With no new Doomsday Clock issue in the offing, February was a slow month in comics shops, according to Comichron‘s analysis of data released this morning by Diamond Comic Distributors. But whereas comics and graphic novels were equally responsible for 2017’s overall shortfall, last month graphic novels were the main culprit, with periodicals nearly, but not quite, holding their own.
Retailers ordered $36.66 million in comics and graphic novels; comics were off 3% in dollars and graphic novels off 18.5% to land down 8% for the month.
An important thing to remember when looking at the February 2018 data is to ignore the comics units sales, because the year-to-year comparisons are impacted by last February‘s 25th anniversary Image event, which included a reported 750,000 copies of a 25¢ issue of Walking Dead. (Walking Dead #163 will not be found in our charts for that month, because Diamond reports nothing with a cover price below $1.). Combine that with January 2017’s 10% overship on Marvel’s entire line, and the comics unit year-to-date comparisons are a total wreck.
The 6.3 million copies shipped this February finds a nearer comparative in the last four-week month we experienced, December 2017 — and there, comics unit sales were slightly up over that month. (Granted, December was pretty bad, but how often does February outsell December? Not very.) Comics dollar sales are going to be much more representative of reality — and here they’re the bright spot, again only off 3% in February year-to-year. Had there been a Doomsday Clock issue in February, the category might have been nearer to break-even still.
The comparatives are here; remember that January had an extra New Comics Day:
| Dollars | Units | |
|---|---|---|
| February 2018 vs. January 2018 | ||
| Comics | -3.40% | -6.02% |
| Graphic Novels | -14.54% | -16.60% |
| Total Comics/GNs | -6.72% | -6.83% |
| Toys | -10.48% | -13.65% |
| February 2018 vs. February 2017 | ||
| Comics | -3.01% | -19.67% |
| Graphic Novels | -18.53% | -14.13% |
| Total Comics/GNs | -7.81% | -19.31% |
| Toys | -10.28% | -1.44% |
| Year-To-Date 2018 Vs. Year-To-Date 2017 | ||
| Comics | -3.67% | -15.61% |
| Graphic Novels | -7.77% | -4.17% |
| Total Comics/GNs | -4.88% | -14.86% |
| Toys | 5.11% | 7.96% |
DC appears to have almost exactly paced the market overall, with Image and Dark Horse shipping slightly more dollars worth of material than they did a year ago. Marvel, Titan, and IDW were behind their individual paces from February 2017. Dynamite was significantly ahead.
Some of that plays out in the market shares:
| Publisher | Dollar Share | Unit Share |
|---|---|---|
| Marvel | 34.86% | 36.94% |
| DC | 31.79% | 36.61% |
| Image | 10.49% | 10.82% |
| IDW | 3.58% | 2.63% |
| Dark Horse | 2.85% | 1.68% |
| Dynamite | 2.40% | 2.29% |
| Boom | 2.37% | 2.12% |
| Viz | 1.19% | 0.46% |
| Titan | 1.01% | 0.67% |
| Oni | 0.94% | 0.53% |
| Other | 8.54% | 5.24% |
DC‘s Dark Nights Rising: The Wild Hunt #1 led comics sales in a month with the exact same number of new comics released as in the previous February; Image, Dark Horse, and Dynamite released a few more, IDW a few less. The top-selling comics by number of copies shipped:
| TOP COMIC BOOKS (by units) | PRICE | PUBLISHER | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt #1 | $4.99 | DC |
| 2 | X-Men Red #1 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 3 | Batman #40 | $2.99 | DC |
| 4 | Batman #41 | $2.99 | DC |
| 5 | The Walking Dead #176 | $3.99 | Image |
| 6 | Batman: White Knight #5 | $3.99 | DC |
| 7 | Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man #300 | $5.99 | Marvel |
| 8 | Star Wars #43 | $3.99 | Marvel |
| 9 | Infinity Countdown Prime #1 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 10 | Amazing Spider-Man #796 | $3.99 | Marvel |
The top-selling comics by dollar volume results in a slightly different list:
| TOP COMIC BOOKS (by dollars) | PRICE | PUBLISHER | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #300 | $5.99 | Marvel |
