Mayo Report for 2021-06
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Top Comics List Top Comics Breakdown Top Trades List Top Trades Breakdown
June 2021 had 6,203,093 units in the top 300 comics list. The premiere publishers accounted for 92.18% of the total units for the top 300 comics this month while all of the other publishers with items in the top 300 accounted for 7.82% of the total units for the top 300 comics.
June 2021 is the first month of indexed sales data since the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown comic distribution in April 2020. The first few months after new comics started flowing again in May 2020 had reduced output as the industry adjusted to the pandemic setting. They also had no sales data at all released by Diamond or the new distributors of UCS and Lunar. Diamond released unindexed sales data for August, September and October 2020. Without an index value for each item on the list there is no way to calculate how many units of each item sold. Knowing how many units were sold of each it is essential to doing issue-to-issue and month-to-month comparisons. Even that limit data stopped after October 2020. The release of June 2021 indexed sales data is the first useful sales data released by Diamond in over a year.
For reference, March 2020 had 5,443,812 units in the top 300 comics list. Not only are sales in June 2021 up by 759,284 units from March 2020 and that was done without any items from DC Comics.
The shaded area is the period when no indexed sales data was released. April 2020 is listed as having zero units of sales since no items were distributed during that month. Hopefully the data for that year will be released to fill that gap in the data.
At first glance it looks like sales went up during the pandemic. But with just one month of sales data we can't know if this is a trend or an anomaly. This is one of the many reasons why releasing the past year of sales data would be useful. This chart of the June 2021 along with the history of the invoiced sales data for the top 300 comic from February 2003 through March 2020 shows the month-to-month variance which can sometimes be as large as a change of over 2 million units up or down.
The industry had radically changed in the past year. No comic were released in April 2020. This was the first time the industry came to a full stop for anything more than the occasional skip week at the end of the year. DC dropped Diamond as a distributor and two new distributors were spun up to distributor comics for DC, UCS by Midtown Comics and Lunar by DCBS. UCS later stopped distributing for DC leaving Lunar as the sole distributor for DC. More recently Marvel announced it would be switching from Diamond to Penguin Random House for distribution. Unlike DC, Marvel items will still be available through Diamond which will be getting them from Penguin Random House.
Since none of the distributors have released indexed sales data since March 2020 we are left with a lengthy gap in the invoiced sales data which otherwise stretched back to February 2003. From March 2003 back, Diamond released sales data based on preorders instead of invoiced orders with a two month overlap in February and March 2003. Since both types of data were released for February and March 2003, we can see the significant differences between the two datasets. The most obvious difference is that items solicited but never released were included in the preorders and not in the invoiced orders. Perhaps the less obvious difference was the changes in the orders between in the initial preorders and what was invoiced to stores when the items were release due to orders placed before.
Much like February 2003 set a new baseline for data, June 2021 marks a similar sort of new baseline since we can't compare the June 2021 data to the prior month since the indexed sales data for that month (or the previous year) has not been released. There are a few important differences between the February 2003 baseline and this new June 2021 baseline.
With the February 2003 baseline point, it was inaccurate to comparing the prior preorder data with the new stream of invoiced data since they measured difference things. Comparing preorders to invoiced orders is an inherently flawed comparison. For starters, not all of the items preordered actually shipped so that dataset include items which weren't actually sales. On the other hand, any advance reorders or reorderes filled in the initial month of release were also not included. Shifting from preorders to invoiced orders improved the available sales metric by providing information on what happened versus what was initially expected to happen.
With this new baseline point, while we lack data from April 2020 to May 2021, we can compare the invoiced sales data from June 2021 forward to the invoiced sales data from February 2003 to March 2020 since they both measures the same thing: the invoiced sales to retailers during a given month. The problem is the short lifespan of modern titles. Out of the top 300 comics, 226 items with a total of 4,240,885 units were from titles launched After April 2020. That works out to over 68% o the unit sales across over three-quarters of the items on the list were from titles launch after April 2020. For most of the data in June 2021 there simply isn't any prior sales data for the titles to compare to or extrapolate trends from. This doesn't render useless the invoiced sales data from February 2003 to March 2020. But it does make it of limited use since it isn't for the majority of the titles publishers in June 2021.
