You can't deny the powers of multi-media. An Avengers film, an X-Men film a Spider-Man fim and the Walking Dead TV series helped some impressive performances from Marvel and Image, dominating the top ten. Marvel Now! probably helped. The Walking Dead #100 is the best selling comic in the North American direct market in 2012, with Marvel taking the next nine spots, a mixture of Uncanny Avengers, Avengers Vs X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man #1 and Avengers #1 – which surprisingly seems to have beaten out All New X-Men #1 for a spot in the top ten.

The Dark Knight Rises only affected the collections it seems, as Batman and Walking Dead dominated the top ten of graphic novels sold, only the ten dollar League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 2009 making it into the top ten of units sold, and the only property in either top ten not to have have a connected multi-media franchise in operation that year.

The effect of Marvel NOW! Walking Dead and the DC relaunch all round has had a strong cumulative effect, with around a seventh more dollars spent on comics and graphic novels in 2012 than in 2011, and around an eighth more actual comics sales

And while Marvel dominated DC in terms of marketshare both for dollars and units sold, it was by less than in 2011. Indeed DC's marketshare stayed around the same, with dollar share moving from 31.41% to 31.84% and unit marketshare moving from 36.77% to 36.75%. But Marvel's dollar share dropped from 37.29% to 34.06% and their unit share from 40.93% to only 37.59%. So where did that lost Marvel marketshare go?

The Walking Dead. Image's unit marketshare jumped from 5.27% to 7.31% and their dollar marketshare jumped from 4.71% to 6.60%. IDW solidified their lead on Dark Horse. Last year they were very close in marketshare with IDW taking the lead by small fractions of percentage points, now they are getting closer to being a whole percentage point in the lead.

But with sales up so much year on year, even if company's marketshares are up and down against each other, overall, everyone has sold more comics and made more money in 2012 than in 2011.

Will we get the same for 2013 as the US economy continues to improve and pull out of recession?

TOP COMIC BOOK PUBLISHERS

RETAIL MARKET SHARE PUBLISHER SHARE MARVEL COMICS 34.06% DC ENTERTAINMENT 31.94% IMAGE COMICS 7.31% IDW PUBLISHING 5.57% DARK HORSE COMICS 4.81% DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT 3.11% BOOM! STUDIOS 1.53% EAGLEMOSS PUBLICATIONS LTD 1.15% VIZ MEDIA 0.93% AVATAR PRESS INC 0.89% OTHER NON-TOP 10 8.70% UNIT MARKET SHARE PUBLISHER SHARE MARVEL COMICS 37.59% DC ENTERTAINMENT 36.75% IMAGE COMICS 6.60% IDW PUBLISHING 4.36% DARK HORSE COMICS 3.80% DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT 3.00% BOOM! STUDIOS 1.53% ZENESCOPE ENTERTAINMENT INC 0.74% AVATAR PRESS INC 0.73% ARCHIE COMIC PUBLICATIONS 0.69% OTHER NON-TOP 10 4.22%

COMPARATIVE SALES STATISTICS

DOLLARS UNITS YEAR 2012 VS. YEAR 2011 COMICS 14.94% 11.41% GRAPHIC NOVELS 14.26% 13.66% TOTAL COMICS/GN 14.72% 11.58%

TOP 10 COMICS

RANK DESCRIPTION PRICE ITEM CODE VENDOR 1 WALKING DEAD #100 (MR) $3.99 JUN128066-M IMA 2 UNCANNY AVENGERS #1 $3.99 AUG120550-M MAR 3 AVENGERS VS X-MEN #1 $3.99 JAN120629-M MAR 4 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #700 $7.99 OCT120626-M MAR 5 AVENGERS VS X-MEN #2 $3.99 JAN128269-M MAR 6 AVENGERS VS X-MEN #6 $3.99 APR120579-M MAR 7 AVENGERS VS X-MEN #5 $3.99 APR120572-M MAR 8 AVENGERS VS X-MEN #3 $3.99 JAN128271-M MAR 9 AVENGERS VS X-MEN #4 $3.99 JAN128273-M MAR 10 AVENGERS #1 $3.99 SEP120526-M MAR

TOP 10 GRAPHIC NOVELS

RANK DESCRIPTION PRICE ITEM CODE VENDOR 1 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 01 DAYS GONE BYE $9.99 JUL068351 IMA 2 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 02 MILES BEHIND US (MR) $14.99 SEP088204-M IMA 3 BATMAN EARTH ONE HC $22.99 MAR120234 DC 4 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 16 A LARGER WORLD (MR) $14.99 APR120487 IMA 5 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 03 SAFETY BEHIND BARS $14.99 NOV082245 IMA 6 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 17 SOMETHING TO FEAR (MR) $14.99 SEP120449 IMA 7 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 04 HEARTS DESIRE $14.99 SEP088205-M IMA 8 BATMAN HC VOL 01 THE COURT OF OWLS (N52) $24.99 JAN120300 DC 9 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 15 WE FIND OURSELVES (MR) $14.99 OCT110502 IMA 10 LOEG III CENTURY #3 2009 (MR) $9.95 APR121232 TOP