The impact of variant covers is very visible when looking at the December comic numbers, with storylines, the old way of influencing sales, also having an effect.

These are estimates of the sales on comic books by Diamond U.S. to comic specialty stores during December 2015.

These are estimates of the sales on graphic novels by Diamond U.S. to comic specialty stores during December 2015.

With the focus in December turning from new releases to selling through the most popular titles for the holiday season, only one new volume, Tokyo Ghoul Vol. 4, entered the Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels for December, according to the list provided exclusively to ICv2 by Nielsen BookScan.

There are not a lot of home entertainment releases this week, but there are some choice ones including the excellent hard science fiction epic The Martian , the underrated USA TV cyber-thriller Mr. Robot , the 90-minute Sherlock special “The Abominable Bride,” and the North American Blu-ray debut of the sci-fi anime Noein .

J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens topped the weekend box office for the fourth time in a row with $41.6 million, but the more surprising bit of news was the powerful debut of Alexander Inarritu’s The Revenant.

Sales of comics and graphic novels to comic stores finished the year with a big December.

The bestselling comics in the comic store channel for 2015.

The bestselling comics in the comic store channel for 2015.

The bestselling graphic novels in the comic store channel for 2015.