Diamond Comic Distributors' tally of comics shipped during June showed declines in nineteen of the top 25 comics. Three strong number one issues including Wolverine #1, which took the top spot, helped buoy the May numbers. But only two number one issues made it into the top 25 in June and Spider-Man & Wolverine, the top premier issue, only made it to number eleven. Only four comics out of the top 25 showed gains and they were all Marvels: Ultimate X-Men #34, New X-Men #142, Incredible Hulk #56, and Fantastic Four #70. Ironically writer Mark Waid was removed from the Fantastic Four during June when his book was one of the very few to show any forward momentum. All three of last month's best-selling number one issues remained in the top 25, with Wolverine at number four, Venom at number ten, and New Mutants at number 23.
Jim Lee's Batman regained the top spot in June, reasserting the dominance it has displayed all year. DC had four other titles in the top 25, but Marvel dominated with 18, while Dreamwave and Image each had one. The top 25 comics sold by Diamond during June with our estimates of the quantities are:
141,736 Batman #616
110,753 Ultimate X-Men #34
100,151 Ultimate Spiderman #42
99,867 Wolverine #2
97,897 New X-Men #142
91,547 Uncanny X-Men #425
89,719 Uncanny X-Men #426
68,529 Incredible Hulk #56
67,211 Transformers Generation One Vol. #2 (of 6)
66,956 Venom #2
66,729 Spider-Man & Wolverine #1 (of 4)
63,923 X-Treme X-Men #27
63,554 Born #1 (of 4)
59,869 Daredevil #48
58,480 JLA #82
57,587 Avengers #68
53,066 Fantastic Four #70
50,004 Marvel Universe The End #6 (of 6)
48,686 Peter Parker Spider-Man #57
47,666 Outsiders #1
47,113 Green Arrow #27
45,639 Captain America #14
45,568 New Mutants #2
43,740 JSA #49
41,146 GI Joe #18
We are estimating actual sales by Diamond U.S. (primarily to North American comic stores) rather than pre-orders (as we did for the past several years) because Diamond recently changed its reporting and began basing its indexes on actual sales (see 'ICv2 Kicks Off New Top 300 Reporting'). We use those indexes and publisher sales data to estimate a sales number for Batman (the anchor title diamond uses in its calculations), and use that number and the indexes to estimate Diamond's sales on the remaining titles. Because of that change, we will not be able to do year over year comparisons until February of 2004, but in general, it's an improvement to have actual numbers to work with rather than preorders, which have significant differences from sales.
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during June, see 'Top 300 Comics Actual -- June 2003.'
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during June, see 'Top 50 Graphic Novels Actual -- June 2003.'
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during May, see 'Top 300 Comics Actual -- May 2003.'
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during May, see 'Top 50 Graphic Novels Actual -- May 2003.'
For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through June 2003, see 'ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 50 GNs Index.'