Thanks largely to the success of its Blackest Night event, DC dominated the top ten once again with eight out of the top ten titles in November. Blackest Night #5 actually boosted its circulation by 5% with help from a special ordering incentive that featured seven differently colored "Lantern Promotional Rings." A similar promotion was potent enough to lift Booster Gold #26 into the top 25 at #19. Four other Blackest Night tie-ins, Green Lantern #48, Justice League of America #39, Adventure Comics #4, and Green Lantern Corps #42 all made the top ten.
The top Marvel title was Captain America: Reborn #4, which came in at #3, didn’t ship in November where its absence hurt the Marvel line-up, which couldn’t manage better than a seventh place finish. Marvel still managed to secure 14 out of the top 25 spots with 25th place going to the Thor Giant Size Finale written by JMS, which in spite of a slew of variant incentives (1:25 and 1:50), suffered an 18% decline in sales from the previous JMS issue (#603), which came out in September.
Only seven titles show gains in circulation versus seventeen that posted declines. Dark Horse’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which ended up at #35, was the bestselling non Marvel or DC release.
Image’s Chew, one of the funniest action/adventure satires in years, was the bestselling graphic novel in a down month. Written by John Layman, Chew is the saga of Tony Chu, a “cibopathic” (he gets psychic impressions from what he eats) cop employed by the FDA to police a country where eating chicken has been outlawed. Dynamite Entertainment’s The Boys Vol. 5: Herogasm, written by Garth Ennis, finished a very close second followed by two DC titles, the Green Lantern: Agent Orange and Batman: Battle for the Cowl hardcovers.
Dark Horse’s Berserk Vol.32 was the bestselling manga title at #13 followed by Viz Media’s shojo hit Vampire Knight Vol.8 at #38.
Here are ICv2's estimates of the sales by Diamond Comic Distributors to comic stores on the top 25 comic titles in November:
144,935 Blackest Night #5
100,371 Green Lantern # 48
96,571 Captain America: Reborn #4
95,690 Batman and Robin #6
89,376 Justice League of
85,145 Adventure Comics #4
80,391 Green Lantern Corps #42
74,379 New Avengers #59
73,875 Flash: Rebirth #5
72,225 Dark Avengers #11
69,557 Uncanny X-Men #517
68,983 Batman #693
68,459 Amazing Spider-Man #612
64,699 Amazing Spider-Man #613
64,514 Amazing Spider-Man #611
62,154 Astonishing X-Men #32
61,170 Amazing Spider-Man #610
59,023 Ultimate Comics Avengers #4
57,122 Booster Gold #26
56,214 Dark Reign List ASM One-Shot
55,160 Invincible Iron Man #20
54,392 Detective Comics #859
53,967 X-Force #21
53,748 Doom Patrol #4
53,566 Thor Giant Size Finale #1
For an analysis of the dollar trends in November, see "Comic Sales Up in November."
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond
For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through November 2009, see "ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 300 GNs Index."