Observations on the Diamond 2014 Charts

Sorry I haven't been able to update much here, for those few who might still be following. I have some ideas for things to post, but haven't gotten around to doing the grunt work in getting the data ready.

The year-end 2015 numbers from Diamond did come out recently. Here are the Top 1000 charts at ComiChron, which has the best formatted version, follow the links in sidebar to see them at the other usual sites.

As usual, no real surprises on the Comics side, just the stuff that's in the Top 100 every month, with a few things drifting up or down a few places based on reorders or returns, and possibly some overships from Marvel (it's hard to figure out the Marvel numbers, since they're now relaunching books with the same title in the same calendar year). The only real news is the 25 cent issue of INVINCIBLE, which Diamond didn't include in the monthly numbers under their "promotional items" exemption, but did include in the year-end, so we know it shipped 46.3k, almost four times the normal sales for the book. And had almost no impact on sales of the ongoing book, which jumped up just a bit over normal sales on the next issue, then drifted down and currently sells less than it did before the 25 cent issue.

Much more new information in the Graphic Novels chart. As I noted on both the 2013 and 2014 charts, it's quite possible for a book to make the Top 1000 for the year but never make the Top 300 for any given month. With a cut-off of 1778 copies for the year, average sales of 148 copies a month would suffice. Taking out a few category errors, I come up with 147 such books on the chart, the highest being HULK: WORLD WAR HULK at #333 with 3600 copies, or 300 a month.

DC has the most, with 70 such entries. A mix of stuff, quite a few Vertigo (FABLES, SANDMAN, single volumes of other series), lots of the early New 52 collections and some collections of earlier stuff.

Marvel has 30 books on the list, with over a quarter being DEADPOOL books, plus various old crossovers, single volumes of some series and old standbys like THE PHOENIX SAGA and DAYS OF FUTURE PAST.

Image has 15, including five middle volumes of CHEW, several MANHATTAN PROJECT volumes and a few WALKING DEAD hardcovers.

12 from Dark Horse, most of the them AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER, plus a few HELLBOY books and some single volumes.

IDW has 9, LOCKE AND KEY representing 5 of them (all but the first book, which does make the Top 300 more often than not), plus MY LITTLE PONY twice and a few others.

A few other publishers had a handful of books in this category, usually one volume of a longer series, titles like ATTACK ON TITAN, BONE, CROSSED, SCOTT PILGRIM and others.

For those curious, here's the full list:

