Uncle Scrooge -- only the best-seller of the 1960s!

by John Jackson Miller

I've been adding quite a lot of Statement of Ownership data to the Comichron database for an update coming soon; the list of titles I have information for in 1960 has more than doubled in length since my initial post here. It's all coming soon, but for an early taste, I've added a full Title Spotlight page for the #1 title of 1960 — Uncle Scrooge, created by Carl Barks for Disney. I have full data for all but a couple of years — see it here.

Uncle Scrooge was an original creation for comics, first appearing in a Donald Duck story before getting three issues of Dell's Four Color Comics. Those three issues were the start of a series that continued from Dell into the 1960s, before changing to Western Publishing's Gold Key and, later, Whitman labels.

The series was quarterly as it entered the 1960s, and its sales of just over a million copies per issue was indeed enough for the top spot; only Walt Disney's Comics & Stories also topped 1 million, also in 1960.

Not counting Mad, no other American comic book would sell more than a million copies until Star Wars #1, in 1977 — and no comics title has ever had more copies reported sold in its annual Statement of Ownership. Marvel's adjectiveless X-Men series topped out just under 1 million when its first average was figured, though X-Men #1 from 1991 remains the best-selling American comic book of all time.

We see Uncle Scrooge data up until 1972, when Gold Key gave up on second-class subscriptions — but the figures would return to the title in the 1980s when Gladstone revived it. Disney took over for a while, and then Gladstone took it back — and subscriptions and statements continued. I don't believe there were statements in the Gemstone or Boom issues of the 2000s; if anyone knows otherwise, please let me know. Likewise, I have not ruled out the existence of forms for 1990 and 1992, which would have appeared in issues early in those years; these were during publisher transitions so it is possible they may not exist. But if anyone has them, drop me a line at my contact address on the left of this page.

It's meaningful, I think, that the best-seller of the 1960s should come from Barks, whose work was originally uncredited and who was known originally to fans as "the Good Duck Artist." Fandom in the 1960s was bringing attention to a lot of people who had previously been unheralded, and Barks is a great example. He changed comics — and now comics were changing.

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January 2012 comics sales estimates online

by John Jackson Miller

In comics, the month of January has often stolen the life from whatever good things were going on in the trade, saleswise, so it is usually good enough when we can say that the first month of the year didn't foul the nest. This January, however, seems to have been a good one for the Direct Market, though we must look past the comparatives with last January to see it. Click to see the comics order estimates for January 2012.

Last January had 23% fewer new items on the market as publishers adjusted to Diamond's shift to Tuesday shipping — and just as I advised against putting too much stock into the market's relative decline that month, I caution against taking the year-to-year change figures below too seriously, either. But when we look back earlier, we see that this month's Top 300 comics combined not only sold more copies than the grouping last January, but also more copies than January 2010 and January 2009 as well. That 2009 month was memorable for the publication of the top-selling comic book of the 21st Century so far, the Barack Obama commemorative issue of Amazing Spider-Man, but the market still this January still ordered 15,000 more comic books than it did that month.

The case can be made that the 2012 sales picture is healthier in some respects, as the unit sales are more evenly distributed, thanks to the DC relaunch; as I mentioned at the time, the Obama issue was about all the market had going for it that winter, early in the comics recession. The 300th-place title this month had orders of 2,606 copies, which would have placed it at 266th in January 2009. (See the complete list of 300th place titles.)

Led by Justice League #5, DC titles took the top ten slots this month, and my hunch would be that this is the first time that has happened in the history of comics. Even in the 1960s, there were other contenders — Dell and Archie, among others — keeping DC from a complete lock on the top tier month-in and month-out. For total chart-topping domination, however, the most remarkable case probably remains March 2005, in which Marvel had 23 out of the top 24 regularly-priced comics. (Click to see the complete list of 1st place titles.)

Regardless of its comparative positioning on the comics charts, however, it's noteworthy that Marvel's combined comics and trade paperback dollar orders in the Top 300s actually increased slightly versus December, whereas the market as a whole sold $1.5 million less in comics and trades in the Top 300s. So it's not always about chart placement. This month, a single product like the Fear Itself hardcover is the top-line equivalent of more than 40,000 comics units.

