Looking at just the titles over 100,000 copies, Marvel’s sales are off more than DC’s between 2015 and 2016: Civil War II isn’t as strong as Secret Wars, sales on Star Wars titles are down, and the number of Marvels with sales over 100,000 went down from seven in 2015 to two in 2016.
At the top of the chart, DC Comics went old school in promoting its DC Universe: Rebirth one-shot: limiting the number of variant covers and telling retailers that they should order what they needed because any reprint would be at a higher price (see "DC Reformats 'Rebirth'"). It produced a smaller sale than many top sellers in recent months (for example, Dark Knight III #1 at 444,234 and Star Wars: Vader Down #1 at 384,969, see "Top 300 Comics – November 2015"), but with far greater likelihood that the copies sold would be read, rather than squirreled away as one of multiple copies purchased by a smaller number of variant cover collectors).
So it’s not clear that there are fewer comics being read in May of 2016 than 2015. That will become more clear in future months and years, as we see the publishing strategies by the Big Two and others play out.
For an analysis of the dollar trends in May, see "YTD Comics Down 5+%."
For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books shipped during May, see "Top 300 Comics Actual -- May 2016."
For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels shipped during May, see "Top 300 Graphic Novels -- May 2016."
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 index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through May 2016, see "ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 300 GNs Index."
