Wolverine’s death topped the new comics charts in September, but DC buried shelves with “Futures End”-ing new releases to give the publisher the top unit and dollar market share slots, according to preliminary data released today by Diamond Comic Distributors. Comic book stores in North America ordered nearly $50.8 million in comic books, graphic novels, and magazines in the month, a 5.6% increase over last September.
It’s the second month this year to top $50 million in total orders, and just the third in the last decade and a half.
Both this September and last September had four shipping weeks, so we finally have a complete quarter of straight-up comparisons: and July, August, and September found the market up 14.52%, 2.84%, and 5.6% respectively to net out at a 9.33% increase for the third quarter. At $395 million for the year, Direct Market orders are $12 million ahead of last year’s pace; the fourth quarter need only come in at 90% of last year’s total in order for 2014 to see a year-over-year increase.
DC, again, had a remarkable number of new comics releases in September: 124, to Marvel’s 80. This would appear to have come from the large number of Standard Editions for its “Futures End” books: at a dollar less, Diamond would give those titles separate entries in its records (as opposed to same-priced variant covers, which are all fused in single entries). For comparison, DC had 85 new comics releases in August.
The comparative sales statistics:
| DOLLARS | UNITS | |
| SEPTEMBER 2014 VS. AUGUST 2014 |
||
| COMICS | 28.33% | 23.90% |
| GRAPHIC NOVELS |
12.12% | -1.67% |
| TOTAL COMICS/GN |
23.40% | 21.86% |
| SEPTEMBER 2014 VS. SEPTEMBER 2013 |
||
| COMICS | 4.58% | -0.12% |
| GRAPHIC NOVELS |
8.49% | -1.61% |
| TOTAL COMICS/GN |
5.64% | -0.22% |
| YEAR-TO-DATE 2014 VS. YEAR-TO-DATE 2013 |
||
| COMICS | 2.69% | -2.04% |
| GRAPHIC NOVELS |
4.33% | 4.99% |
| TOTAL COMICS/GN |
3.19% | -1.51% |
| THIRD QUARTER 2014 VS. SECOND QUARTER 2014 |
||
| COMICS | 13.59% | 13.56% |
| GRAPHIC NOVELS |
0.75% | 0.77% |
| TOTAL COMICS/GN |
9.50% | 12.51% |
| THIRD QUARTER 2014 VS. THIRD QUARTER 2013 |
||
| COMICS | 10.30% | 6.15% |
| GRAPHIC NOVELS |
7.04% | 4.17% |
| TOTAL COMICS/GN |
9.33% | 6.01% |
The total number of new releases:
| Comics shipped | Graphic novels shipped |
Magazines shipped | Total shipped |
|
| DC | 124 | 27 | 0 | 151 |
| Marvel | 80 | 26 | 1 | 107 |
| Image | 57 | 12 | 0 | 69 |
| Dark Horse |
36 | 21 | 0 | 57 |
| IDW | 35 | 18 | 0 | 53 |
| Boom | 30 | 7 | 0 | 37 |
| Dynamite | 34 | 0 | 0 | 34 |
| Viz | 0 | 24 | 0 | 24 |
| Random House |
3 | 20 | 0 | 23 |
| Eaglemoss | 0 | 0 | 12 | 12 |
| Other | 85 | 110 | 21 | 216 |
| TOTAL SHIPPED | 484 | 265 | 34 | 783 |
Death of Wolverine #1 and #2 were the top two comic books in the market in orders in September. The top sellers in each category:
| COMIC BOOKS | PRICE | VENDOR | |
| 1 | Death of Wolverine #1 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 2 | Death of Wolverine #2 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 3 | Batman: Futures End #1 |
$3.99 | DC |
| 4 | Harley Quinn: Futures End #1 |
$3.99 | DC |
| 5 | Amazing Spider-Man #6 | $3.99 | Marvel |
| 6 | Justice League: Futures End #1 |
$3.99 | DC |
| 7 | Original Sin #8 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 8 | Detective Comics: Futures End #1 |
$3.99 | DC |
| 9 | Justice League #33 | $3.99 | DC |
| 10 | Batman/Superman: Futures End #1 |
$3.99 | DC |
| GRAPHIC NOVELS | PRICE | VENDOR | |
| 1 | Batman: Death of the Family Book & The Joker Mask Boxed Set |
$39.99 | DC |
| 2 | Forever Evil HC | $24.99 | DC |
| 3 | Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds Volume 6 |
$9.99 | Viz |
| 4 | Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 2: Angela |
$19.99 | Marvel |
| 5 | The Walking Dead Volume 10 HC |
$34.99 | Image |
| 6 | Harley Quinn: Vengeance Unlimited |
$19.99 | DC |
| 7 | Saga Volume 1 HC | $9.99 | Image |
| 8 | Kick-Ass 3 Premiere HC |
$29.99 | Marvel |
| 9 | Fatale Volume 5: Curse The Demon |
$14.99 | Image |
| 10 | Saga Volume 3 | $14.99 | Image |
And the market shares:
| Publisher | Dollar Share |
Unit Share |
| DC | 36.58% | 40.76% |
| Marvel | 32.04% | 34.11% |
| Image | 7.49% | 8.24% |
| IDW | 4.52% | 3.24% |
| Dark Horse |
4.11% | 3.30% |
| Boom | 2.34% | 2.28% |
| Dynamite | 2.18% | 2.31% |
| Eaglemoss | 1.29% | 0.25% |
| Random House |
1.15% | 0.41% |
| Viz | 0.96% | 0.35% |
| Other | 7.34% | 4.77% |
Final reports from September 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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