June 2017 had 7,131,999 units in Diamond Comic Distributors' top 300 comics list, an increase of 26,481 units from last month. June had four weeks while May had five shipping weeks.

The median sales for the top 300 comics was 15,596 units while the average sales was 23,773. Average sales, which are noticeably higher than the median sales, indicates items at the top of the chart with sales that are statistically outliers. Marvel's Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man #1 topped the list with 224,620 units while DC's Dark Days: The Forge #1 was the second-best selling comic in June 2017 with 130,651 units. Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man has the usual assortment of incentive covers, including a 1-in-500 TBD Artist Remaster variant. Dark Days: The Forge #1 has three different covers: the regular cover, an alternate cover by Andy Kubert and an alternate cover by John Romitea Jr. Each of these three covers were open to order items with no minimum purchase required to order them. Clearly, Marvel and DC have very different game plans when it comes to multiple covers.

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Marvel Comics placed 3,301,765 units in the top 300 comics and was up 78,729 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 46.30% of the total units for the top 300 comics. Secret Empire is in full swing at Marvel yet there is no significant increase in overall sales with this event.

DC Comics placed 2,523,374 units in the top 300 comics and was down 56,445 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 35.38% of the total units for the top 300 comics. Batman was the lead character in the five top-selling DC title in June: Dark Days: The Forge, Batman, Dark Knight III: The Master Race, All Star Batman and Detective Comics. The character is popular and they have strong creative teams on the titles.

Image Comics placed 594,518 units in the top 300 comics and was down 49,182 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 8.34% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

IDW Publishing placed 178,495 units in the top 300 comics and was down 51,470 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 2.50% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

Dark Horse placed 125,307 units in the top 300 comics and was up 10,086 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 1.76% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

The premiere publishers accounted for 94.27% of the units in the top 300 comics this month while all of the other publishers with items in the top 300 accounted for 5.73% of the units.

Looking quickly at the other publishers on the list, Dynamite Entertainment placed 122,721 units in the top 300 comics and was up 64,126 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 1.72% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

BOOM! Studios placed 62,817 units in the top 300 comics and was down 12,299 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 0.88% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

Valiant Entertainment placed 65,258 units in the top 300 comics and was up 14,091 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 0.92% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

Archie Comics placed 47,261 units in the top 300 comics and was up 15,082 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 0.66% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

Aftershock Comics placed 45,254 units in the top 300 comics and was up 30,011 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 0.63% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

Oni Press placed 25,373 units in the top 300 comics and was down 5,180 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 0.36% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

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Titan Comics placed 11,423 units in the top 300 comics and was down 4,790 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 0.16% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

Black Mask Studios placed 5,805 units in the top 300 comics and was down 902 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 0.08% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

Action Lab Entertainment placed 5,955 units in the top 300 comics and accounted for 0.08% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

Joe Books placed 4,885 units in the top 300 comics and accounted for 0.07% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

UDON Entertainment placed 11,788 units in the top 300 comics and was up 2,146 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 0.17% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

Abstract Studios, American Mythology, Bongo Entertainment dropped out of the top 300 comics this month.

Keep in mind that these publishers had more items go through Diamond than just the ones which made it onto the top 300 comics list. The items from the publishers sell less and therefore are more risky for retailers to stock. Even a single unsold copy could turn one of these titles from a profit to a loss for the store. Like it or not, comics is a pre-order industry. You can lower the risk for your retailer by letting them know in advance what you are planning on buying and then buying it when it comes out.

Various factors increased sales by 2,126,624 units, while other factors decreased sales by 2,100,143 units for the net changes of an increase of 26,481 units. The churn based nature of the comic book business is illustrated by the new comics category being the biggest influence on if the aggregate sales for the top 300 comics goes up or down.

The continuing titles which gained sales category added 138,839 units compared to last month. A few of the gains were significant such as Batman gaining 49,552 units for the month with both issues released in June back over 100,000 units.

The continuing titles which shipped more issues category added 189,113 units compared to last month. May having five weeks and June having four weeks resulted in only nine titles were able to get more issues out in June than May.

The continuing titles with reasonably stable sales category removed 2,478 units compared to last month. Stable sales is defined as not having lost more than 250 units from month to month.

The continuing titles which shipped fewer issues category removed 551,002 units compared to last month. Secret Empire released three issues during the five week in May and two during the four weeks in June resulting in the title selling 170,815 less units in June than May. Jean Grey was down 76,911 units for the month and Generation X was down 53,204 units.

The continuing titles which lost sales category removed 461,724 units compared to last month. Venom lost 92,053 units from month to month with Venom #151. The sales of 49,704 units is still significantly higher than the sales of 32,088 units for Venom #6 two months ago. This chart only includes items which dropped in sales by over 5,000 units in order to keep it readable. Another 97 titles lost between 250 and 5,000 units in sales from May to June equating to 136,931 of the 461,724 units for this category.

The new titles category added 1,386,164 units compared to last month. Around half of the units for this category came from the launches of Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man, Dark Days: The Forge and the new Star Wars: Darth Vader series.

The returning titles category added 412,508 units compared to last month. A quarter of the units came from Dark Knight III: The Master Race which concluded in June so that title will move to the defunct titles category next month.

The suspended titles category removed 308,028 units compared to last month. While there were a number of titles which didn't ship in June. Some of these are planned, other are not. The average sales for titles in this group was 10,268 units.

The defunct titles category removed 548,664 units compared to last month. Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout and Guardians of the Galaxy: Mother Entropy accounted for over a third of the units in this category.

The annuals/specials category removed 140,506 units compared to last month. This total reflects the end of lenticular editions of Flash and Batman. Without that, this category would have been up 78,173 units. The second round of DC/Hanna-Barbera crossovers averaged 23,782 units for a total of 142,690 units.

The reorders category removed 87,741 units compared to last month. My system didn't identify any of the items on the list in June as reorder activity.

I'm writing this as I drive out to Comic-Con International: San Diego again this year. Getting feedback for you all is the best way for my to improve these articles. If you'd are going to the convention and would like talk about the number, email me at John.Mayo@ComicBookResources.com and we can try to find a time and place to meet up during the convention.

For a more in-depth discussion of the sales data, check out the Mayo Report episodes of the Comic Book Page podcast at www.ComicBookPage.com. The episode archived cover the past decade of comic book sales on a monthly basis with yearly recap episodes. In addition to those episodes on the sales data, every Monday is a Weekly Comics Spotlight episode featuring a comic by DC, a comic by Marvel and a comic by some other publisher. I read around 200 new comics a month so the podcast covers a wide variety of the comics currently published. If you are looking for more or different comics to read, check out the latest Previews Spotlight episode featuring 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 new comic book titles that may have flown under your comic book radar.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me at John.Mayo@ComicBookResources.com.