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April 2018 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Comics Shipped to North American Comics Shops

Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

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Thanks to DC's Action Comics #1000, the Action: 80 Years of Superman hardcover, and Marvel's several new series launches, Infinity War tie-ins, and Dan Slott's final Amazing Spider-Man arc, April's Direct Market orders were at their highest level since last May, posting the best four-week month since October 2016. Retailers ordered $45.84 million in comics and graphic novels, 11% more than the previous April. Winter volumes are such that a good April can wipe out a poor winter; April 2018 didn't quite accomplish that, but it did bring the year-to-date shortfall below 4%.



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











DC had announced in April that Action #1000 had orders of more than 500,000 copies. The North American portion in April accounted for nearly 450,000 copies; reorders, which are known to be significant, and copies bound for overseas would easily cover the rest. (Including overseas sales would defeat the primary purpose of the distributor sales charts, which is to tell North American retailers how many copies are in circulation in their geographic market. Read more in our FAQ.) The issue accounted for $3.6 million of all product ordered in April, somewhat less than the total amount of the month's increase over the previous year.



April 2017's sales winners the "Button" issues and the launch of Secret Empire; in April 2018, the mix appears to have offered a better sales story. Six issues above 100,000 copies is the most seen in some time, and the top three sellers immediately became the top-sellers for the year so far. April's improvement further appears to be spread around some: Marvel and DC's dollar sales for the month at full retail were up 19% and 18% respectively year-over-year, while Oni, IDW, and Dynamite's April-versus-April beats were even larger. Marvel's incentive-copy targets were reportedly easier to hit in the month than they had been previously, which seems likely to have helped its performance.



Looking in retrospect at past Aprils, there appears to be a remarkable amount of stability in unit sales within Diamond's Top 300: sales from one, five, ten, fifteen, and twenty years before are all within a 1 million-copy range.



Action's effect boosted the average weighted cost of comics sold to $4.14, which was high but not a record.



Hear more analysis in our final report walkthrough:











You can also read our preliminary and final analysis posts for the month. You can also see the archived reorder charts for the weeks ending April 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29. 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 50 Indy and Small 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.

April 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 50 Indy, Manga, and Small Publisher 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.

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The graphic novel category was up slightly in April 2018 in dollar terms after a series of disappointing results: around 610,000 units shipped. One has to go back to August 2016, during the DC Rebirth launch, to find a month where both comics and graphic novel dollar sales were up; April 2018 did the trick, if just barely.



While the number of new comic books released was basically identical to the previous April, new graphic novel releases were up significantly in number; 65 more were offered to market, an increase of 23%. In part, that's because the previous April's slate was unusually light. The Saga line was the beneficiary of a major sale during the month, hence its lower dollar rankings relative to its unit rankings.



