2000 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Comics Shipped to North American Comics Shops
Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

Dollar Preorders for Diamond's Top 300 Comics and
Top 25 Graphic Novels from each and every month from the year

around $209.95 Million

(down 5% year-over-year)

Another down year, but the worst slump in decades was finally nearing its end.

Publishers reduced their slates in January and retailers ordered fewer copies in response. Marvel's Punisherlaunch proved one of the better sellers in a down February. Comics got their act together a little bit in March, thanks to the strong showing of X-Men #100.

Marvel's price increase in April helped it catch DC in dollar comic-book preorder dollars. After an uneventful May, both unit sales and dollar sales continued in the right direction in June, helped out by Marvel's X-Men movie previews.

After a July that saw Spawn's 100th issue top the charts, sales for trade paperbacks and hardcovers were incredibly robust in August – by dollars, the strongest since the release of the Crisis on Infinite Earths hardcover back in 1998.

DC's lead over Marvel in  direct-market unit and dollar preorders evaporated in September, and doing it took Marvel putting out 10 more comics than usual. But the hidden gem was Ultimate Spider-Man, which did far better in reorders not represented on the charts.

October was down month without many major launches, but Ultimate Spider-Man was picking up heat. In November, trade paperback preorders, in dollars, amounted to nearly a quarter of all dollar preorders thanks to major holiday releases. Marvel hit it big in December with Ultimate X-Men #1. DC still beat Marvel in dollar comic-book preorders for 2000, but the margin narrowed significantly.

The final rankings for all comics and trade paperbacks during the year appear below. Diamond Comic Distributors reported these issues without indexes allowing actual sales estimates to be calculated. You can find the first-month preorders for these issues in the monthly charts; click one of the months above or use the search tool at the top of the page to find the specific issue. But note that those monthly numbers do not include reorders for the entire year; the rankings below do take the entire year's sales into account.

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

—John Jackson Miller

This list includes all items on Diamond's Top 300 charts, plus any post-#300 items from its Top Independent Publisher charts.
If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.
Click to read the methodology for this table's estimates.
Distributor charts are regional commodity reports, not measures of a work's total reach. Read our FAQ.
The links lead to current listings for each item on eBay. You can also find the books at your comics shop.

2000 Graphic Novel Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Graphic Novels and Trade Paperbacks Shipped to 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.

The links lead to title details on Amazon (paid links). You can also find the books at your comics shop.

Two giant "treasury-sized" editions led the graphic novel charts in a year where graphic novels fared relatively well.

My analyses of preorders from Diamond Comic Distributors for individual months can be found here: