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October 2017 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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October brought the restoration of many Marvel titles' legacy numberings (as well as the creation of several legacy titles through the cobbling-together of multiple miniseries) as part of its Legacy event. The promotion, which required retailers to meet certain thresholds to order special lenticular covers, helped Marvel and the Direct Market's orders increase 5% over September, but paled in comparison to sales from October 2016, the Rebirth-driven second-strongest month of 2016.



Many fewer new comics were released in October 2017 versus the year before, however: 484, down 8% or 52 comics from the year previous. Perhaps owing to Legacy, Marvel's release slate was its smallest in a long time; Marvel released 81 new comic books, its fewest since February 2016 and eight fewer than it released last October. The 7.62 million comic books retailers ordered, while nearly identical to orders from the previous two months, was off 21% from 2016's overstuffed October; that shortfall likely drops to 18% with the Loot Crate book from that month removed. Marvel's Thor #700 was its top seller, in advance of the release of the popular film, Thor: Ragnarok.



The Dark Multiverse event at DC — including the market-leading Dark Nights: Metal #3 (with North American shipments of 158,700 copies) and various Batman specials — dominated the top 10; orders continued to come in for Dark Nights: Metal #1, bringing it above 271,000 copies. While the Marvel Legacy lenticular covers were priced identically with their normal counterparts and thus combined in rankings by Diamond, two DC issues had different prices and were not. With orders fused, Action Comics #989 and #990 would have placed 9th and 12th respectively. Mister Miracle, one of September's most heavily reordered books, saw orders off very slightly from its second to third issue.



Image saw its dollar market share climb above 11% thanks to strong performances in the graphic novel category; trade paperback and hardcover sales to retailers overall were up slightly over the previous year.



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.

October 2017 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 posted a rare (for 2017) win, exceeding sales the same month in the previous year by 2%. Walking Dead: Here's Negan from Image led the charts.



