The initial advance orders to Diamond Comic Distributors for comics shipping in September (see 'Top 300 Comics--September') showed surprising strength this year, with an increase of around 6% vs. August (see 'Top 300 Comics -- August'). Since these orders were placed in late July, we interpret this to mean that retailers were experiencing good sales during the early summer months. This matches what we've been hearing anecdotally from retailers all summer -- that 'comics are cool again,' and that store traffic and sales have both been strong in the comic category in particular. September orders are not only up from August, they are nearly the same (within 2%) of July, typically one of the largest order months of the year.
With the exception of college towns, September in pop culture stores is typically a pretty dead month, with sales and traffic substantially below the summer months. Although the back to school season is the second largest shopping season in retail sales in general, in pop culture stores it has served as a break between movie- and other entertainment-driven sales of the summer and the holiday season. In fact, several major declines in the comic market over the last two decades have occurred in September, as consumers turned to new things and abandoned old past-times.
Strength was concentrated in the top of the list, with the rate of change for the top 10 and the top 100 titles both better than the rate for the top 300. Dollars for both the top 10 titles and the top 100 titles were up over 7% compared to August, as compared to the 6% rate over-all. Only one of the top ten titles -- JLA -- declined; the rest all increased.
As usual, Marvel dominated the top of the list, with nine of the top ten titles and 21 of the top 25. Image had a big win with G.I. Joe #1, which came in at #13. Image has also recently announced that it has bumped up the over-print on G.I. Joe #1 to one third over the initial orders and will increase that if necessary.
This points out once again the difference between our numbers and those reported by some other sources. Our numbers are the initial orders from Diamond U.S.; they do not include advance reorders or reorders. For example, Marvel's told us that their advance reorders (placed between the initial advance orders seen here and ship date) are typically running about 6% of sales. We do it this way because Diamond's indexes are based on these initial orders and this is the only way to get accurate numbers. Note the explanations below.
The estimated North American advance orders to Diamond for the top 25 comic titles for September are as follow:
125,952 Origin #1
118,542 New X-Men #118
112,744 Uncanny X-men #398
99,862 Ultimate X-Men #10
89,825 X-treme X-Men #5
83,559 Amazing Spider-Man #35
80,054 Green Arrow #8
79,891 Ultimate Spider-Man #13
70,909 Wolverine #168
68,996 JLA #58
68,694 X-treme X-Men Savage Land #1
67,465 Punisher #4
62,375 GI Joe #1
60,722 Avengers #46
59,448 Daredevil Yellow #4
58,849 Elektra #3
52,681 Ultimate Marvel Team Up #8
52,315 Cyclops #2
52,282 Fury #1
52,079 Peter Parker #35
51,777 X-Force #120
51,537 Daredevil #25
51,484 Daredevil #24
51,162 Just Imagine Stan Lee...Superman
51,122 Fantastic Four #47
Our analysis is based on a combination of the information Diamond releases in Diamond Dialogue and actual order numbers provided to ICv2 from publisher sources. By plugging in the circulation numbers we know and using the Diamond order index, all of the circulation numbers for comics ordered through Diamond can be interpolated. Since Diamond calculates its indexes based on initial advance orders from its US location only, we use publisher numbers for the same kind of orders to do our calculations. This produces very accurate estimates of the initial orders for North American shops. It is not an estimate of the total sales by publishers.
Here are the limitations to our analysis:
Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and Image distribute 100% of their comic store orders through Diamond. Some other publishers distribute directly to stores or through other distributors and as a result this analysis may underestimate their sales.
Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Image distribute some of their titles through channels other than comic specialty stores, e.g., newsstands and bookstores. These quantity estimates do not reflect distribution through those channels.
The quantities above do not include advance reorders, late orders, or reorders.
Most of the titles on this chart are also distributed to Europe by Diamond UK, which can account for significant sales for the publisher, ranging from 3-20% of the US numbers. Sales by Diamond UK are not included in the numbers above.
Even given the above, however, it is probably safe to say that these quantities reflect 80% or more of the total North American sales by the publisher on most periodical comics.
