The top comic in October, The Walking Dead #132, sold over 326,000 copies, according to indexes provided by Diamond Comic Distributors and calculations by ICv2.  That's over 250,000 more than the subsequent issue; Loot Crate did a variant for its October crate.  If the full difference from #133 is due to Loot Crate, it's been growing; that’s a bigger difference than the apparent sales bump on Rocket Raccoon #1, the last title so affected, which sold in 293,000 copies.

The Walking Dead was only part of the good news; there were seven titles with sales of over 100,000 in October, the strongest month at the top in recent memory.  Five of the titles over 100,000 were Marvels, including Death of Wolverine, which accomplished the amazing feat of increasing sales from #2 to #3, and from #3 to #4.  An unplanned delay in shipping for the ostensibly weekly book, which created a gap between #2 and #3, may have helped sales on the later issues by giving retailers time to increase their orders after seeing the sales on #1 and #2.

Two comics in the Top 10, one over 100,000 and one just under, starred female characters:  the new Thor #1 and Harley Quinn Annual #1, which had featured the notorious "Scent-icular" technology (and also featured an order what you want "Bombshells" Variant and "International Editions.").  Two graphic novels in the Top 10 also starred female characters, Ms. Marvel Vol. 1 TP and Harley Quinn Vol. 1: Hot in the City HC.

There was about a 37% drop between the first Avengers and X-Men: Axis and the subsequent issue, not a huge drop, but perhaps a sign that event fatigue is setting in on Marvel events, as several retailers have told us.

Wytches #1, the new Image title written by Scott Snyder, launched with around 68,000 copies sold of the first issue.

For an analysis of the dollar trends in October, see "Comics Market Starts Q4 Strong."

For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books shipped during October, see "Top 300 Comics Actual--October 2014."

For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels shipped during October, see "Top 300 Graphic Novels--October 2014."

For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books shipped during September, see "Top 300 Comics Actual--September 2014."

For our estimates of actual sales by Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels shipped during September, see "Top 300 Graphic Novels--September 2014."

For an overview and analysis of the best-selling comics and graphic novels in September, see "Four Titles Over 100K in September."  For an analysis of the dollar trends in September, see "Comic Shop Market Turns Positive in Q3."

For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through October 2014, see "ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 300 GNs Index."