November 2017 had 6,538,462 units in the top 300 comics list, an decrease of 490,189 units from last month. DC Comics placed 2,924,477 units in the top 300 comics and was up 215,361 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 44.73% of the total units for the top 300 comics. DC had 8 of the top 10 items with Doomsday Clock #1 taking the top two slots with the lenticular edition outselling the regular edition by 181 units for a combined total of 238,643 units. Various Batman titles accounted for the other six titles DC had in the top ten, with half being the Dark Nights: Metal one-shots and the other half being various issues of the Batman title itself.

RELATED: DC’s Doomsday Clock #1, Dark Nights: Metal Dominate November 2017 Sales Charts

Marvel Comics placed 2,447,983 units in the top 300 comics and was down 562,524 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 37.44% of the total units for the top 300 comics. Marvel only had two items in the top ten this month: Captain America #695 which was the first issue of the new Legacy volume of the series with 87,101 units and Star Wars #38 with 73,885 units.

Image Comics placed 473,514 units in the top 300 comics and was down 144,753 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 7.24% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

IDW Publishing placed 211,033 units in the top 300 comics and was up 22,553 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 3.23% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

Dark Horse placed 73,819 units in the top 300 comics and was down 10,990 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 1.13% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

The premiere publishers accounted for 93.77% of the units in the top 300 comics this month while all of the other publishers with items in the top 300 accounted for 6.23% of the units.

Dynamite Entertainment placed 122,990 units in the top 300 comics and was up 14,411 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 1.88% of the total units for the top 300 comics. Valiant Entertainment placed 61,001 units in the top 300 comics and was up 4,075 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 0.93% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

Albatross Funnybooks, Benitez Productions, New England Comics, Lion Forge, United Plankton Pictures and Zenescope Entertainment dropped out of the top 300 comics this month.

The up-swing of 2,206,677 units failed to compensate for the down-swing of 2,696,866 units for the month resulting in a month-to-month drop of 490,189 units.

The continuing titles which gained sales category added 203,104 units compared to last month. The two Justice League issues this month tied into the Dark Nights: Metal storyline and got a bump in sales of around 26,000 units as a result.

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #13 shot up in sales nearly 40,000 units coinciding with a jump forward 8 years in the storyline. The jump forward in time in the story coincides with the sales bump but it might not be the sole cause of the sales bump or even the main cause. Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #12 was by a different creative team and had no promotional covers. Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #13 had a new creative team, a 1-in-10 incentive cover, a 1-in-25 incentive cover and two covers retails could order is they meet or exceeded 125% of their orders of Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #9 with the regular cover of Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #13. One of those two meet or exceed covers contained a warning that allocations might occur. If the title contains to sell at this higher level with the next issue which had no promotional covers then there will be clearer evidence that either the jump forward in time or the change in the creative team played a more significant part in the sales bump than the incentive covers.

The continuing titles which shipped more issues category added 253,809 units compared to last month. November has five weeks compared to the four weeks in October resulting in some titles being able to get an additional issue out in November. Marvel titles account for most of the activity in this category.

The continuing titles with reasonably stable sales category removed 2,076 units compared to last month.

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The continuing titles which shipped fewer issues category removed 397,287 units compared to last month. The majority of the activity in this category is from Marvel. Green Arrow from DC only released one regular issue this month as opposed to the two regular issues last month. The release of the Green Arrow Annual didn't make of the difference in sales since the issues one of the issues released last month tied in to the Dark Nights: Metal storyline and sold nearly twice the normal sales of the title. The Annual sold about 80% of the normal sales level for the title. That isn't unusual since annuals are higher priced and sometimes have stories a bit disconnected from the main storyline in the regular issues.

The continuing titles which lost sales category removed 1,174,234 units compared to last month. Numerous Legacy titles from Marvel moves into their second month and the sales dropped accordingly. While this Legacy volumes of the titles were not #1 issues, they were still first issues as far as sales trends go. The cloud of confusion caused my the plethora of incentive covers Marvel uses to promote new titles results in the first issue sales of the new volume are meaningless in terms of how the title will sell over time. For instance, Mighty Thor #700 which was both the first issue of the new volume and an "anniversary number" issue. As if those two potential sales bumps weren't enough, factor in the whole Legacy promotion thing and then factor in the 1-in-10 cover, the 1-in-15 cover, the 1-in-50 cover, the two different 1-in-100 covers and the three meet-or-exceed covers and you can see how the sales of Mighty Thor #700 are unlikely to be remotely indicative of how the title will sell normally. Mighty Thor #701 had a 1-in-50 cover but that was it. The result was a drop of 65.36% from one issue of the next.

