June 2018 lacked the major anniversary issues that had propelled April and May to positive months, and was further up against June 2017, the second-best month of its year, with a couple of major hits. But while Justice League #1 and its 200,000 copies was no Action #1000 or Amazing Spider-Man #800, eight titles topped 100,000 copies, and the month’s sales were enough to ensure that the second quarter was the first growth quarter, year-over-year, since the summer of 2016, during DC’s Rebirth launch. Click to see the estimated comics sales for June 2018.
Amazing Spider-Man #800, which came out the last week in May, continued to rack up sales in June, gaining on but not coming close to surpassing Action #1000, which also reappeared in the charts. Click to see the running totals for bestsellers for 2018 to date. Marvel‘s Infinity Gauntlet moved into first position among graphic novels for the year.
Our preliminary video walkthrough of the month’s sales can be found now on our YouTube channel:
Magic Order #1, an Image title from Mark Millar and Netflix, had reported orders of 157,731 copies, placing it in second; it had further been reduced in reported orders by Diamond by 10% for being fully returnable, meaning its actual number of copies shipped was closer to 175,000 copies. All retailers were given a 60% discount on the title, suggesting that North American retailers paid Diamond a bit over $250,000 for the issue (closer to $280,000 before the reduction for returnability), or about $1.60 per copy.
But Diamond does not appear to have taken in that much money, because of the book’s substantially lower dollar ranking; at 12th place and knowing the sales of the surrounding titles, we’d expect it to have only brought in somewhere between $125,000 and $150,000. (Dollar rankings are based on invoiced dollars, or what retailers paid Diamond.) Since comics shops buying at $1.60 a copy could only have accounted for between 78,000 and 94,000 copies at that dollar-ranking level, there has to have been a significant sale at an even greater discount than comics shops received.
If a report that New York Comic-Con purchased a number of copies at 90% off (or 40 cents each) is correct, algebra suggests such an order could potentially have accounted for more than half the copies. (For example, just splitting the reported orders in half, 78,865 copies to the Direct Market at $1.60 and and another 78,865 copies outside it at $0.40 would land at $157,700, a bit higher than our expected range. In another example, a bulk buy of 100,000 copies at 90% off with the rest to the Direct Market would bring the dollar total to over $132,000 — right in the estimated range.)
We can’t say much for certain given the data points available — other than that those points do demonstrate a large proportion of sales for a greater discount even than the promotional 60%. As such, awaiting further information, we’re giving the entry the same marker we use for Loot Crate titles in our charts, to indicate that more than a third of reported sales apparently went to buyers other than comics shops.
The vital statistics, after the break:
| TOP 300 COMICS SHIPPED (in UNITS) |
||
| June 2018 | 6.46 million copies | |
| 1 Year Ago | 7.13 million copies | -9% |
| 5 Years Ago | 7.01 million copies | -8% |
| 10 Years Ago | 6.66 million copies | -3% |
| 15 Years Ago | 5.55 million copies | +16% |
| 20 Years Ago | 7.23 million copies | -11% |
| Top 500 Comics Shipped (Units) | 6.88 million copies | |
| ALL Comics Shipped in Month (Units) |
7.12 million copies | -9% |
| Year To Date | 38.08 million copies | |
| 1 Year Ago | 40.76 million copies | -7 |
| 5 Years Ago | 41.7 million copies | -9 |
| 10 Years Ago | 39.54 million copies | -4 |
| 15 Years Ago | 34.31 million copies | 11 |
