April 2014 comics sales: Amazing Spider-Man #1 best-selling issue of 21st Century

As expected, Marvel‘s second reboot of the Amazing Spider-Man title was a record-setter in April: Diamond Comic Distributors reported today that the issue “was the best-selling comic book in both units and dollars in over a decade.” More importantly, the market turned positive for the year, mostly erasing a slow start. Diamond sold nearly $48.2 million in comics and graphic novels to comics
shops in the month of April, a larger total than any month in 2013
except for the record-breaking $50 million October. This brings the
first third of the year to nearly $165 million, up almost $2 million
over the same period in 2013.

But first, a quick look at Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3. #1, which had multiple variant covers, including many produced for specific comics shops. Diamond’s wording means the issue outsold (by however much) 2009’s Amazing Spider-Man #583, the Barack Obama inauguration issue: according to our Top Comics of the 21st Century list, that issue sold at least 530,500 copies across multiple printings.

Since that issue beats anything else on the post-1999 list, the next earlier top-selling single issues in the comics market overall would be likely be the 1999 issues of Pokémon: Pikachu Shocks Back, which Viz reported sold on average 680,000 copies each through multiple printings on the mass market; its predecessor title, Pokémon: The Electric Tale of Pikachu was the last title to top a million copies, during 1998 and 1999. The last million-seller in the comics shop market alone was likely Batman #500 in 1993. Click to read more about the last million-copy sellers.

It’s unlikely that Amazing Spider-Man #1 will put those earlier records at risk, given the number of outlets that exist today: it’s possible to top half a million, but the next half a million is a the much harder part. But it will likely wind up being the best-selling single issue in the Direct Market during the Diamond Exclusive Era, which began in 1997. We’ll have a better idea of final sales at the end of the year, once reorders are added and any damaged copies — which appear to have been a concern — that are eventually allowed as returns get subtracted out.

Back to the overall. The sales changes:

I said more than a few times that a strong April could easily wipe out the year-to-year deficit piled up this winter, and that is mostly what happened, with overall dollar sales and graphic novel dollar sales going positive for the year, with comics unit sales paring their deficit to under 7%. There is a caveat, however: this April was a five-shipping-week month, versus a four-week month last year.

That said, April 2013 was very strong relative to its previous year — up 14%, versus May and June 2013 which were up 1% and 3% respectively — which suggests that this May and June may not have very far to go to keep the industry on an even pace. April was strong enough this year that May and June can each be down 8% relative to 2013 and the market will still be matching last year’s sales.

The market shares appear to have been impacted by the big seller at Marvel. Marvel’s dollar share was higher than it’s been since March 2013, while DC’s 23.65% dollar share was its lowest showing since May 2002‘s 21.89%, when Dreamwave was around and the release of Star Wars Episode II bumped Dark Horse up to nearly 9%:

As noted above, Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3 #1 led the Top-Selling Comics list this time out:

Image scored seven slots on the Top Selling Graphic Novel and Trade Paperback list:

In part due to the five-week month, more titles were offered this April — 49 more comics  and 52 more graphic novels than March. It’s the largest number of new comics released since the 515 in that record-breaking October:

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John Jackson Miller

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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