{"id":4203,"date":"2017-06-16T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-16T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-07-30T18:23:29","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T23:23:29","slug":"comics-orders-rebound-in-five-week-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/16\/comics-orders-rebound-in-five-week-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Comics orders rebound in five-week May; Secret Empire tops list, Liefeld has #1 graphic novel"},"content":{"rendered":"
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May 2017 was a win for the comic-book direct market, if a qualified one; comics shops ordered $48.16 million worth of comic books, trade paperbacks, and magazines in the month, an increase of more than 8% over the same month in the previous year. That month, however, had only four Wednesdays, while this May had five New Comic Book Days. Last May was also one of the weakest months of the year, a “holding pattern” month in advance of Civil War II<\/a><\/i><\/b> and DC<\/b>‘s\u00a0Rebirth<\/a><\/i><\/b>. But it’s the first up month since October 2016<\/a><\/b>, so we’ll take it.<\/p>\n

Marvel<\/b>‘s performance, about which much was written this winter, improved year-over-year \u2014 although, following a pattern we’ve seen in 2017, the rest of the market improved by more. The overall market was up around $3.7 million; $700,000 of the addition came from Marvel and $3 million from everyone else. That said, Marvel’s last year-over-year beat was back in August 2016<\/a>, so positive movement is noteworthy. The market without Marvel is up 4.2% for 2017, so a few more good months for the publisher could turn the industry’s year positive overall.<\/p>\n

The challenge is going to be that, just as much of 2016 was up against big comparative months during Star Wars<\/a><\/i><\/b>‘ launch year at Marvel, last summer was ginormous in dollar terms. June 2016<\/a><\/b> was the biggest month in the Direct Market this century, at $58.6 million; it also had an extra Wednesday. August 2016<\/b><\/a> was almost as big. More of DC’s books are at $3.99 this time around, so we’ll see what difference that makes.<\/p>\n

The aggregate changes:<\/p>\n