Four years ago, August saw the comics market slumping in the days before the DC relaunch invigorated the market. Comics sales in July 2011 were down 7% for the year-to-date. The first day of the DC relaunch, August 31 with Justice League #1, erased half that deficit — and the year would go on to recover most of the rest of it, finishing nearly flat, mostly because of a year-long weakness in graphic novels that could not be fully erased.
By contrast, August 2015, in advance of the Marvel line relaunch, saw comic shop managers ordering $43.81 million in comic books, graphic novels, and magazines, according to Comichron’s analysis of data released this morning by Diamond Comic Distributors. That brings the total for the year to approximately $378.1 million, an increase of $34 million over the same period in 2014.
So that’s in the bank, before we get to whatever action the Marvel line relaunch generates in the fall. The year is already up nearly 10%. And while the pace of growth slowed in July and August, the industry is starting from a larger base of revenue this time around. Orders for 2011 through August, including the one-day Justice League numbers, were $259 million; today’s market is 46% larger, amounting to nearly $120 million difference. That’s not all inflation, folks; retailers are moving well over a million more comic books a month than they did in the pre-DC-relaunch summer of 2011.
On to the charts, which were topped by Marvel’s Secret Wars #5 and a new Walking Dead compendium:
| Title | Price | Publisher | |
| 1 | Secret Wars #5 | $3.99 | Marvel |
| 2 | Star Wars #8 | $3.99 | Marvel |
| 3 | Batman #43 | $3.99 | DC |
| 4 | Darth Vader #8 | $3.99 | Marvel |
| 5 | Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #3 |
$3.99 | Marvel |
| 6 | Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #4 |
$3.99 | Marvel |
| 7 | Walking Dead #145 | $2.99 | Image |
| 8 | Justice League #43 | $3.99 | DC |
| 9 | Civil War #2 | $3.99 | Marvel |
| 10 | Star Wars: Lando #2 | $3.99 | Marvel |
| Title | Price | Publisher | |
| 1 | Walking Dead Vol. 24: Life And Death |
$14.99 | Image |
| 2 | Batman: The Killing Joke Special Edition HC |
$17.99 | DC |
| 3 | Black Science Vol. 3: Vanishing Point |
$14.99 | Image |
| 4 | Civil War | $24.99 | Marvel |
| 5 | Return Of The Living Deadpool |
$16.99 | Marvel |
| 6 | Fables Volume 22 | $17.99 | DC |
| 7 | Chew Volume 10: Blood Puddin’ |
$14.99 | Image |
| 8 | Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 1: Squirrel Power |
$15.99 | Marvel |
| 9 | Saga Volume 1 | $9.99 | Image |
| 10 | Sunstone Volume 3 | $14.99 | Image |
The aggregate changes:
| Dollars | Units | |
| August 2015 vs. July 2015 |
||
| Comics | -18.24% | -15.79% |
| Graphic Novels |
-10.71% | -20.19% |
| Total Comics/GNs |
-15.89% | -16.20% |
| August 2015 vs. August 2014 |
||
| Comics | 2.25% | 0.03% |
| Graphic Novels |
16.04% | 11.89% |
| Total Comics/GNs |
6.45% | 0.97% |
| Year-to-date 2015 vs. Year-to-date 2014 |
||
| Comics | 11.38% | 10.61% |
| Graphic Novels |
6.35% | 5.96% |
| Total Comics/GNs |
9.80% | 10.22% |
The market shares:
| Dollar Share |
Unit Share | |
| Marvel | 36.67% | 40.13% |
| DC | 25.39% | 26.95% |
| Image | 9.98% | 10.41% |
| IDW | 4.90% | 4.26% |
| Dark Horse | 4.09% | 3.63% |
| Boom | 2.33% | 2.38% |
| Dynamite | 2.01% | 2.03% |
| Titan | 1.33% | 1.42% |
| Valiant | 1.07% | 1.37% |
| Oni | 1.12% | 1.11% |
| Other | 11.10% | 6.32% |
And, finally, the number of new items released by the largest publishers:
| Comics shipped | Graphic novels shipped |
Magazines shipped | Total shipped |
|
| Marvel | 72 | 33 | 0 | 105 |
| DC | 70 | 26 | 1 | 97 |
| Image | 61 | 16 | 0 | 77 |
| IDW | 39 | 18 | 0 | 57 |
| Dark Horse |
32 | 13 | 0 | 45 |
| Boom | 31 | 8 | 0 | 39 |
| Dynamite | 19 | 8 | 0 | 27 |
| Titan | 11 | 6 | 1 | 18 |
| Valiant | 11 | 5 | 0 | 16 |
| Oni | 9 | 3 | 0 | 12 |
| Other | 81 | 145 | 46 | 272 |
| TOTAL | 436 | 281 | 48 | 765 |
Look for the detailed estimates 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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