Below you'll find the sales estimates for comics and trade paperbacks sold in the direct market for March, 2018. The sales numbers below are estimates based on the information provided by Diamond Comics Distributors earlier this month. Sales estimates for February, 2018 can be found here.
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 300 comics was 6,078,535 comics which is up by 326,887 units from February and down by 557,096 units from March 2017. Marvel Comics had the largest percentage of the top 300 comics with 41.96% of the total units sold followed by DC Comics with 38.04%.
The top selling comic from Marvel Comics was _Amazing Spider-Man (2017)_ #797 in slot 3 with an estimated 128,189 units and for DC Comics was _Dark Nights: Metal (2017)_ #6 in rank 1 with an estimated 187,583 units.
The estimated total sales for the 300 trades was 291,273 trades which is up by 16,008 units from February and down by 89,625 units from March 20
Topping the trades list in March was _Walking Dead Vol 29 Lines We Cross_ by Image Comics with 14,890 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. I read around 200 new comics a month so 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
Publisher | Market Share By Units | Market Share By Dollars |
---|---|---|
MARVEL COMICS | 38.38% | 35.92% |
DC ENTERTAINMENT | 35.10% | 31.06% |
IMAGE COMICS | 10.43% | 10.98% |
IDW PUBLISHING | 3.28% | 3.96% |
BOOM! STUDIOS | 2.13% | 2.40% |
DARK HORSE COMICS | 1.58% | 2.38% |
DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT | 1.61% | 1.83% |
VIZ MEDIA | 0.46% | 1.23% |
ONI PRESS INC. | 0.80% | 1.16% |
VALIANT ENTERTAINMENT LLC | 0.99% | 0.93% |
TITAN COMICS | 0.65% | 0.89% |
ARCHIE COMIC PUBLICATIONS | 0.69% | 0.73% |
AVATAR PRESS INC | 0.26% | 0.55% |
RANDOM HOUSE | 0.14% | 0.54% |
AFTERSHOCK COMICS | 0.39% | 0.44% |
ACTION LAB ENTERTAINMENT | 0.38% | 0.43% |
ST. MARTINS PRESS | 0.12% | 0.39% |
FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS | 0.07% | 0.38% |
LION FORGE | 0.22% | 0.36% |
HACHETTE BOOK GROUP USA | 0.10% | 0.35% |
OTHER NON-TOP 20 | 2.22% | 3.09% |
TOP COMICS BREAKDOWN
Publisher | NI | RI | TI | Min Price | Max Price | Avg Price | Total Reported Units | Total Reported Dollars | Percent of Top Comics By Units | Percent of Top Comics By Dollars |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Marvel Comics | 82 | 7 | 89 | $1.00 | $5.99 | $3.71 | 2,550,801 | $9,873,273.83 | 41.96% | 42.65% |
DC Comics | 82 | 3 | 85 | $2.99 | $7.99 | $3.61 | 2,312,202 | $8,395,576.98 | 38.04% | 36.26% |
Image Comics | 38 | 0 | 38 | $1.00 | $3.99 | $3.86 | 564,112 | $2,182,295.67 | 9.28% | 9.43% |
IDW Publishing | 22 | 0 | 22 | $3.99 | $7.99 | $4.35 | 159,318 | $684,803.82 | 2.62% | 2.96% |
BOOM! Studios | 15 | 0 | 15 | $3.99 | $4.99 | $4.06 | 104,760 | $445,781.40 | 1.72% | 1.93% |
Dynamite Entertainment | 14 | 0 | 14 | $3.99 | $4.99 | $4.06 | 90,377 | $364,410.23 | 1.49% | 1.57% |
Valiant Entertainment | 7 | 0 | 7 | $3.99 | $3.99 | $3.99 | 78,828 | $314,523.72 | 1.30% | 1.36% |
Dark Horse | 8 | 1 | 9 | $3.99 | $3.99 | $3.99 | 69,353 | $276,718.47 | 1.14% | 1.20% |
Oni Press | 4 | 0 | 4 | $3.99 | $4.99 | $4.24 | 45,970 | $202,265.30 | 0.76% | 0.87% |
Archie Comics | 4 | 0 | 4 | $3.99 | $3.99 | $3.99 | 37,995 | $151,600.05 | 0.63% | 0.65% |
Aftershock Comics | 4 | 0 | 4 | $3.99 | $3.99 | $3.99 | 17,200 | $68,628.00 | 0.28% | 0.30% |
Titan Comics | 2 | 0 | 2 | $3.99 | $3.99 | $3.99 | 11,954 | $47,696.46 | 0.20% | 0.21% |
Black Mask Studios | 2 | 0 | 2 | $3.99 | $3.99 | $3.99 | 8,943 | $35,682.57 | 0.15% | 0.15% |
Abstract Studios | 1 | 0 | 1 | $3.99 | $3.99 | $3.99 | 7,604 | $30,339.96 | 0.13% | 0.13% |
Action Lab Entertainment | 1 | 0 | 1 | $4.99 | $4.99 | $4.99 | 5,667 | $28,278.33 | 0.09% | 0.12% |
Broadsword Comics | 1 | 0 | 1 | $2.95 | $2.95 | $2.95 | 4,553 | $13,431.35 | 0.07% | 0.06% |
New England Comics | 1 | 0 | 1 | $3.99 | $3.99 | $3.99 | 4,500 | $17,955.00 | 0.07% | 0.08% |
United Plankton Pictures | 1 | 0 | 1 | $3.99 | $3.99 | $3.99 | 4,398 | $17,548.02 | 0.07% | 0.08% |