May 2008 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

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

Orders were off in all categories against a year before, bringing all year-to-date categories into negative territory — though the widest category, overall comics, trade paperback, and magazine orders, was only off 2% year-to-date. May 2007 was a monster, so the comparatives were going to be hard to hit; there was also one less shipping week this in May 2008. By this point, 2008 was beginning to look a bit like 2003, a year when the market seemed to have been catching its breath after a period of stronger growth.

The top comic book of the month was Marvel’s Secret Invasion #2, with estimated sales to retailers of 182,400 copies across all variants. DC’s Final Crisis #1 came in second, with approximately 144,800 first-month copies ordered in the direct market. Secret Invasion #2 actually sold more copies than the previous May’s top seller, Fallen Son: Captain America — and in dollar terms, either Secret Invasion #2 or Final Crisis #1 would have been the top item on the list in the previous May. But that month’s list had more depth in the top tier, with 15 items selling above 100,000 copies, versus seven this time out.

Read more in our original report from the month and my archived Newsarama column. You can also click to skip to the Top Graphic Novels for the month.

—John Jackson Miller

This list includes all items on Diamond's Top 300 chart. 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.

May 2008 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 100 Graphic Novel chart. 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.

The top-selling trade paperback was Dark Horse’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Vol. 2, with approximately 9,500 copies sold; by dollars, World War Hulk was the biggest dollar draw, bringing in nearly a quarter of a million dollars. That wasn’t enough to top May 2007, which had three titles selling more than 10,000 copies in their first months. (Third place went to a book I wrote, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.)