Comic stores bought over 175,000 copies of the July issue of Secret Invasion, #4, only a few hundred copies down from their purchases of #3 in June.  Three of the top ten comic titles in July were Secret Invasion titles; New Avengers and Mighty Avengers were the other two, accounting for roughly another 200,000 copies sold between them. 

 

In the #2 slot, Uncanny X-Men #500 topped 151,000 copies for its big anniversary issue (two covers; 50/50 ratio), with the Warren Ellis penned Astonishing X-Men #25 coming in at the #3 position with around 110,000 copies sold.  Wolverine and Thor also landed the top 10 at the #7 and #8 positions.

 

Batman RIP returned this month, selling over 103,000 copies, a drop from the previous issue, but still a lot more than a typical issue of this title.  Other RIP tie-in titles saw significant order increases: Detective Comics #846 with about 72,400 copies (#18 position) and Robin #175 with approx. 53,800 copies (#35 position).  Final Crisis, DC's big event title, was absent this month, but two Final Crisis-related titles shipped: Final Crisis: Requiem #1 came in at #16 with a little over 74,300 copies (2 covers; 50/50 ratio) and Final Crisis: Rogues Revenge #1 charted at #27 with around 62,400 copies (2 covers; 50/50 ratio).

 

Six titles in the top 25 went up in July (four of which were Secret Invasion titles), and 18 declined vs. previous months’ issues.

 

Marvel had a fairly typical 17 titles in the top 25, DC had 7, and Dark Horse’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the only title not from the Big 2. 

 

The impact of the theatrical release of The Dark Knight was clearly apparent in the top graphic novel sellers in comic stores, with the 20-year-old Watchmen (driven by the trailer shown before The Dark Knight and online) accounting for over 19,000 copies sold in July at the top of the charts.  Batman: Killing Joke Special Edition HC moved up to #2 from #41 the previous month, with around 5,800 sold. 

 

Y:  The Last Man Vol. 10 held up surprisingly well, dropping only to #7 from the #1 slot last month.  Wanted moved up from #34 to #14, with sales driven by the release of the movie. 

 

Manga trends were interesting, with Naruto Vol. 30 coming in at #3, and selling more in its initial month than either Vol. 28 or Vol. 29, an impressive climb for such a long-running series (which, of course, did start the Shippuden storyline in Vol. 28).  The new volume of Fruits Basket, Vol. 20, was the second best-selling manga volume, and it also sold more copies than the previous volume did in its first month. 

 

Here are ICv2's estimates of the sales by Diamond Comic Distributors to comic stores on the top 25 comic titles in July:

 

175,459           Secret Invasion #4

151,955           Uncanny X-Men #500

110,724           Astonishing X-Men #251

108,751           New Avengers #43

103,213           Batman #678

  96,252           Mighty Avengers #16

  89,062           Wolverine #67          

  83,784           Thor #10

  82,953           Justice League o/America #23

  82,031           Buffy the Vampire Slayer #16

  80,389           Ultimate Origins #2

  79,317           Captain America #40

  75,532           Justice Society o/America #17

  75,161           Avengers Invaders #3

  74,981           Dark Tower: The Long Road Home #5

  74,310           Final Crisis: Requiem #1

  72,818           X-Force #5

  72,417           Detective Comics #846

  69,863           X-Men Legacy #214

  69,182           Amazing Spider-Man #565

  68,912           Amazing Spider-Man #566

  68,882           Amazing Spider-Man #564

  64,505           Justice Society of America Annual #1

  63,814           Green Lantern #33

  63,634           Avengers Initiative #15


We are estimating actual sales by Diamond U.S. (primarily to North American comic stores), using Diamond's published sales indexes and publisher sales data to estimate a sales number for Batman (the anchor title Diamond uses in its calculations), and using that number and the indexes to estimate Diamond's sales on the remaining titles.  We can check the accuracy of our numbers by comparing the Batman number that we calculate using multiple data points; our numbers for Batman are within 1/10 of 1% of each other, ensuring a high degree of accuracy.

For an analysis of the dollar trends in July, see "Comic Dollars Decline Continues."

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during July, see "Top 300 Comics Actual--July 2008."

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during July, see "Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--July 2008."

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during June, see "Top 300 Comics Actual--June 2008."

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during June, see "Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--June 2008."

For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through July 2008, see "ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 100 GNs Index."