The aggregate totals:

TOP 300 COMICS UNIT SALES

January 2012: 5.78 million copies
Versus 1 year ago this month: +31%
Versus 5 years ago this month: -14%
Versus 10 years ago this month: -1%
Versus 15 years ago this month: -35%

ALL COMICS UNIT SALES
January 2012 versus one year ago this month: +33.56%

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TOP 300 COMICS DOLLAR SALES

January 2012: $19.82 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: +29%
Versus 5 years ago this month: -5%
Versus 10 years ago this month: +18%
Versus 15 years ago this month: -9%

ALL COMICS DOLLAR SALES
January 2012 versus one year ago this month: +32.05%

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TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES

January 2012: $5.97 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: +30%
Versus 5 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: -9%
Versus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 25 vs. the Top 25: -46%

ALL TRADE PAPERBACK  SALES
January 2012 versus one year ago this month: +18.38%

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TOP 300 COMICS + TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES

January 2012: $25.8 million
Versus 1 year ago this month: +29%
Versus 5 years ago this month, counting just the Top 100 TPBs: -6%
Versus 10 years ago this month, counting just the Top 25 TPBs: +9%

ALL COMICS AND TRADE PAPERBACK  SALES
January 2012 versus one year ago this month: +27.47%

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OVERALL DIAMOND SALES (including all comics, trades, and magazines)

January 2012: approximately $32.54 million (subject to revision)
Versus 1 year ago this month: +30%
Versus 5 years ago this month: -3%

Trade paperbacks and graphic novels saw a year-over-year boost thanks in part to the Batman: Through The Looking Glass hardcover. It does appear that the frontlist had a better month than the backlist, as the Top 300 trades were up 30% year-over-year, while the entire list was only up 18%. A hardcover selling a lot of copies would contribute to that effect. The January 2002 figure was so much higher than 2012 in part because of Alternative's 9-11 Emergency Relief title, which sold over 12,000 copies in preorder.
The average comic book in the Top 300 cost $3.51; the average comic book retailers ordered cost $3.43. The median price for comics offered crept up to $3.50, a figure not seen in several months — but $2.99 is the most common price offered.

As noted here earlier, February will be unusual in that it has five shipping Wednesdays, something that only happens ever 28 years. In the longer term, the question will continue to be whether publishers can continue to prime the pump following the DC relaunch. The Before Watchmen promotion will surely help — it will be interesting to see how the figures compare to what we know of sales from the series the first time around.

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Best January since 2008 for comics orders

by John Jackson Miller

On a day in which the United States celebrated a very good jobs report and the Dow Jones Industrial Average traded at its highest level since the financial crisis began, it is perhaps fitting that that we have a report for comics sales in January that doesn't make people sick. It would, in fact, be stellar — if last January hadn't been artificially depressed by Diamond Comic Distributors' change to Tuesday shipping, which resulted in many fewer items being released. Still, the figures for January are very good news, working out to around $32.75 million, by my initial estimates, which would make it the best January since 2008. Click here to see the preliminary rankings for January 2012 comics sales.

The month of January has traditionally been horrible, sapping any energy built up in the previous year. But the slide from December — 6.25% in overall dollars — is the smallest that we've seen since, again, 2008, before the comics recession and the general recession began. The year-over-year increases of 33.56% in comics unit sales, 32.05% in comics dollar sales, 18.38% in graphic novel sales, 27.47% in overall dollars are great big numbers that should and will always be seen with an asterisk because of last January's issues. We sold about $7 million more in comics and trades this year partially because there were more comics and trades to sell. But we're only off less than $2 million from December, and that bodes well.

The DC relaunch effects are certainly a contributing factor; Justice League #6 led the market. The Batman: Through the Looking Glass hardcover was also a help, topping the graphic novel chart. A milder winter in many parts of the U.S. probably also helped. Marvel and DC split the market share lead this month, with Marvel leading the unit shares and DC topping the dollar share side of things.

It's also interesting to look at what role cover price declines are having. The Top 100 comics had an average price of $3.35, down a quarter from last January's overall average. But the comics unit and dollar sales are correlating more closely, which suggests that the typical books sold are priced closer to the mean.

Here are the aggregate changes:

COMPARATIVE SALES STATISTICS

	DOLLARS	UNITS
JANUARY 2012 VS. DECEMBER 2011
COMICS	-7.01%	-8.93%
GRAPHIC NOVELS	-4.51%	-4.86%
TOTAL COMICS/GN	-6.25%	-8.65%
JANUARY 2012 VS. JANUARY 2011
COMICS	32.05%	33.56%
GRAPHIC NOVELS	18.38%	8.46%
TOTAL COMICS/GN	27.47%	31.38%

And the market shares:

