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November 2012 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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Comics shops in North America ordered nearly $41 million worth of comic books, hardcover graphic novels, and trade paperback collections in November, using a spate of "All-New" Marvel first issues to keep pace with the previous year's clip. The four-week month ended just a few hundred thousand dollars behind November 2011's five-week month, which was the best month in the immediate aftermath of the DC relaunch.



Yet November 2012 actually topped that month in unit sales for periodicals. Every issue in the Top 10 had orders over 110,000 copies. This appears to be the first time there have been ten comic books with orders in six-digits since July 2007. The DC relaunch in 2011 topped out with eight. There were only 19 issues in all of 2010 that beat 100,000 in their first month, so this is a meaningful change.



Marvel's eight titles in the Top 10 was its best showing since February 2009, the first reorder month for the Obama Spider-Man issue.



IDW had its best showing to date for a single issue on the Diamond chart, with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic #1, placing 15th. It was also the highest rank for a non-Marvel-DC-Image issue on the charts since Buffy: The Vampire Slayer last reached 14th place in May 2009.

IDW's previous best had been set by Godzilla Kingdom of Monsters #1 in March 2011, at 16th place — but in a sign of how the market has improved since then, My Little Pony had orders more than 80,000 copies, versus nearly 59,000 for Godzilla.



Read more in our preliminary and final analysis posts for the month. 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 300 charts, plus any post-#300 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.

November 2012 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 300 charts, plus any post-#300 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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Led by Walking Dead Vol. 17: Something to Fear, Diamond's Top 300 graphic novel, hardcover and trade paperback collections had orders topping $7 million in November — off just 1% versus the previous November. But Diamond's overall sales for the category were down nearly 11%.



