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2018 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Comics Shipped to North American Comics Shops

Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors





OVERALL North American Dollar Sales for Diamond's Comics,

Graphic Novels, and Magazines for the year

around $516.59 Million

(down 1% year-over-year)





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After 2017 was the first down year in six for the Direct Market, 2018 served as a year of partial recovery, with two growth quarters bookended by two down ones. Diamond Comic Distributors reported that overall comics and graphic novel sales ended down 1% versus 2017. Our estimates for the Top Thousand Comic Books and Graphic Novels appear below; click to read our detailed analysis of those charts.



A fifth shipping week in January helped the month to the smallest year-to-year decline in Direct Market sales seen 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. No Doomsday Clock issue in February made for a slow month in comics shops. But whereas comics and graphic novels were equally responsible for 2017's overall shortfall, a lackluster graphic novel slate was the main culprit in February's decline, with periodicals nearly, but not quite, holding their own. Graphic novel sales continued to be weak in March, a month which further saw nearly 100 fewer comics release than the same month in the previous year — but the comics that did come out sold relatively better, including the finale issue of Dark Nights Metal. The first quarter finished down a little less than 9%.



The month of April was big for the Direct Market, thanks to a comic book 80 years in the making: Action Comics #1000, which shipped with ten variant covers and had orders worldwide exceeding 500,000 copies; the North American first-month portion accounted for 450,000 copies. Dan Slott's Amazing Spider-Man #800 topped 410,000 copies in May, and at $9.99 it both helped the month beat the top month of 2017 — while also driving the average weighted cover price for comics up to $4.40 for a month. June didn't have the same huge landmark issues, though a new Justice League #1 did top 200,000 copies. While the month was unable to beat the second-best month of 2017, the quarter finished higher, ending a year-and-a-half run of quarterly declines.



The second half of the year opened strongly in July, thanks to Batman #50's July 4 midnight release, a new Amazing Spider-Man #1, and the surprise-shipped Die! Die! Die! #1 from Image. (The latter does not appear below, because its 80,000-or-so initial copies were sent to retailers for free.) Batman #50 and Catwoman #1 were later announced to be returnable, but those adjustments have not been made to the figures below. August saw Marvel's First Family return to the shelves with Fantastic Four #1 shipping nearly 369,000 copies. It was the second month of the year in which both comics and graphic novels increased in dollar sales year over-year — and that happened again in September, a month in which Marvel released Return of Wolverine #1 and in which Image had new graphic novel releases for three of its best-selling titles: Saga, Walking Dead, and Monstress. The third quarter finished up 6% in dollars.



Direct Market orders moved ahead for the year for the first time in October, a five-shipping week month highlighted by the Venom movie and the 15th anniversary of Walking Dead, for which Image offered 15 different "blind bag" editions. November sent the year back into the red with a month that saw fewer new comics releases for any month in two and a half years. Uncanny X-Men #1 launched in the month with more than 176,000 copies sold. December was led by Batman Who Laughs #1, which was part of one of the smallest DC monthly periodical slates since 1991.



Unit sales comparisons during the year are much distorted, due to Marvel's overships in January 2017 and Image's 25-cent anniversary issues, as well as the fact that the reported million-copy selling 25¢ book DC Nation #0 was not counted in Diamond's comparative charts. 2017 also saw significantly more new comics released than 2018 had.



The final rankings for all comics and graphic novels during the year appear below.

Readers will find that the estimated final orders in the year for these comics exceed what was visible in the monthly charts; that's because of reorders for items that were not high enough to make the Top 500 lists in every month. You can also see the reorders that were placed during the whole year on our pages for reorders and advance reorders for 2018. There's also our video analysis of the year.

— John Jackson Miller



The chart below presents estimates based on Diamond's end-of-year chart.

Distributor charts are regional commodity reports, not measures of a work's total reach. Read our FAQ.

The links lead to listings for each issue on eBay. You can also find the books at your comics shop.





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 end-of-year chart.

The links lead to details about each title on Amazon. You can also find the books at your comics shop.



#1 #2 #3 #4

Infinity Gauntlet, drafting off the Avengers movie, was the year's bestselling graphic novel, allowing Marvel to dethrone Image, which had led the list all decade. Graphic novel sales were down overall, and significantly within the Top 1000.







My analyses of orders from Diamond Comic Distributors for individual months can be found below. Covers for later months depict some of the top advance-reordered books for each month:

Click to see the year's Reorders and Advance Reorders.



