September 1987 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Comics Preordered by North American Comics Shops
Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

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Two major fall crossovers events got fully underway, with "The Fall of the Mutants" taking place at Marvel while "Millennium" launched at DC with a weekly series.

One of the longer-running series to be launched in the 1980s debuted with DC's Hellblazer #1. Edited by Karen Berger (and long before it would become part of the Vertigo label) the first issue kicked off one of the longest modern runs for a new title, ending with Hellblazer #300 in 2013. The debut placed 43rd.

For the second month in a row, Diamond's rival Capital City Distribution found that DC had edged out Marvel in dollar market shares; it's unclear whether the same result obtained at Diamond, but there certainly was a lot of attention on DC's event. Millennium #1 took second place, with the next three issues finishing fourth through sixth.The sprawling event took in 20 other cross-over issues in September: Action Comics #596, Adventures of Superman #436, Batman #415, Blue Beetle #20, Booster Gold #24, Captain Atom #11, Detective Comics #582, Firestorm: The Nuclear Man #67, Flash #8, Green Lantern Corps #220, Infinity Inc. #46, Justice League International #9, Legion of Super-Heroes #41, Outsiders #27, Secret Origins #22, Spectre #10, Suicide Squad #9, Superman #13, Teen Titans Spotlight #18, and Wonder Woman #12.

Thor: I Whom the Gods Would Destroy from Marvel was the top graphic novel by units, placing 88th in a comics chart that did not yet distinguish between comics and graphic novels. It was also the top dollar graphic novel at Capital — and likely at Diamond; the month also saw significant dollar sales for Marvel's Moebius graphic novel.

The raw version of the chart below was presumably published in the August 1987 Diamond Dialogue newsletter; it was reprinted in Comics Values Monthly #20, where we found it. We've added publishers and ship dates. Diamond did not yet report market shares; Capital City this month found DC with a dollar share of 32.2%, Marvel with a dollar share of 31.56%, and Eclipse at 6.1%.

The dates shown below are the dates the comics shipped from the printer, according to Capital City's Orderpak (Septem 1989) and subsequently reported in Amazing Heroes #125 and #126 (Sept. 15 and Oct. 1, 1987). Marvel Age's shipping date comes from Marvel Age #57 (Dec. 1987). Capital reported almost all dates as Tuesdays, which corresponded to when the printer Ronald's released its comics — but World Color Press wasn't releasing its books until 12:01 a.m. on Thursdays. It's not clear which books came from that printer, however, so we've kept everything on Tuesday unless the dates said otherwise.

Further, in this era, distributor catalog dates for all publishers did not synch up exactly with the calendar month, so Diamond's September charts include two week's worth of DC comics from October — and are missing the first week's comics, which would have appeared in Diamond's August charts. This would continue until March 1995, when DC would realign its solicitations with the Direct Market's calendar month (that chart only included three weeks of DC sales). Because Diamond did not report indexed sales, there is no way to know where those comics would have landed in this month's chart.

Click to skip to the Top Graphic Novels for the month.

—John Jackson Miller

This list includes all items on Diamond's Top 100 chart.
If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.
Distributor charts are regional commodity reports, not measures of a work's total reach. Read our FAQ.
Title links below lead to current listings for the issues on eBay. As an eBay Partner, this site may be compensated if you make a purchase.

September 1987 Graphic Novel Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Graphic Novels and Trade Paperbacks Preordered by North American Comics Shops Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

This list includes all items on Diamond's Top Graphic Novel charts. If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.

Diamond did not release a graphic novel chart, and only Thor: I Whom the Gods Would Destroy made the Top 100 comics. But the other three were the top graphic novels at Capital and likely were so at Diamond.