Second Issue Drops Sees August 2018 Comic Sales Dip Over 336K

August 2018 had 6,571,798 units in the top 300 comics list, an decrease of 361,651 units from last month. Only three comics sold over 100,000 including Fantastic Four #1 which sold 369,914 units. Infinity Wars #1 kicked off that Marvel event with 104,363 units. While those are strong sales for a normal title, many past Marvel event titles have sold much better.

Only the top ten comics sold over 75,000 units. The total for the top 300 comics is only slightly below the 6,637,221 unit average since Diamond first started reporting final order in early 2003. About two-thirds of the net loss in sales this month came from DC titles with the other third of it being spread across 15 other publishers.

Marvel Comics placed 3,201,184 units in the top 300 comics and was up 70,153 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 48.52% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

DC Comics placed 2,134,711 units in the top 300 comics and was down 332,221 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 32.36% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

Image Comics placed 533,542 units in the top 300 comics and was down 82,354 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 8.09% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

The premiere publishers accounted for 96.99% of the units in the top 300 comics this month while all of the other publishers with items in the top 300 accounted for 3.01% of the units.

The up-swing of 2,121,655 units from new and increased sales was enough to compensate for the down-swing of -2,458,033 units from lost sales. New titles more than compensated for the drop in sales on existing titles. Suspended and defunct titles results in much larger loss of sales than the units gained from returning titles.

The continuing titles which gained sales category added 90,272 units compared to last month.

Die! Die! Die! posted a gain in sales on the chart but given the majority of the first issue sales seem to have gone uncharted, this apparent gain is almost certainly a drop in actual sales.

Weapon H and Venom both had strong gains. Weapon H #6 was up 68.46% with a J Scott Campbell Return of the Fantastic Four open-to-order cover and Captain America guest starring. Venom #5 was up 10.26% with a Zaffino Return of the Fantastic Four open-to-order cover. The first four issues of Venom had reorder activity in the top 300 which totaled to 28,518 units combined.

The continuing titles which shipped more issues category added 114,195 units compared to last month.

All of the titles in this category shipped two issues in August and only one in July. Most of these titles were from Marvel. Shipping twice as many issues is a good way to roughly double the sales of a title in a given month.

The continuing titles with reasonably stable sales category removed 4,100 units compared to last month.

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The fairly stable sales on Mage: The Hero Denied in combination with the modest sales of the title, 6,224 units as of the most recent issue we have data for, seems to reflect the known/unknown nature of the title. For readers familiar with the early volume sin the series, the property is a known quantity and those who decided to stick with it after the first issue are generally likely to continue with it until the volume concludes. Some reasons unfamiliar with the property may have tried it out and some may have continued with it. The long time gap between volumes of the property and the resulting unknown nature of the title for newer comic book readers may have worked against the series. This doesn't seem to be the sort of title readers are likely to try out in midstream.

The continuing titles which shipped fewer issues category removed 365,618 units compared to last month. Three quarters of the units in this category were from Marvel titles. While the issues of Avengers and Immortal Hulk which shipped in August sold lightly better than the previous issues of the respective title, the sales of the title dropped since only one issue was released in August versus the two in July.

The continuing titles which lost sales category removed 1,227,198 units compared to last month.

Unsurprisingly, Batman dropped massively in sales after the Batrimony last month. Likewise, the large drops on Amazing Spider-Man, Captain America, Catwoman, Superman, Cosmic Ghost Rider, Mr and Mrs X and Life of Captain Marvel are because of the high sales of the first issues of the new volumes which started last month. Teen Titans had the equivalent of a second issue drop on the second issue of the new direction the title.

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The new titles category added 1,275,538 units compared to last month.

Fantastic Four launched with over a dozen different covers. There two open-to-order variants, a 1-in-10 cover, a 1-in-25 cover, a 1-in-50 cover, a 1-in-100 cover, a 1-in-500, a 1-in-1,000 cover and eight meet-or-exceed Avengers #3 covers, four of which were by Artgerm. The second issue has a regular cover, two open-to-order covers and a meet-or-exceed 125% of Avengers #3 cover. This follows the pattern Marvel has of launching a title with a heavy incentive cover push followed by a second issue with far fewer incentive covers. The end result is typically a massive second issue drop on these titles. These sales are great but they are unsustainable. Maybe this will be that historic high selling run of the title, maybe it won't be. Either way, before too long, the sales of this Fantastic Four volume will likely to gravitate back towards how the property typically does be it with this creative team, the next or the one after that.

The Fantastic Four title historically sold at least 30,000 units an issue, often higher. Using the lowest issue sales of 24,716 from Fantastic Four #14 in December 2014 and assuming a single issue a month from January 2015 through July 2018, Marvel didn't sell a minimum over a million units of Fantastic Four comics. That assumes uninspired stories by an average creative team and no major relaunched or incentive cover gimmicks. Granted, Marvel would have had to pay to produce those 43 issues in order to sell those million imaginary units. But I suspect each of us could name at least a title a month that Marvel did produce which we feel could have been replaced by Fantastic Four. Of course, the title each of us might pick is likely to be a different title. The point is not publishing Fantastic Four for years cost Marvel a significant amount of sales over that time. A similar point could be made for DC not publishing Justice Society since the New 52 reboot or a Legion of Super-Heroes title for last few years.

