{"id":5580,"date":"2009-11-25T06:04:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-25T06:04:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-07-28T03:06:37","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T03:06:37","slug":"october-2009-comics-orders-slammed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/25\/october-2009-comics-orders-slammed\/","title":{"rendered":"October 2009 comics orders slammed; market off slightly for year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The estimates of Diamond Comic Distributors<\/span> orders for October 2009<\/a> <\/span>are online here at The Comics Chronicles<\/span>, and they point to a down month across the board, with double-digit losses in all categories.<\/p>\n

There was a particularly steep drop of 30% in dollar orders for the Top 100 Trade Paperbacks; DC<\/span> had Watchmen<\/span> and a heavily ordered Joker<\/span> hardcover last October<\/span><\/a>. Comparatives were tough on the comics side, too, with issues of Secret Invasion<\/span> and Final Crisis<\/span> topping the charts last October. Dark Avengers<\/span> is, thus far, not playing the same kind of regular chart-dominating role that we saw Marvel<\/span>\u2019s stand-alone “event hub” limited series (Civil War, Secret Invasion<\/span>) playing in recent years. DC, however, is getting mileage from Blackest Night<\/span>, which helped it take the top six slots on the chart for what is, as suggested here earlier, likely the first time since 1968<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

There was also much more strength further down the charts last year; the 300th place comic book<\/span><\/a> had orders of around 4,230 copies last October, versus around 2,711 copies this year. This October only had four shipping weeks, versus five last year; the fifth-week effect tends to be an amplifier, allowing an extra high-traffic day for titles releasing in the month as well as increasing the probability that a title will be available for shipping in a given month in the first place.<\/p>\n

It all added up, again, to a decidedly rough month \u2014 with all comics, trade paperbacks, and magazine dollar orders at Diamond down 19%. Still, while this month sent the year-to-date total back into the red, it is only just so \u2014 less than $5 million in orders separates this year and last. And the industry is still a full third larger than it was five years ago. <\/span>While prospects for a flat or slightly up year are looking less likely, the industry would not be down by that much for the year even if November and December followed October\u2019s track.<\/p>\n

The aggregate figures:<\/p>\n

TOP 300 COMICS UNIT SALES<\/span>
October 2009<\/a>:<\/span> 6.20 million copies
Versus 1 year ago this month<\/a>:<\/span> -18%
Versus 5 years ago this month<\/a>: <\/span>+5%
Versus 10 years ago this month<\/a>:<\/span> -4%
YEAR TO DATE: 62.42 million copies, -5% vs. 2008<\/span>, +2% vs. 2004, -4% vs. 1999<\/p>\n

TOP 300 COMICS DOLLAR SALES<\/span>
October 2009: $21.47 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: -14%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +26%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +24%
YEAR TO DATE: $213.81 million, -2% vs. 2008<\/span>, +22% vs. 2004, +28% vs. 1999<\/p>\n

TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES<\/span>
October 2009: $5.92 million
Versus 1 year ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: -30%
Versus 5 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: -7%
Versus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 25 vs. the Top 25: +66%
YEAR TO DATE: $66.28 million; down 12% <\/span>when just comparing just the Top 100 each month<\/p>\n

TOP 300 COMICS + TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES<\/span>
October 2009: $27.39 million
Versus 1 year ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: -17%
Versus 5 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: +19%
Versus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 25 vs. the Top 25: +26%
YEAR TO DATE: $280.05 million; down 5%<\/span> when just comparing just the Top 100 each month<\/p>\n

OVERALL DIAMOND SALES (including all comics, trades, and magazines)<\/span>
October 2009: $34.19 million ($37.94 million with UK)
Versus 1 year ago this month: -19%
Versus 5 years ago this month: +23%
YEAR TO DATE: $358.85 million, -1% vs. 2008<\/span>, +33% vs. 2004<\/p>\n

The average comic offered in the Top 300 cost $3.53; the average comic ordered cost $3.46. The median price \u2014 the middle price of all 300 comics \u2014 was $3.25. $2.99 was also the most common price of comics appearing in the Top 300.<\/p>\n

The monthly flashback column, looking at past Octobers, will be along soon. Happy Thanksgiving!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The estimates of Diamond Comic Distributors orders for October 2009 are online here at The Comics Chronicles, and they point to a down month across the board, with double-digit losses in all categories. There was a particularly steep drop of 30% in dollar orders for the Top 100 Trade Paperbacks; DC had Watchmen and a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[104,17],"class_list":["post-5580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2009-sales","tag-diamond-monthly-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5582,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5580\/revisions\/5582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}