| ALL Comics Shipped Year to Date (Units) |
41.65 million copies | -10% |
| TOP 300 COMICS SHIPPED (in DOLLARS) |
||
| June 2018 | $25.94 million | |
| 1 Year Ago | $28.57 million | -9% |
| 5 Years Ago | $25.57 million | +1% |
| 10 Years Ago | $21.37 million | +21% |
| 15 Years Ago | $16.15 million | +61% |
| 20 Years Ago | $17.97 million | +44% |
| Top 500 Comics Shipped (Dollars) |
$27.79 million | |
| ALL Comics Shipped during Month (Dollars) |
-11% | |
| Year To Date | $154.19 million | |
| 1 Year Ago | $156.74 million | -2% |
| 5 Years Ago | $150.45 million | +2% |
| 10 Years Ago | $125.73 million | +23% |
| 15 Years Ago | $96.41 million | +60% |
| ALL Comics Shipped Year to Date (Dollars) |
-2% | |
| TOP GRAPHIC NOVELS SHIPPED (in DOLLARS) |
||
| June 2018 (Top 300 GNs) | $6.81 million | |
| June 2018 (Top 100 GNs) |
$4.21 million | |
| June 2018 (Top 50 GNs) |
$2.58 million | |
| June 2018 (Top 25 GNs) |
$1.86 million | |
| Versus 1 Year Ago |
$7.03 million | -3% |
| Versus 5 Years Ago (Top 300) |
$6.8 million | 0% |
| Versus 10 Years Ago (Top 100) |
$6.06 million | -31% |
| Versus 15 Years Ago (Top 50) |
$2.3 million | +12% |
| Top 500 Graphic Novel Shipped in Month (Dollars) |
$7.89 million | |
| ALL Graphic Novel Shipped in Month (Dollars) |
-2% | |
| Year To Date | $35.34 million | |
| 1 Year Ago | $44.98 million | -21% |
| ALL Graphic Novel Dollars Shipped Year to Date (Dollars) |
-8% | |
| TOP 300 COMICS plus TOP GNs SHIPPED (in DOLLARS) |
||
| June 2018 (including Top 300 GNs) |
$32.74 million | |
| June 2018 (including Top 300 GNs) |
$30.15 million | |
| June 2018 (including Top 100 GNs) |
$28.52 million | |
| June 2018 (including Top 25 GNs) |
$27.8 million | |
| Versus 1 Year Ago |
$35.6 million | -8% |
| Versus 5 Years Ago (Top 300) |
$32.37 million | -7% |
| Versus 10 Years Ago (Top 50) |
$27.43 million | -5% |
| Versus 15 Years Ago (Top 50) |
$18.45 million | +61% |
| Top 500 Comics & Top 500 GNs Shipped in Month (Dollars) |
$35.68 million | |
| All Comics & GNs Shipped in Month (Dollars) |
-9% | |
| Year To Date | $189.51 million | |
| 1 Year Ago | $201.76 million | -6% |
| ALL Comics & GNs Shipped Year to Date (Dollars) |
-4% | |
| ALL COMICS AND GNs SHIPPED (in Dollars) |
||
| June 2018 | $42,110,700.00 | |
| Versus 1 Year Ago |
$46.09 million | -9% |
| Versus 5 Years Ago |
$41.55 million | +1% |
| Versus 10 Years Ago |
$36.97 million | +14% |
| Year To Date | $251.452 million | |
| 1 Year Ago | $261.18 million | -4% |
| TITLE SPECIFICS | ||
| TOP SELLING COMIC BOOK | ||
| Justice League #1 |
200,235 copies at | $3.99 |
| 50th PLACE COMIC BOOK |
||
| Deadpool Assassin #1 |
32,450 copies at | $4.99 |
| 100th PLACE COMIC BOOK |
||
| Dazzler X Song #1 |
21,822 copies at | $3.99 |
| 150th PLACE COMIC BOOK |
||
| Xerxes Fall of House of Darius #3 |
13,677 copies at | $4.99 |
| 200th PLACE COMIC BOOK |
||
| Cyborg #23 | 8,159 copies at | $3.99 |
| 300th PLACE COMIC BOOK |
||
| BSG Vs. BSG #6 | 4,007 copies at | $3.99 |
| 400th PLACE COMIC BOOK |
||
| Damned #10 | 1,904 copies at | $3.99 |
| 500th PLACE COMIC BOOK |
||
| New Challengers #1 |
980 copies at | $3.99 |
| NEW RELEASE VOLUME |
||
| New Comics Released |
449 | |
| New Graphic Novels Released |
318 | |
| New Magazines Released |
26 | |
| Total New Print Items Released |
793 | |
| PRICING | ||
| Average Cover Price of Comics in the Top 300 |
$4.00 | |
| Average Cover Price of Comics in the Top 300, weighted by orders |
$4.02 | |
| Average Cover Price of Comics in the Top 25 |
$4.07 | |
| Median Cover Price of Comics in the Top 300 |
$3.99 | |
| Most Common Cover Price of Comics in the Top 300 |
$3.99 |
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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