Early DC relaunch sales help erase half 2011's decline

by John Jackson Miller

Diamond Comic Distributors has released the preliminary sales report for August 2011, and as expected, it includes the first taste of what impact DC's relaunch has had on the market. DC's regular series ended, and Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1 released on the last day of the month.

Click to see the page for August 2011 on Comichron, which include's Diamond's preliminary rankings with order index numbers. Estimates will be along for actual sales later in the week.

Overall, with all comics and trade paperbacks included, it appears to be on the order of a $38 million month; that's just judging from Diamond's comparative sales statistics. The aggregate performance levels are here:

COMPARATIVE SALES STATISTICS

	DOLLARS	UNITS
AUGUST 2011 VS. JULY 2011
COMICS	9.00%	7.33%
GRAPHIC NOVELS	24.18%	13.26%
TOTAL COMICS/GN	13.74%	7.79%
AUGUST 2011 VS. AUGUST 2010
COMICS	15.14%	17.55%
GRAPHIC NOVELS	31.17%	20.17%
TOTAL COMICS/GN	20.15%	17.76%
YEAR-TO-DATE 2011 VS. YEAR-TO-DATE 2010
COMICS	-4.60%	-3.65%
GRAPHIC NOVELS	-2.35%	-7.61%
TOTAL COMICS/GN	-3.87%	-3.99%

The numbers are all up double-digits percentage-wise year over year, though this should not be entirely be attributed to DC's relaunch, as trade paperback sales leapt, too, with Dark Horse's Serenity: Better Days and Other Stories leading the top graphic novel list. August 2011 was a five-week month for shipping purposes, and the industry's performance in August 2010 was fairly weak, as well. But as I 'd said before, given the sales levels this year, it only takes a couple of really good months to recover the ground lost against 2010 thus far, and August seems to have erased half the year-to-date loss. Last September presents a somewhat higher hurdle in the overall sales column, but chances are good that the Direct Market could be in positive territory for 2011 by the reports coming in this time next month.

The market shares can be seen here:

TOP COMIC BOOK PUBLISHERS

PUBLISHER	DOLLAR SHARE	UNIT SHARE
MARVEL COMICS	37.34%	42.47%
DC COMICS	30.72%	34.84%
DARK HORSE COMICS	5.78%	3.79%
IDW PUBLISHING	4.79%	3.74%
IMAGE COMICS	4.67%	4.64%
DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT	2.23%	2.24%
BOOM! STUDIOS	1.24%	1.21%
VIZ MEDIA	1.14%	0.53%
EAGLEMOSS PUBLICATIONS LTD	1.11%	0.25%
ARCHIE COMIC PUBLICATIONS	0.88%	1.04%
OTHER NON-TOP 10	10.11%	5.25%

And here are the Top Ten comics for the month:

TOP 10 COMIC BOOKS

RANK	DESCRIPTION	PRICE	ITEM CODE	VENDOR
1	JUSTICE LEAGUE #1	$3.99	JUL110187	DC
2	FLASHPOINT #5	$3.99	JUN110178	DC
3	FEAR ITSELF #5	$3.99	JUN110581	MAR
4	FLASHPOINT #4	$3.99	JUN110175	DC
5	ULTIMATE COMICS FALLOUT #4	$3.99	JUN110611	MAR
6	AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #667	$3.99	JUN110622	MAR
7	AVENGERS #16	$3.99	JUN110586	MAR
8	WAR OF THE GREEN LANTERNS AFTERMATH #2	$3.99	JUN110168	DC
9	AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #668	$3.99	JUN110624	MAR
10	NEW AVENGERS #15	$3.99	JUN110598	MAR

Again, the full list of 100 is here. IDW's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles launch placed 48th, the highest debut outside of the Big Two.

There will be much interest in in historical comparatives, so here are a couple of charts of interest. Diamond's release said that Justice League #1 was the best-selling comic book of 2011 thus far, and DC has said that the title topped 200,000 copies in orders, and that Action Comics Vol. 2 #1 in September had, with its second printing orders, done the same; it also said that from September, nine titles in total had topped 100,000 copies — Action, Batgirl, Batman, Batman and Robin, Batman: The Dark Knight, Detective Comics, Flash, Green Lantern, and Superman. This does not count digital downloads, by the way — DC did not release specific data (and The Comics Chronicles focuses on reporting supply levels of physical books in print, anyway).

To get a sense of where this lands historically, first, here's what the existing top-seller list for 2011 looked like, prior to August:

1. Ultimate Spider-Man #160 (Jun-11) • Marvel • 166,944
2. Fantastic Four #587 (Jan-11) • Marvel • 144,173
3. Fear Itself #1 (Apr-11) • Marvel • 135,746
4. Amazing Spider-Man #666 (Jul-11) • Marvel • 136,568
5. FF #1 (Mar-11) • Marvel • 121,171
6. Fear Itself (May-11) • Marvel • 101,692
7. Flashpoint #1 (May-11) • DC • 95,845

The above figures include any second-or-later-month reorder figures that made the Top 300 and were published by Diamond. Later month orders can (and will) change the totals seen above. Flashpoint #1 had yet to top 100,000 copies with reorders by July, and will be in the curious position of being a first issue in far scarcer supply than its final issue.

