The first issue in the new Joss Whedon/John Cassaday Astonishing X-Men story arc topped off February comic store sales with over 140,000 copies, easily topping the last issue of the previous arc.  It led a relatively strong group for what is traditionally the weakest month of the year; 13 of the top 25 titles were up over the previous issues. 

 

DC had a relatively good month at the top of the chart, with 10 of the top 25 titles, and half of the top 10.    

 

The historically inhospitable character of February for launches apparently scared off the publishers; not a single first issue (excepting a one-shot) appeared in the top 25.

 

The removal of the Marvel Knights brand and title change (see 'Marvel Retools Marvel Knights') apparently did Sensational Spider-Man no good (although the re-titling was not known when retailers first ordered the book), as sales were down substantially from the last Marvel Knights issue.

 

Marvel's House of M collection topped the graphic novel chart with over 8,000 sold.  DC's repackaged V for Vendetta came in at #3 with sales of over 5,300, a number that will probably be surpassed in March in the run-up to and strong release of the film. 

 

Viz's Rurouni Kenshin was the best-selling manga trade paperback in comic stores in February, coming in at #17 with around 3,200 sold. 

 

The top 25 titles in February, with our estimates of the number sold to North American comic stores by Diamond Comic Distributors, are:

 

140,655          Astonishing X-Men #13

121,492          New Avengers #16

110,488          Justice #4

104,734          Supergirl #4

  97,358          Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk #23

  90,414          Amazing Spider-Man #529

  89,252          Green Lantern #8

  86,554          Green Lantern #9

  85,252          Supergirl #5

  79,039          Uncanny X-Men #469

  78,653          X-Men #182

  76,454          X-Men #183

  75,869          Ultimate Extinction #2

  74,666          X-Men: Deadly Genesis #4

  74,341          JLA #125

  72,700          Ultimate X-Men #67

  72,248          Wolverine #39

  71,470          Ultimate Spider-Man #90

  69,131          Teen Titans #32

  67,922          Ultimate Fantastic Four #27

  66,447          Batman #650

  65,344          Rann / Thanagar War Infinite Crisis Special

  63,982          Superman #226

  59,051          Sensational Spider-Man #23

  58,540          X-Men: The 198 #2

 

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 February, see 'Comic Sales Up in February.'
 
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during February, see 'Top 300 Comics Actual--February 2006.'

 

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during February, see 'Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--February 2006.'

 

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during January, see 'Top 300 Comics Actual--January 2006.'

 

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during January, see 'Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--January 2006.'

 

For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through February 2006, see 'ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 100 GNs Index.'