#333 - Hulk WWH (Marvel) - 3600
#368 - Deadpool By Daniel Way Complete Coll Vol. 3 (Marvel) - 3381
#377 - Sandman Vol. 4 Season of Mists (DC) - 3325
#395 - Batgirl Vol. 1 The Darkest Reflection (DC) - 3213
#403 - Wonder Woman Vol. 2 Guts (DC) - 3188
#410 - Justice League Vol. 4 The Grid (DC) - 3145
#417 - Green Lantern Vol. 1 Sinestro (DC) - 3103
#426 - Batman The Man Who Laughs (DC) - 3043
#428 - American Vampire Vol. 1 (DC) - 3038
#432 - Locke & Key Vol. 2 Head Games (IDW) - 3027
#441 - Deadpool Classic Vol. 2 (Marvel) - 2992
#456 - Infinity War (Marvel) - 2952
#480 - Death of Superman (DC) - 2838
#486 - Harley Quinn Welcome To Metropolis (DC) - 2819
#490 - Deadpool By Daniel Way Complete Coll Vol. 4 (Marvel) - 2805
#496 - Harley Quinn Night And Day (DC) - 2778
#505 - Batman Rip (DC) - 2758
#514 - Aquaman Vol. 2 The Others (DC) - 2720
#518 - Fables Vol. 4 March of the Wooden Soldiers (DC) - 2716
#535 - Avatar Last Airbender Vol. 5 Search Part 2 (Dark Horse) - 2686
#537 - Civil War Captain America (Marvel) - 2682
#547 - Fables Vol. 20 Camelot (DC) - 2661
#551 - Batman HC Vol. 3 Death of the Family (DC) - 2652
#553 - Nightwing Vol. 2 Night of the Owls (DC) - 2641
#562 - Avatar Last Airbender Vol. 7 Rift Part 1 (Dark Horse) - 2604
#568 - Teen Titans Vol. 1 Its Our Right To Fight (DC) - 2593
#575 - True Lives of Fabulous Killjoys (Dark Horse) - 2575
#577 - Avatar Last Airbender Vol. 9 Rift Part 3 (Dark Horse) - 2572
#581 - Deadpool Vs. Marvel Universe (Marvel) - 2568
#582 - Batman Dark Knight Vol. 1 Knight Terrors (DC) - 2567
#591 - Avatar Last Airbender Vol. 6 Search Part 3 (Dark Horse) - 2535
#592 - Harley Quinn Vengeance Unlimited (DC) - 2534
#598 - Manhattan Projects Vol. 2 (Image) - 2515
#599 - Avatar Last Airbender Vol. 2 Promise Part 2 (Dark Horse) - 2514
#609 - Justice League Trinity War (DC) - 2487
#612 - Chew Vol. 8 Family Recipes (Image) - 2480
#613 - Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol. 2 Starfire (DC) - 2479
#621 - Crossed Vol. 1 (Avatar) - 2457
#628 - Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 1 Revival (Marvel) - 2439
#630 - Superman Earth One Vol. 1 (DC) - 2437
#632 - Life After Vol. 1 (Oni) - 1924
#633 - Thor God of Thunder Vol. 1 God Butcher (Marvel) - 2429
#634 - New Teen Titans Vol. 1 (DC) - 2428
#635 - Bone Color Ed Sc Vol. 1 Out Boneville (Scholastic) - 2427
#636 - Sandman Vol. 5 A Game of You (DC) - 2425
#638 - Chew Vol. 4 Flambe (Image) - 2411
#641 - Inhuman Vol. 1 Genesis (Marvel) - 2407
#648 - X-Men Days of Future Past (Marvel) - 2381
#649 - Deathstroke Vol. 1 Legacy (DC) - 2378
#650 - Marvel Zombies Vol. 1 Complete Collection (Marvel) - 2378
#651 - Locke & Key Vol. 3 Crown of Shadows (IDW) - 2377
#659 - Avatar Last Airbender Vol. 8 Rift Part 2 (Dark Horse) - 2362
#667 - Civil War Amazing Spider-Man (Marvel) - 2340
#670 - Batman HC Vol. 1 The Court of Owls (DC) - 2332
#671 - Flashpoint World of Flashpoint Batman (DC) - 2324
#677 - Avatar Last Airbender Vol. 3 Promise Part 3 (Dark Horse) - 2311
#679 - Captain Marvel Vol. 1 In Pursuit of Flight (Marvel) - 2307
#683 - Attack On Titan Vol. 3 (Random House) - 2290
#684 - Teen Titans Go Titans Together New Ptg (DC) - 2290
#688 - Preacher Book 6 (DC) - 2284
#693 - Sandman Vol. 6 Fables And Reflections (DC) - 2273
#695 - Wonder Woman Vol. 3 Iron (DC) - 2272
#696 - TMNT Ongoing Vol. 1 (IDW) - 2271
#713 - Venom Vs. Carnage (Marvel) - 2238
#719 - All New X-Men Vol. 1 Yesterdays X-Men (Marvel) - 2226
#721 - Avengers Vol. 1 Avengers World (Marvel) - 2219
#724 - Fables Vol. 5 The Mean Seasons (DC) - 2217
#725 - Locke & Key Vol. 6 Alpha & Omega (IDW) - 2217
#732 - Batman Detective Comics Vol. 2 Scare Tactics (DC) - 2202
#734 - Prophet Vol. 1 Remission (Image) - 2201
#738 - Phonogram Vol. 1 Rue Britanna (Image) - 2191
#746 - Aquaman Vol. 3 Throne of Atlantis (DC) - 2180
#751 - Nightwing Vol. 1 Bludhaven (DC) - 2170
#753 - Nightwing Vol. 3 Death of the Family (DC) - 2168
#754 - Batman & Robin Vol. 2 Pearl (DC) - 2155