TOP COMIC BOOK PUBLISHERS

PUBLISHER	DOLLAR SHARE	UNIT SHARE
MARVEL COMICS	35.17%	37.51%
DC COMICS	33.55%	39.86%
IMAGE COMICS	5.48%	4.83%
DARK HORSE COMICS	4.89%	3.55%
IDW PUBLISHING	4.35%	3.78%
DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT	3.46%	3.66%
BOOM! STUDIOS	1.66%	1.35%
EAGLEMOSS PUBLICATIONS LTD	1.47%	0.30%
VIZ MEDIA	0.92%	0.42%
RANDOM HOUSE	0.79%	0.18%
OTHER NON-TOP 10	8.26%	4.57%

So the news is good — but we won't know how good for a while. We shouldn't look to February for much comparative clarity — it's got five Wednesdays. There hasn't been one since 1984 and won't be another until 2040. I will not make a prediction about what the industry will look like then!

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Diamond Comic Distributors marks 30 years

by John Jackson Miller

I missed the actual date yesterday but on Feb. 1, Diamond Comic Distributors — the sales agent for most large comics publishers to comics shops in North America — celebrated its 30th anniversary.

Steve Geppi, today

When Steve Geppi began distributing comics and related merchandise to fellow shop owners on Feb. 1, 1982, the comic book Direct Market was still fairly new. Phil Seuling began selling Marvel and DC comics non-returnably to comics shops in 1975, later incorporating with partner Jonni Levas as Sea Gate Distributors. Geppi was already in the business as a retailer at that time: he had left his job as a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service in 1974 to open his first shop, Geppi's Comic World, which operated out of the basement of a TV repair shop.

While his company formally began service as Diamond on Feb. 1, 1982, it had one warehouse and 17 customers — Geppi had already been doing work on the distribution side having taken over operations for New Media Irjax's Boston and Tampa distribution centers, according to the corporate timeline. There began, then, a long association with the comics industry. Many retailers have been customers from the beginning, and several publishers have been selling through it from the start. Geppi also
recognized in a press release the contributions of many of his longtime employees. "I am deeply grateful to all of them for their hard work, and I am honored to work alongside them." Diamond Executive Vice President and COO Chuck Parker has been with the company for 27 years, for example.

Chuck Parker

"Steve Geppi has long been synonymous with comic book distribution," said Parker. "His enthusiasm and passion for comic books and pop culture in general, coupled with a retailer’s background, gave Steve a unique and insightful appreciation of what a successful distributor must do in order to achieve."

So Diamond has been a huge part of the story of comics for a generation. It was already the #1 distributor when I entered the business side of comics, just before the tumultuous times of the mid-1990s that left Diamond the only full-line distribution company standing. I've had many positive experiences with the company, first as a working journalist, and now as a comic-book creator. And of course, as a historian archiving the past of the comics market here for The Comics Chronicles.

Steve Geppi in 1992, for Diamond's 10th anniversary

On that score, I should also note as a historical matter Diamond's long publication history. Diamond's Previews began to evolve from a simple listing into its more familiar catalog form 1988; Diamond Dialogue was being published as a newsletter at that point, but was already including some of the sales chart data that this site archives today. I hope to get more of the early stuff online in the future. While there is no longer a print retailer monthly,  Diamond continues to release the sales charts each month on its website — so this is yet another tradition that's continued for a quarter of a century.

Diamond provided a historical timeline, which I have excerpted parts of below; I will get some of this on the timeline section of the site eventually.

1974: Steve Geppi opens Geppi’s Comic World, which operated out of the basement of a TV repair shop.


1982: Geppi founds Diamond Comic Distributors with one warehouse and 17 retail customers.

1988: Diamond goes national with the acquisition of Bud Plant.

1990: Diamond acquires selected assets of Seattle based distributor Destiny Distribution and takes over the operations of Oregon’s Second Genesis.

1991: Diamond UK, Ltd. begins operations in the U.K., leading to the acquisition of England based distributor Pacific Distribution, Ltd.

1992: Diamond’s Star System, which will evolve into the Previews Backlist Service, begins operation, giving retailers access to thousands of graphic novels and trade paperbacks.

1993: Diamond acquires England-based Titan Distributors Ltd., consolidates U.K. operations and becomes Diamond Comic Distributors (UK).

1994: Diamond acquires selected assets of New York-based distributor Comics Unlimited, Ltd.


1995: DC, Image, Dark Horse, and Acclaim choose Diamond to be their exclusive sales agent to comic specialty retailers.


1996: Diamond acquires selected assets of its largest competitor, Capital City Distribution. It also launches the toll-free Comic Shop Locator Service.


