Thanks to Marvel’s strong X-Men relaunch and DC making a rare cameo on top of the ‘New Titles Shipped’ chart, November’s Direct Market comic book sales appears to have secured 2019 will out pace 2018 in the eventual year-end totals.
According to figures released by Diamond Comic Distributors Friday morning, the debut issue of Jonathan Hickman, Ed Brisson, and Rod Reis’ New Mutants relaunch was the bestselling comic book of November, one of eight Marvel titles in the Top 10 and the top seven overall including two other ‘Dawn of X’ relaunches.
The eighth bestselling title was a rare Image Comics appeareance in the Top 10 now that the Walking Dead is retired – Scott Snyder, Charles Soule, Giuseppe Camuncoli and Daniele Orlandini’s Undiscovered Country #1.
DC’s first and only title in the Top 10 was the ninth-ranked Batman #82, the acetate cover edition of Tom King and Mikel Janin’s “Year of the Villain” tie-in.
Tom Taylor and Trevor Hairsine’s DCeased collection was November’s best-selling graphic novel.
Marvel stayed on top of November’s ‘Market Share’ chart, but with slightly closer margins than in recent months. Marvel accounted for 37.41% in dollar share and 42.68% in unit share. DC was second, as always with 30.72% in dollar share and 32.41% in unit share. Image was third with 7.90% in dollars and 7.87% in units.
While almost shut out on the Top 10 comic book chart, DC published the highest amount of new comic book in November with 96, compared to 84 for Marvel.
John Jackson Miller of Comichron explains further:
“Diamond reports DC’s number of new comics at 96, but we believe that a good bit of that comes from the splits between cardstock and regular covers; the true number of releases is closer to 80. Considering that DC had only 67 comics out in November 2018 — on the way down to totals in the low fifties last winter — that’s an important change. The number of retail dollars paid for DC products overall appears to have grown 20% in the month, year-over-year.”
Miller also summarizes how November factors into the upcoming year-end totals and its significance:
“The stronger November brings 2019 so far to $488.69 million, an increase of 2%, or about $10 million, over the first eleven months of 2018. While there’s some question about how December will be tabulated, we believe there’s no way 2019 will finish below 2018. That would make for the first growth year for the portion of Diamond sales that we track since 2016. Comic-book orders were up about 3% in both units and dollars in November, a rare case where the two categories’ performance was nearly the same. It’s an indication that the mean price paid for comics overall was relatively close to the average price of all comics offered.”
Diamond’s November 2019 Market Share, Comparative Sales Data, New Titles Shipped and Top 10 Comic Books Units and Dollars and Top 10 Graphic Novels Units and Dollars charts follow below:
TOP COMIC BOOK PUBLISHERS
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COMPARATIVE SALES STATISTICS
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DOLLARS |
UNITS |
|
NOVEMBER 2019 VS. OCTOBER 2019 |
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|
COMICS |
-28.87% |
-24.86% |
|
GRAPHIC NOVELS |
-12.33% |
-14.39% |
|
TOTAL COMICS/GN |
-24.86% |
-24.19% |
|
TOYS |
-8.72% |
-13.86% |
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NOVEMBER 2019 VS. NOVEMBER 2018 |
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COMICS |
3.12% |
2.91% |
|
GRAPHIC NOVELS |