| 2 | Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt #1 | $4.99 | DC |
| 3 | X-Men Red #1 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 4 | The Walking Dead #176 | $3.99 | Image |
| 5 | Batman: White Knight #5 | $3.99 | DC |
| 6 | Batman #40 | $2.99 | DC |
| 7 | Batman #41 | $2.99 | DC |
| 8 | Infinity Countdown Prime #1 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 9 | Star Wars: Thrawn #1 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 10 | Swamp Thing Winter Special #1 | $7.99 | DC |
Graphic novels, for their part, lacked any kind of real hit in February; when an already-released graphic novel beats anything new, that becomes pretty obvious. Image’s Saga Vol. 8 was the most reordered graphic novel for almost the entire month, and those reorders combined to give it the top slot. More than 460,000 graphic novels were shipped overall. The top graphic novels by units shipped:
| TOP GRAPHIC NOVELS (by units) | PRICE | PUBLISHER | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Saga Vol. 8 | $14.99 | Image |
| 2 | Star Wars: Doctor Aphra Vol. 2 | $17.99 | Marvel |
| 3 | DC Meets Looney Tunes | $19.99 | DC |
| 4 | Teen Titans Vol. 2: The Rise of Aqualad | $14.99 | DC |
| 5 | Star Wars: Jedi of the Republic: Mace Windu | $15.99 | Marvel |
| 6 | Justice League Vol. 5: Legacy | $16.99 | DC |
| 7 | Despicable Deadpool Vol. 1: Deadpool Kills Cable | $17.99 | Marvel |
| 8 | Titans Vol. 3: A Judas Among Us | $16.99 | DC |
| 9 | Astonishing X-Men Vol. 1: The Life of X | $17.99 | Marvel |
| 10 | Neil Gaiman’S American Gods Vol. 1: Shadows | $29.99 | Dark Horse |
And the top graphic novels by dollar volume:
| TOP GRAPHIC NOVELS (by dollars) | PRICE | PUBLISHER | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | House of Secrets: The Bronze Age Omnibus HC | $125.00 | DC |
| 2 | Daredevil: Shadowland Omnibus HC | $125.00 | Marvel |
| 3 | Absolute Wonder Woman By Azzarello & Chiang Vol. 2 HC | $125.00 | DC |
| 4 | Deadpool By Daniel Way Omnibus Vol. 1 HC | $100.00 | Marvel |
| 5 | Batman: Secrets: Sam Kieth Gallery Edition HC | $125.00 | DC |
| 6 | Moebius Library: Inside Moebius Vol. 1 HC | $39.99 | Dark Horse |
| 7 | Neil Gaiman’S American Gods Vol. 1: Shadows HC | $29.99 | Dark Horse |
| 8 | New Teen Titans Omnibus Vol. 2 HC | $75.00 | DC |
| 9 | Dc Meets Looney Tunes | $19.99 | DC |
| 10 | Star Wars: Doctor Aphra Vol. 2 SC | $17.99 | Marvel |
While new comics offerings were exactly the same in quantity from year to year, the top four publishers released 10% fewer new graphic novels, although other publishers made up the gap, meaning that 7% more new graphic novels were released this February versus last February. The new release volume:
| Publisher | Comics shipped | Graphic Novels shipped | Magazines | Total shipped |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DC | 88 | 33 | 1 | 122 |
| Marvel | 81 | 31 | 0 | 112 |
| Image | 70 | 12 | 0 | 82 |
| IDW | 31 | 19 | 1 | 51 |
| Boom | 25 | 13 | 0 | 38 |
| Dark Horse | 16 | 13 | 0 | 29 |
| Dynamite | 20 | 6 | 0 | 26 |
| Titan | 12 | 11 | 1 | 24 |
| Viz | 0 | 20 | 0 | 20 |
| Oni | 3 | 5 | 0 | 8 |
| Other | 103 | 155 | 23 | 281 |
| TOTAL SHIPPED | 449 | 318 | 26 | 793 |
We’ve also seen enough reorders and advance from the past few weeks from Diamond Comic Distributors to be able to collate some information onto pages for March 2018 and April 2018.
Winter, as I have often said, is not where most turnarounds have historically begun in the Direct Market; while we know a few things already about this March, the first quarter of 2018 is almost certain to end down given that last March had an extra sales week. Recent years haven’t really gotten rolling until Free Comic Book Day, so keep watching. In the meantime, look here early next week for the final estimates for the month.
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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