Earlier this week, Diamond Comics Distributors made a major move in its reporting, switching from publishing the Top 300 comics and graphic novels to the Top 500s for each. The graphic novels had been at the 300 level for a little over nine years, but when did the 300 figure become the benchmark for comics? … Read more
A big change, as the headline says, but first the news: As reported here Friday, after five consecutive years of growth following DC’s “New 52” reboot, the Direct Market gave back some of those gains in 2017 — and December served as a lackluster finish to a disappointing year. Overall, Direct Market orders finished the … Read more
In the 21st Century, growth — and sometimes rapid growth — in the comics Direct Market has often been the rule. Following the complete collapse of the mid- and late-1990s, retailer orders for comic books and graphic novels increased in 2001-2008 and from 2012-2016, broken up with a three-year recessionary period turned around in mid-2011 … Read more
DC’s Doomsday Clock #1 took both the first and second spots on the new comics sales charts in November, its sales divided almost exactly in half between its lenticular and standards editions. Comichron estimates that North American retailer orders for the two versions combined for nearly 239,000 copies, making the issue one of the year’s … Read more
Doomsday Clock and its continuing Batman-related event during the Justice League movie’s release month combined to give DC its strongest month of 2017 by far in November 2017, outstripping its previous November (which also had five shipping weeks) by 21%. That’s a major beat, and a reversal after a long string of comparatives against Rebirth … Read more
October brought the restoration of many Marvel titles’ legacy numberings (as well as the creation of several legacy titles through the cobbling-together of multiple miniseries) as part of its Legacy event. The promotion, which required retailers to meet certain thresholds to order special lenticular covers, helped Marvel and the Direct Market’s orders increase 5% over … Read more