Marvel dominated the top 25 comics in comic shops in March, grabbing 23 spots and leaving only two for DC; but in April DC struck back securing nine of the top 25.  Marvel took the top spot with a healthy 162,000 copies sold to comic shops on New Avengers #5, one of numerous top titles written by Brian Michael Bendis. 
 
DC took the next four spots and Superman #215, the last issue in the Jim Lee/Brian Azzarello arc (aided by 2 covers) had the biggest percentage gain of any book in the top 25, jumping up 12% to over 112,000 copies.  The OMAC Project #1 and Day of Vengeance #1, two new DC releases with ties to the big summer Countdown to Crisis event, debuted at #20 and #21 respectively.

 

Six of the top 10 titles showed drops in circulation.  The heat generated by DC's Countdown to Crisis and Marvel's House of M crossover events should boost comic sales in the summer months, and the competition between DC and Marvel should heat up accordingly.

 

Meanwhile graphic novels soared in April, sparked by the success of the Sin City film.  Quite naturally Dark Horse dominated with 8 of the top 15 titles.  Six of the eight Dark Horse titles were volumes from Frank Miller's Sin City saga; but the fact that Volume 1 and Volume 2, the books that sold best in the bookstore market, came in at #7 and #11 respectively -- well below Vol. 6 (#2), Vol. 7 (#3), and Vol. 4 (#6) -- indicates that direct market retailers were not able to take full advantage of the opportunity offered by the success of the film because of a shortage of the first two books in the series.  Sales on the movie volumes were actually only about half those on the top volumes sold by Diamond in April. 

 

Dark Horse also scored with Chronicles of Conan Vol. 7 (#10) and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (#12).

 

DC had four titles in the graphic novel top 15 including the promotionally priced ($4.99) Vertigo First Taste, which took the top spot.  The Batman Year One Deluxe Edition Hardcover (#5) did very well as did the fifth volume of Wizard's Twisted Toyfare Theatre (#4).

 

The top 25 comic titles in March, along with our estimates of the numbers sold to North American comic stores by Diamond Comic Distributors, are as follows:

 

162,412            New Avengers #5

115,305            Superman/Batman #18

115,006            Green Lantern Rebirth #5 (of 6)

114,258            Superman/Batman #19

112,593            Superman #215

103,472            Ultimates 2 #5

101,228            Wolverine #27

  85,299            Uncanny X-Men #458

  83,940            Ultimate Spider-Man #75

  82,793            X-Men #169

  82,606            Ultimate X-Men #58

  82,244            Ultimate Spider-Man #76

  80,075            X-Men Age of Apocalypse #6 (of 6)

  78,535            Amazing Spider-Man #519

  78,073            X-Men: Phoenix-Endsong #5 (of 5)

  76,328            Ultimate Secret #2 (of 4)

  72,207            Ultimate Fantastic Four #17

  72,076            Young Avengers #3

  66,802            Teen Titans #23

  65,337            OMAC Project #1 (of 6)

  64,856            Day of Vengeance #1 (of 6)

  64,002            JLA #113

  63,005            X-Men The End of Heroes & Martyrs #2 (of 6)

  63,344            Batman #639

  60,542            Marvel Knights Spider-Man #13

 

We are estimating actual sales by Diamond U.S. (primarily to North American comic stores), using Diamond's published sales indexes and publisher sales data to estimate a sales number for Batman (the anchor title Diamond uses in its calculations), and using that number and the indexes to estimate Diamond's sales on the remaining titles.  We can check the accuracy of our numbers by comparing the Batman number that we calculate using multiple data points; our numbers for Batman are within 1/10 of 1% of each other, ensuring a high degree of accuracy.

 
For an analysis of the dollar trends in April, see 'Graphic Novels Drive April Sales.'
 

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during April, see 'Top 300 Comics Actual--April 2005.'

 

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during April, see 'Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--April 2005.'

 

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during March, see 'Top 300 Comics Actual--March 2005.'

 

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during March, see 'Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--March 2005.'

 

For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through April 2005, see 'ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 100 GNs Index.'