Another important difference worth remembering with the June 2021 data which would also hold true for any sales data released by Diamond after the April 2020 is measuring is the same, the scope of the data has changed. DC items are no longer available through Diamond and therefore can't be included in the data released by Diamond. Since Lunar has not released any sales data, DC isn't included in my analysis. If I can get sales information for DC items and integrate it into my number crunching system then I'll included it in future analysis. A similar change in scope might happen when Marvel items cut over to being released through Penguin Random House depending if Penguin Random House releases sales data. If Penguin Random House does not release sales data then we should expect to see a drop in the Marvel sales reported by Diamond reflecting the sales to retailers which switched from Diamond to Penguin Random House.
Since a month-to-month and issue-to-issue comparisons can't be done without the prior sales data, this month will have to act as a new baseline. I'll take a quick look at the highlights of how each title did in aggregate, including any annuals, specials and reorder activity, starting with Marvel then going through each of the premiere publishers in order of descending sales and ending with all of the other publishers as a single group. I can't do the usual analysis comparing the June 2021 sales to past history since the past year of sales hasn't been released yet.
Marvel Comics placed 3,479,075 units in the top 300 comics and accounted for 56.09% of the total units. Nearly 59% of the unit sales for Marvel in the top 300 comics were from titles launched since April 2020.
Venom was he best selling title both for Marvel and overall thanks to the strong sales of 282,265 units for Venom #35 which was the 200th issue of the various Venom titles. Venom #34 had 4,979 units of reorder activity. The last known initial month sales for the tile were the 43,899 units for Venom #24 in March 2020.
Heroes Reborn did a total of 157,054 units across the final three issues of the miniseries with 3,132 units of reorder activity on the first issue. The unreleased sales data for May 2021 would should how the first four issue of the Hero Reborn miniseries did. Given the rapid release schedule and the sales of both the miniseries itself and the various associated one-shots, it seems possible that the miniseries might have started out with sales under 100,000 units. Based on the sales for the second half of the event, it looks like the event was a misfire and not any sort of major success. Potentially the event was success for in the first month.
It will be interesting to see if the upcoming movie has any impact on the comics book sales of Shang_Chi which sold 31,266 units in June 2021. If past trends hold true then it is unlikely the comic will see any significant increase in sales. The movie will certainly get some people interested in the property but that is likely to be spread across various collected editions than impact the comic book sales. The sales generated by the movie are also more likely to be in The digital and mass market channels than in the direct market.
Image Comics placed 1,111,130 units in the top 300 comics and accounted for 17.91% of the total units. Nearly two-third of the unit sales for Image in the top 300 comics were from titles launched after April 2020.
Spawn Universe launched strong with 184,198 units on the first issue. First issue sales are rarely indicative of the long term strength of a title. The sales of the next few issues will be a better indication if this is just interest in a first issue or the variant covers on it. Spawn #319 which was solicited as the launching point for the Spawn Universe sold 76,934 units which is well above the 35,026 units Spawn #306 sold in March 2020.
Department of Truth #10 sold 67,261 units. This is one of the multitude of titles which launched after the April 2020 distribution shutdown such as Gieger, Crossover, Fire Power, Walking Dead Deluxe and Radiant Black.
BOOM! Studios placed 552,421 units in the top 300 comics and accounted for 8.91% of the total units. Around 82% of the unit sales were from titles launched after April 2020.
Brzrkr (Berzerker) and Something is Killing the Children were the top selling titles at BOOM! Studios in June. Both had variants at two different price points ($3.99 and $4.99).
