Villains propel September 2013 comics orders to record levels

DC’s “Villains Month” prompted North American comics retailers to order in record volume in September, according to preliminary data released today by Diamond Comic Distributors. The event, which saw many DC titles splitting for the month into several issues featuring different stories and 3-D covers, spearheaded a $48 million month for the trade overall.

That figure is the largest non-inflation adjusted dollar amount for orders seen in the 2000s, beating both last month and last September by more than $9 million. Despite the high month-to-month volatility recently, the quarter overall was up 7.64%. That looks a lot more like the rest of 2013.

In the 1980s, September was called “Black September” in the comics market, owing to a back-to-school dropoff in volume — but the last three years have seen major publisher events during the month, including the DC relaunch in 2011. Based on the comparative statistics below, Comichron estimates that the periodical sales, which were up an astonishing 34% year-over-year in dollar terms, likely topped 8.5 million copies, with DC contributing 4 million copies or more. That would put the month just beneath December 1997 (the 11-cover Darkness #11 month) in periodical orders.

The category comparisons are as follows:

The hub title of the event, Forever Evil #1, led the comics chart for the month. Note that the various Batman issues are not grouped together, since these are not variant covers but actually different issues:

RANK	DESCRIPTION	PRICE	VENDOR
1	FOREVER EVIL #1	$3.99	DC
2	INFINITY #2	$3.99	Marvel
3	INFINITY #3	$3.99	Marvel
4	X-MEN: BATTLE OF ATOM #1	$3.99	Marvel
5	BATMAN #23.1: THE JOKER	$3.99	DC
6	BATMAN #23.2: THE RIDDLER	$3.99	DC
7	MIGHTY AVENGERS #1	$3.99	Marvel
8	BATMAN #23.4: BANE	$3.99	DC
9	AVENGERS #19	$3.99	Marvel
10	BATMAN #23.3: THE PENGUIN	$3.99	DC

RANK	DESCRIPTION	PRICE	VENDOR
1	EAST OF WEST VOLUME 1: THE PROMISE TP	$9.99	Image
2	JUSTICE LEAGUE VOL. 3: THE THRONE OF ATLANTIS HC	$24.99	DC
3	STAR WARS VOLUME 1: IN THE SHADOW OF YAVIN TP	$19.99	Dark Horse
4	THE WALKING DEAD VOLUME 9	$34.99	Image
5	THE WALKING DEAD 100 PROJECT	$12.99	Image
6	JUSTICE LEAGUE VOL. 2: THE VILLAINS' JOURNEY TP	$16.99	DC
7	SAGA VOLUME 1 TP	$9.99	Image
8	SAGA VOLUME 2 TP	$14.99	Image
9	MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC VOLUME 2 TP	$17.99	IDW
10	SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN VOLUME 1 HC	$34.99	Marvel

The market shares reflect Villains Month, as you would expect: And as mentioned above, the "title-shipped" category was much impacted by Villains Month, since the added books weren't variants (which would be bundled with their parent titles): We'll have to see how many DC entries make the Top 300: the record in the Diamond Exclusive era was DC in October 2011 with exactly 129, but remember that reordered books can also make the Top 300, so there's a potential for the publisher's count to go higher. The overall dollar volume for the year in Direct Market orders of comic books, graphic novels, and magazines now rests at nearly $383 million after three quarters. A half-billion dollar year is now almost practically assured. A side note: this Saturday is Star Wars Reads Day, a literacy event celebrated with events in bookstores, libraries, and comics shops. My appearance schedule for that and for New York Comicon is here.