Infinity Wars launched with 104,363 units and dropped by 32.59% down to 70,348 units on the second issue.

The first two issues of Extermination were released in August. The first issues sold around 55,704 units and the second issue dropped 20.53% to 44,269 units.

Punisher launched with 73,073 units. The first issue had a regular cover, an open-to-order cover, a 1-in-25 cover, a 1-in-50 cover, a 1-in-100 cover, a 1-in-500 cover and a meet-or-exceed 250% of Punisher #1 cover. The second issue has a regular cover, a 1-in-25 cover, a 1-in-100 cover and a 1-in-500 cover and the third issue has a regular cover, a 1-in-25 cover, a 1-in-100 cover and a 1-in-250 cover so we might not see the typical sharp drop after the first issue on this title.

The returning titles category added 295,490 units compared to last month.

Batgirl didn't ship any issues last month and released two issues in August resulting in 63,659 units returning to the top 300 comics total. Batgirl #25 was up 42.54% from the previous issue. That issues was the best selling issue of the series since Batgirl #4 back in October 2016. Batgirl #26 dropped 31.2% but still sold better than any issue of the series since Batgirl #8 in February 2017 except for Batgirl #24 released last month.

Mister Miracle is another DC title making some modest gains in sales recently. Mister Miracle #10 was up 4.83% this month after a very minor increase of 0.1% last month. Even the smallest of increases can be considered a win given how few comics increase in sales from issue to issue. Mister Miracle #10 was the best selling issues of the series since the fourth issue.

Most titles launch and then drop in sales. For a title to get back to the sales level of the initial few issues isn't particularly common. The question with Batgirl and Mister Miracle is if these sales increases will continue or are a short term anomaly.

The suspended titles category removed 407,762 units compared to last month.

A third of the units in this category were from the bi-monthly releases schedule of Doomsday Clock.

Saga #54 announced a year long hiatus for the title. It went into that hiatus at a sales level of 36,372 units. The initial gaps between arcs didn't hurt the sales of the series at all. The first issues after the first four gaps went up in sales. But the title seems to have cooled off a bit over the past three years. A year long gap could help get readers excited when it returns or it could find that many readers have moved on in that time. Sales of Saga #53 were an all time low for the series of 37,050 units so the creative team taking a break from the series to recharge might not be a bad idea. Few creative teams stay on a series for 54 issues these days. The decision to produce the title at a sustainable pace was a smart move and seems to have worked well so far.

The defunct titles category removed 453,355 units compared to last month.

Many of the defunct titles ended only to be replaced by another title. Man of Steel ended and Action Comics resumed and Superman restarted. Infinity Countdown ended and Infinity Wars started. One volume of Punisher_ ended for another to pick up were it left off. Spider-Gwen ended so they could retitle to Spider-Gwen aka Ghost Spider which will run for a while and then probably get replaced by a Ghost Spider title.

On the other hand, Star Wars: Thrawn, Brave and the Bold: Batman and Wonder Woman and Mera, Queen of Atlantis were miniseries that ended with no replacement titles.

The annuals/specials category added 187,963 units compared to last month. August had five release weeks so a number of annuals were released. The only thing of note is that many of the these are selling at sales low enough to be in the danger zone of cancellation had a title been selling at that level a decade ago.

The non-series category added 137,222 units compared to last month.

July main consisted of the True Believer Fantastic Four reprints while August had a few bookend one-shots like Sandman Universe and Hunt for Wolverine: Dead Ends and the DC/Loony Tunes one-shots.

The reorders category added 20,975 units compared to last month.

As mentioned above, the first four issues of Venom had reorder activity in the top 300 which totaled to 28,518 units combined. The various Venom issues totaled to 202,352 units between new issues and reorders.

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We knew last month there would be a downswing of at least 800,000 units in August based on how things looked in the July numbers. Fantastic Four #1 sold strong but that wasn't enough to compensate to the overall loss in sales in August. No doubt we'll see a drop next month of potentially as much as 200,000 units or more just from Fantastic Four. We should see Doomsday Clock return with over 100,000 units which should help compensate for the loss on Fantastic Four. Based on the top items in July, Doomsday Clock #7 could potentially be the only comic selling over 100,00 units in September with Batman: Damned, Heroes in Crisis and Return of Wolverine being the other strong contenders.

Generally speaking, ongoing titles don't tend to sell over 100,000 units per issue. Batman is the noteworthy exception to this in recent memory. It doesn't happen and shouldn't be expected. But titles used to last longer than they do now. Most titles get relaunched ever year or two, often with a new creative team. The constant rotation of creators, titles and approaches to the characters makes it hard for readers to stay with a property than it needs to be.

Two of the metrics I'm tracking are the up-swing and down-swing which measure the net increase and decrease from the various categories. The sum of them is the month to month change in the total of the top 300 comics. The up-swing and down-swing are based on the net change for each category and some categories have both increases and decreases in them. Calculated on a per title basis, the total per title up-swing is 2,518,090 and total per title down-swing is -2,854,468 units. These metrics illustrate the scope of change happening from month to month far better than the average monthly net change in the total for the top 300 comics of a mere 3,948 unit increase. The 3,948 average increase make it seem like sales are going up when it really just reflects the below average sales in early 2003.

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 co08ents, please feel free to email me at John.Mayo@ComicBookResources.com.