by John Jackson Miller

Dollars Units March 2017 vs. February 2017 Comics +15.00% -4.72% Graphic Novels +15.44% +19.72% Total Comics/GNs +15.14% -3.13% Toys +34.66% +55.98% March 2017 vs. March 2016 Comics +6.02% +8.93% Graphic Novels -15.36% -17.47% Total Comics/GNs -1.68% +6.21% Toys -9.24% +0.51% Year-to-Date 2017 vs. Year-to-Date 2016 Comics +0.70% +11.05% Graphic Novels -10.68% -13.49% Total Comics/GNs -3.01% +8.89% Toys -2.52% -0.31%

Publisher Comics shipped Graphic Novels shipped Magazines Total shipped Marvel 92 39 0 131 DC 92 31 0 123 Image 61 16 2 79 IDW 60 19 0 79 Dark Horse 25 14 0 39 Titan 24 6 5 35 Boom 24 10 0 34 Viz 0 26 0 26 Dynamite 21 1 0 22 Valiant 7 2 0 9 Other 130 161 20 311 TOTAL SHIPPED 536 325 27 888

Dollar Share Unit Share Marvel 35.41% 34.34% DC 28.75% 35.46% Image 10.71% 10.02% IDW 5.68% 4.72% Dark Horse 3.48% 3.09% Boom 2.15% 1.86% Dynamite 1.76% 2.00% Titan 1.15% 1.06% Viz 1.14% 0.43% Valiant 1.14% 1.37% Other 8.62% 5.64%

COMIC BOOK PRICE PUBLISHER 1 Amazing Spider-Man #25 9.99 Marvel 2 Dark Knight III: The Master Race #8 $5.99 DC 3 Batman #18 $2.99 DC 4 Batman #19 $2.99 DC 5 Iron Fist #1 $3.99 Marvel 6 X-Men Prime #1 $4.99 Marvel 7 Star Wars #29 $3.99 Marvel 8 All-Star Batman #8 $4.99 DC 9 The Walking Dead #165 $2.99 Image 10 Justice League #16 $2.99 DC

GRAPHIC NOVEL PRICE PUBLISHER 1 Saga Vol. 7 14.99 Image 2 The Walking Dead Vol. 27: The Whisperer War $14.99 Image 3 Harley Quinn Vol. 1: Die Laughing $16.99 DC 4 Suicide Squad Vol. 1: The Black Vault $16.99 DC 5 Death of X $17.99 Marvel 6 Titans Vol. 1: The Return of Wally West $16.99 DC 7 Wolverine: Old Man Logan $29.99 Marvel 8 Deathstroke Vol. 1: The Professional $16.99 DC 9 Batgirl Vol. 1: Beyond Burnside $16.99 DC 10 Deadly Class Vol. 5: Carousel $14.99 Image

If you didn't know a number of things about the comics market this past winter, looking at the comics shop market sales estimates for the first quarter would be extremely confusing. By the numbers, for example, fewer comics were shipped in five-shipping-week March, 7.47 million copies, than in either of the four-week months of January and February, for example (7.57 and 7.85 million copies respectively). Yet retailers spent more on comics in March than in either of those two months.That's because -- as you know if you've been reading --shipped a significant number of copies to retailers for free in, while February saw retailers buy three quarters of a million copies of a 25-cent issue of. Meanwhile, March's top-ordered comic book,, cost nearly $10!As a result, according to's analysis of data released this morning by, March was the best month of the year thus far, with nearly $45.8 million in comics, graphic novels, and magazines shipping to retailers.That's still a drop from the previous year, but only of 1.68% -- meaning that the year-over-year decline has narrowed to just 3%, or about $4 million dollars ($125.67 million versus $129.58 million last year). And if we skip back to the first quarter of 2014 -- beforearrived at Marvel and transformed the winter charts dramatically -- we find that the first quarter of 2017 is up 8% in dollars by comparison.The aggregate sales statistics:Now, as you can see from the above, it's not all good news, because dollar orders for graphic novels were off more than 15%. But on comparison, we see that 12% fewer new graphic novel titles were released this March versus last March, 325 versus 371. That explains a lot; with 46 more graphic novel releases, March overall might have gone into positive territory. The new release figures:It's DC and Image that had the largest declines in new graphic novel releases versus last March. On the comics side, the number of new releases increased, from 488 last March to 536 this March, with Marvel shipping fewer titles and DC, Image, IDW, Dark Horse, and Titan expanding their release slates.On the market share side, Marvel led the dollar shares while DC again took the unit share lead, with its cheaper price points. The market shares:As suggested in the headline, part of what helped build Marvel's dollar-share is a comic book that, if it led the unit shares, must have done gangbusters on the dollar side: the $9.99#25. It beat out the $5.99and everything else for the top slot:andled the graphic novel charts. The final month of the quarter is when you often see publishers offering deep discounts on hardcovers, and this March was no different -- but the presence of these high-volume titles atop the list probably worked to keep the graphic novel unit and dollar share performances reasonably close, only two percentage points apart. The titles:That's it for the preliminary analysis of March's sales; a first quarter that, for all the hue and cry heard about it, lands right in the middle of winters over the last twenty-plus years; neither particularly strong or weak. That is, of course, from the 30,000-foot level of aggregate sales -- but when the market's increased in dollar volume five years in a row and book channel graphic novel sales are up 12%, it should take a bit more than a 3% drop in the traditionally smallest quarter of the year to sound the general alarm., and there's nothing in the numbers -- as yet -- to suggest that's going away any time soon.