1997: Marvel signs an exclusive agreement with Diamond to service specialty market retailers. Diamond centralizes its customer service program and adds an Order Adjustment program,

1998: Diamond Online’s Retailer Services Area, the forerunner of today’s Retailer Services Website, goes live. Online ordering becomes available two years later.


1999: Diamond’s Vendor Services Website opens.

2000: Selected assets and liabilities of Alliance Games Distribution are purchased; Alliance Game Distributors eventually becomes a major operating division of Diamond. Diamond starts the Diamond Bookshelf program for librarians and educators.


2001: Through Alliance, certain assets of West Coast distributors Berkeley Distributors and Barchetta Distribution are acquired. Online reordering becomes available on the Retailer Services site.


2002: Diamond teams with retailers and publishers for the first Free Comic Book Day, designed to attract new customers to comic shops and expose them to what comics has to offer. The Diamond Daily e-newsletter begins. Diamond Book Distributors is founded to service the growing demand for comics and graphic novels in the book trade.


2004: The first Final Order Cut-off Form is posted on Diamond’s Retailer Services Website, allowing retailers to place orders up until the publisher sets its print run.


2005: Diamond opens its Memphis Distribution Center.


2007: Diamond’s ComicSuite Point-of-Sale software is announced.


2008: PREVIEWSWorld.com debuts on the web. Diamond’s Olive Branch Distribution Center opens with 600,000 square feet of space and a high-tech Warehouse Management System.

2010: Diamond launches kidscomics.com to direct young readers and their parents to kid-friendly comic shops across the United States and Canada.

2011: Diamond launches Day-Early Delivery.


And more to come...

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News archives restored

by John Jackson Miller

Two months from today marks five years online for The Comics Chronicles, and while I've gotten a lot of comics history on the site in that time, some of the site's own history has been absent. A database crash in August 2008 took out all the blog posts from before that time, and while I had access to them, I was more focused on getting new stuff online. But now most blog posts have been restored, right back to the first one in March, 2007. Readers framing forward will see the site got quickly into posting new figures, which at the time meant the end of Marvel's Civil War and the death of Captain America.

There aren't many essays in this material that haven't been reposted later, but there are some thoughts on speculation and sales charts and the end-of-year post for 2007, a very big year for the business. Some of the external links may not be functional, of course.

I did write pieces on the state of the market every month going back to 1994 which might be interesting to get online here in the future, but there are other priorities first.

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2000 for 2011: Top 1000 Comics and Top 1000 Trades, with Comichron estimates

by John Jackson Miller

Diamond Comic Distributors has released its lists of Top Comics and Top Trade Paperbacks and graphic novels for 2011, and as I did the last two years I have combined that information with my own estimates of aggregated sales of comics and trades throughout the year and other information to project longer lists, with estimates: the Top Thousand Comics and the Top Thousand Graphic Novels for 2011.

Again, it’s a fairly large page given the number of items, but I am reluctant to fission off trades to a separate page. I have rounded each entry to the nearest hundred copies, as before.

The Top Thousand Comics account for at least 47 million copies, or well over half of all the comics that Diamond sold. Last year, the Top 1000 amounted to 45.3 million copies. In full retail dollars, they sold for $161.3 million, slightly more than last year’s $160 million. The Top Thousand Trades went for $58.4 million, a drop from last year’s $64 million. That’s consistent with what we know about the year in general: comics up, trades down. Combined, these two lists alone account for around half the orders by dollars Diamond received in publishing last year.

Justice League #1 was the top seller for the year, with more than 230,000 copies sold to North American retailers across several printings. Note that Diamond did not combine the Combo Pack orders with the main entry, as they were differently priced; estimates for the Combo Pack for #1 brings the total number of copies of the issue in the Direct Market closer to 255,000 copies. Yes, this figure differs from one that was recently mentioned in a recent interview with DC, which put the number of copies shipped at just over 361,000. I believe that calculation must include European sales of the U.S. version through Diamond UK, which would be at least 10% again what the North American Numbers were; it also likely includes the number of copies shipped to the newsstand.

Who published the Top Thousand Comics? Here's the breakdown:

Marvel: 539

DC: 434

Image: 16

Dark Horse: 6

IDW: 3

Dynamite: 2

That’s a slight drop for Marvel and an increase of 28 entries for DC.

And here's the publisher breakdown of the Top Thousand Graphic Novels:

DC: 339

Marvel: 300

Dark Horse: 103

Image: 68

Viz: 32

Random House: 13

IDW: 24

Boom: 17

Hachette: 12

Archie: 12

Dynamite: 11

Oni: 11

Avatar: 9

Not a lot of change there: DC lost a few entries and Marvel added a few. Assorted others accounted for the rest.

