The reduction in comic releases in the COVID era continued in August, with a 19% overall drop in title count in August 2020 vs. August 2019, according to numbers compiled by ICv2 from title counts for most publishers released by Diamond Comic Distributors and a DC release list.

The drop in releases was most impacted by Marvel Comics and DC Comics, which both released over 20% fewer titles in August 2020 than they did in August 2019.  Marvel released 65 comic issues in August 2020, compared to 88 in August 2019, down 26%; and DC released 49 comic issues in August 2020, compared to 64 in August 2019, down 23%.

The other big changes among the top comic publishers were by Dark Horse Comics, which released 21 new comic issues in 2019 and only 1 in August of 2020, and by Dynamite Entertainment, which was down from 17 titles in 2019 to 10 this year.

The cumulative effect of Diamond’s halt in distribution and subsequent release cuts by publishers remains profound, with over 1,000 fewer comic releases in the five months from April through August, a 55% decline.  While the rate of decline is slowing (see "Comic Releases Down 63% in First Four Months of COVID-19 Era"), it’s still substantial, and with the cumulative impact to date, it’s clear that the year will end with many fewer comic releases than in any year in recent memory.

While some comic titles have been canceled or converted to digital and others simply delayed, graphic novel releases to comic stores are closer to normal, with only a 13% decline for the five-month COVID era.  In fact, graphic novel releases for June, July, and August were all up over the number released in 2019, as publishers released titles to the comic trade that had been previously released to the book trade during the Diamond shutdown in April and May, and publishers that had paused releases made an effort to get back on schedule.

The chart below combines the information with August from our previous analysis, which used title counts for April-July 2020 by Comichron and Diamond Comic Distributors titles counts for the same months in 2019.