Marvel Comics' relaunch of the Star Wars comic book franchise proved to be profitable for the publisher. The release of writer Jason Aaron and artist John Cassaday's Star Wars #1 in 2015 was the top-selling comic of the last decade, based on total unit sales of products invoiced from Jan. 2010 to Dec. 2019.
The comic marked Star Wars' official return to Marvel after Disney acquired the comic book rights. While Issue 1 was popular in its own right, the sales on the comic were greatly inflated by a host of variant covers and its inclusion in a special Loot Crate-style collectors box.
Marvel confirmed Star Wars #1 exceeded one million copies sold on the direct market in 2014, which made it the top-selling single issue of the past 20 years.
"There are a number of new outlets that we're working with here in terms of the folks purchasing and selling a large number of exclusive covers, which in the end means that this very large number of comics will be sold in places where we haven't necessarily had comic sales," Gabriel said. "We're confident we'll have lots of new fans reading issue #1. And the great thing about this for all our comic retailer friends is that they'll be able to sell those new fans the second, third, fourth issues and on and on."
Star Wars #1, written by Jason Aaron with art by John Cassaday and colors by Laura Martin, went on sale in Jan. 14, 2015.
(via PreviewsWorld)