September 2018 had 6,697,966 units in the top 300 comics list, an increase of 100,895 units from last month. This is slightly above the monthly average of 6,633,424 units for the top 300 comics. The month featured the Return of Wolverine, the launch of the DC Black Label, the start of Spider-Geddon, the comic book launch of Stranger Things and the kick off of the Heroes in Crisis event at DC. Given all of that, the increase of 100,895 feel a little unimpressive.

Marvel Comics placed 3,273,395 units in the top 300 comics, an increase of 52,565 units. DC Comics placed 2,212,146 units in the top 300 comics, an increase of 77,435 units. Image Comics placed 506,555 units in the top 300 comics, a decrease of 26,987 units.

None of the publishers changed significantly from last month with DC having the largest change of any publisher with just 77,435 units.

The up-swing of 1,990,549 units from new and increased sales was enough to compensate for the down-swing of -1,889,654 units from lost sales.

The continuing titles (gained sales) category accounted for 605,288 units in the top 300 comics, an increase of 33,674 units.

Venom not only increased in sales by 9,282 units, there was strong reorder activity on some of the previous issues.

The continuing titles (more issues) category accounted for 702,787 units in the top 300 comics, an increase of 349,716 units. There were five shipping weeks in August and four in September.

The four issues of Venom: First Host release in September sold 79,180 units more units combined than the first issue sold last month. There was a sharp second issue drop but the decline after that was relatively minor.

Avengers, Immortal Hulk, Star Wars, Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Man/Deadpool and Ben Reilly Scarlet Spider released two issues in September compared to the single issue released for each of those titles in August.

The continuing titles (stable sales) category accounted for 141,547 units in the top 300 comics, a decrease of 3,021 units.

The sales stability of X-O Manowar which dropped only 17 units is noteworthy given how different the story arcs can be from each other. The narrative has shifted from being set on an alien planet to telling a flashback tale in ancient times to the current arc more tightly tied to current events in the Valiant universe.

The continuing titles (fewer issues) category accounted for 251,761 units in the top 300 comics, a decrease of 327,236 units.

A few Marvel titles released two issues last month an only a single issue this month with Infinity Wars, Extermination and Star Wars: Darth Vader seeing the most signifcnatly sales drops as a result of that.

The continuing titles (lost sales) category accounted for 2,823,581 units in the top 300 comics, a decrease of 616,375 units.

Fantastic Four dropped by 77.56% from the first issue sales of 381,270 units (including the 12,356 units of reorder activity in this month) down to 85,543 units on the second issue. The title remains in the top ten and sales of the first issues were blatantly unsustainable. This drop is a reflection of the heavy use of incentive covers on the first issue. The 283,371 unit drop on this title accounted for nearly 46% of the units lost by this category.

The new titles category accounted for 1,190,964 units in the top 300 comics, an increase of 1,190,964 units.

NEXT PAGE: Return of Wolverine's Launch Was Solid, But Couldn't Help Overall Sales

Return of Wolverine launched with 260,411 units thanks to the typical heavy use of incentive covers by Marvel. The result will be a sharp second issue drop next month as we see this month on Fantastic Four. As long as the heavy use of incentive covers continues to work for Marvel, they will continue to use it. Not doing so would be effectively leaving money on the table which would be irresponsible of them to do.

At some point, the interest and demand for the incentive covers could dry up. This happened in the 1990s and retailers and publishers which relied on the continued sales of incentive covers suffered. Marvel would no doubt be impacted to some degree if the incentive cover market suddenly dried up but probably wouldn't be seriously hurt by it. Retailers, on the other hand, might be a different story. Comic book retailers are typically small businesses which don't have the resources a large corporation like Marvel has to weather sudden shifts in the marketplace. In the 1990s, there was a cascade effect caused by the collector bubble bursting. Publishers going under meant less product for retailers to carry and retailers going under meant fewer outlets for publishers to sell through. The impact to one side of the business negative impacted the other. This was at a time when there were multiple comic book distributors whereas now Diamond is the only distributor in the comic book market. What this means is should the incentive cover market crash, Diamond could get caught in the middle of failing retailers and publishers and become a potential single point of failure for the direct market. But, if there is a gradual decline in incentive covers and retailers, publishers and Diamond can adjust as needed to the decline, a sudden disruptive crash wouldn't happen.

For anybody that wasn't around for the collector bubble crash of the 1990s, go to a local library and use old phone books to look up how many comic book stores there were in the nearest large city in 1990 and 1995. In some cities, the number of shops dropped from dozens around 1990 to a handful or so by 1995. There were other factors beyond the overuse of incentive covers at play but that was a major contributing factor.

Heroes In Crisis launched at DC with 140,703 units. This event runs concurrently with Doomsday Clock which is still continuing on a bi-monthly schedule.

The Black Label at DC launched with Batman: Damned which sold 95,481 units. Given the mass media attention the title got, the sales under 100,000 units is a little surprising.

Stranger Things launched with 60,134 units. The decision to offer the book fully returnable to retailers order a total of 20 copies of the comic across the four variant covers was a good way for Dark Horse to encourage retailers to stock at least 20 units of the first issue of the title. The sales figures were adjusted by Diamond to reflect the returnability. We'll see in the coming months how the sales play out on the course of the title. Generally speaking, the first issues sales set the high water mark for the series so this approach to launching the series seems like a good move. This could be the sort of higher profile title Dark Horse could benefit from right now.

The returning titles category accounted for 298,335 units in the top 300 comics, an increase of 298,335 units.

Doomsday Clock returned with 130,976 units, own 5.82% from the previous issue. The i-monthly schedule doesn't seem to be hurting the sales of the title but I don't think it is helping the story momentum or the perception of this being a critical event in the DC Universe.

The suspended titles category accounted for 0 units in the top 300 comics, a decrease of 256,923 units.

A number of titles didn't release an issue in September with the most notable being Tony Stark: Iron Man and Magic Order.

The defunct titles category accounted for 0 units in the top 300 comics, a decrease of 499,320 units.

The various Hunt for Wolverine titles ended last month taking around 118,875 units for Marvel along with them.

NEXT PAGE: How Is Robert Kirkman's Die!Die!Die! Doing?

Die! Die! Die! didn't end but since it is bypassing the normal pre-order process, my number crunching process which uses the Previews data to determine is a title is active or not considers this to be a defunct title since it didn't ship a new issue in September. I appreciate what Robert Kirkman is trying to do in terms of keeping the element of surprise alive in the comic book marketplace. But given how good he has been over the past decade about not spoiling the story of The Walking Dead comic, I'm not sure how big of an impact bypassing the regular pre-order process is having on Die! Die! Die!.

The annuals/specials category accounted for 28,536 units in the top 300 comics, a decrease of 165,351 units.

The decrease in this category is due to only two items being released in September versus a dozen last month.

The non-series category accounted for 614,054 units in the top 300 comics, an increase of 117,860 units.

The True Believers line of reprints by Marvel continues to do well for them. The event one-shots of Thanos Legacy and Spidergeddon also both did well for Marvel this month.

DC had nothing in this category this month while it had both the DC/Looney Tunes one-shots last month and the Sandman Universe one short last month.

The reorders category accounted for 41,113 units in the top 300 comics, a decrease of 21,428 units.

Given all of the high profile items which happened in September, the minor increase in sales and slightly above average aggregate sales of the top 300 comics was a little unimpressive. The truth of the matter is that a slight increase and slightly above average sales are both good thing. It is the inherent volatility in the sales caused by the constant rotation of titles, inconsistent release cadence from month to month and the heavy use of incentive covers which seem to prevent solid sales growth over time.

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.