#756 - Batman Superman Vol. 1 Cross World (DC) - 2153
#758 - Chew Vol. 5 Major League Chew (Image) - 2147
#760 - Green Lantern Rebirth New Edition (DC) - 2143
#764 - Locke & Key Vol. 4 Keys To The Kingdom (IDW) - 2136
#766 - Chew Vol. 7 Bad Apples (Image) - 2135
#769 - Manhattan Projects Vol. 3 (Image) - 2128
#770 - Manhattan Projects Vol. 4 Four Disciplines (Image) - 2128
#773 - Legend of Zelda Vol. 3 Majoras Mask (Viz) - 2122
#783 - She-Hulk Vol. 1 Law And Disorder (Marvel) - 2093
#788 - Game of Thrones HC Vol. 1 (Random House) - 2080
#791 - Green Lantern Vol. 2 Revenge of Black Hand (DC) - 2075
#798 - Justice League Dark Vol. 1 In The Dark (DC) - 2068
#800 - Walking Dead HC Vol. 2 (Image) - 2067
#802 - Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol. 3 Death of Family (DC) - 2066
#803 - Revival Vol. 2 Live Like You Mean It (Image) - 2064
#808 - Transmetropolitan Vol. 2 Lust For Life (DC) - 2054
#809 - Wolverine Origin (Marvel) - 2053
#810 - Green Arrow Vol. 4 The Kill Machine (DC) - 2050
#811 - I Kill Giants Fifth Annv Ed (Image) - 2046
#814 - Green Arrow Vol. 2 Triple Threat (DC) - 2038
#815 - Batman And Robin Vol. 1 Batman Reborn (DC) - 2037
#816 - Civil War Road To Civil War (Marvel) - 2036
#818 - Locke & Key Vol. 5 Clockworks (IDW) - 2035
#820 - Sandman Vol. 7 Brief Lives (DC) - 2033
#821 - Superman Action Comics Vol. 1 Superman Men of Steel (DC) - 2033
#822 - JLA Vol. 1 (DC) - 2032
#823 - Wonder Woman Vol. 4 War (DC) - 2032
#825 - Black Butler Vol. 1 New Ptg (Hachette) - 2027
#826 - Chew Vol. 6 Space Cakes (Image) - 2026
#829 - League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Omnibus (DC) - 2022
#837 - Nightwing Vol. 5 Setting Son (DC) - 2014
#852 - God Is Disappointed In You HC (IDW) - 1996
#853 - Hellboy In Hell Vol. 1 Descent (Dark Horse) - 1993
#858 - Fables Vol. 6 Homelands (DC) - 1991
#861 - Batgirl Vol. 2 Knightfall Descends (DC) - 1985
#863 - Princeless Vol. 1 New Ptg (Action Lab) - 1981
#876 - Batman & Robin Vol. 3 Death of the Family (DC) - 1954
#877 - Nightwing Vol. 4 Second City (DC) - 1953
#883 - New Avengers Vol. 1 Everything Dies (Marvel) - 1941
#884 - Scott Pilgrim Color HC Vol. 2 (Oni) - 1941
#889 - Deadpool Vs. X-Force (Marvel) - 1934
#891 - Spider-Man Maximum Carnage (Marvel) - 1929
#892 - Saga of the Swamp Thing Book 2 (DC) - 1927
#893 - Avatar Last Airbender Lost Adventures Vol. 1 (Dark Horse) - 1926
#896 - Batman Knightfall Vol. 2 Knightquest (DC) - 1925
#898 - Deadpool Classic Vol. 3 (Marvel) - 1924
#902 - Batman HC Vol. 2 The City of Owls (DC) - 1916
#904 - My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic Vol. 2 (IDW) - 1916
#910 - Deadpool By Posehn And Duggan HC Vol. 1 (Marvel) - 1908
#911 - X-Men Dark Phoenix Saga (Marvel) - 1908
#917 - Earth 2 Vol. 1 The Gathering (DC) - 1894
#921 - Attack On Titan No Regrets Vol. 1 (Random House) - 1888
#926 - My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic Vol. 3 (IDW) - 1882
#932 - Superman Vol. 1 What Price Tomorrow (DC) - 1877
#938 - Daredevil By Mark Waid Vol. 1 (Marvel) - 1864
#939 - Sandman Vol. 9 The Kindly Ones (DC) - 1863
#940 - Blacksad HC (Dark Horse) - 1859
#944 - 100 Bullets Book 1 (DC) - 1850
#946 - Hellboy Vol. 2 Wake The Devil (Dark Horse) - 1848
#952 - Aquaman Vol. 4 Death of A King (DC) - 1844
#957 - Izombie Vol. 3 Six Feet Under And Rising (DC) - 1838
#958 - Fables Deluxe Edition HC Vol. 1 (DC) - 1836
#966 - Superior Spider-Man Vol. 2 Troubled Mind Now (Marvel) - 1827
#967 - Morning Glories Vol. 1 For A Better Future (Image) - 1825
#968 - Astonishing X-Men Whedon Cassaday Ult Coll Book 1 (Marvel) - 1823
#969 - Walking Dead HC Vol. 10 (Image) - 1822
#975 - Shazam Vol. 1 (DC) - 1811
#976 - Joker Death of the Family HC (DC) - 1810
#978 - Green Arrow Vol. 5 Outsiders War (DC) - 1809
#980 - Legend of Zelda Vol. 2 Ocarina Time Pt 2 (Viz) - 1807
#992 - Deadpool Vol. 4 Monkey Business (Marvel) - 1786
#998 - Fables Vol. 19 Snow White (DC) - 1780

