April 2018 had 6,815,409 units in the top 300 comics list, an increase of 736,874 units from last month. Most of that increase came from Marvel which was up 624,040 units from last month. DC was only up 128,965 units from last month even with Action Comics #1000 topping the list with 449,787 units. Another five items sold over 100,00 units but sales were below 60,000 units for everything but the top dozen items on the list. Amazing Spider-Man #798 sold 233,235 units and Amazing Spider-Man #799 sold 192,609 units which puts the title at an unusually high sales level just prior to Amazing Spider-Man #800.

Marvel Comics placed 3,174,841 units in the top 300 comics and was up 624,040 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 46.58% of the total units for the top 300 comics. This is the most units Marvel has sold in the top 300 comics since the 3,301,765 units in June 2017.

RELATED: Action Comics Dominates April Sales Chart with Nearly 450K Copies

DC Comics placed 2,441,167 units in the top 300 comics and was up 128,965 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 35.82% of the total units for the top 300 comics. This is only slightly above the 2,403,195 unit average for DC. While DC had a massive bump in sales on Action Comics, most of the other DC titles lost sales this month. The loss of Dark Nights: Metal which ended last month and the intermittent release schedule of Doomsday Clock which didn't ship in April meant DC had 337,164 units from March which didn't carry over into April.

The premiere publishers (Dark Horse, DC Comics, IDW Publishing, Image Comics, Marvel Comics, Dynamite Entertainment and BOOM! Studios) accounted for 97.34% of the units in the top 300 comics this month while all of the other publishers with items in the top 300 accounted for 2.66% of the units.

The up-swing of 2,361,980 units from new and increased sales was enough to compensate for the down-swing of -1,625,106 units from lost sales.

The continuing titles which gained sales category added 570,348 units compared to last month.

The sales spike on Action Comics #1000 accounted for 69.83% of the units in this category. Next month has the Action Comics Special and Superman Special one-shots followed by the Man of Steel miniseries and then Brian Michael Bendis taking over Action Comics and a relaunched Superman title. As a result, we'll probably be seeing some unusual sales for the Superman titles for a few months.

The continuing titles which shipped more issues category added 449,600 units compared to last month.

The big winner in this category was clearly Amazing Spider-Man with the "Go Down Swinging" storyline which has kicked the sales to well over the 100,00 level. Amazing Spider-Man #800 has a 1-in-25, a 1-in-500, 1-in-1,000 a meet-or-exceed 150% of Amazing Spider-Man #797 and an open-to-order cover. Dan Slott is ending his run with strong sales.

The continuing titles with reasonably stable sales category removed 2,549 units compared to last month.

The continuing titles which shipped fewer issues category removed 194,599 units compared to last month.

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Marvel%27s%20Star%20Wars%20Comics%20-%20Are%20They%20Still%20a%20Sale%20Juggernaut%3F']



Star Wars #46 sold 59,335 units at rank 14 which is strong sales in the current market. The title has been slowly losing sales since the second issue with occasional one issue bumps in sales. At some point, Marvel will probably relaunch the title with a new creative team in an attempt to boost the sales.

The final issues of Doctor Strange: Damnation shipped this month versus the two last month. The storyline intersected with the Doctor Strange title and was a mini-event for the supernatural characters of the Marvel Universe. Doctor Strange #388 was the only issue Doctor Strange to outsell Doctor Strange: Damnation during the storyline.

The continuing titles which lost sales category removed 457,899 units compared to last month.

Weapon H dropped by 63.22% on the second issue. That issue had a 1-in-25 cover and a meet-or-exceed 80% or orders for Weapon H #1. Weapon H #1, on the other hand, had a 1-in-10, a 1-in-25, two meet-or-exceed 125% of Weapon X #14 and a meet-or-exceed 150% of Weapon X #14 covers. This pattern of heavy incentive cover promotions on a first issues followed by fewer incentive covers on a second issue is part of what causes these sharp second issue drops on Marvel titles.

Daredevil and Mighty Thor both dropped from the previous issue but were up from the issue before that. The previous issue of both titles were major issues of the title. Daredevil #600 was an "anniversary issue" and Mighty Thor #705 has a major turning point in the story.

Robert Kirkman's new title Oblivion Song dropped by 46.5% to 44,565 units with the second issue. It was the third best selling issue for Image in April behind Walking Dead #178 and Spawn #284 and outsold Saga #51.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #26 was down from previous issue which celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Power Rangers on television and kicked off the "Shattered Grid" event storyline.

