With DC’s "Villains Month" promotion leading to over 4.3 million DC comics sold in September, DC had the top market share for comic stores with a 40.4% share vs. Marvel’s 28.5%, according to percentages released by Diamond Comic Distributors and sales released by DC.  The promotion, which in addition to a cross-line content theme included special 3-D Motion Covers (see "September is DC 'Villains Month'") was not without its problems; allocations on the special covers (see "DC Says 3-D Motion Covers Will be Allocated") led to widespread ire among comic retailers.    

It took DC nearly twice as many comics (129 releases vs. Marvel’s 67) to get that share win, though.  Marvel did ship 10 more graphic novels (32 vs. 200) than DC did in September. 

DC’s Forever Evil #1, the core title in DC’s first universe-wide crossover event since the "New 52" (see "First 'New 52' Universe-Wide Crossover"), was the #1 comic in September, with the four specially numbered Batman issues (#s 23.1-23.4) making up the rest of DC’s top 10 titles. 

Despite DC’s nearly 12 point win in market share, Marvel had a pretty strong month at the top of the bestseller chart, with three of the top five comics and five of the top ten, led by two issues of its core event title, Infinity #1 and #2, at #2 and #3 on the chart.  X-Men: Battle of the Atom #1, Mighty Avengers #1, and Avengers #19, at #s 4, 7, and 9, respectively, made up the rest of the five Marvels in the Top 10. 

It was a good month in comic stores, with comics and graphic novel sales up 23.4% vs. September 2012, the kind of percentage climb that at one point would have been jawdropping but which is fairly typical for the last couple of years. 

The bulk of that increase in sales to comic stores (Diamond numbers measure sell-in) was in comics, up 33.9% vs. the previous year, with graphic novels up a more modest 1.76% vs. 2012.

After some fierce seesawing, Q3 sales ended up 7.64% vs. a year ago overall, with comic sales up 11.12% and graphic novels nearly flat at a .3% increase.

Year to date sales are up 10.43% overall, with comics leading the way with a 12.5% increase and graphic novels up 6.03% vs. 2012.

For an overview and analysis of comic sales in September, see "'Villains Month,' 'Infinity,' Drive September Comic Sales."

For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books shipped during September, see "Top 300 Comics Actual--September 2013."

For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels shipped during September, see "Top 300 Graphic Novels Actual--September 2013."

For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books shipped during August, see "Top 300 Comics Actual--August 2013."

For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels shipped during August, see "Top 300 Graphic Novels Actual--August 2013."

For an overview and analysis of the best-selling comics and graphic novels in August, see "'Infinity' #1 a Million Dollar Book."  For an analysis of the dollar trends in August, see "Comic & Graphic Novel Sales Drop in August."