuff that has made an impact on the market, often with a non-traditional customer base.
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