 Updated 8/19/05 with sales estimates: Diamond debuted its Top 100 Sales charts and market share report on Friday, and as expected, the debut issue of Frank Miller and Jim Lee’s All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder, easily outpaced the rest of the field to land in the #1 position for the month. As like last month, Newsarama will partner with CBGXtra soon to deliver some estimated sales figures for the entire month, but All-Star Batman & Robin #1’s Diamond index figure suggests a rough, approximate figure of 260-270k copies ordered by retailers. Marvel showed strength in the Top Ten in July, placing 7 overall, along with 16 of the top 25, with New Avengers #7 showing staying power as the #2 book of the month overall. The third and fourth parts of Marvel summer event House of M also showed some legs, at least in relation to last month’s issue #2. Again, strictly by going by an approximate estimate based on Diamond’s index figures, the sales for issues #3 and #4 showed only minor drop-off from issue #2, which if holds up, would be regarded by Marvel as very good news. On the DC side, their Countdown to Infinite Crisis limited series are also showing pretty strong legs. The OMAC Project #3 stayed in the Top 10, with issue #3 coming in at #8, the same chart position from the previous month, though it may have actually increased readership, going from a Diamond index of 139.88 in June to 143.04 in July. But again, all these figures are in relative relation to how Batman sold in each month, so month-to-month comparisons are sometimes difficult to track by Index figure alone. Villains United dropped off slightly, from #7 in June to #11 in July, Rann-Thanagar Ear went from #11 to #15, and Day of Vengeance from #18 to #20. Making a these-days rare appearance in the Top 15 (or 50 for that matter) is a book from a publisher other than DC. Dynamite Entertainment’s Red Sonja #1, buoyed by a slate of five alternative covers by an impression roster of artists, showed up at a surprising #14. Joining it in the top 50 is Dark Horse and Joss Whedon’s Serenity #1, also featuring three variant covers by top artists, coming in at #49. Overall, eight titles from the Top 100 came from other publishers other than Marvel and DC. Looking at the Market Share side, Marvel held onto its lead in both Unit and Dollar Share categories, with 43.45% and 37.95%, respectively, both figures up a few percentage points from June. DC came in second with 37.05 and 33.57%, also up slightly since June. Translation – the Big Two’s summer events continue to help them grab record levels of combined market share. Their 80.50% combined Unit market share is just .33% behind the record level of May, and their combined 71.52% Dollar Share is a new high since April ‘04’s 75.98%. Update 8/19/05: Thanks to our new relationship with Comics Buyer’s Guide, Newsarama is now able to bring readers estimates of the number of comics sold via Diamond. Click on the following link for the Top 300 with sales estimates. According to CBG’s John Jackson Miller’s analysis, more copies of All-Star Batman and Robin #1 were ordered by comics shops in July than any other comic book since 2003’s Batman #619, also from DC – and more were sold in a single month than any comic book since Top Cow’s Darkness #11 back in 1997. More than 261,100 copies of All-Star were ordered by retailers, outpacing all non-promotional-price releases since the end of the “Hush” storyline nearly two years ago, said John Jackson Miller, CBG editorial director and compiler of the world’s largest collection of comics circulation figures, the CBG Standard Catalog of Comic Books (fourth edition shipping in two weeks). CBG’s chart analysis appears here. “Actually, it’s hard enough to parse Diamond’s sales figures from 2003 that All-Star might be a brighter star, still,” Miller said. “Diamond sold 235,000 copies ofBatman #619 in September 2003 across both direct covers and the newsstand version – and then sold another 71,000 copies in October. But the order codes are aggregated, and the specific reprint order code from the special solicitation in Diamond Dateline appears nowhere in any of Diamond’s charts. So it’s hard to parse what are true reorders for the original