The new titles category added 907,147 units compared to last month.

Marvel titles accounted for over 62% of the units in this category.

Four issues of the weekly Venomized miniseries shipped with a combined total of 232,813 units in sales. The first issue sold 103,720 units and the other three issues averaged 43,031 units. Unsurprisingly, the first issue have more incentive covers than each of the other three issues.

Hunt for Wolverine #1 sold 138,584 units. The issue had a 1-in-25 cover, two 1-in-50 covers, a 1-in-500 cover, a 1-in-1,000 cover and three open-to-order variants. This issue leads into a couple of miniseries the first issues of which did not have as many incentive covers and therefore probably won't sell as well.

The returning titles category added 283,824 units compared to last month.

Spawn returned after skipping a month because it shipped a week late which isn't a big deal as any number ofthings can cause a comic to ship a week late. Batman and the Signal #3 and Batman: Creature of the Night shipped 7 weeks late and Doom Patrol #11 shipped 22 weeks late. It is one thing when an issue ships a week or two late but when an item fails to ship three month after the expected shipping date, shouldn't the original orders be canceled and the item resolicited?

The suspended titles category removed 437,107 units compared to last month.

Doomsday Clock went back into a suspended state with the fifth and sixth issue getting rescheduled a time or two. At this point, the issues will come out when they come out. The delays aren't helping the story momentum but they also don't seem to be hurting the sales.

The defunct titles category removed 463,577 units compared to last month.

Dark Nights: Metal ended last month and accounted for over 40% of the units in this category. The bimonthly Mystik U also ended last month.

The annuals/specials category added 83,562 units compared to last month.

The Thanos Annual accounted for over half of the units in this category. The Cosmic Ghost Rider seems to be a hot property and it will be interesting to see how the miniseries for the character does.

We might see some reorder activity on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Annual. It was part of the "Shattered Grid" storyline and sold a few thousand units less than Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #26.

The non-series category removed 69,375 units compared to last month.

The Thanos True Believer issues did okay but not as well as the Venom True Believers issues did last month. Marvel seems to be doing well with this approach to reprints. DC might want to consider something along these lines.

Page 2: <[valnet-url-page page=3 paginated=0 text='The%20Effect%20Comic%20Book%20Reorders%20Have%20on%20Monthly%20Sales%20Numbers']/h5>



The reorders category added 67,499 units compared to last month. Marvel accounted for most of the positive units in this category. Thanos was the clear winner with all five of the previous issues having reorder activity on the top 300 comic list. The current storyline of "Thanos Wins" is clearly popular with sales on a clear upward trend.

The "Go Down Swinging" story in Amazing Spider-Man generated reorder activity on the previous issues of that arc.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #25 moved 4,699 units of reorder activity. We might see more of this as the "Shattered Grid" event continues over the next few months. The "Shattered Grid" storyline crosses over between Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Go Go Power Rangers and is an event storyline involving numerous teams of Power Rangers. On the Power Rangers television shows, team up between the current team of Power Rangers and the previous team was a common occurrence much like the old JLA/JSA team-up used to be. "Shattered Grid" is sort of the Power Rangers version of Crisis on Infinite Earths featuring multiple teams of Power Rangers. Issues of the storyline have reportedly been selling out at the distributor level and the event will continue until August ending in Mighty Morphing Power Rangers: Shattered Grid Finale #1. Power Rangers fan are taking note of the storyline and seem to be enjoying it. This is the sort of event which might bring new readers into comic book stores.

The total of 6,815,409 units for the top 300 comics April 2018 was only slightly above the average of 6,634,972 units. Action Comics not only topped the comic list but the Action Comics: 80 Years of Superman hardcover topped the trades list with 18,641 units. Six issues sold over 100,000 units, most by a wide margin. If you exclude Action Comics and Amazing Spider-Man which both had unusually high sales in April, the 176 continuing titles averaged a lost of 1,881 units. If you include Action Comics and Amazing Spider-Man the average flips to a gain of 2,050 units per title. This illustrates how a title or two with abnormally high sales for a given month can significantly skew the way the trend of aggregate data for the top 300 comics. Spikes in sales aren't a bad thing but they can't compensate for the standard attrition most titles experience.

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.