April 2020 Comics Sales through Diamond
Comics and Graphic Novels Ordered by North American Comics Shops
Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors
This data refers to sales by Diamond. Click to see the Overall charts and those from DC's distributors.
April 2020 became a month like no other in Direct Market history on March 23, when Diamond Comic Distributors announced that no new comics and graphic novels with an on-sale date of April 1 or later would be shipped until further notice as a response to supply chain and retail disruptions caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.
The multi-week closure coincided with another major change, as DC announced on April 17 that a limited slate of titles would be available for late April from UCS Comics Distributors and Lunar Distribution, distribution firms that had been set up for the purpose by sister companies to the mail-order retailers Midtown Comics and DCBS (Discount Comic Book Service) respectively. Previous orders through Diamond for those comics were canceled by DC.
It was the first time since March 1991, 29 years earlier, that Diamond hadn't released monthly charts; that time appears to have been an oversight. Diamond's reorder charts also stopped appearing after the March 23-29 edition, so no data was reported at all by the distributor in the month until May, when a report that included reorders for the last few days of April was released. The Marvels 25th Anniversary hardcover, which came out in March, led reorders placed in that week. Look below to see that report, the only public record of any kind about Diamond sales in the month.
Click to see the business done by DC's distributors in April, and projected orders overall.
—John Jackson Miller
Reorders placed between April 27-May 3, 2020
• Top reordered hardcover graphic novel:Marvels 25th Anniversary Edition (Marvel)
Diamond had suspended releasing reorder reports beginning with material reordered at the end of March. After skipping four weeks' worth of reports, it resumed the reports again in early May with a report that only included graphic novels; as a matter of fact, it only included hardcovers. The 25th anniversary hardcover edition of Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross's Marvels led the chart.
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