{"id":5311,"date":"2011-01-06T17:26:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T17:26:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-08-01T17:33:26","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T22:33:26","slug":"comics-orders-off-35-in-2010-direct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/06\/comics-orders-off-35-in-2010-direct\/","title":{"rendered":"Comics orders off 3.5% in 2010; direct market at $415 million"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Diamond Comic Distributors<\/b><\/a> announced today that annual sales of comic books, graphic novels, and magazines to the comic book specialty market declined slightly in 2010<\/b><\/a>, down 3.5% from 2009<\/b><\/a>. The report for December hasn’t been made public yet, but The Comics Chronicles expects that the overall total for comics, graphic novels, and magazines sold to comics shops in North America will come to between $410 and $420 million.<\/b> The figure is down from the 2008 peak of $437 million, but still above $400 million, a mark broken in 2007.<\/p>\n

Diamond President and CEO Steve Geppi<\/b> said that while sales for the year were down, there have been “a lot of positive signs in the last quarter. Sales have steadily picked up and most retailers reported better than average holiday shopping sales. We believe comic books and graphic novels offer a great entertainment value for consumers, and 2011 is shaping up with some very exciting and creative storylines and titles from the industry\u2019s top publishers.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I predicted<\/b><\/a>, Marvel’s re-relaunched Avengers<\/i> #1, <\/b>which released in May, was the top-selling comic book of 2010 in comics shops. The title had first-month sales of nearly 164,000 copies, and a projected after-reorders total near 175,000 copies. Given that, the issue would rank around 51st in the list of the top comics of the 21st century<\/b><\/a>. All ten titles in the top 10 this year would have made that list, with Batman: Return of Bruce Wayne<\/b><\/i> #1’s total with reorders likely close to 120,000 copies.\u00a0 The Top 10, as provided:<\/p>\n