Within the Top Comics list for the year, we find the following breakdowns for unit sales:

42 comics had orders of over 100,000 copies in 2011

85 comics had orders of 75,000-99,999 copies in 2010

342 comics had orders of 50,000-74,999 copies in 2010

978 comics had orders of 25,000-49,999 copies in 2010

This represents a big boost over the volumes seen across the board in 2010, seen here:

26 comics had orders of over 100,000 copies in 2010

68 comics had orders of 75,000-99,999 copies in 2010

209 comics had orders of 50,000-74,999 copies in 2010

648 comics had orders of 25,000-49,999 copies in 2010

I only ran the Top 500 comics in 2009, so we can only comparing the top three categories directly:

39 comics had orders of over 100,000 copies in 2009

80 comics had orders of 75,000-99,999 copies in 2009

260 comics had orders of 50,000-74,999 copies in 2009

I have split up the Top Comics of the Century up into two different pages: one for the Top Comics for the Decade of the 2000s and one for Top Comics From 2000 Forward. The 2010 and 2011 entries have been incorporated into the latter — and we find that 24 comics from 2011 made the Top 300 for the century. That’s an improvement over 2010, in which only nine issues would have made the list, and none higher than 51st place. Justice League #1 places 13th for the century — and note that on this one chart I did include known Combo Pack sales for all the issues that had them.

The average price of comics in Diamond's Top 1,000 comics for 2010 was $3.37; the median price was $2.99. Last year, the mean for the Top 500 was $3.52, with a median price of $3.99. In 2009, the mean for the Top 500 was $3.42, with a median price of $2.99.

There are 20 other years of Diamond annual reports on the site, going back to 1991.

That does it for 2011. On to 2012!

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Diamond releases Top 10s, market shares for 2011

by John Jackson Miller

And in advance of the release of the larger lists for 2011, Diamond has released the Top 10 Comic Books and Trade Paperbacks of the year, plus the market shares.

The Top 10 Comics for the year are not surprisingly dominated by the DC relaunch:

RANK	DESCRIPTION	PRICE	PUBLISHER
1	Justice League #1	$3.99	DC
2	Batman #1	$2.99	DC
3	Action Comics #1	$3.99	DC
4	Justice League #2	$3.99	DC
5	Batman #2	$2.99	DC
6	Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #160	$3.99	Marvel
7	Green Lantern #1	$2.99	DC
8	Justice League #3	$3.99	DC
9	Action Comics #2	$3.99	DC
10	Detective Comics #1	$2.99	DC

And here are the top trade paperbacks, led by the second repeat leader in four years, Walking Dead Vol. 1:

RANK	DESCRIPTION	PRICE		PUB.
1	Walking Dead Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye	$9.99		Image
2	Walking Dead Vol. 14: No Way Out	$14.99		Image
3	League of Extraordinary Gentlemen III: Century #2 1969	$9.95		Top Shelf
4	Walking Dead Vol. 15: We Find Ourselves	$14.99		Image
5	Walking Dead Vol. 2: Miles Behind Us	$14.99		Image
6	Fables Vol. 16: Rose Red	$17.99		DC
7	Batman: Noel Deluxe Edition	$22.99		DC
8	Walking Dead Vol. 3: Safety Behind Bars	$14.99		Image
9	Walking Dead Vol. 13: Too Far Gone	$14.99		Image
10	Morning Glories Vol. 1: For a Better Future	$9.99		Image

Marvel topped DC by several points in both units and dollars this year, although DC made up a great deal of ground in the second half of the year.

PUBLISHER	DOLLAR MARKET SHARE	UNIT MARKET SHARE
Marvel	37.29%	40.93%
DC	31.41%	36.77%
Image	5.27%	4.71%
IDW	4.73%	3.78%
Dark Horse	4.71%	3.35%
Dynamic Forces	3.06%	2.85%
Boom	1.73%	1.43%
Viz	1.09%	0.47%
Eaglemoss	0.96%	0.23%
Avatar	0.79%	0.54%
Other	8.95%	4.93%

A reminder that these calculations include not just comics and trade paperbacks, but also magazines: that's where Eaglemoss comes in. Eaglemoss sells magazines with action figures, which explains why its unit share is so much less than its dollar share — the price points are higher than the average price point on the list.

As discussed yesterday in the end-of-year report, retailers paid Diamond close to $188 million for the $417 million or so items represented above. You can apply the publishers' shares to these figures to guesstimate their own revenue — remember that Diamond would keep several percentage points from what it received.

Full top-sellers lists from the year coming soon.

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