Marvel had nearly 7 more share points than DC in Q1, compared to a spread of 3.6 share points in Q4 2020 (see "Direct Market Publisher Market Shares – Q4 2020"). DC started out the Covid era leading Marvel in comic store market share in Q2 2020 (see "Direct Market Publisher Market Shares – Q2 2020"), but Marvel has slowly been returning to a clear lead as its release count has gone up, although its spread over DC is still not where it was pre-Covid.
Manga showed its recent strength in Q1 comic store shares, with two manga publishers in the Top 10.
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Comic Store Market Share (Dollars) – Q1 2021 [ComicHub Data, via ICv2] |
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|
Rank |
Publisher |
Market Share |
|
1 |
Marvel Comics |
34.7% |
|
2 |
DC Comics |
27.9% |
|
3 |
Image Comics |
10.1% |
|
4 |
IDW Publishing |
4.9% |
|
5 |
BOOM! Studios |
4.6% |
|
6 |
Dark Horse Comics |
3.6% |
|
7 |
VIZ Media |
2.8% |
|
8 |
Dynamite Entertainment |
1.2% |
|
9 |
AfterShock Comics |
0.9% |
|
10 |
Kodansha Comics |
0.8% |
|
All Others |
8.5% |
|
The data on which these market share percentages are based is from sales tracked at point-of-sale by the ComicHub system at stores selling American graphic novels around the world. During the period for which these reports were generated, there were over 100 stores using the ComicHub system. As this is a small, non-random sample of over 3,000 stores selling American comics worldwide, these rankings may not be typical for all stores, but do represent a variety of locations and store emphases.
The differences in how the data behind these charts is collected compared to past market share charts based on sales by Diamond Comic Distributors to comic stores are many. Here are some:
Sell-in charts show all the launch sales happening on the same day, while sell-through sales happen over time, moving sales into different periods.
Sell-in shows what retailers think they will sell, while sell-through shows what they actually do sell.
Sell-in sales are influenced by incentive variants, which increase the number of copies ordered (to get a variant that can be sold at a premium price), but may not increase the number of copies sold at retail by the same amount.
For monthly sales rankings based on ComicHub POS data, see "Comics and Graphic Novel Sales Rankings Based on Comic Store POS Data Index."
