The launch of a new X-Men title, supported by numerous variant incentive covers and strong promotion, topped 140,000 copies in comic stores in July, but it was the only title over 100,000 copies in an otherwise underwhelming month for comic sales. A high 17 titles of the Top 25 sold fewer copies than the previous issues, vs. only four titles that were up (the rest were #1s).
With its $3.99 cover price, X-Men #1 accounted for nearly twice the dollars of the #2 book, DC’s Brightest Day #6, which sold around 95,000 copies at $2.99. Five other Brightest Day titles (Brightest Day #5, Green Lantern #56, Green Lantern Corps #50, Flash #4, and JLA #47) hit the Top 25, with sales from 60,000 to 84,000.
The Avengers relaunch titles continued strong with three in the Top Ten, with sales from 62,000 to 87,000.
Shadowland #1, although it sold only about 55,000 copies in July, sold much better than expectations and is on its 3rd printing.
Neal Adams’ Batman Odyssey launched with around 62,000 copies sold; J. Michael Straczynski’s Superman run launched at around 55,000 copies.
Marvel’s Ultimate Comics re-launch continues its soft performance, with no titles making it into the Top 25.
DC took six of the Top 10; Marvel took 14 of the Top 25.
The news on the graphic novel front was better, where Scott Pilgrim was blowing the doors off in the run-up to the movie. The new volume, Vol. 6, sold more copies (over 21,000 copies) than any other graphic novel since May of 2009 (when the very inexpensive League of Extraordinary Gentlemen sold a ton), and the other five volumes also all made the Top 10.
The new volume of The Walking Dead came in at almost the same number as the previous volume did in January, around 17,000.
Here are ICv2's estimates of the sales by Diamond Comic Distributors to comic stores on the top 25 comic titles in July:
140,332 X-Men #1
94,684 Brightest Day #6
88,020 Batman: Return of Bruce Wayne #4
87,410 Avengers #3
85,804 Batman and Robin #13
84,164 Green Lantern #56
83,397 New Avengers #2
77,796 Brightest Day #5
76,398 Batman #701
72,293 Secret Avengers #3
68,271 Amazing Spider-Man #238
67,035 Green Lantern Corps #50
66,723 Uncanny X-Men #526
65,863 X-Men Second Coming #2
64,832 Flash #4
61,827 Batman Odyssey #1
61,680 X-Force #28
60,368 Justice League of
56,031 Amazing Spider-Man #637
56,011 Amazing Spider-Man #636
54,911 Shadowland #1
54,506 Superman #701
53,373 Thor #612
53,313 X-Men Legacy #238
52,727 Steve Rogers Super-Soldier #1
For an analysis of the dollar trends in July, see "Comics Slip, Graphic Novels Surge."
For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond
For our estimates of actual sales by 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 July 2010, see "ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 300 GNs Index."