FINAL NORTH AMERICAN

COMICS MARKET ESTIMATES FOR

MARCH 2007   

Initial reports provided by Diamond Comic Distributors

Calculations by John Jackson Miller

Analysis: Cap's death brings life to end of 'dead quarter'  
 
Big media events helped propel comics orders for the first quarter of 2007 to a finish 12% over that of the same time last year, according to John Jackson Miller's analysis of the sales reports released by Diamond Comic Distributors on April 13.

The attention surrounding the death of Captain America and the 300 movie helped round out a quarter which in past decades had been a momentum-killer for the business, said Standard Catalog of Comic Books co-author Miller, who researches comics circulation on his specialty site, The Comics Chronicles.

"Overall, the market was actually down slightly year-over-year for March," Miller said, "but it was up in all narrower categories, and the strength of January and February helped boost the quarter overall."

Comics unit sales: The Top 300 comic books had retailer orders of slightly over 7 million copies in March, about 4,000 copies more than the total from the same month last year.

To date, unit sales for the Top 300 each month add up to 20.3 million copies, up 9% over last year's total of 18.61 million copies.

Marvel's Captain America #25 topped the list, and Diamond recorded all versions of the issue together with a total of 290,500 copies. Miller estimates that approximately 193,000 of the copies were the original version, with the Epting cover accounting for the remainder. Not counted in that total are the copies shipped to the United Kingdom market, Miller said.

Comics dollar sales: The Top 300 comic books had sales worth $22.44million in March. The total is 4% more than last March's total of $21.51 million. more than the same month last year.

To date this year, comics dollar sales stand at $64.14 million, up 14% over last year's total of $56.3 million.
 
 
Trade paperbacks: The Top 100 Trade Paperbacks and graphic novels reported by Diamond had orders worth $4.14 million at full retail in March, an increase of 2% over the same month last year, when the figure was $4.05 million. In the year to date, the Top 100 trades frome each month amount to $11.89 million, up 8% over last year's total of $11.04 million.

Dark Horse's 300 hardcover provided an unambiguous case of movie attention helping a comics product, Miller said. The volume had more than a quarter million dollars worth of orders at full retail and led the list for March.

Adding the Top 100 trades to the Top 300 Comics for the month yields $26.58 million, an increase of 9% over the $25.56 million ordered in the same month last year. In the year to date, this category stands at $76.03 million, up 13% over last year's sum of $67.34 million.
 

Exclusive: Diamond’s “overall” sales: In the most inclusive category calculated by anyone in comics, CBG is able to estimate Diamond’s total sales for comics and trade paperbacks, including all those not in the Top 300/100 every month.
 
“Diamond publishes dollar market shares for its top 20 publishers across all comics, trade paperbacks, and magazines,” Miller said. “Knowing the exact total orders of any publisher on that list right down to the oldest backlist item allows you to calculate Diamond’s total orders across these product groups.”
 
The March 2007 total was $33.43 million, which increases to $36.39 million, when Diamond’s estimated United Kingdom orders are added. The figure is down 4% from the $34.8 million ordered in the U.S. in the same month last year. 

In the year to date, overall sales stand at $99.3 million, up 12% from last year's $36.39 million.

Miller cautions that the “overall” category overstates comics’ actual performance to the extent that magazines that do not have comics content are included. The comics publishers’ market shares would actually be slightly higher, if ancillary items were removed.

Dark Horse bested Image for third in both comic-book unit sales and in the wider categories, posting its best share performance since the release of the final Star Wars movie in 2005.
 

Price analysis: The average comic book on Diamond’s Top 300 list cost $3.27, up from $3.15 in the same month in 2006.
 
The weighted average price – that is, the cost of the average comic book Diamond sold – was $3.20, up from $3.08 last year.
 
The average price of the comics that made the Top 25 was $3.17. 

Historical context:Comics Buyer’s Guidemaintains an online library of past sales figures.  The archive of all months posted from September 1996 to the present appears here. For earlier decades, check the Standard Catalog; Miller's ongoing research on this period can be found here.
 
 
Methodology: Diamond keys orders for all comics it lists sales for to Batman, with one “order index point” being equal to 1% of that title’s orders. Using actual Diamond final orders from titles accounting for more than 25% of Diamond’s Top 300, Miller determined that one point on Diamond’s order index was likely to equal 805 comic books – with a 95% probability that the real figure was between 804 and 806.
 
For more information: Historical graphics for several categories tracked above appear in Comics & Games Retailer magazine. Also, check issues of Comics Buyer’s Guide and CBGXtra.com. Data for comics back to 1960 can also  be found on The Comics Chronicles.

<<< Last month • • •  Year in review • • •  Charts Home  • • •  Next month >>>