Last week saw the release of the Black Panther movie, and we could tell that from the reorders that comics shops placed in February with Diamond Comic Distributors. Other Marvel properties also took the top category slots among advance reorders. Let’s look first at how the books already in stores fared, and move on to the future:
TOP REORDERED ITEMS for Feb. 12-18, 2018 (in invoiced dollars)
These are ranked by invoiced dollars, so retailers’ discounts have already applied to the totals before ranking.
Image‘s Saga Vol. 8 trade paperback, the top graphic novel for December, was the top reordered softcover for the sixth week in a row — and the top reordered item by dollars overall. The #2 reordered trade paperback was Black Panther Vol. 1: A Nation Under Our Feet, propelled by interest due to the movie’s release. The Black Panther by Priest Vol. 1 collection also made the Top 20. (Click to see recently posted postal circulation data on Priest’s series.)
The House of Secrets: The Bronze Age Omnibus from DC was the top hardcover for the second week running. The $125 volume went on sale on Feb. 7.
The top Feburary-shipping comic book in reorders last week was the top reordered comic book overall: the Swamp Thing Winter Special, featuring the last story by the late Len Wein. A Feb. 7 release, the issue was marked as sold out at Diamond as of the report generated on Feb. 14, so it must have sold out early in the week. A second printing is planned for March 21 and was the #3 advance reordered item this week.
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. 12-18, 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 and top advance-reordered item overall was Avengers #684 by Marvel. It goes on sale March 14.
After a week with no hardcover on the list, the top advance-reordered hardcover was also Marvel’s: the big Venomnibus Vol. 1, a $100 edition that ships on June 20.
And for the first time in a while we’ve got a softcover back on the list, and it gives Marvel the trifecta: It’s the new printing of Eternals by Neil Gaiman, due out April 11.
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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