ICv2’s year-over-year analysis of the Top 300 comics for February
shipped by Diamond Comic Distributors shows a much steeper decline than
the overall numbers released by Diamond last week. Even with 2011’s
higher cover prices, sales of the Top 300 comics were down 3.77% from
the same month in 2011, while sales of graphic novels were up less than
1%. Diamond’s numbers, which include all comics and graphic novels
(not just the Top 300) have comics’ dollars down just 1.7% and dollar
sales of graphic novels up 6.92%.
The
difference between Diamond’s numbers and the ICv2’s calculation of the
Top 300 indicates that there were considerable sales of comics below
the Top 300 cutoff in both the periodical (2860 copies) and graphic
novels (295 copies).
Sales of those “long
tail” titles below the Top 300 masked a weakness at the top of the
list. Unit numbers at the top of both the periodical and graphic novel
lists were some of the lowest since ICv2 has been tracking comic
sales. The effect of the low sales numbers was overcome on the graphic
novel side by the high cover prices of a number of the most popular
titles including the #1 book, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne ($29.99). Eleven of the top 25 graphic novels had cover prices of $20 or more, which certainly helped.
Part
of the “long tail” effect could have been the result of reorders on
January titles, which retailers ordered very tightly. The continuing
decline in comic sales has made retailers extremely conservative in
their ordering policies, which could explain a rise in reorder sales,
most of which, unless they involve a reprint like Fantastic Four #587, tend to be small since most publishers are not printing a lot of extras either.
For an overview and analysis of comic sales in February, see "Top Tier Titles Weak in February."For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond
For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond
For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond
For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond
For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through February 2011, see "ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 300 GNs Index."