The new titles category added 1,123,040 units compared to last month. Marvel had a bunch of new Legacy titles while DC launched a new year long event title. Keep in mind the numbers for Doomsday Clock on this chart only include the regular version. The lenticular edition with the dollar high cover price went into the Annuals/Specials category.

For some reason Batman: The Dark Prince Charming Book 1 hardcover was on the top comics list. It would have topped the list of top trades by a wide margin had it been listed over there.

The returning titles category added 242,946 units compared to last month. Since not everything is scheduled to ship every month it is common for titles to come and go from the list from month to month.

The suspended titles category removed 532,653 units compared to last month. Dark Nights: Metal skipping a month was the big thing in this category. Saga ended a story arc last month and is on a scheduled hiatus until February or March.

The defunct titles category removed 567,665 units compared to last month. Most of the items at the top of this category are Marvel which isn't surprising given Legacy involved ending the existing volumes and starting up new volumes with higher issue numbers. Given the limited lifespan of Marvel titles over the past few years, Legacy seems to be a move in a different direction. More than likely, the only change will see is the carry over of issue numbering between retitled volumes. In other words, if Invinicible Iron Man ever reverts back to just Iron Man will might keep the same numbering sequence across the switch instead of reverting to a new #1 with each new volume. Either way, I expect to see Marvel titles to continue being in this category as it seems unlikely that Legacy will put an end to the "Season length" titles over at Marvel. The length of a "season: being determined by the amount of time between the events which spawn and kill the various titles.

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The annuals/specials category added 263,633 units compared to last month. The heavy DC showing in this category this month is a reflection of DC practice of releasing annuals during five week months. Since Doomsday Clock #1 was the only issue to have a lenticular edition, I'm treating it as a special issue of the series. The other issues solicited so far all have variant covers at the same price as the regular cover so those sales will get aggregated in with the regular edition going forward.

The non-series category added 120,145 units compared to last month. New items this month added 420,143 units while items from last month removed 299,998 units from the month-to-month total. The Dark Nights: Metal one-shots and the Dark Days: The Forge And The Casting Directors Cut resulted in an increase of 46,658 units this month over last month.

The Legacy One-shots of Silver Sable and the Wild Pack #36, Darkhawk #51, Master of Kung Fu #126, Not Brand Echh #14, Power Pack #63 added a combined total of 80,694 units so don't expect any of those to be continued any time soon.

The New Talent Showcase from DC sold 9,415 units. An anthology comic by unknowns which is unlikely to impact the continuity of the characters is a hard sell to being with and the $7.99 price point didn't help.

The reorders category removed 22,951 units compared to last month.

Most of the drop in the total for the top 300 comics from last month to this month came from Marvel titles. The top 18 issue to issue drops were all Marvel titles and ranged from a drop of 25,665 units on Champions #16 to a drop of 81,332 units of Mighty Thor #701. The four issues with the largest issue to issue unit gains were also Marvel titles: Punisher #218, Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #13, Daredevil #595 and Moon Knight #188. Some of this is a reflection of the heavy promotional pushes on the initial issues of Legacy titles. Regardless of the reason, Marvel titles tend to have unstable sales with spikes and drops resulting from some issues having numerous incentive covers and others having none. It is the eternal debate between focusing on the boosting sales of particular issues versus boosting sales of the series overall. With variant covers, event tie-ins, new creative teams and major shifts in story direction, it is easy to engineer ways to get a bump in sales on a particular issue. But the numbers have shown these techniques rarely increase the ongoing sales of the title. Getting the right creative team with the right tone and style at the right time can lead to an ongoing increase in sales as we've seen from time to time. But that seems to be a matter of luck as skill otherwise we'd see increases in sales with most new creative teams. So expect to see some major ups and downs in sales on Marvel titles during the launch of the various Legacy titles while DC might experience stronger than normal sales with both Dark Nights: Metal and Doomsday Clock going on.

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.