November 2018 wasn't a particularly strong month for the Direct Market as it heads for the end of the year. The month had 6,086,063 units in the top 300 comics list, a decrease of 1,145,139 units from the previous month. There were, however, five shipping weeks in October and four in November, which accounts for some of the drop.
December has four shipping weeks, but the final week will have significantly less items than normal due to the holidays. This means December might not be a strongest sales month either. The possible upside is January might benefit from the items delayed from December 26th to January 2nd, which could help prevent the typical January drop in sales. Of course, the lack of a January drop in sales because of a weak December isn't a particularly great thing.
Marvel Comics placed 2,845,455 units in the top 300 comics and was down 229,167 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 46.75% of the total units for the top 300 comics. New titles and the lost of non-series sales practically canceled each other out for Marvel. The combined drop from lost sales on continuing titles, defunct titles, titles releasing fewer issues and suspended titles were greater than the gains from title releasing more issues, returning titles and titles which gained sales for Marvel.
DC Comics placed 1,957,744 units in the top 300 comics and was down 610,173 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 32.17% of the total units for the top 300 comics. Lost sales on continuing titles and less sales on non-series items caused most of the drop in sales for DC with defunct titles also being a factor. New titles offset the losses with returning titles helping slightly.
Image Comics placed 472,319 units in the top 300 comics and was down 412,654 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 7.76% of the total units for the top 300 comics.
The premiere publishers accounted for 96.26% of the units in the top 300 comics this month while all of the other publishers with items in the top 300 accounted for 3.74% of the units.
The up-swing of 2,046,174 units from new and increased sales was enough to compensate for the down-swing of -3,191,313 units from lost sales. The combined up-swing and down-swing is a range of 5,237,487 units in a month which had 6,086,063. The number of units changing from month to month within the top 300 comics was around 86% of the total for the top 300 comics for the month.
To put this into perspective, without the gains from this month the total could have been in the ballpark of 4,039,889 which is less than the low point on 4,402,738 units from January 2011. Without the losses this month, the total for the top 300 comic could have been in the ballpark of 9,277,376 units which would be just shy of the record 9,355,046 units from August 2016. Obviously, these are really rough estimates based on taking the total of the top 300 and factoring out the up-swing or down-swing but not factoring how items lower on the list could have impacted an adjusted total for the top 300 comics. With this level of sales instability from month to month we could be just a month or two away from record high or low sales.
The continuing titles which gained sales category added 93,616 units compared to last month. Marvel accounted for 72.63% of this category with Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers and Daredevil being the titles with top three gains in sales from month to month.
The continuing titles which shipped more issues category added 173,868 units compared to last month. Marvel monopolized this categories with all of the titles releasing two issues in November versus a single issue per title in October.
The continuing titles with reasonably stable sales category removed 1,910 units compared to last month.
The continuing titles which shipped fewer issues category removed 125,458 units compared to last month. Marvel dominated this category accounting for 72.83% of it. All of these titles released two issues during the five weeks of October and only a single issue during the four weeks of November.
The continuing titles which lost sales category removed 808,716 units compared to last month. DC accounted for 48.05% of the units in this category across 46 titles. DC had the foil covers last month which bumped on sales on those issues. Marvel accounted for 37.61% of the units across 34 titles. The most notable drops in sales were on Spider-Geddon and Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider.
NEXT PAGE: How New Comic Series Launches Performed in November 2018
Overall, the new titles category added 1,333,662 units compared to last month.
Marvel accounted for 57.63% of this category; Uncanny X-Men alone accounted for a total of 296,727 units across the three issues released in November. Uncanny X-Men #1 launched the new volume with 176,125 units. The title had a second issue drop of 64.62% followed by a third issue drop of 6.48% with Uncanny X-Men #3 selling 58,282 units.
Green Lantern #1 launched the new volume with 113,651 units. We'll see the second issue drop on that title next month.
The returning titles category added 435,461 units compared to last month. Marvel accounted for 32.28% of the total for this category with the two issues of Fantastic Four which shipped in November. Image accounted for 22.83% of the category with Spawn and Seven to Eternity being the the most notable returning titles. Mr Miracle #12 returned to conclude the series with 38,576 units.
The suspended titles category removed 335,306 units compared to last month. Batman/The Maxx: Arkham Dreams and Exterminations were the most notable titles which didn't ship in November. No particular publisher dominated this category. IDW accounted for 24.02%, Marvel accounted for 20.14% and Image accounted for 18.56%.
The defunct titles category removed 840,712 units compared to last month.
Last month I made the decision to treat the 15th anniversary variants of The Walking Dead as if it were a distinct title given the somewhat unique nature of the variant cover stunt. As a result, this month all of those sales show up in the defunct title category and account for 45.87% of the category. If I'd treated them as typical variant covers of The Walking Dead the title would have had a drop of 388,196 units for the month. That would have massively overshadowed the actual month-to-month drop of 2,556 units for the title. The month-to-month loss of those 385,640 units account for around 93.45% of the month—to-month drop in the top 300 comics for Image from October to November.
Old Man Logan has been replaced by Dead Man Logan. Green Lanterns_ (and Hal Jordan of the Green Lantern Corps) has been replaced by Green Lantern.
The annuals/specials category added 2,519 units compared to last month.
The non-series category removed 1,079,211 units compared to last month. This is a result of the numerous one-shots and story arc framing issues last month. Marvel accounted for a loss of 737,883 units. The True Believers issues totaled to 138,590 units, the What If? one-shots totaled to 169,799 units and the X-Men Black one-shots totaled to 226, 556 units. These are all gains one month and losses the next. The upside to this is the gains of 72,333 units this month won't be much of an anchor for December like the 1,151,544 units from October were for this month.
The reorders category added 7,048 units compared to last month.
The drop in sales in November shouldn't come as a much of surprise if you stop and think about it. October had a over a million units of sales from non-series comics which matches fairly closely the amount of the month-to-month drop. The sales from titles which ended in October and sales from titles which didn't ship in November also made a drop in November likely. December is also likely to have a lower than normal total for the top 300 because of the partial skip week at the end of the month.
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.