October 2018 had 7,231,202 units in the top 300 comics list, an increase of 533,236 units from last month. This is the highest total for the top 300 comics since December 2016 with 7,385,610 units. The second half of 2016 was a period of unusually strong sales for the top 300 comics with an average of 8,262,025 units compared to the overall average of 6,636,587 units since February 2003 or the average of 6,603,366 since the January 2017.
Marvel Comics placed 3,074,622 units in the top 300 comics and was down 198,773 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 42.52% of the total units for the top 300 comics.
DC Comics placed 2,567,917 units in the top 300 comics and was up 355,771 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 35.51% of the total units for the top 300 comics.
Image Comics placed 884,973 units in the top 300 comics and was up 378,418 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 12.24% of the total units for the top 300 comics.
Image and DC accounted for most of the gain this month with Marvel offsetting that gain a bit.
IDW Publishing, Dark Horse, Dynamite Entertainment and BOOM! Studios placed a combined 553,575 units in the top 300 comics and accounted for a combined 7.66% of the total units for the top 300 comics.
The premiere publishers accounted for 97.92% of the units in the top 300 comics this month while all of the other publishers with items in the top 300 accounted for 2.08% of the units.
The up-swing of 2,686,480 units from new and increased sales was enough to compensate for the down-swing of -2,153,244 units from lost sales.The magnitude of the up-swing and down-swing illustrate the high degree of churn in the market with titles comic and going on a frequent basis. Reading can't be expected to stay with titles which are constantly ending and being replaced. Likewise, publishers can be expected to continue titles which are declining in sales. Stabilizing sales on titles would allow titles to last longer. Longer lasting titles would have a chance to find, keep and grow an audience. But, as we've seen from this data, stable sales are highly unusual.
The continuing titles which gained sales category added 294,869 units compared to last month.
DC accounted for nearly 85% of the units in this category. Many of these DC items had alternate covers with no requirements for retailers to purchase them. Some of them were parts of crossover storylines.
Stories like "The Witching Hour" and "Drowned Earth" which have bookend one-shots and a handful of titles aren't things I consider to be full blown events like Doomsday Clock, Heroes in Crisis and Infinity Wars to name a few of the current event titles. But these sorts of storylines are becoming more frequent. "Spider-Geddon" and "Extermination" over at Marvel are larger stories than the "The Witching Hour" and "Drowned Earth" at DC. These qualified events which tend to only involve titles within a family of titles act like major events but on a smaller scale. The "Avengers: No Surrender" weekly storyline a little while ago and the upcoming weekly run of Uncanny X-Men also seem to a qualified events. The lack of any clear terminology or definition of these different sorts of stories results in confused expectations about the storylines and the sales of them.
Curse of Brimstone #7 has a high retail ranking which implies it might have been over-shipped to get the 165% increase in sales over the previous issue. Another possibility is that is was heavily discounted but over-shipping seems more likely.
Green Arrow #45 was a Heroes in Crisis tie in and up over 83% as a result.
Nightwing gained 13,266 units over last month. Nightwing #50 was up 15.61% from the previous issue and sold 29,450 units. Nightwing #51 was up another 18.93% and sold 35,026 units. To get this increase in sales, a significant change was made to the character. As long as the sales are up, the change will likely remain in place. When the sales decline, and history tells us that is virtually inevitable, the change will likely be undone in an attempt to boost sales again.
The continuing titles which shipped more issues category added 44,976 units compared to last month. There were four shipping weeks in September and five in October but only two titles, Daredevil and Weapon H released more issues in October than in September.
The continuing titles with reasonably stable sales category removed 2,232 units compared to last month.
The continuing titles which shipped fewer issues category removed 230,926 units compared to last month. Marvel accounted for most of the units in this category.
The continuing titles which lost sales category removed 538,685 units compared to last month.
NEXT PAGE: Wolverine's Return and Heroes in Crisis Saw Some Second Issue Dips
Return of Wolverine had a second issue drop of 184,899 units down almost 70% to 80,211 units. This miniseries was set up by four miniseries with bookend one-shots. But the first issue sales were clearly unsustainable. This miniseries is likely to lead into an ongoing Wolverine title which will probably launch higher than this miniseries ends and then drop in sales much like this miniseries is doing.
