Sales on Black Panther #1, the first issue of the new Marvel title written by National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates, were over 250,000, and at the title’s premium $4.99 retail price, the book generated over $1,263,000 in retail sales, according to estimates by ICv2 based on indexes released by Diamond Comic Distributors (see "Top 300 Comics Actual--April 2016").

While million dollar comics aren’t as rare as they used to be (Dark Knight III #1 generated over $2.6 million last November, as a recent high), it’s still an impressive showing, especially for what has historically been a second tier character.  But Marvel had done a great job of introducing the character to broader audiences through Captain America:  Civil War image reveals (see "The Black Panther Unleashed") and trailers, and the publicity surrounding Coates’ involvement has been significant.

Sales are undoubtedly going to drop significantly last month, without the variants and retailer exclusives that helped to drive sales up on #1, so we’ll see where it settles in over time.

Two Star Wars #1s and the last Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo Batman issue also held spots in the Top Five, but perhaps most notable was Dark Knight III: The Master Race #4, which held steady at around 143,000 copies with only a roughly 3,000 copy drop from #3, indicating general satisfaction with the series despite its delays.

Dollars in the top five books were helped by premium prices, a growing trend.  Four of the top five books were $4.99 or higher, as were six of the top ten.

The latest Earth One hardcover volume written by Grant Morrison and artwork by Yanick Paquette, starring Wonder Woman, was the top graphic novel at over 16,000 copies sold.



For an analysis of the dollar trends in April, see "Marvel-DC Share Spread Widens." 

For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books shipped during April, see "Top 300 Comics Actual -- April 2016"

For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels shipped during April, see "Top 300 Graphic Novels -- April 2016"

For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books shipped during March, see "Top 300 Comics Actual--March 2016."

For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels shipped during March, see "Top 300 Graphic Novels Actual--March 2016."

​For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through April 2016, see "ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 300 GNs Index."