Mayo Report for 2021-08
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Top Comics List Top Comics Breakdown Top Trades List Top Trades Breakdown
August 2021 had 5,247,173 units in the top 300 comics list, a decrease of 793,438 units from last month. This is the lowest reported total for the top 300 comics since May 2011, excluding April 2020 when no comics were distributed by Diamond and excluding the data gap from May 2020 and May 2021.
Three months isn't enough to define a trend. As we've seen in past years, it isn't uncommon for sales to drop for a couple of months in a row. One things that make these last three months different from the data prior to the data gap is the this recent data doesn't include DC. Given how similar the sales for June 2021 to August 2021 are to the sales for November 2019 to February 2021, it certainly look like the exclusion of DC from the top 300 comics data released by Diamond hasn't radically changed the nature of that data. That having been said, obviously if DC were included the sales would likely be high since DC comics generally sold better than the comics from the majority of the other publishers. DC wasn't the first publisher to drop out of the top 300 comics list from Diamond and it won't be the last. Granted, it has been the largest publisher so far to do so. For the last 25 years or so, the publishers dropped out because they went out of business not because they switched distributors.
The premiere publishers accounted for 91.40% 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 8.60% of the total units for the top 300 comics.
All of the publishers had lower sales in August than in July except for Dynamite Entertainment.
Marvel Comics placed 2,801,285 units in the top 300 comics, a decrease of 390,111 units and accounted for 53.39% of the total units.
Image Comics placed 1,201,980 units in the top 300 comics, a decrease of 138,365 units and accounted for 22.91% of the total units.
Dynamite Entertainment placed 143,761 units in the top 300 comics, an increase of 4,158 units and accounted for 2.74% of the total units.
The up-swing of 2,289,252 units from new and increased sales was not enough to compensate for the down-swing of 3,082,690 units from lost sales for the net decrease of 793,438 units.
The span of the up-swing and down-swing of 5,371,942 exceeded the unit total for the top 300 comics of 5,247,173 units. While some changes are to be expected from month to month, the scale of the units coming and going from the top 300 comics list seems excessive.
The 15 titles across the 4 publishers in the continuing titles which gained sales category accounted for 489,732 units in the top 300 comics with an upswing of 31,690 units. Marvel Comics accounted for 81.02% of the change in this category.
Thor had the largest increase this category this month with a gain of 9,348 units for the title.
Sinister War was the only title in this category this month with 120,604 units and a down-swing of 1,938 units. The first issue sold 123,390 units last month. The second issue sold 65,029 units and the third issues sold 55,575 units this month.
The 12 titles across the 7 publishers in the continuing titles with reasonably stable sales category accounted for 96,824 units in the top 300 comics with a downswing of 1,478 units. IDW Publishing accounted for 34.37% of the change in this category.
The 5 titles across the 4 publishers in the continuing titles which shipped fewer issues category accounted for 155,470 units in the top 300 comics with a downswing of 284,745 units. There were four shipping weeks in July and four in August. Image Comics accounted for 63.58% of the change in this category and Marvel Comics accounted another for 24.92% of it.
Skybound X accounted for 63.58% of the change in this category with the final issue of the five issue series shipping in August.
Amazing Spider-Man shipped one issue in August versus the two in July with a decrease in sales of -70,962 units for the title. Obviously titles which are usuaslly at the top of the sales list see significant increases and decreases when they ship more or less issues than they did in the previous month.
The 112 titles across the 18 publishers in the continuing titles which lost sales category accounted for 1,941,998 units in the top 300 comics with a downswing of 771,657 units. Marvel Comics accounted for 53.64% of the change in this category and Image another 22.64%.
X-Men #1 sold 248,800 units last month and dropped 153,573 units down to the sales of 95,227 units on the second issue. A second issue drop of 61.73% is steep, particularly when the second issue is a dollar cheaper than the first issue. The second issue had a regular cover, two open-to-order covers and a 1-in-25 incentive cover while the first issue had a regular cover, 10 variant covers, a 1-in-10 incentive cover, a 1-in-25 incentive cover, a 1-in-50 incentive cover and a 1-in-100 incentive cover. More covers and being a first issues means more sales. X-Men #2 was the highest selling issue of an ongoing title. Moon Knight #2 was right behind it with 93,587 unit. Te rest of the top five comics were all first issues.