Heroes in Crisis had a second issue drop of 58,535 units down to 88,547 units. This seems to fit the definition of a major event series complete with the killing of a few notable characters. With Doomsday Clock happening concurrently as well as "The Witching Hour" and "Drowned Earth", the DC Universe is feeling a little overloaded with major events right now.
The new titles category added 1,492,011 units compared to last month.
A number of 15th Anniversary variants for The Walking Dead were released in October. These 16 variants sold a total of 385,640 units. The 15th Anniversary variant for #1 sold 106,090 units and was the second best selling item for the month. Since these variants were released long after the regular versions of the issues, they are begin treated as a distinct series. Treating these 15th Anniversary variants the same as variant released concurrently with the regular version of the issue would have significantly skewed the historical sales for the series. Once again, Robert Kirkman has found yet another way to re-release past content in a very profitable manner. At full release value, these variants were worth $1,432,613.60. Even after the percent taken by the retailers, Diamond and printing, Kirkman should have made a nice profit on these variants. In addition to telling a compelling story for 15 years, Kirkman has continued to find new ways to leverage the growing library of content.
Spider-Geddon launched strong with 104,899 units and then dropped by 48.9% down to second issue sales of 53,603 units. Both issues had a 1-in-25, a 1-in-50 variant cover and an open-to-order alternate cover. The next remaining issues also have a 1-in-25, a 1-in-50 variant covers and an open-to-order alternate covers.
A relaunch of Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider at 88,923 units is unsustainable and we'll likely see a major drop next issue. The first issue had a 1-in-10, a 1-in-25, a 1-in-50, a 1-in-100 and two meet-or-exceed 250% of Spider_Gwen #34 variant covers and an open-to-order alternate cover. The second issue has a 1-in-25 variant cover and an open-to-oder alternate cover.
The returning titles category added 332,795 units compared to last month.
Tony Stark: Iron Man, Die! Die! Die! and Magic Order were the top selling titles to return to the top 300 this month.
The suspended titles category removed 826,421 units compared to last month.
Doomsday Clock, Batman: Damned and Fantastic Four didn't ship in October removing 312,000 units from last month.
The defunct titles category removed 545,068 units compared to last month.
A number of Marvel title concluded last month including Venom: First Host, X-Men Gold, Edge of Spider-Geddon, X-Men Blue, Star Wars: Lando: Double or Nothing, Star Wars: Poe Dameron and Star Wars: The Last Jedi Adaptation removing 344,280 units from Marvel. Replacement titles for most of these have already started.
The annuals/specials category removed 9,912 units compared to last month.
NEXT PAGE: Marvel and DC's One-Shots Bolstered the Month's Sales
The non-series category added 537,490 units compared to last month.
This category was fairly active this month with the X-Men: Black one-shots, the "The Witching Hour" and "Drowned Earth" bookends, the What_If? one-shots, the DC/Hanna-Barbera one-shots among other things. The True Believers line continues to be a major factor in this category most months.
The reorders category removed 15,661 units compared to last month. The reorder activity in the top 300 comics this month was all DC while last month it was all Marvel.
During October there were multiple major storylines going on such as Spider-Geddon, Heroes in Crisis, Return of Wolverine, Infinity Wars, "The Witching Hour," "Drowned Earth" and Extermination and number of themed one-shots like X-Men Black, What If?, the DC/Hanna-Barbera crossovers and the numerous 15th Anniversary variants for The Walking Dead. Only eight items in the top 100 were not solicited with multiple covers.
Neither Heroes in Crisis nor Infinity Wars sold over 90,000 units. In aggregate, the top 300 isn't doing bad. The individual titles, however, generally speaking aren't doing that well. It is the constant replacement of lower selling titles with higher selling titles which explains that difference.
The saving grace is the publishers are able to keep things moving along, even if it requires a constant rotation of titles. The short term is solid enough that the long term problems have time to be addressed.
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.