The figures for the top sellers from 2010 can be seen here.

Finally, here are the rankings for the top sellers of the 2000s. Readers may remember seeing this chart here, and it comes with some caveats. Before February 2003, it includes only first-month preorders. In the final-order era, it reflects no reorders that didn't make the Top 300 in a month. The latter doesn't change much, but the former is a big deal, because it means Ultimate Spider-Man #1 is shortchanged, among others. As we see below, the top title of 2010, Avengers #1, places 51st in the 21st Century list — and Ultimate Spider-Man #160 places 63rd. 

		Title			Date		Publisher		Unit sales
1		Amazing Spider-Man	583		Jan-09		Marvel		530,500
2		Civil War	2		Jun-06		Marvel		341,856
3		Civil War	3		Jul-06		Marvel		337,025
4		Civil War	1		May-06		Marvel		328,524
5		Captain America	25		Mar-07		Marvel		317,713
6		Civil War	4		Sep-06		Marvel		290,994
7		Civil War	5		Nov-06		Marvel		283,863
8		All Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder	1		Jul-05		DC		276,017
9		Civil War	7		Feb-07		Marvel		274,451
10		Infinite Crisis	1		Oct-05		DC		269,991
11		Civil War	6		Jan-07		Marvel		263,847
12		Secret Invasion	1		Apr-08		Marvel		262,975
13		Justice League of America	1		Aug-06		DC		250,847
14		House of M	1		Jun-05		Marvel		248,166
15		Superman	204		Apr-04		DC		244,127
16		Identity Crisis	1		Jun-04		DC		242,912
17		New Avengers	1		Dec-04		Marvel		241,530
18		Batman	619		Sep-03		DC		235,122
19		Infinite Crisis	2		Nov-05		DC		225,614
20		Justice	1		Aug-05		DC		223,852
21		Infinite Crisis	3		Dec-05		DC		218,849
22		Astonishing X-Men	1		May-04		Marvel		218,315
23		Dark Tower Gunslinger Born	1		Feb-07		Marvel		213,726
24		Superman	205		May-04		DC		213,414
25		Infinite Crisis	4		Jan-06		DC		211,012
26		Infinite Crisis	6		Apr-06		DC		208,035
27		Blackest Night	1		Jul-09		DC		205,500
28		Infinite Crisis	5		Mar-06		DC		205,117
29		World War Hulk	1		Jun-07		Marvel		204,705
30		Captain America Reborn	1		Jul-09		Marvel		199,900
31		Secret Invasion	2		May-08		Marvel		198,832
32		Infinite Crisis	7		May-06		DC		198,367
33		Superman/Batman	10		May-04		DC		197,619
34		Thor	1		Jul-07		Marvel		196,818
35		JLA/Avengers	1		Sep-03		Marvel		191,887
36		Batman and Robin	1		Jun-09		DC		190,300
37		Fallen Son: Death of Captain America: Iron Man			Jul-07		Marvel		189,429
38		Dark Knight Strikes Again	1		Dec-01		DC		188,695
39		Ultimate Fantastic Four	1		Dec-03		Marvel		188,510
40		Dark Knight Strikes Again	3		Feb-02		DC		186,577
41		Secret Invasion	3		Jun-08		Marvel		186,463
42		Identity Crisis	2		Jul-04		DC		185,260
43		All Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder	2		Sep-05		DC		184,959
44		Green Lantern	1		May-05		DC		180,453
45		Wolverine: The Origin	6		Jan-02		Marvel		179,251
46		Green Lantern Rebirth	1		Oct-04		DC		178,294
47		Wolverine: The Origin	5		Dec-01		Marvel		178,231
48		All Star Superman	1		Nov-05		DC		176,654
49		Secret Invasion	4		Jul-08		Marvel		175,423
50		House of M	2		Jun-05		Marvel		175,344
51		Avengers	1		2010		Marvel		175,100
63		Ultimate Spider-Man	160		2011		Marvel		166,944

So right out of the gate, Justice League #1 places at least in the Top 30; a book in the 200,000s could go all the way up to sixth. DC's news release said its first printing was higher than any DC title since August 2006's Justice League of America #1; that title had sales with reorders topping 250,000 copies, but note that the initial month's orders were 212,000 copies; we don't know what portion of the 250k the first printing was, but it's at least 212k. That 2006 issue is #13 on the 21st century list.

More figures as they become available, but it is in general an excellent thing to see any numbers that compare favorably with 2006 numbers, which was near the peak of the market's last sustained upswing.