{"id":3730,"date":"2018-11-09T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-07-30T16:31:13","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T21:31:13","slug":"comics-sales-ahead-for-year-after-494","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2018\/11\/09\/comics-sales-ahead-for-year-after-494\/","title":{"rendered":"Comics sales ahead for year after $49.4 million October; Batman, Walking Dead’s 15th anniversary drive month"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As predicted here, comics and graphic novel orders through Diamond Comics Distributors<\/a> <\/strong>ended October ahead for the year-to-date, thanks to a stronger midsection of 2018 and one additional New Comic Book Day during the month. Retailers ordered $49.39 million in comics and graphic novels in October, up 8.4% year-over-year; year-to-date orders stand at $438.4 million, up $1.6 million (or 0.4%) over the past year. Click to visit our page for\u00a0October 2018 comics sales estimates<\/a><\/strong>; the figures will be posted there on Monday.<\/p>\n

\"<\/span>It has been a slow and steady climb \u2014 the first time the year-to-date figure has been positive since December 2016<\/a><\/strong>. And while November 2018<\/a><\/strong> is up against a month from last year with one more shipping week, December 2017<\/a><\/strong>‘s sales were low enough that 2018 overall has a good chance of eking out a modest win.<\/p>\n

The extra week distorts the comparisons with last October, a month dominated last year by Marvel’s<\/strong> Legacy<\/strong> launch; Marvel, DC<\/strong>, and Image’s<\/strong> dollar sales performances all improved against that month. Marvel’s dollar sales of comics and graphic novels to retailers are up $6 million year-to-date; DC’s are up $4 million, and Image’s are back even. The smaller publishers were the last into the recession; publishers seem to be exiting it in the same order they went in.<\/p>\n

October was generally without the major launches that previous months saw; the major event for the month was Walking Dead Day on Oct. 13, which saw 15 different “blind bag” editions<\/a><\/b> of previous issues (along with new variant covers) on offer. Batman<\/em> #56<\/a><\/strong>, with its foil edition, finished first in units and dollars among comic books, with Walking Dead<\/em> #1’s <\/strong>15th anniversary edition in second. With fewer launches, the charting comic books were generally cheaper than we’ve seen \u2014 leading to a total shipment of comic books topping 8 million copies for the first time since May 2017<\/a><\/strong>, which had hundreds of thousands of copies of the 25\u00a2 Saga<\/em> #43<\/strong> padding the totals.<\/p>\n

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Comics unit sales were up 5% in the month, bringing the year-to-year loss to a little over five-and-a-half percent, or about 4 million copies \u2014 though that shortfall is partially because 25-cent Image issues like that Saga<\/em> edition were in 2017’s charts, as well as many more overshipped comics. The number of normally-priced comics that retailers paid their regular discounts for in 2018 is a lot closer to even with 2017. But there’s another factor inflating 2017’s comic-book unit sales: the number of releases. Through ten months, publishers have offered 4,732 new issues to retailers, a drop of 198, or 4%.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Batman: White Knight<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>trade paperback was the top graphic novel for the month in units;\u00a0Wonder Woman Earth One Vol. 2<\/a><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0was tops in dollars. The number of new graphic novel offerings is slightly up this year; sales for the category through October were down less than 4% \u2014 down, but continuing to improve.<\/p>\n

There were significant deep-discount sales promotions for retailers in October, manifesting in a nine-point gap in the comparative change statistics for graphic novel unit and dollar sales. Year-to-date, the categories are much closer.<\/p>\n

Check out our lists below, and also our explanatory video:<\/p>\n