Sales of comics and graphic novels through Diamond Comic Distributors declined in December.  Periodical comic sales drifted down by 11%, while sales of graphic novels fell by 22%.  The skip week in December might well have had a noticeable effect on sales, though it was undoubtedly mitigated to a degree by the large shipping week that preceded it.  Whatever the cause, combined sales of comics and graphic novels fell by 14% for the month.

Periodical comic sales were up 12% in November, which mitigated declines in October (14%) and December (11%) and averaged out to a 6% drop for the quarter overall.  The 22% fall off in December sales of graphic novels was actually the smallest drop in the hit-driven category for the quarter.  Graphic Novels sunk by 30% in October and 26% in November.  Averaged together sales of the long-form comics declined by 26% for the quarter, which is a reflection of the importance of the sales of Watchmen in the Q4 run-up to the release of the Watchmen movie last year.

For all of 2009 sales of periodical comics were off just 2%, a very small decline considering the depressed state of the economy throughout the year.  It should be noted that price increases in the periodical comics arena masked some of the declines in circulation numbers.  Graphic novels were off a much more substantial 15% for the year, and overall sales of comics and graphic novels dropped by 5% in 2009, a fairly modest decline given the overall economic circumstances.

In December once again we have year-over-year information on the Top300 graphic novels, versus the Top100 lists that were available in the past.  The effect of having sales information on titles farther down the backlist has been to mitigate the decline in graphic novel sales.  If only the Top 100 GNs were counted, the drop-off in sales in November and December would have been 29% and 24% respectively rather than the 26% and 22% declines yielded by the Top 300 numbers.