IDW Publishing placed 248,503 units in the top 300 comics and accounted for 4.01% of the Nearly all of the titles except Usagi Yojimbo and _Canto and the City of Giants are licensed properties. This dependency on licensed properties is not new for IDW Publishing nor is it a bad thing in and of itself. Nearly half of the unit sales were from titles launched after April 2020.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles seems to be up in sales compared to the March 2020 sales. The title was still in a bit of flux from the build up to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #100 in December 2019 and the expected sales drop after it. Potentially the renewed interest around that time helped the series. Without the sales data from the past year, we'll have to wait for a few months of sales data to build up to see what the current sales trend on this and other titles really looks like.
Dynamite Entertainment placed 180,159 units in the top 300 comics and accounted for 2.90% of the total units. Over 61% of the unit sales were from titles launched after April 2020.
The lineup of titles in the top 300 comics for Dynamite Entertainment center on the licensed properties of Vampirella and Red Sonja with other licensed properties like Bettie Page and James Bond. Dynamite Entertainment has a long history with licensed properties. Some of them they kept going for a while. Others they seem to over extend and burn out. Given the heavy focus on Vampirella and Red Sonja, those properties seem potentially at risk of being overused.
Dark Horse placed 146,952 units in the top 300 comics and accounted for 2.37% of the total units. Over 96% of the units sales for Dark Horse were from titles launched after April 2020.
Other Publishers placed 484,853 units in the top 300 comics and accounted for 7.82% of the total units. Over 92% of the unit sales from the other publishers were from titles launched after April 2020.
Artists Writers & Artisans launched in March 2020 with a handful of titles. Resistance #1 sold 26,095 units in March 2020 compared to 5,226 units for Resistance: Uprising #3 this month and the related title of Moths #1 which sold 14,648 units. Artists Writers & Artisans didn't have any titles or other properties which were in both datasets. This turn over in titles is not the at all unique to that publisher.
Hopefully, Diamond will retroactively release indexed sales data for the months of May 2020 to May 2021 so we can see how sales trends changed during the pandemic. While this would have been far more useful during that period of time, there is still a lot of value in releasing the data. For one thing, it could prove out if Diamond's post-shutdown slogan of "our comeback was bigger than our setback" was true or not. As much as I'd like to think it was, I'd much rather be able to prove or disprove it. Either way, seeing how the sales changed over that year would influence how we look at current sales trends.
I encourage Lunar and Penguin Random House to release compatible sales data so the sales of DC, Marvel and the other publishers they carry could be included in the sales analysis. Not having that sales data raises some questions which might not even come up if that sales data was available. For example, with some stores deciding not to carry DC after it left Diamond and seeing the June 2021 sales data without DC higher than the March 2020 data with DC, it might lead some people to wonder if the sales of DC Comics are still that important.
The various distributors withholding sales data over the past year puts the entire industry at an unnecessary disadvantage. While each store should order based on the trends at that store, knowing the overall sales trends can help identify potential titles worth taking a closer look at. The potential insights from the sales data during the pandemic could have and still can deepen our insights into the sales trends and the factors that influence them. That deeper understanding might spark some discussions and changes which could help the industry navigate the significant changes the industry has gone through over the past year and continues to go through. At the very least, the withholding of the sales data in combination with the significant turnover of titles is one of the main reasons June 2021 has to be treated as a new baseline for comics sales and the sales trends. At least, it does until the distributors release indexed sales data for the past year to fill in that gap.
For a more in-depth discussion of the sales data, check out the Mayo Report episodes of the Comic Book Page podcast at www.ComicBookPage.com. The episode archived cover the past decade of comic book sales on a monthly basis with yearly recap episodes. In addition to those episodes on the sales data, every Monday is either a Back Issue Spotlight focusing or the Monthly Comics Spotlight episode covering various items by DC, Marvel and the other publisher from the past month. I used to read around 200 new comics a month but my reading habits changed during the pandemic. If you are looking for more or different comics to read, check out the latest Previews Spotlight episode featuring clips from various comic book fans talking about the comics they love. With thousands of comics in Previews every month, Previews Spotlight episodes are a great way to find out about new comic book titles that may have flown under your comic book radar.
As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me at John.Mayo@ComicBookResources.com.