copies from the reorders for the gatefold-less second printing, which shipped Oct. 22 of that year.” Either way, Miller said, “All-Star had a stronger first month – and may yet surpass the total number of Batman #619s out there.” The top-selling single issue before Batman #619 was Darkness #11, which had preorders of 357,000 copies across its 11 different covers. That issue shipped the final week of 1997. Thanks to All-Star and a strong line of new series launches, July sales of comic books and trade paperbacks to comics shops increased 3% over the same month in the previous year, keeping alive a year that’s flirting with double-digit growth overall. Sales of comic books and trade paperbacks to comics shops have increased 8% in the first seven months of 2005 – to $192 million – Miller said. “While July was slower than June – which had an extra shipping week – it nonetheless showed year-over-year increases in all categories,” Miller said. “Retailers have been reporting strong rack sales, indicating high sell-through levels and bettering their bottom lines.” Comics unit sales: The Top 300 comic books had retailer orders of 6.53 million copies in July, 6% more than July 2004, which also had four shipping weeks. Comics dollar sales: The Top 300 comic books had sales worth $19.03 million in July, 7% more than July 2004. For the first seven months of 2005, the Top 300 comics from each month have sold a combined $123 million, a 3% increase over the same half-year period. Trade paperbacks : The Top 100 trade paperbacks and graphic novels reported by Diamond had orders worth $3.47 million at full retail in July. Adding those to the Top 300 comics for the month yields $22.5 million, an increase of 6% over July 2004. For the first seven months of 2005, the Top 300 comics and the Top 100 trade paperbacks from each month had orders worth $149 million, an increase of 6% over the same six months in 2004. Exclusive: Diamond’s “overall” sales: In the most inclusive category calculated by anyone in comics, CBG is able to estimate Diamond’s total sales for comics and trade paperbacks, including all those not in the Top 300/100 every month. “Diamond publishes dollar market shares for its top 20 publishers across all comics, trade paperbacks, and magazines,” Miller said. “Knowing the exact total orders of any publisher on that list right down to the oldest backlist item allows you to calculate Diamond’s total orders across these product groups.” The July 2005 total was $28.96 million, which increases to $31.36 million, when Diamond’s United Kingdom orders are added. The figure is up 3% over July 2005. Overall, the last seven months stand at $192.4 million, as mentioned above – up nearly 8%. “Interestingly, July-to-July comics sales grew at a faster rate than July-to-July sales overall, suggesting that the lower backlist – the thousands of trade paperbacks that do not make Diamond’s Top 100 list each month – wasn’t where the action was for this month,” Miller said. “There’s a lot of high-octane events on the periodical side of things, and that may be drawing some of the new dollars away from the shelves and toward the racks.” Again, click here for CBGxtra’s full analysis with much more information.
Below is the full Market Share report. JULY MARKET SHARES
Based on Actual Sales for Comics, Magazines, & GNs Invoiced in July 2005
|
Publisher
|
Comics, Magazines, & GNs Dollar Share
|
Comics, Magazines, & GNs Unit Share
|
|
MARVEL COMICS
|
37.95%
|
43.45%
|
|
DC COMICS
|
33.57%
|
37.05%
|
|
DARK HORSE COMICS
|
4.96%
|
3.47%
|
|
IMAGE COMICS
|
4.26%
|
3.98%
|
|
TOKYOPOP
|
2.95%
|
1.13%
|
|
WIZARD ENTERTAINMENT
|
2.30%
|
1.19%
|
|
VIZ LLC
|
2.22%
|
0.97%
|
|
DYNAMIC FORCES
|
1.17%
|
1.47%
|
|
AVATAR PRESS
|
0.86%
|
0.74%
|
|
IDW PUBLISHING
|
0.81%
|
0.56%
|
|
A. D. VISION
|
0.60%
|
0.21%
|
|
ASPEN MLT INC
|
0.52%
|
0.69%
|
|
FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS/EROS COMIX
|
0.50%
|
0.25%
|
|
GEMSTONE PUBLISHING
|
0.44%
|
0.29%
|
|
SLG PUBLISHING
|
0.43%
|
0.24%
|
|
DEVILS DUE PUBLISHING
|
0.40%
|
0.33%
|
|
RANDOM HOUSE
|
0.35%
|
0.12%
|
|
ARCHIE COMIC PUBLICATIONS
|
0.31%
|
0.44%
|
|
ONI PRESS INC.
|
0.30%
|
0.19%
|
|
ALIAS ENTERPRISES LLC
|
0.30%
|
0.41%
|
|
Other Non-Top 20
|
4.82%
|
2.82%
|
|
