Custom Search

December 2018 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Comics Shipped to North American Comics Shops

Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

Search for titles on Comichron! Search tips

Like November, the month of December took the wind out of a nascent 2018 recovery with a much smaller new comics slate — 398 new comics, the fewest in years — and a graphic novel performance that lagged the same month in 2017 by a whopping 26%. Part of that fact had to do with the holiday season: Diamond Comic Distributors released only a handful of comics and graphic novels on Dec. 26, specifically chosen by publishers for that purpose.



DC only released 52 new comic books in December, which appears to be the lowest number in any month for that publisher since September 1991. Nevertheless, it had all five of the top five comics; Batman Who Laughs #1 was the top-selling comic book in December, with orders of more than 226,000 copies. In a month that was down 2% for the business overall, DC was down 11% in dollar orders versus December 2017; Marvel, which had 90 comic books out (slightly over its annual average for 2018) was up 12% in dollars year-over-year.



The comics that were offered were priced at record-high levels: the average comic book in the Top 300 had a cover price of $4.19, and the average comic book in the top 25 was priced at $4.59.



As the Top 500 comics and graphic novels began being reported in December 2017, we got our first year-to-year comparisons. Comics units were up 2% in the Top 300, exactly equal for the Top 500, and down 0.42% for all comics. Comics dollars were up 15% in the Top 300, up 11% in the Top 500, and up 9% overall. So the higher-ranked comics did better on average versus last year than the lower ranked ones.



We have a video walkthrough of the month's preliminary sales report here:









Read more in our preliminary post for the month. You can see the reorders that were placed during the month on our pages for reorders and advance reorders for the year. You can also click to skip to the Top Graphic Novels for the month.



—John Jackson Miller

This list includes all items on Diamond's Top 500 charts, plus any post-#500 items from its Top Independent Publisher charts. If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.

Items marked with asterisks [*] had their reported orders reduced by 10% due to returnability.

Distributor charts are regional commodity reports, not measures of a work's total reach. Read our FAQ.

The links lead to current listings for each item on eBay. You can also find the books at your comics shop.

December 2018 Graphic Novel Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Graphic Novels and Trade Paperbacks Shipped to North American Comics Shops Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

This list includes all items on Diamond's Top 500 charts, plus any post-#500 items from its Top Independent and Manga charts. If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.

The links lead to details about each title on Amazon. You can also find the books at your comics shop.

#1 #2 #3 #4

Graphic novel sales were off a whopping 26% on significantly smaller new offerings. As the Top 500 comics and graphic novels began being reported in December 2017, we got our first year-to-year comparisons for a single month. In December, graphic novel dollars were down 28% in the Top 300, down 31% in the Top 500, and down 26% overall.



