October 2021 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Rankings for Comics Books Shipped to North American Shops

This data combines orders from all Direct Market distributors. Click to see only Diamond data.

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

During the first week of November, Diamond Comic Distributors was struck by a ransomware attack that impacted many of its systems. Beyond delaying the shipments of many comics, it affected many of Diamond's reporting mechanisms. Some features, such as its advance reorder reports, became unavailable and would remain so for the rest of the year the entire year. Others, like its reorder reports, would function differently than they had before. Impacted, too, were its monthly sales charts, which had resumed in June 2021 after a winter pause due to different logistical issues.

In February 2022, Diamond released its end-of-year report, which revealed the sales of comics it initially offered in October. These included comics which it exclusively sold, as well as Marvel, which beginning on Oct, 1 were distributed by Penguin Random House. Diamond continued to sell Marvel comics to retailers as a wholesaler, buying from PRH — and the end-of-year charts suggested that Diamond had retained 36% of Marvel's business in terms of comic-book units. (Diamond owner Steve Geppi said in a December 6 interview that Diamond retained 45% of Marvel's business; that could easily also be the case, if he was referring to the number of ordering accounts.)

The end-of-year report allowed for the computation of an October interim report, although one in which all the reorders for the rest of the year was included.

To estimate orders for DC comics, Comichron drew upon a retailer initial order sample to determine approximate unit sales rankings. The dataset represented a sizable number of copies, from which Comichron was able to determine relative sales volumes. Since Diamond data was for three months' worth of sales, we gave DC's issues the benefit of a standard reorder factor that was historically appropriate.

Finally, we took Marvel's orders as reported by Diamond and divided them by 0.36, which resulted, we believe, in what its sales would have been had Diamond distributed all of them.

The chart below features every new comic book released by Diamond, Random House, and Lunar in October 2021. Variant editions have been merged into single entries, following longtime industry practice. The DC release dates are from Lunar. Since our process only looks at first-month orders for comics, so no reordered titles from previous months appear in the chart below.

House of Slaughter #1, which Boom on September 21 announced had orders of more than 460,000 copies, actually exceeded that figure by the end of the year, with 480,800 copies just in North America. It would be Diamond's top-selling comic book of the year, in a near dead-heat with King Spawn #1.

You can see the reorders that were placed during the month on our pages for reorders and advance reorders for the year.

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

The list below combines all October-shipping comics on Diamond's 2021 end-of-year list with all comics released by DC.
Diamond's figures include all comics sold between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2021.
DC figures are estimates based on Comichron's retailer inital order sample and include a standard boost for reorders.
Marvel's figures are based on Diamond's orders, with a multiplier to yield probable overall sales.
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.

October 2021 Graphic Novel Sales to Comics Shops

The titles below appeared in Diamond's end-of-year list and had release dates in our records from this month. It does not include sales for any older titles.

Comichron did not examine graphic novel orders for DC, but you can see Diamond's chart below. A record of DC's releases for the month follows it.

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

Comichron did not sample retailer sales data for DC's Direct Market graphic novel sales, and Lunar Distribution did not release any sales data. The list of graphic novels DC released appears below.

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