July 2013 second best month for comics sales in 21st century

(Update: The final estimate report is now online here.)

The comics shop market enjoyed its best summer month in the Diamond Exclusive Era in dollar terms, ordering more dollars worth of comics and trade paperbacks in the month of July than it has in all but one month since 1997.

Based on Comichron’s analysis of preliminary data released by Diamond Comic Distributors, July’s orders of $46.8 million topped every previous month (in non-inflation adjusted terms) with the exception of October 2012, which had set a mark of $47.3 million.

Comic book, graphic novel, and trade paperback orders were up 16.73% in dollars over last July, which had one less shipping week. That’s right around the amount that an additional shipping week usually adds. That puts the market up 12.71% for the year, to nearly $297 million. The market is now running $35 million ahead of where it was last year at this time.

The aggregate change data:

--> Superman Unchained #2 from DC led the comics periodical list, which saw DC nudging past Marvel in the dollar market shares category for the first time since last September. July comics orders were up 11.02% in units and 12.65% in dollars over last July. --> -->

RANK	DESCRIPTION	PRICE	VENDOR
1	Superman Unchained #2	$3.99	DC
2	Batman #22	$3.99	DC
3	Guardians Of The Galaxy #5	$3.99	Marvel
4	Justice League #22	$3.99	DC
5	Batman Annual #2	$4.99	DC
6	Batman Superman #2	$3.99	DC
7	Justice League Of America #6	$3.99	DC
8	Superior Spider-Man #13	$3.99	Marvel
9	Superior Spider-Man #14	$3.99	Marvel
10	Superior Spider-Man Team Up #1	$3.99	Marvel

Marvel's Hawkeye Vol. 2 topped the graphic novel list. Graphic novel and trade paperback sales were up by a great deal, more than 26%, over last July. The graphic novel list: --> -->

RANK	DESCRIPTION	PRICE	VENDOR
1	Hawkeye Vol. 2: Little Hits	$16.99	Marvel
2	Avatar The Last Airbender Vol. 5: The Search Part 2	$10.99	Dark Horse
3	Saga Volume 2	$14.99	Image
4	Saga Volume 1	$9.99	Image
5	Black Bolt: Something Inhuman This Way Comes	$7.99	Marvel
6	Kick-Ass 2 Prelude: Hit-Girl	$19.99	Marvel
7	Fairest Volume 2: Hidden Kingdom	$14.99	DC
8	Before Watchmen: Comedian/Rorschach Deluxe HC	$29.99	DC
9	Invincible Vol. 18: The Death Of Everyone	$16.99	Image
10	Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan Deluxe HC	$29.99	DC

And here are the market shares: --> And Diamond released a new category in its report, and it's the first time in many years that we've seen a list like this: the actual number of new items that shipped in each category for the major publishers. We've long been able to figure this information out by looking at shipping lists, but it's labor-intensive enough that it's not been a regular practice at Comichron. The data: --> For nearly 20 years, Comichron has posted the number of issues that publishers ranked in the Top 300 each month, which has given us a bit of an insight into sales volume; you can see June's by looking here at the column way down on the left-hand side which says "Items in the Top 300", or you can see the across-time version of it (which has not been updated recently). Readers will find that the numbers in the Titles Shipped list will not match the Top 300 list for a couple of reasons. One, obviously, is that not all titles shipped reach the Top 300. The other, less obvious, is that some issues from earlier months reappear in the Top 300s, so it is possible for the Top 300 item count to actually be larger than the shipped count. Notable is the number of magazines Diamond is shipping. Magazines have always been figured in the Overall Comics, Trade Paperbacks, and Magazines sales figures reported here; it is the grouping Diamond bases its market shares on. But the units and dollars involved have seldom been significant enough to affect those market shares since Wizard's demise, and we see above why. Among publishers of comics, only DC (wth Mad) and Avatar (with Bleeding Cool, I would expect) have entries in the magazine list. Magazine publishers do still have an impact in the market share rankings chart; although it did not appear in the Top 10 this month, Eaglemoss makes the charts often. The full estimates will appear here next week.