Marvel Comics and DC Comics both expanded their market shares in Q3 2021, based on sales of comics and graphic novels tracked at point-of-sale by the ComicHub system at stores selling American comics around the world, and provided to ICv2.  Compared to Q2, both publishers’ shares increased by about a point, and the distance between them stayed about the same (see "Comic Store Publisher Market Shares – Q2 2021").  The biggest change was Image’s share, which went down by two points.  The "All others" category increased by over a point.

Comic Store Market Share (Dollars) – Q3 2021

[ComicHub Data, via ICv2]

Rank

Publisher

Market Share

1

Marvel Comics

33.5%

2

DC Comics

25.4%

3

Image Comics

13.0%

4

BOOM! Studios

4.8%

5

IDW Publishing

4.2%

6

Dark Horse Comics

3.7%

7

VIZ Media

2.7%

8

Dynamite Entertainment

1.1%

9

Kodansha Comics

0.9%

10

AfterShock Comics

0.8%

All Others

10.2%

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."