April 2016’s comics and graphic novel sales, announced today by Diamond Comic Distributors, were down significantly from the same month a year ago — a month that had an additional shipping week and a lot more going for it. With the launch of Convergence‘s weekly series and higher volumes on Star Wars titles, April 2015 was, in fact, the best month in overall dollar terms in the Diamond Exclusive Era.
By comparison, April 2016’s comics shop sales of comics an graphic novels, estimated by Comichron at $47.54 million, were down nearly $9 million, with comics dollars falling more than graphic novel dollars.
The 16.19% overall drop is larger than we would expect when comparing a five-week month to a four-week month, but there’s something else at work here. First, let’s have a look at the aggregate sales changes:
| Dollars | Units | |
| April 2016 vs. March 2016 |
||
| Comics | 8.18% | 8.19% |
| Graphic Novels |
-8.81% | -8.22% |
| Total Comics/GNs |
2.06% | 6.50% |
| April 2016 vs. April 2015 |
||
| Comics | -18.05% | -22.28% |
| Graphic Novels |
-11.99% | -12.42% |
| Total Comics/GNs |
-16.19% | -21.49% |
| Year-to-date 2016 vs. Year-to-date 2015 |
||
| Comics | -7.84% | -13.05% |
| Graphic Novels |
4.87% | 5.23% |
| Total Comics/GNs |
-4.06% | -11.69% |
Now examine the number of new releases in each category for the month. We see that 420 new comics were offered in April, down from 545 in April 2015:
| Comics shipped | Graphic novels shipped |
Magazines shipped | Total shipped |
|
| Marvel | 92 | 35 | 1 | 128 |
| DC | 80 | 31 | 1 | 112 |
| Image | 56 | 17 | 1 | 73 |
| IDW | 43 | 21 | 0 | 64 |
| Dark Horse |
27 | 19 | 0 | 46 |
| Boom | 27 | 8 | 0 | 35 |
| Titan | 22 | 3 | 1 | 26 |
| Dynamite | 19 | 6 | 0 | 25 |
| Viz | 0 | 21 | 0 | 21 |
| Oni | 8 | 4 | 0 | 12 |
| Other | 46 | 139 | 26 | 211 |
| TOTAL | 420 | 304 | 30 | 753 |
That is a steep drop: 23% fewer new comic books were released in April 2016 versus the year before. That figure is higher than the actual 18% drop in new comics dollar sales year-over-year, and much higher than we would expect from the usual four-to-five-week month difference. (The number of graphic novel releases was about the same.) Put another way, publishers released 30% more new comic books in April 2015 than in the following April.
You might think that the addition of a fifth week would result in an increase of 25% in new material — and a decrease of 20% when that fifth week is gone — but the numbers are usually much lower. Comics are monthlies, not every-four-weeks; publishers don’t always increase their slates just to accommodate the extra week. Offerings tend to spread out a little more. This drop in the number of comics offered is significantly higher, and points to reduced offerings by publisher design.
What’s the source of the drop? The middle-tier publishers, whose increased offerings in recent years helped bulk up the market. IDW is the biggest source of the drop, offering 43 periodicals this April versus 63 last April. Image is down from 74 to 56 titles, Dynamite 35 to 19, Boom down from 39 to 27. The middle-tier publishers are playing it more conservatively in 2016, and one result is lower overall volume.
This also shows up in the market shares:
| Dollar share |
Unit share | |
| Marvel | 42.98% | 47.87% |
| DC | 25.82% | 25.13% |
| Image | 8.72% | 8.95% |
| IDW | 4.41% | 3.67% |
| Dark Horse | 3.07% | 2.42% |
| Boom | 2.39% | 2.45% |
| Dynamite | 1.53% | 1.45% |
| Titan | 1.10% | 1.09% |
| Viz | 0.97% | 0.38% |
| Oni | 0.87% | 0.63% |
| Other | 8.12% | 5.96% |
The collective dollar share of Image, IDW, Dark Horse, Boom, and Dynamite dropped from to 24.1% last April to 20.12% this April. So while there is likely some market softening in 2016, the declining size of publishers’ release slates is clearly playing a role. They’re releasing fewer books.
The growth of the industry in recent years has been bolstered by the growing slates of the middle-tier publishers; the present adjustment checks that growth somewhat, but may improve per-title profits and make publishing more sustainable.
Among the books that were released, Marvel‘s Black Panther #1 by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze led a top ten that had many first issues:
| Title | Price | Publisher | |
| 1 | Black Panther #1 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 2 | Star Wars: Poe Dameron #1 |
$4.99 | Marvel |
| 3 | Dark Knight III: The Master Race #4 |
$5.99 | DC |
| 4 | Star Wars Special: C-3PO #1 |
$4.99 | Marvel |
| 5 | Batman #51 | $3.99 | DC |
| 6 | Gwenpool #1 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 7 | Star Wars #18 | $3.99 | Marvel |
| 8 | Darth Vader #19 | $3.99 | Marvel |
| 9 | Harley Quinn & Suicide Squad April Fool’s Special #1 |
$4.99 | DC |
| 10 | Amazing Spider-Man #10 |
$3.99 | Marvel |
And on the graphic novel side, DC had the top book with the Wonder Woman Earth One hardcover:
| Title | Price | Publisher | |
| 1 | Wonder Woman: Earth One Book 1 HC | $22.99 | DC |
| 2 | Star Wars: Vader Down | $19.99 | Marvel |
| 3 | Rat Queens Volume 3: Demons |
$14.99 | Image |
| 4 | I Hate Fairyland Vol. 1: Madly Ever After |
$9.99 | Image |
| 5 | Thanos: The Infinity Finale HC |
$24.99 | Marvel |
| 6 | Civil War | $24.99 | Marvel |
| 7 | Deadpool: World’s Greatest Volume 1: A Millionaire With Mouth |
$15.99 | Marvel |
| 8 | Black Magick Vol. 1: Awakening Part One |
$9.99 | Image |
| 9 | Batman: The Killing Joke Special Edition HC |
$17.99 | DC |
| 10 | Rick & Morty Volume 2 |
$19.99 | Oni |
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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