As predicted, total North American comics shop orders for 2013 from January through November matched the amount ordered for all of 2012, according to figures released today by Diamond Comic Distributors. The release was later than usual, owing perhaps to the late-falling Thanksgiving holiday: but it was that Black Friday week that sales likely topped the 2012 total.
Retailers ordered more than $42 million in comics products in November, bringing the year-to-date total to more than $475 million. The November amount was 3% more than was ordered in November 2012, the margin due entirely to graphic novel sales, led by Walking Dead Vol. 19.
This October was a big month in the Direct Market: it was the first time since Diamond became the exclusive distributor for all the major publishers that orders for comic books and trade paperbacks topped $50 million in a month. There was no topping that five-week month in four-week November, with sales off 16% from month to month; but we saw the same dropoff last November.
The aggregate changes are below:
| DOLLARS | UNITS | |
| NOVEMBER 2013 VS. OCTOBER 2013 | ||
| COMICS | -18.80% | -18.95% |
| GRAPHIC NOVELS | -9.72% | -14.98% |
| TOTAL COMICS/GN | -16.07% | -18.65% |
| NOVEMBER 2013 VS. NOVEMBER 2012 | ||
| COMICS | -1.21% | -8.43% |
| GRAPHIC NOVELS | 14.59% | 11.44% |
| TOTAL COMICS/GN | 3.39% | -7.12% |
| YEAR-TO-DATE 2013 VS. YEAR-TO-DATE 2012 | ||
| COMICS | 11.09% | 7.69% |
| GRAPHIC NOVELS | 5.55% | 3.92% |
| TOTAL COMICS/GN | 9.33% | 7.39% |
| RANK | DESCRIPTION | PRICE | VENDOR |
| 1 | BATMAN #25 | $4.99 | DC |
| 2 | HARLEY QUINN #0 | $2.99 | DC |
| 3 | AMAZING X-MEN #1 | $3.99 | MAR |
| 4 | SUPERMAN UNCHAINED #4 | $3.99 | DC |
| 5 | FOREVER EVIL #3 | $3.99 | DC |
| 6 | INFINITY #6 | $5.99 | MAR |
| 7 | ALL-NEW X-MEN #18 | $3.99 | MAR |
| 8 | SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #22 | $3.99 | MAR |
| 9 | BATMAN/SUPERMAN #5 | $3.99 | DC |
| 10 | SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #21 | $3.99 | MAR |
As mentioned above, graphic novels, on the other hand, were the strong point for the month, up nearly 15% over last November — thanks in part to the Walking Dead Vol. 19: March to War, which led the list:
| RANK | DESCRIPTION | PRICE | VENDOR |
| 1 | THE WALKING DEAD VOL. 19: MARCH TO WAR TP | $14.99 | IMA |
| 2 | YU-GI-OH! 5DS VOLUME 5 GN | $9.99 | VIZ |
| 3 | FAIREST IN ALL THE LAND HC | $22.99 | DC |
| 4 | BATMAN: NIGHT OF THE OWLS | $19.99 | DC |
| 5 | THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS VOLUME 3 | $14.99 | IMA |
| 6 | INJUSTICE: GODS AMONG US VOLUME 1 HC | $19.99 | DC |
| 7 | NOWHERE MEN VOLUME 1: FATES WORSE THAN DEATH | $9.99 | IMA |
| 8 | BATMAN IN DETECTIVE COMICS VOL. 2: SCARE TACTICS | $16.99 | DC |
| 9 | S.H.I.E.L.D. ORIGINS | $7.99 | MAR |
| 10 | HAWKEYE VOLUME 1 HC | $34.99 | MAR |
caused me to look again at these figures: I thought Marvel and DC’s
combined dollar share of 59.21% looked low-ish, but it is in fact the
first time it’s been under 60% since April 2003, when Dreamwave had the #2 book. The lowest the combined total has been in the Diamond Exclusive Era is 48.03% in February 1998, when bankruptcy-era Marvel had a truncated slate of titles. Click to see market shares across time.)
| MARKET SHARE | ||
| PUBLISHER | DOLLAR SHARE | UNIT SHARE |
| Marvel | 29.97% | 33.65% |
| DC | 29.24% | 31.90% |
| Image | 8.67% | 9.77% |
| IDW | 6.68% | 6.26% |
| Dark Horse | 6.11% | 4.91% |
| Dynamite | 3.20% | 3.00% |
| Boom | 1.90% | 1.92% |
| Eaglemoss | 1.86% | 0.44% |
| Valiant | 1.58% | 1.74% |
| Viz | 1.19% | 0.42% |
| Other | 9.59% | 5.99% |
| PUBLISHER | COMICS SHIPPED | GRAPHIC NOVELS SHIPPED | MAGAZINES SHIPPED | TOTAL SHIPPED |
| DC | 85 | 29 | 1 | 115 |
| Marvel | 74 | 34 | 0 | 108 |
| IDW | 46 | 31 | 0 | 77 |
| Dark Horse | 37 | 31 | 0 | 68 |
| Image | 42 | 14 | 0 | 56 |
| Dynamite | 30 | 18 | 0 | 48 |
| Viz | 0 | 25 | 0 | 25 |
| Boom | 20 | 3 | 0 | 23 |
| Valiant | 8 | 2 | 0 | 10 |
| Eaglemoss | 0 | 0 | 9 | 9 |
| Other | 64 | 116 | 16 | 196 |
| TOTAL | 406 | 303 | 26 | 735 |
We can now project that overall Direct Market orders for the year are likely to land at the lower end of the range estimated last month: likely between $514-516 million. A double-digit gain for the year would require December to be up nearly 17%; odds instead are that the market will just miss that, coming in up 8-9% for the year.
The final estimates will be along next week.
Comichron founder John Jackson Miller has tracked the comics industry for more than 25 years, including a decade editing the industry’s retail trade magazine; he is the author of several guides to comics, as well as more than a hundred comic books for various franchises.
He is the author of novels including Star Wars: Kenobi, Star Wars: A New Dawn, Star Trek: Discovery – The Enterprise War, and his upcoming release, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – The High Country. Read more about them at his fiction site.
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