Various new charts

Brian Hibbs has his analysis of the 2014 Bookscan charts in his Tilting at Windmills column, including a link to a spreadsheet of the top 750 comics.

ICV2 has their Bookscan Top 20 for February up now. Note for those comparing past charts, this particular chart was recently changed to include non-fiction, so now includes several books (those by Roz Chast and John Lewis this month) which wouldn't have been included before.

The February 2015 Diamond numbers are also up at the usual places, including Comichron. See sidebar for links to the other usual charts and articles.

A few quick notes on the Diamond numbers, since I probably won't get around to any longer post this month. Obviously, as noted everywhere, the ORPHAN BLACK debut at #1 with 497k is almost entirely due to it being included in Loot Crate. For comparison, the previous highest selling IDW book was MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #1 in 2012, at 80k. Also, note that it only ranked #3 in Diamond's Dollar Rank, indicating a higher than normal discount off cover price (previous Loot Crate propelled #1 books outsold the other books that month by such a margin that a higher discount wouldn't be evident).

It would be incredibly surprising if #2 sells more than 10% of what #1 did. Which means the 84% drop that STAR WARS #2 posted probably won't last as the highwater mark for second issue drops (if you ignore books with promotionally priced $1 first issues). Second issues as a whole dropped an average of 35%.

The Top 300 Graphic Novels chart was almost evenly split, 152 new items, 148 backlist, which seems to be about normal now in months where there's no evidence of massive backlist sales from Marvel or DC. There are around 90 books which you can count on to chart almost every month (I'll try to update that list this month), not too many surprises overall.

Observations on the Diamond 2014 Charts

Comichron has the Diamond Top 1000 Comics and Graphic Novels charts over here.

No big surprises in the Comics chart that you couldn't glean from the monthly charts. The two big anomalies are AVENGERS #35 and WINTER SOLDIER BITTER MARCH #1. The monthly charts suggest sales around 50.6k and 31.1k respectively, while the year-end numbers come in at 105.5k and 65.7k, slightly more than double the expected sales. Apparently Marvel double shipped those books to retailers, and Diamond didn't count the free copies in the monthly numbers, but did in the year-end. Another double-shipped book, INHUMAN #8, counted the free copies in both the monthly year-end charts. Other than those anomalies, most books are within a few percentage points of their expected sales from the monthly charts, with a few moving up or down a few places due to their monthly numbers being reduced for returnability or having consistent below-the-radar reorder activity.

The Top 1000 Graphic Novels list is much more interesting, because it's actually possible for a book to never make the monthly Top 300 but still accumulate enough sales over the year to make the Top 1000. The list bottoms out at 1749 copies in 2014, which means an average monthly sale of 146 copies will get you on the list. I discussed the topic for the 2013 charts over here. For 2014, there were 145 titles on the chart that were never on the monthly list.

