Below you'll find the sales estimates for comics and trade paperbacks sold in the direct market for March, 2020. The sales numbers below are estimates based on the information provided by Diamond Comics Distributors earlier this month. The history of sales estimates can be found on the ComicBookPage.com website.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind when reading this data. These numbers are just estimates for the sales through Diamond to direct market retailers. It does not include any sales outside of the Diamond channel such as newstands, book stores or overseas markets. Since the majority of habitual comic book readers are served through this sales channel, these numbers are a good indicator of the core sales trends at the retail level. While not all copies will sell to readers, each retailer is buying what they think they can sell so the trends at the retail level should be a close enough reflection of the sales trends at the reader level for the purposes of discussion.
The breakdowns are for just the top comics and top trades listed below. These are not the overall market share. I only deal with numbers that I can see and kick around in my ever evolving number crunching system. Sometimes the numbers get a bit battered and bruised in the process.
The estimated total sales for the top 300 comics was 5,443,812 comics which is up by 43,089 units from February and down by 559,687 units from March 2019. Marvel Comics had the largest percentage of the top 300 comics with 50.27% of the total units sold followed by DC Comics with 30.20%.
The top selling comic from Marvel Comics was Spider-Woman (2020) #1 in slot 1 with an estimated 142,089 units and for DC Comics was Flash (2016) #750 in rank 2 with an estimated 82,432 units.
The estimated total sales for the top 300 trades was 204,832 trades which is down by 78,431 units from February and down by 114,993 units from March 2019.
Topping the trades list in March was Once And Future v1 by BOOM! Studios with 3,906 units.
I'll be back later with an analysis of the numbers below.
If you'd like to listen to an in-depth discussion of the sales data, check out the Mayo Report episodes of the Comic Book Page podcast at www.ComicBookPage.com. In addition to those episodes, every Monday is a Weekly Comics Spotlight episode featuring a comic by DC, a comic by Marvel and a comic by some other publisher. We cover a wide variety of what is current being published. If you are looking for more or different comics to read, check out the latest Previews Spotlight episode which features clips from various comic book fans talking about the comics they love. With thousands of comics in Previews every month, Previews Spotlight episodes are a great way to find out about things which may have flown under your comic book radar.
DIAMOND OVERALL SHARES
TOP 300 COMICS BREAKDOWN
TOP 300 TRADES BREAKDOWN
TOP 100 COMICS
Legend: Qty Rank = Quantity Rank, Index = Diamond Order Index, Pub = Publisher, # = Issue Number, R = Reorder, Est Sales = Estimated Sales, Prev Issue = Previous Issue, Prev Sales = Previous Issue Estimated Sales, WL = Weeks Late
A double dagger (‼) after the Quantity Rank indicates items listed multiple times at different price points.
The full top comics list can be found on the ComicBookPage website.
TOP 100 TRADES
The full top trades list can be found on the ComicBookPage website.