For the third time in 2010, sales on the top comic title of the month by Diamond Comic Distributors failed to crack 100,000, although only by a whisker. The Batman: The Return #1 one-shot, following the events of Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne miniseries, sold around 99,500 copies (at $4.99) in November. That compares to over 144,000 copies sold of the #1 title (Blackest Night #5) in November 2009.
The Batman event was the hottest thing in periodical comics in November, with five of the top ten comic titles tied to it. Batman Incorporated #1, the first issue of a new series telling the story of Batman’s efforts to fight crime globally, came in at #2, with around 95,600 copies sold. All three of the top Batman titles, Batman: The Return #1, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6, and Batman Incorporated #1, featured Grant Morrison stories.
Avengers #7, the top Marvel on the charts in November, had an in-store "Party" event and numerous variants behind it, along with the story of the Red Hulk joining the Avengers.
Amazing Spider-Man #648 ("Big Time," Part 1) was the first issue of the new twice-monthly stories written by Dan Slott, ending the three issues-per-month series with rotating writers.
DC had eight of the top ten titles, an unusually strong showing, which helped propel it to near parity with Marvel in market share (see “Marvel and DC in Dead Heat”). DC also had a bare majority, 13, of the top 25 comic titles in comic stores in November.
Twenty of the top 25 comic titles were down, and only three up, making November another month with extremely bearish trends. Periodical sales were down over 10% vs. the year ago period (see “2010 Comic Sales Down 5.79%”).
The latest The Walking Dead volume (#13) topped the graphic novel charts for comic stores in November, with over 19,000 copies sold. First-month sales of the latest volume were up about 16% over the comparable month’s sales of Vol. 12 in July (see “Top 300 Graphic Novels—July 2010”). The Walking Dead Vol. 1 also made the top 10, with another 4,300 copies sold, indicating that more new readers are getting into this series every month.
Dark Horse’s Serenity Shepherds Tale HC came in at #2 in comic stores, with over 14,000 copies sold.
The second printing of Superman: Earth One HC came in at #3, putting the title at over 24,000 copies sold into comic stores in the last two months.
The latest collection of Dynamite’s The Boys Vol. 7: The Innocents hit the charts at #4, with over 6,100 copies sold.
Marvel’s top graphic novel was the trade paperback edition of its Siege miniseries collection, at around 4,400 copies sold (#8).
Here are ICv2’s estimates of the sales by Diamond Comic Distributors to comic stores on the top 25 comic titles in November:
99,545 Batman: The Return #1
95,587 Batman Incorporated #1
89,758 Avengers #7
83,004 Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6
80,343 Batman and Robin #16
79,955 Brightest Day #13
78,452 Brightest Day #14
77,033 Amazing Spider-Man #648
76,173 Green Lantern #59
70,600 Batman and Robin #17
66,724 New Avengers #6
65,212 Batman #704
59,999 Secret Avengers #7
58,006 Uncanny X-Men #530
57,673 Flash #6
57,448 Green Lantern Corps #54
56,651 X-Men #5
56,518 Uncanny X-Force #2
55,819 Amazing Spider-Man #647
52,586 Amazing Spider-Man #649
51,600 Wolverine #3
50,887 Justice League of America #51
49,165 Thor #617
47,343 Captain America #612
46,319 Green Lantern Emerald Warriors #4
For an analysis of the dollar trends in November, see "2010 Comic Sales Down 5.79%."
For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond
For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond
For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through November 2010, see "ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 300 GNs Index."