7.43% |
3.94% |
|
TOTAL COMICS/GN |
4.30% |
2.98% |
|
TOYS |
-1.30% |
15.09% |
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YEAR TO DATE 2019 VS. YEAR TO DATE 2018 |
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COMICS |
4.10% |
-1.42% |
|
GRAPHIC NOVELS |
-3.21% |
-8.65% |
|
TOTAL COMICS/GN |
2.02% |
-1.96% |
|
TOYS |
19.15% |
21.54% |
NEW TITLES SHIPPED
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PUBLISHER |
COMICS |
GRAPHIC NOVELS |
MAGAZINES |
TOTAL |
|
DC COMICS |
96 |
31 |
0 |
127 |
|
MARVEL COMICS |
84 |
36 |
0 |
120 |
|
IMAGE COMICS |
40 |
15 |
0 |
55 |
|
IDW PUBLISHING |
36 |
14 |
0 |
50 |
|
DARK HORSE COMICS |
22 |
22 |
0 |
44 |
|
BOOM! STUDIOS |
19 |
15 |
0 |
34 |
|
VIZ MEDIA LLC |
0 |
27 |
0 |
27 |
|
DYNAMITE |
14 |
9 |
0 |
23 |
|
TITAN COMICS |
8 |
7 |
1 |
16 |
|
ONI PRESS INC. |
3 |
4 |
0 |
7 |
|
OTHER NON-TOP 10 |
152 |
200 |
24 |
376 |
|
TOTAL |
474 |
380 |
25 |
879 |
TOP 10 COMIC BOOKS BY UNITS SHIPPED
|
RANK |
DESCRIPTION |
PRICE |
VENDOR |
|
1 |
NEW MUTANTS #1 |
$4.99 |
MAR |
|
2 |
X-MEN #2 |
$3.99 |
MAR |
|
3 |
ABSOLUTE CARNAGE #5 |
$4.99 |
MAR |
|
4 |
X-FORCE #1 |
$4.99 |
MAR |
|
5 |
FALLEN ANGELS #1 |
$4.99 |
MAR |
|
6 |
DEADPOOL #1 |
$4.99 |
MAR |
|
7 |
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #33 |
$3.99 |
MAR |
|
8 |
UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY #1 (MR) [*] |
$3.99 |
IMA |
|
9 |
BATMAN #82 ACETATE COVER |
$3.99 |
DC |
|
10 |
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #34 |
$3.99 |
MAR |
TOP 10 COMIC BOOKS BY DOLLARS INVOICED
|
RANK |
DESCRIPTION |
PRICE |
VENDOR |
|
1 |
NEW MUTANTS #1 |
$4.99 |
MAR |
|
2 |
ABSOLUTE CARNAGE #5 |
$4.99 |
MAR |
|
3 |
X-FORCE #1 |
$4.99 |
MAR |
|
4 |
X-MEN #2 |
$3.99 |
MAR |
|
5 |
DEADPOOL #1 |
$4.99 |
MAR |
|
6 |
FALLEN ANGELS #1 |
$4.99 |
MAR |
|
7 |
UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY #1 (MR) [*] |
$3.99 |
IMA |
|
8 |
BATMAN: WHITE KNIGHT PRESENTS: VON FREEZE #1 |
$5.99 |
DC |
|
9 |
SCREAM: CURSE OF CARNAGE #1 |
$4.99 |
MAR |
|
10 |
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #33 |
$3.99 |
MAR |
TOP 10 GRAPHIC NOVELS BY UNITS SHIPPED
|
RANK |
DESCRIPTION |
PRICE |
VENDOR |
|
1 |
DCEASED HC |
$29.99 |
DC |
|
2 |
FIREFLY: THE STING HC |
$19.99 |
BOO |
|
3 |
IMMORTAL HULK VOL. 5: BREAKER OF WORLDS TP |
$15.99 |
MAR |
|
4 |
NOVEMBER VOL. 1 HC (MR) |
$16.99 |
IMA |
|
5 |
SUPERMAN: YEAR ONE HC |
$29.99 |
DC |
|
6 |
LEGEND OF KORRA PART 2: RUINS OF EMPIRE TP |
$10.99 |
DAR |
|
7 |
JOURNEY TO STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER: ALLEGIANCE TP |
$15.99 |
MAR |
|
8 |
LEAGUE OF LEGENDS: LUX TP |
$15.99 |
MAR |
|
9 |
SAVAGE AVENGERS VOL. 1: CITY OF SICKLES TP |
$15.99 |
MAR |
|
10 |
STRANGER THINGS: SIX TP |
$17.99 |
DAR |
TOP 10 GRAPHIC NOVELS BY DOLLARS INVOICED
|
RANK |
DESCRIPTION |
PRICE |
VENDOR |
|
1 |
SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN: THE ORIGINAL MARVEL YEARS OMNIBUS VOL. 2 HC |
$125.00 |
MAR |
|
2 |
CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS BOX SET HC |
$500.00 |
DC |
|
3 |
ABSOLUTE SWAMP THING BY ALAN MOORE VOL. 1 HC |
$99.99 |
DC |
|
4 |
DCEASED HC |
$29.99 |
DC |
|
5 |
DOOM PATROL: THE BRONZE AGE OMNIBUS HC |
$125.00 |
DC |
|
6 |
SUPERMAN: YEAR ONE HC |
$29.99 |
DC |
|
7 |
FIREFLY: THE STING HC |
$19.99 |
BOO |
|
8 |
BATMAN BY SNYDER & CAPULLO OMNIBUS VOL. 1 HC |
$125.00 |
DC |
|
9 |
NEW TEEN TITANS OMNIBUS VOL. 4 HC |
$99.00 |
DC |
|
10 |
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN VOL. 31 HC |
$75.00 |
MAR |