DC Comics took the #1 spot for comic book sales in September by smashing the 200,000 barrier to smithereens with the final issue of the Jim Lee Jeph Loeb Batman 'Hush' storyline, which sold an amazing 233,775 copies.  But while Batman #619 was topping the piece chart by some 44,000, the long-awaited DC/Marvel crossover book, JLA/Avengers was, thanks to its $5.95 price tag and sales of almost 190K, the month's top dollar comic by more than a factor of two--a million dollar book.  Just goes to show what can happen when the two top publishers cooperate on the right project.  One interesting side effect of the financial success of JLA/Avengers is that it has provided artist George Perez with enough of a financial cushion that he can remain at CrossGen (see 'Perez Stays At CrossGen').

Seven of the top 15 books went up, while six declined and two were new (Ultimate Six #1 and G.I. Joe/Transformers #1).  In most cases the declines were small, while New X-Men, Wolverine and Teen Titans registered substantial gains.  The second issue of Neil Gaiman's 1602 fared quite well, dropping from 150,000 to 132,737, while consumers were less kind to the second issue of Superman/Batman, which dropped from 134,000 to 104,000.  Marvel's Supreme Power #2 reversed the normal trend by selling 77,000, an increase of more than 7,000 over its debut issue.  Marvel had 12.5 out of the top 15, with DC snagging the other 2.5 (we are giving equal credit for JLA/Avengers).  Dreamwave's Transformers/G.I. Joe was the lone non-premier title in the top 25, with Image's half of that crossover project coming in just a few spots below at #19.

When it came to the top 25 graphic novels sold in September, Marvel and DC's role were reversed, with DC snagging 10 out of the top 15 titles.  Tokyopop's Love Hina Vol. 14, which came in at number 6, was the top non-DC title.  Marvel placed 5 titles in the Top 25 Graphic Novels, while Tokyopop had three and Dark Horse and Image one each.  Neil Gaiman's Sandman: Endless Nights dominated the graphic novels in dollars sold, accounting for more dollars this month than any comic book, with the sole exception of JLA/Avengers.

The Top 25 comics, with our estimates of the quantities sold during September, are:

233,775                      Batman #619

189,919                      JLA/Avengers #1 (of 4)

132,737                      Marvel 1602 #2 (of 8)

131,943                      Ultimate Six #1 (of 6)

108,612                      Ultimate X-Men #37

105,573                      New X-Men #146

105,409                      Ultimate Spider-Man #46

104,474                      Superman/Batman #2

101,295                      New X-Men #145

  94,165                      Uncanny X-Men #430

  92,341                      Uncanny X-Men #431

  92,294                      Amazing Spider-Man #58

  81,728                      Wolverine #5

  77,496                      Supreme Power #2

  74,527                      Spectacular Spider-Man #4

  73,803                      Transformers/G.I. Joe #1 (of 6)

  66,626                      Teen Titans #3

  64,218                      X-Treme X-Men #31

  60,431                      G.I. Joe/Transformers #3

  59,636                      Daredevil #51

  59,496                      JLA #86

  58,678                      JLA #87

  58,584                      Incredible Hulk #60

  58,561                      Daredevil #52

  57,298                      Incredible Hulk #61

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.