This won’t get that much play, but yesterday, a truly amazing thing happened: for the first time in the Diamond era, spanning 16 years, over $50 million in comics and graphic novels were ordered by the direct market. Comichron breaks things down ever deeper, but how great is that? Just a few years ago we were talking about how badly the comic industry was suffering, and now we’re setting records.
Granted, some of this can be lumped into the record also being set for average cost per comic – $3.73, bolstered by #2 ordered comic Batman #24 which was $6.99 – and the fact that the four highest ordered graphic novels were a very high $24.99 or higher, but this is still very, very astounding.
Leading the way this month was the deluge of 10th Anniversary related “The Walking Dead” comics. The first issue of its current event “All Out War”, issue #115, set the highest orders of the year for any comic, with just over 310,000. The book also placed two other issues – a Tyreese special and a color 10th Anniversary edition of #1 (which was $5.99) – in the top 50, and three collections placed in the top 50 for the GN’s/trade paperbacks section. The ascent of “The Walking Dead” has been a huge part of the rise of revenue in comics over the past few years, but what happened in October was notable even in comparison to what has happened previously.
The month also found an array of huge debuts elevating the industry, as both “Superman/Wonder Woman” and “Sandman Overture” ranked in the top ten for the month. The latter is notable, as it has to be one of the biggest selling Vertigo issues ever, if not the biggest.
In all, 11 of the top 50 were issues designated #1, and while that may have had a little bit more value 10 years ago than it does today, that’s still pretty cool. You have books like the much publicized “Pretty Deadly” and “Velvet” taking spots #36 and #41 on the charts (although Comichron’s estimates list them lower than the announced sell-out print run of 57,000), and that is just tremendous and exciting for me as someone who reads comics and roots for them to do well.
In terms of overall dollar and unit share for publishers, Marvel and DC split those, but let’s call a spade a spade: in October, everybody won. This is just good news for everyone involved.
