We’re hearing about more reorders and advance reorders that comics shops placed in February with Diamond Comic Distributors. Let’s look first at how the books already in stores fared, and move on to the future:
TOP REORDERED ITEMS for Feb. 5-Feb. 11, 2018 (in invoiced dollars)
These are items that have already shipped, but have been receiving additional orders from retailers. 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.
The top reordered comic book was DC’s Dark Nights Metal #5, which went on sale January 31. The top Feburary-shipping comic book in reorders was a Feb. 7 release, the Swamp Thing Winter Special, featuring the last story by the late Len Wein. The issue is sold out at Diamond.
The House of Secrets: The Bronze Age Omnibus from DC was the top hardcover. The $125 volume went on sale on Feb. 7.
Image‘s Saga Vol. 8 trade paperback, the top graphic novel for December, was the top reordered softcover for the fifth week in a row.
The links in the table go to the Diamond information pages for each book.
And now on to the future…
TOP ADVANCE REORDERED ITEMS for Feb. 5-Feb. 11, 2018, 2018 (in full retail dollars)
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 advance-reordered comic book was the Bill Sienkiewicz variant cover to Walking Dead #177, which goes on sale March 7. The Sienkiewicz variants have appeared a lot on the reorder lists of late; the variant cover for #178 is the top advance-reordered comic book for April, due out on the 4th. Amazing Spider-Man #797 was in second place overall.
The March-slated Oblivion Song by Kirkman and De Felici Collector’s Edition was third among advance-reordered comics; Diamond informed retailers this week that due to unforeseen circumstances, a portion of the copies would not be available on March 7 but would ship soon afterward.
No hardcovers or softcovers of any kind in the advance reorder list, as happens sometimes.
This chart is ranked by full retail dollars and not units, or wholesale dollars.
We’ve seen enough reorders and advance from the past few weeks from Diamond Comic Distributors to be able to collate some information onto pages for February 2018 and March 2018. A page for April 2018 has also been started. Check them out for a further glance at the future.
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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