Comic sales in July stayed true to form, with Batman topping the list, Marvel taking the most slots (19 out of the top 25), and roughly the same number of titles up as down in the top 25. Although Batman was #1 with an estimated 146,601 copies sold (up from last issues), DC took only three of the top 25 slots. Among debuts, Marvel's Spectacular Spider-Man took the #2 slot with a respectable 118,805, while Image's big cross-over launch, GI Joe/Transformers, topping 98,000 with its debut issue.
The top 25 comics sold by Diamond in July, with our estimates of the quantity sold are:
146,601 Batman #617
118,805 Spectacular Spider-Man #1
109,687 Ultimate X-Men #35
103,192 Ultimates #11
101,316 Ultimate Spider-Man #43
99,850 New X-Men #143
98,091 GI Joe/Transformers #1
95,467 Amazing Spider-Man #55
95,173 Amazing Spider-Man #54
93,546 Uncanny X-Men #428
92,095 Uncanny X-Men #427
90,717 Wolverine #3
90,350 Spectacular Spider-Man #2
75,206 Teen Titans #1
65,765 X-Treme X-Men #28
64,959 Incredible Hulk #57
64,886 Transformers Generation One Vol. 2 #4
62,804 Incredible Hulk #58
60,282 Silver Surfer #1
60,165 Daredevil #49
59,154 JLA #83
57,292 GI Joe/Transformers #2
57,116 Spider-Man & Wolverine #2
56,002 Fantastic Four #501
We are estimating actual sales by Diamond U.S. (primarily to North American comic stores) rather than pre-orders (as we did for the past several years) because Diamond recently changed its reporting and began basing its indexes on actual sales (see 'ICv2 Kicks Off New Top 300 Reporting'). We use those indexes and publisher sales data to estimate a sales number for Batman (the anchor title diamond uses in its calculations), and use that number and the indexes to estimate Diamond's sales on the remaining titles. Because of that change, we will not be able to do year over year comparisons until February of 2004, but in general, it's an improvement to have actual numbers to work with rather than preorders, which have significant differences from sales.
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 2003.'
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during July, see 'Top 50 Graphic Novels Actual--July 2003.'
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 2003.'
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during June, see 'Top 50 Graphic Novels Actual--June 2003.'
For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through July 2003, see 'ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 50 GNs Index.'