Three can be dismissed as categorization errors:
46 Minecraft Official Mojang Essential Handbook HC - 10711
824 Mike Mignola Hellboy Artist Ed - 2054
902 Steranko Nick Fury Agent of Shield Artist Ed HC - 1918

Those were put on the "Books" chart by Diamond in their initial release months, but moved to the "Graphic Novel" chart for year-end numbers. Other Minecraft and Artist Edition books were sometimes classed as "Books", other times as "Graphic Novels".

That leaves 142 books which stayed under-#300 during the year but still sold over 1749 copies. The top book in that category is #288, Aquaman Vol. 2 The Others, with 4101 copies, or about 342 a month on average.  Here's the breakdown of the 142 by publisher:

DC -- 90
Marvel -- 14
Image -- 12
Dark Horse -- 10
Oni -- 4
Boom -- 3
IDW -- 2
Scholastic -- 2
Abstract -- 1
Avatar -- 1
Dynamite -- 1
Random House -- 1
Viz -- 1

DC has a lot of Vertigo (Fables, Y The Last Man, Sandman, etc) and a lot of Batman, plus early volumes of their New 52 books and some old crossovers (including Crisis on Infinite Earths).

Deadpool is the most common Marvel book in this category with five books, plus two each of Hulk and X-Men and some single books.

Image has a few later volumes of series like Chew and Fatale, a few first volumes of on-going books and some Walking Dead hardcovers.

Dark Horse has two each of Serenity and Umbrella Academy, plus various single books, mostly first volumes.

Oni is all Scott Pilgrim, the new colour volumes mostly.

Boom has their cartoon adaptations, Adventure Time and Bravest Warrior.

IDW is all Locke & Key.

Scholastic has the first volumes of Bone and Amulet.

Abstract, Avatar, Dynamite, Random House and Viz all are represented by the first volumes of Crossed, Sailor Moon, Boys, Rachel Rising and Legend of Zelda, not necessarily in that order.

More on the charts later.

2014 Year End Sales

We're starting to get the 2014 year end sales. I'll update this post with relevant links as they come in.

Diamond's Top 500 Comics with index
Diamond's Top 500 Graphic Novels with index

The index point for those charts will probably end up being around 1133 [edited to add, turned out to be 1132.55 according to Comichron, so almost nailed it. Here are the definitive Top 1000 charts, if I ever cite 2014 Diamond sales that's the page I'm using].

Using that, on the Comics chart AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 will come in at about 559k, WALKING DEAD #132 at 326k, BATMAN #32 at 133k, SERENITY LEAVES ON THE WIND #1 at 70k and LIFE WITH ARCHIE COMIC #36 at 57k.

On the books side, SAGA TP VOL 03 is about 62.2k, BATMAN TP VOL 01 THE COURT OF OWLS is about 24.8k, GUARDIANS OF GALAXY TP VOL 01 COSMIC AVENGERS is about 23.8k, AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE TP VOL 01 is about 13.8k, AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER TP VOL 07 RIFT PART 1 is about 11.5k, NEMO ROSES OF BERLIN HC is about 10.8k.

ICV2 has the Top 1000 for each category (501-1000 for Comics, 501-1000 for Graphic Novels). Unfortunately no index values, although they do have the retail rank which points out a few interesting anomalies, like comics which the publisher overshipped or older books which were blown out at high discounts. I'll wait to see if the info is posted elsewhere with index values or estimated sales (at Comichron, most likely) before looking too closely, but here are the top publishers by number of entries on each chart:

Comics - Entries in Top 1000
Marvel - 512
DC - 407
Image - 57
Dark Horse - 14
Archie - 4
Titan - 3
Dynamite - 1
Valiant - 1
IDW - 1

Graphic Novels - Entries in Top 1000

DC - 393

Marvel - 251

Image - 115

Dark Horse - 88

IDW - 36

Random House - 25

Boom - 19

Viz - 17

Oni - 10

The Beat has five Top 100 charts, one for Manga and two each (Comics and GNs) for Small Press and Indie publishers, as Diamond defines them. There's a lot of overlap in those categories, if you combine them you get 367 distinct titles.