Improvement continued in the comic shop market in May, with retailers ordering $49.05 million in comic books, graphic novels, and magazines from Diamond Comic Distributors according to Comichron’s estimates; that’s the largest amount since November 2016. (6/18 UPDATE: The full sales charts are now online.)
Earlier last week I tweeted that this May had a decent shot at beating the same month a year earlier, despite that month having the best sales of 2017. Both months had five weeks, and May 2018 had some major events, including the top-selling Amazing Spider-Man #800, Man of Steel #1, and a hit Avengers movie in theaters all month (not to mention Deadpool and a Star Wars film). This May beat last May by nearly 2% and came close to flirting with the $50 million level. Marvel dollar sales saw significant year-over-year improvement, as did those of Image; total Marvel titles shipped to market exceeded $20 million, the best figure for the company since June 2016.
The year-to-date shortfall was shaved yet again, to 2.67%; comics dollar sales, separate from graphic novels, which continued to lag, are now positive for the year. We know a bit about June’s sales already; it’s up against a relatively good month from 2017, so completely erasing the year’s deficit at halftime (which is around $6 million) is unlikely. But April and May are up a combined 6% over the same months in 2017, and it’s now nearly a mathematical certainty that the second quarter will be up, thus ending the recession in comics, at least as far as the conventional definition is concerned. (Check out our explainer video below.)
Economists often define a recession as any period in which growth has fallen two quarters in a row; our string of down quarters year-over-year began in the fourth quarter of 2016, running for a year and a half — which is about how long recessions tend to run in the general economy. We came close to a down period of this length in 2010-11, though it was interrupted by a growth quarter; it took the DC New 52 to kick off several years of growth. The comparison charts:
| Dollars | Units | |
|---|---|---|
| May 2018 Vs. April 2018 | ||
| Comics | +7.00% | +2.99%* |
| Graphic Novels | +6.94% | +4.85% |
| TOTAL COMICS/GNs | +6.98% | +3.13% |
| Toys | +4.95% | +23.84% |
| May 2018 Vs. May 2017 | ||
| Comics | +6.23% | -8.63%* |
| Graphic Novels | -8.04% | -13.85% |
| TOTAL COMICS/GNs | +1.84% | -9.06% |
| Toys | -28.63% | -30.85% |
| Year-To-Date 2018 Vs. Year-To-Date 2017 | ||
| Comics | +0.22% | -9.80%* |
| Graphic Novels | -9.31% | -10.56% |
| TOTAL COMICS/GNs | -2.67% | -9.85% |
| Toys | -12.06% | -17.25% |
May’s unit sales for comics were down versus last May as reported by Diamond — but there were a couple of things going on, the first of which resulted in the asterisks we’ve placed above.
First and most important, last May included the 25-cent Saga #43, which sold in the hundreds of thousands of copies; this May included DC Nation #0, likewise priced at a quarter and selling a reported million copies. But while both comics were included in calculations for Image and DC’s market shares respectively, our calculations show that unlike Saga #43, DC Nation #0 sales were not included in the computation of Diamond’s year-over-year industry-wide comics unit sales.
Diamond would have faced a difficult choice with the issue: Free Comic Book Day issues — which DC Nation essentially served the role of for DC this year — are traditionally not included in either the percentage change table or unit market shares. They’d distort the comparisons too much. Yet comics with a nominal cover price — even 25¢ — traditionally have been counted toward both the percentage change tables and market shares. But a million promotional-rate copies is a lot, and would have wreaked a lot of havoc on the percentage-change tables, so it appears Diamond compromised here, giving DC its market share credit, while protecting the more important all-industry measures from distortion.
Because Saga #43 was included for percentage-change purposes last year, the decision has the effect of making the unit sales change number for this month look worse than it is. If we calculate DC Nation #0 as representing an exact million copies, then comics unit sales would have been up 16.5% over April, rather than 3%; sales versus last may would have been up 3.5% rather than down 8.65%; and year-to-date sales would have been down 7.3% rather than close to 9.8%. I do not intend to alter the charts, but will serve reminders here as necessary that 2018 has something a million copies not counted that would have been counted in previous years.
The other thing of note regarding unit sales is that this May saw 10% fewer new comics offered to market — 472 versus 527 last May, 55 fewer new releases. That more than accounts for the difference in unit sales, quarter-book complications aside.
The market shares:
| Publisher | Dollar Share | Unit Share |
|---|---|---|
| Marvel | 42.64% | 38.35% |
| DC | 25.71% | 37.87% |
| Image | 10.83% | 9.67% |
| IDW | 3.65% | 3.07% |
| Dark Horse | 2.54% | 1.63% |
| Boom | 1.96% | 1.58% |
| Dynamite | 1.64% | 1.30% |
| Viz | 1.12% | 0.40% |
| Oni | 1.03% | 0.48% |
| Valiant | 0.84% | 0.90% |
| Other | 8.03% | 4.75% |
Marvel had four of the top 10 comics (including three Fresh Start launches), DC had five, and Image one. Several of the best sellers came out on the last week of the month, so they’ll see significant traffic next month. Man of Steel #1‘s asterisk means it was returnable; unlike everything else in the top ten, it had no variants.
