March 2021 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Comics Shipped to North American Comics Shops

This data combines orders from all Direct Market distributors. Click to see only Diamond and DC's distributor.

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

One year after the pandemic shut down the comics industry, the Direct Market appeared to have strongly rebounded by March 2021. Based on its sample of retail orders, Comichron projects that initial unit orders for new comics were up dramatically over the same month in the previous year, assisted by launches including BRZRKR #1, Alien #1, and Joker #1.

Initial orders for all publishers (including DC) appear to have landed between 7 to 8 million copies, for a value of between $32 million and $34 million. If the middle of that estimate is correct, that's a boost of 28% in units and 37% in dollars over the comics that came out in March 2020, a month that had one less shipping week on top of the other conditions that prevailed. We know that the total value of successful eBay auctions for comics in March was up by even greater margins over the early post-pandemic months, so an increase of that size would be consistent.

Significantly, March 2021's performance was based on just 335 new comics, versus 458 in March 2020 — a figure partially inflated by publishers trying to get comics released before Diamond's shutdown. DC's output was just 36 new comics, tying a previous non-shutdown monthly low set in December 1990.

Our retail order dataset found BRZRKR #1, the new series cowritten by actor Keanu Reeves, as the top comic book by units and dollars in initial orders; publisher Boom had announced that initial orders were 615,000 copies, though that figure likely includes copies outside the North American market. A further report had put Marvel's sales of Alien #1 at 300,000 copies including overseas shipments, but it's not clear how much of that landed in March as opposed to April. Comichron's dataset suggests that Joker #1 appears to have landed just below it in March, although we caution that it's harder to pinpoint sales at the very top of the charts based on sampling retail orders. Buy-in from store to store on blockbuster issues varies greatly relative to regular issues of ongoing series, which are more stable.

Despite DC's small slate, initial orders for its new comics in our retail order dataset were up from February, thanks to several new series launches.

Lunar did not release any sales reporting, and by late April, Diamond was in the fifth month of its second pause in monthly report releases. As we did during the first pause in 2020, Comichron has drawn upon a retailer initial order sample to determine approximate unit and dollar sales rankings. The dataset represented a sizable number of copies, from which Comichron was able to determine relative sales volumes — but only the rankings are being shared at this time, and no attempt has been made to rank items beyond 225th place.

No statistical adjustments have been made for returnability and no later returns have been subtracted out. Note, further, that our process only looks at first-month orders for comics, so no reordered titles from the month before or reprints appear in the chart below.

The charts feature every new comic book released by Diamond and Lunar in March 2021. Variant editions have been merged into single entries, following longtime industry practice. The DC release dates are from Lunar.

Things to remember: As we're not characterizing order levels at this time, ranked comics could be separated by thousands of copies or as little as a single issue. Rankings are most reliable for regular series issues in the middle of the chart: orders for the highest sellers and first issues may tend to show more variation.

Rankings in these charts should also be expected to differ — often significantly — from the sales-to-consumers charts available at other outlets. Those report sell-through and not sell-in. Comichron tracks copies in circulation, a category which includes both copies on retail shelves and in consumers' hands.

You can see the reorders that were placed during the month on our pages for reorders and advance reorders for the year. We also have a page breaking out ship dates for second printings.

As is the case with all data on Comichron, it is subject to revision without notice in the event more authoritative and complete information about orders becomes available.

—John Jackson Miller
Updated May 17, 2021

This the two lists below include all comic books released by Direct Market Distributors in the month.
Rankings are based on Comichron's retailer inital order sample and do not include reorders.
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.

The list below includes all the other comics released by Diamond and Lunar for which Comichron is not projecting rankings at this time. They appear in alphabetical order by publisher and then by title; use the arrows to sort by any column.

The links lead to current listings for each item on eBay. You can also find the books at your comics shop.

March 2021 Graphic Novel Sales to Comics Shops

Comichron did not examine graphic novel orders, but you can see what graphic novels were receiving retail attention at Diamond in the month by looking at its reorders.