Civil War continued to be the hottest property in comic stores in July, with the third issue of the flagship book not only topping the list with over 290,000 copies sold, but also selling more copies in its first month than either of the first two issues. 

 

The cumulative sales on the first two issues of Civil War are also both between 290,000 and 300,000 copies.    

 

And Civil War-related titles accounted for seven of the top twenty comic sellers in July.  No wonder Marvel cited the event as one reason for its unexpectedly good publishing results in second quarter (see 'Marvel Beats Estimates').

 

Brad Meltzer's JLA #0, the #2 title, sold over 162,000 copies in comic stores in July. 

 

Batman sales were up nearly 50%, to over 113,000 copies, behind the first Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert issue.

 

Marvel had seven of the top ten titles, and 15 of the top 25. 

 

Sales on eleven of the top 25 titles declined, and nine went up.

 

Two graphic novels, DC's Fables Vol. 7 and Marvel's Halo Graphic Novel topped 10,000 first month copies cold.  Wizard's Twisted Toy Fare Theatre Vol. 7 was the top title not from the Big Two, at #4.  Tokyopop had the top manga graphic novel with Fruits Basket Vol. 14 at #8. 

 

The top 25 comics in July, with our estimates of the number sold to North American comic stores by Diamond Comic Distributors, are:

 

290,709          Civil War #3

162,378          Justice League of America #0

124,617          New Avengers #22

122,016          52 Week #11

113,567          Batman #655

111,421          Amazing Spider-Man #534

110,830          Wolverine Origins #4

106,162          Civil War X-Men #1

105,220          Wolverine #44

103,993          Uncanny X-Men #475

103,153          Civil War Front Line #4

102,142          52 Week #9

100,779          52 Week #10

  98,826          Ghost Rider #1

  98,667          52 Week #12

  95,487          X-Men #188

  92,603          Superman/Batman #28

  88,775          Uncanny X-Men #476

  85,346          Civil War Front Line #4

  85,175          Supergirl #7

  84,460          Ultimate Fantastic Four #31

  82,268          X-Men #189

  80,292          Green Lantern #12

  77,487          Flash Fastest Man Alive #2

 
We are estimating actual sales by Diamond U.S. (primarily to North American comic stores), using Diamond's published sales indexes and publisher sales data to estimate a sales number for Batman (the anchor title Diamond uses in its calculations), and using that number and the indexes to estimate Diamond's sales on the remaining titles.  We can check the accuracy of our numbers by comparing the Batman number that we calculate using multiple data points; our numbers for Batman are within 1/10 of 1% of each other, ensuring a high degree of accuracy.
 
For an analysis of the dollar trends in July, see 'Graphic Novels Pick Up ace.'
 
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during July, see 'Top 300 Comics Actual--July 2006.'

 

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during July, see 'Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--July 2006.'

 

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during June, see 'Top 300 Comics Actual--June 2006.'

 

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during June, see 'Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--June 2006.'

 

For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through July 2006, see 'ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 100 GNs Index.'