The top selling comics by units:
| TOP COMIC BOOKS (by units) | PRICE | PUBLISHER | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amazing Spider-Man #800 | $9.99 | Marvel |
| 2 | Venom #1 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 3 | Doomsday Clock #5 | $4.99 | DC |
| 4 | Avengers #1 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 5 | Black Panther #1 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 6 | Batman #47 | $2.99 | DC |
| 7 | Batman #46 | $2.99 | DC |
| 8 | Justice League: No Justice #1 | $3.99 | DC |
| 9 | The Man of Steel #1* | $3.99 | DC |
| 10 | The Walking Dead #179 | $3.99 | Image |
And the top-selling comics by invoiced dollars confirms that Action Comics #1000 was still doing big business in May:
| TOP COMIC BOOKS (by dollars) | PRICE | PUBLISHER | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amazing Spider-Man #800 | $9.99 | Marvel |
| 2 | Venom #1 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 3 | Doomsday Clock #5 | $4.99 | DC |
| 4 | Avengers #1 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 5 | Black Panther #1 | $4.99 | Marvel |
| 6 | Action Comics #1000 | $7.99 | DC |
| 7 | Despicable Deadpool #300 | $5.99 | Marvel |
| 8 | Batman: White Knight #8 | $4.99 | DC |
| 9 | Invincible Iron Man #600 | $5.99 | Marvel |
| 10 | Justice League: No Justice #1 | $3.99 | DC |
The graphic novel sector has lagged all year, though it’s only off single digits now. While 8% percent more new graphic novels were offered, 8% fewer dollars were made from them — a consequence, possibly, of retailers splitting up graphic novel dollars to stock Infinity War-related titles.
The 2011 printing of Infinity Gauntlet led reorders for most of the month (and it is still continuing to), and those combined to beat any new graphic novel out there in dollars. It just missed being the top graphic novel by units, because the $7.99 Star Wars: Tag & Bink Were Here #1 from Marvel was counted in the category.
The top-selling graphic novels by units:
| TOP GRAPHIC NOVELS (by units) | PRICE | PUBLISHER | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Star Wars: Tag & Bink Were Here #1 | $7.99 | Marvel |
| 2 | Infinity Gauntlet | $24.99 | Marvel |
| 3 | Where We Live: Las Vegas Shooting Benefit Anthology | $19.99 | Image |
| 4 | Snotgirl Vol. 2: California Screaming | $15.99 | Image |
| 5 | Dark Days: The Road To Metal HC | $29.99 | DC |
| 6 | Wonder Woman Vol. 5: Heart Of The Amazon | $16.99 | DC |
| 7 | Amazing Spider-Man/Venom: Venom, Inc | $19.99 | Marvel |
| 8 | Hellboy Omnibus Vol. 1: Seed Of Destruction | $24.99 | Dark Horse |
| 9 | Black Magick Vol. 2: Awakening II | $16.99 | Image |
| 10 | Black Panther: Long Live The King | $14.99 | Marvel |
Marvel had a big blowout sale on older Marvel Masterworks hardcovers in May; while those sales are reflected in the unit charts, the dollars chart is based on what retailers actually paid. It’s a new one that made the chart below, which is the top-selling graphic novels by invoiced dollars:
| TOP GRAPHIC NOVELS (by dollars) | PRICE | PUBLISHER | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Infinity Gauntlet | $24.99 | Marvel |
| 2 | Punisher Max By Garth Ennis Omnibus Vol. 1 HC | $100.00 | Marvel |
| 3 | Star Wars: Tag & Bink Were Here #1 | $7.99 | Marvel |
| 4 | Dark Days: The Road To Metal HC | $29.99 | DC |
| 5 | Where We Live: Las Vegas Shooting Benefit Anthology | $19.99 | Image |
| 6 | Wolverine Goes To Hell Omnibus HC | $100.00 | Marvel |
| 7 | Infinity War | $29.99 | Marvel |
| 8 | Marvel Masterworks: Marvel Team-Up Vol. 3 HC | $75.00 | Marvel |
| 9 | Hellboy Omnibus Vol. 1: Seed Of Destruction | $24.99 | Dark Horse |
| 10 | Weapon X: The Return Omnibus HC | $125.00 | Marvel |
Finally, here are the number of offerings. As noted, fewer new comics shipped:
| Publisher | Comics shipped |
Graphic Novels shipped |
Magazines shipped |
Total shipped |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marvel | 92 | 42 | 0 | 134 |
| DC | 74 | 30 | 0 | 104 |
| Image | 65 | 22 | 0 | 87 |
| IDW | 39 | 24 | 0 | 63 |
| Boom | 23 | 12 | 0 | 35 |
| Dark Horse | 17 | 16 | 0 | 33 |
| Dynamite | 20 | 5 | 0 | 25 |
| Viz | 0 | 22 | 0 | 22 |
| Valiant | 8 | 3 | 0 | 11 |
| Oni | 3 | 2 | 0 | 5 |
| Other | 131 | 208 | 32 | 371 |
| Total shipped | 472 | 386 | 32 | 890 |
I’m a guest at All-Star Comic-Con in Tysons Corners, Virginia this weekend; look for the estimates on our May 2018 comics chart sales page next week when I return.
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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