1602, Marvel's new Neil Gaiman miniseries, was Diamond's top book in August, selling over 150,000 copies.  Batman was up slightly over last month, as were Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man, and Daredevil.  All the rest of the top 25 comic titles were down, as is fairly typical for late summer.  Also having an impact was the fact that there were only four of Diamond's shipping weeks in August, vs. five in July, which meant there was one less week of reorders for titles from early in the month.
 
DC's Batman and Superman Batman were the only non-Marvels in the top 15 titles.  Dreamwave's Transformers Generation One Volume 2 was the only non-premier title in the top 25. 

 

DC and Dark Horse had more books near the top of the graphic novel list, where DC's second Y The Last Man trade paperback topped the graphic novel list, with around 7,900 sold by Diamond.  Dark Horse had the #3 graphic novel with its Book of Hauntings.  DC had six of the top ten graphic novels, Dark Horse two, and Marvel two. 

 

The top 25 comics, with our estimates of the quantity sold by Diamond during August, are: 

 

150,569            1602 #1

147,126            Batman #618

134,135            Superman Batman #1

110,492            Ultimate X-Men #36

102,429            Ultimate Spider-Man #44

100,619            Ultimate Spider-Man #45

  99,737            New X-Men #44

  93,866            Uncanny X-Men #429

  93,469            Amazing Spider-Man #57

  92,277            Amazing Spider-Man #56

  78,080            Spectacular Spider-Man #3

  69,914            Supreme Power #1

  68,472            Wolverine #4

  65,398            Daredevil #50

  64,765            X-Treme X-Men #30

  64,500            X-Treme X-Men #31

  61,587            Transformers Generation One Vol. 2 #5

  61,528            Teen Titans #2

  59,336            Incredible Hulk #59

  59,130            JLA #84

  58,380            JLA #85

  57,850            Avengers #69

  54,084            Fantastic Four #502

  53,789            Fantastic Four #503

  52,951            Spider-Man & Wolverine #3
 
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 August, see 'Top 300 Comics Actual--August 2003.'

 

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during August, see 'Top 50 Graphic Novels Actual--August 2003.'

 

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 index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through August 2003, see 'ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 50 GNs Index.'