February 2011 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

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

Covers and issue links on this page lead to current eBay listings. This site may be compensated if you make a purchase.

February was a month without all the comparison problems presented by January; publishers were acclimated to the Tuesday shipping window, and it wasn't comparing against an artificially lengthened sales month as January 2010 was. The result is that comics and trade paperback orders were up slightly year-over-year, cutting 2011's deficits basically in half.

The effects of a larger supply of new titles are easily seen. Marvel and DC combined to place 19 more titles in the Top 300 in February. There were 130 titles selling more than 10,000 copies in January; that figure swelled to 173 in February. The 300th place title more than doubled in orders from January, rising to 2,860 copies.

February also set a new record for the lowest number of copies ordered for a top-selling title. DC's Green Lantern #62 had orders of just over 71,500 copies, more than 18,400 copies less than the previous record-holder — a record only two months old. This was likely the first time that when all reorders and newsstand sales were added, no comic sold above 100,000 copies — although eventual readerships for these titles certainly did eventually above that mark given reprint editions (to say nothing of digital).

Lower unit sales at the top of the list were offset by higher unit sales further down. In February, retailers ordered 3% more copies of the Top 300 titles than they did in the same month 10 years earlier, a month when the 300th-place title had preorders of only 1,081 copies (versus 2,860 in February 2011). And while there were 173 titles over 10,000 copies in February 2011, ten years ago, that total in February 2001 was only 153.

Read more in our preliminary and final analysis posts for the month. 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 plus any post-#300 items from its Top Independent and Small Publisher charts.
If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.
Items marked with asterisks [*] had their reported orders reduced by 10% due to returnability.
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.
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.

February 2011 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 300 Graphic Novel charts, plus any post-#300 items from its Top Independent and Manga 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.

Trade paperback depth improved as well, up 1% year-over-year in just the Top 300 and 7% when the entire backlist was included.