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January 2013 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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As a result of Diamond taking Christmas week off, most material that left its warehouses during the week after Christmas was counted as part of December, even though it had an on-sale date of January 2. But even with the first week of the calendar year counted with 2012 for Diamond's tracking purposes, this was only the second time in a decade that January sales beat the previous December's. Direct Market comics and graphic novel orders, led by Superior Spider-Man #1, were still up nearly $9 million over the previous January to $41 million, and unit sales of comics within the Top 300 were up nearly a million copies to 6.72 million.



Total retail orders in dollars in January almost doubled the level they were at ten years before, as publishers were more willing to release products during the winter months in 2013 than they had once been. Where January previously had seen some incredibly low totals for the titles at the bottom of the charts — as low as 660 copies for the 300th place title in January 2001 — January 2013's total was 4,257 copies for the 300th place book, up from 2,606 copies the previous January, a month that was strong on its own. At least 440 comic books were above the 1,000-copy level at Diamond in January 2013.



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.

January 2013 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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Graphic novels was the category that made the most difference in beating December 2012 overall. Fables Vol. 18 led the list, which was up nearly 22% over that month's GN sales, and an incredible 38% over the previous January.



