October 2011 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Comics Shipped to North American Comics Shops
Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

Covers and issue links on this page lead to current eBay listings. This site may be compensated if you make a purchase.

Comics retailers in North America spent 11.93% more ordering comic books and trade paperbacks in October 2011 than they did in the previous October. Orders were also up 2.67% over September, which was the first full month of the DC "New 52" relaunch.

Records abounded. Retailers ordered comics in the Top 300 worth $25.36 million in October, the highest total for that figure since the Diamond Exclusive Era began in the mid-1990s. The previous record was held by October 2008, with $24.9 million in orders. (The totals in the early 1990s were likely higher, even given inflation.)

DC placed more titles in the Top 300 than any publisher since the Diamond Exclusive Era began in 1996: 129. All but one of the "New 52" titles that launched in the previous month reappeared in the Top 300. A consequence of that is that only 13 publishers made the Top 300, the lowest level since the folding of Heroes World Distribution in 1997. 

Another consequence of all those reorders was that the floor on the charts was significantly raised. Robert E. Howard's Savage Sword #3 from Dark Horse set a record for the highest number of copies ordered at the 300th-place position, 5,167 copies. It beat a nearly 15-year-old record, Archie's Cheryl Blossom Goes Hollywood from November 1996.

DC's market-leading dollar share was 42.47%, which beat its old Diamond Exclusive Era dollar share record of 40.88%, set in December 1999. That was the JLA Earth 2 month, and DC had 39 more comics than Marvel in the Top 300 that month — giving DC more than double Marvel's market share. The 42.47%-to-29.10% gap between DC and Marvel in October 2011 was thus by no means the largest seen — and in fact, with the growth of the market in the month, it's not necessarily the case that all of DC's increase came at the expense of others' final order totals.

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 chart plus any post-#300 items from its Top Independent 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.
Click to read the methodology for this table's estimates.
Distributor charts are regional commodity reports, not measures of a work's total reach. Read our FAQ.
Title links below lead to current listings for the issues on eBay. As an eBay Partner, this site may be compensated if you make a purchase.

October 2011 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 Graphic Novel charts, plus any post-#300 items from its Top Independent and Manga charts. If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.

The links lead to title details on Amazon (paid links). You can also find the books at your comics shop.

Trades were off this month, but the Top 300 comics plus the Top 300 trades posted their highest dollar sales since July 2009. The Flashpoint hardcover was the top seller, with a Walking Dead hardcover in second and the Batman: Arkham City hardcover in third.