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January 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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A fifth shipping week in January helped the month to the smallest drop in Direct Market sales since the previous spring, just under 2%. DC had a strong opening to the year, with dollar sales up 15% over its total from the previous January, aided by the chart-topping Doomsday Clock #3 and Dark Nights Metal #5.



Doomsday Clock, which had led reorders the last two weeks of the month, saw its total drop only slightly from December; less than a thousand copies. Normally, ongoing titles see a drop from December to January — and a much more sizable one between second and third issues.



A notable success story was Hawkman Found #1, which released the last week of December with 64,600 copies shipped. The book was the top reordered comic three weeks in a row thereafter, moving more than 22,200 more copies in January and nearly cracking the Top 100 again.



Marvel was off year-over-year, but only by high-single digits against what was a very unusual month for it: January 2017 was the month that Marvel offered free overships of its entire line, distorting that category of the charts.



The publisher's sales for Avengers #678 were divided between the regular $4.99 issue in sixth place, and a $3.99 special in 282nd place; that latter edition's dollar ranking reflects that it was shipped as a free premium. If combined, the issue would have placed fifth. The series had three more weekly issues release.



It was actually the first five-week January for reporting purposes at Diamond since 2008, due to the first sales day of the year often being counted as part of December. (January 2018's sales were up 14% over January 2008.) But the fifth week does not appear to have added much at all in terms of new comics releases; they were just up 5%, and at 478 new comic books that's the lowest number of new comics out per week since before 2015. Marvel only put out one more comic book in January than December, which had one less week.



New! On-Sale Dates Now Reported: Diamond began reporting the Top 500 comics in December, which brought a number of reordered and liquidated comics onto the list. As an aid to identification, we've added the on-sale dates for the Top 500 comics, according to Diamond's reporting. Sorting by date is one method of isolating the new comics from the reordered ones; you can also look just at a specific shipping week, getting a sense for how titles with more weeks on the shelves benefit. Much of what is assumed is "attrition," for example, is often a function of comics simply not having as many calendar days in which to sell. Sales in the following month may make up the difference in many cases.



Some of the on-sale dates are after the original ones for the comic; that usually suggests that the issue is a later printing. We see a number of those among the liquidated comics, as supply finally exceeded demand for certain books.



Read more in our preliminary and final analysis posts for the month; you can also see the archived reorder charts for the weeks ending January 1, 7, 14, 21, 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 chart. 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.

January 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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Graphic novels increased in sales over the Janaury from the year before, with about 310,000 copies of the Top 500 graphic novels sold.



