Something we’ve never done before on Comichron is look at the reorder and advance reorder charts released by Diamond Comic Distributors. We do so now, looking at the report released today, December 20, covering orders placed between December 11 and 17.
These charts have been available from Diamond since at least the 1990s, when they appeared in the distributor’s Diamond Dateline newsletter; then, as now, they served to supplement for retailers the monthly sales charts by informing on which already-released comics and graphic novels were being ordered again, as well as what books that hadn’t been released were generating orders beyond their initial order cutoff dates. Both tables are indicators of customer interest, and suggest what we may see in future monthly sales charts.
While I’ve got reorder charts going all the way back to the Dateline days, the tables never found their way into my previous magazine work or into Comichron’s archives for several reasons. There aren’t order indexes, as you see with the monthly charts, suggesting unit counts — but more importantly, the orders don’t necessarily equate to filled shipments. The information is more along the lines of the preorder charts which appear on Comichron for years before 2003; it reflects consumer desire as expressed through retailer intent, but it doesn’t speak to the number of copies ultimately in circulation. Reorders that are filled, meanwhile, already get reflected in the monthly charts both in the aggregate total, and also when they make the Top 300.
That said, reorder information is certainly of interest, and while it doesn’t necessarily fit with our archive tracking the numbers of books in print, it is easily enough conveyed here on the blog. If you’re interested in this feature appearing weekly, please let us know in the comments and on social media.
TOP REORDERED ITEMS for December 11-17, 2017 (in dollars)
These are items that have already shipped, but have been receiving additional orders. In most cases below, the items are in stock and so the orders are being filled; occasionally items are back-ordered, so their reorders will enter into the channel once they become available.
These are ranked by invoiced dollars, so retailers’ discounts have already applied to the totals before ranking. Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus is the top reordered hardcover; Marvel’s Infinity Gauntlet the top-reordered softcover. Batman: White Knight #3, which went on sale Dec. 6, is the top reordered comic book in dollars. The links in the table go to the Diamond information pages for each book.
TOP ADVANCE REORDERED ITEMS for December 11-17, 2017 (in dollars)
And now, a look into the future. These are items that have not yet shipped, but for which the Final Order Deadlines have passed. These reorders, if books are available to fill them, may or may not land in the same shipping month as the books’ release weeks, so a book’s presence on this chart can mean that an item might make a repeat appearance in Diamond’s monthly top-seller charts.
The top two items are both copies of Doomsday Clock #3, which releases on January 24; that is by no means a guarantee the book will be Diamond’s top seller for that month, but it does suggest high placement, as well as something about its placement in December’s lists. The Swamp Thing Winter Special, a $7.99 comic book set for January 31, appears third; remember, this is ranked by invoiced dollars and not units.
Marvel’s new printing of its Venom: Lethal Protector trade paperback collection is the top advance-reordered softcover; Punisher Max by Garth Ennis Omnibus Vol. 1 is the top hardcover. Again, the links in the table below go to the Diamond information pages for each book.
Again, if there’s interest we’ll certainly consider running these with more regularity.
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 latest release, Star Trek: Discovery – Die Standing. Read more about them at his fiction site.
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