The 83 titles across the 34 publishers in the new titles category accounted for 1,799,718 units in the top 300 comics. Marvel Comics accounted for 40.95% of the change in this category and Image another 35.29%.
The most notable title in this category is King Spawn which accounted for 26.67% of the change in this category. King Spawn #1 sold 479,908 units with four open-to-order covers initially offered with two others added later. Those are certainly staggering sales on the first issue. Titles rarely sustain sales over 100,000 units. A second issue drop of over 70% seems very likely but would still leave the titles selling near the very top of the list for September.
Sales of the month were down 793,438 units from last month even with this one title alone adding 479,908 units this month. King Spawn #1 not only topped the sales chart but it also outsold the next five items on the list by 10,000 units. Items with sales so far from the rest of the top sellers give a distorted picture of the overall health of the market. Granted, even with DC titles there aren't too many other titles that are likely to sell over 100,000 units and without DC there are significantly fewer.
Based on the press released around King Spawn #1 and Gunslinger Spawn #1, we are likely to see Gunslinger Spawn #1 at the top of the list or very close to it and probably some reorder activity on King Spawn #1 next month.
X-Men: Trail of Magneto #1 was the only other item over 96,000 units for the month with sales of 117,334 units. Compared to King Spawn #1, even those sales seem small.
The 35 titles across the 18 publishers in the returning titles category accounted for 417,603 units in the top 300 comics. Marvel Comics accounted for 41.89% of the change in this category and Image another 22.25%.
Ice Cream Man was the top selling returning title.
The 43 titles across the 22 publishers in the suspended titles category accounted for a downswing of 574,179 units.
Brzrkr (Berzerker) and Sweet Paprika combined accounted for 29.7% of the category. Most of the other titles seem comparatively insignificant compared to the 105,657 units for Brzrkr (Berzerker) and the 64,872 units for Sweet Paprika.
The 53 titles across the 16 publishers in the defunct titles category accounted for a downswing of 1,014,306 units. Marvel Comics accounted for 63.35% of the change in this category.
Most of the title at the top of this category were Marvel titles. Storylines like Extreme Carnage and the Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters do well for Marvel. But those sales only last for the duration for the storylines. In both of these cases some sales were lost from various one-shots and limited series that ended last month while others sales were gained this month from new one-shots and limited series.
The 6 titles from Marvel in the annuals/specials category accounted for 136,698 units in the top 300 comics with an upswing of 136,698 units, a downswing of 96,457 units for a net an increase of 40,241 units.
All of these annual except for _Spider-Man: Life Story_were part of the Infinite Destinies storyline. Or at least they were solicited and promoted as such. A few of them didn't really seem to be connected to that storyline other than having part of a serialized backup feature.
The 48 titles across the 11 publishers in the reorders category accounted for 88,526 units in the top 300 comics with an upswing of 71,119 units, a downswing of 505,506 units for a net a decrease of 434,387 units.
Mono Knight had some solid reorder activity of 17,660 units this month which is impressive given the 235,247 units the first issue sold in rank #2 last month . That puts the total known first issues sales of Moon Knight_ #1 at 252,907 units which is 4,107 units higher than the 248,800 units X-Men #1 sold in first place last month. X-Men #1 had no reported reorder activity this month.
We've got one more month of data from Diamond with Marvel fully included. Hopefully this downward trend over the last two months won't continue. Given the erratic nature of the top 300 comics total, there is as much of a reason to expect the top 300 comics total to bounce up net month as there is to expect it to continue to drop again. Titles like King Spawn are a great example of that. This month it added 479,908 units to the top 300 comics total but next month it might account for a drop of over 300,000 units. Usually it comes down if the new titles and returning titles can compensate for the drop in sales for ongoing titles and suspended titles.
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 a Weekly Comics Spotlight episode featuring a comic by DC, a comic by Marvel and a comic by some other publisher. I read around 200 new comics a month so the podcast covers a wide variety of the comics currently published. 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.
