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October’s comic industry sales estimates are in. Marvel Comics and C.B. Cebulski are laughing all the way to the bank on the back of Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men reboot. The final issues of House of X and Powers of X and the debut of Dawn of X led by Hickman’s own X-Men led to the highest industry sales in three years. And the fourth best sales month the past decade. We talk about the importance of tent pole properties to Marvel and DC a lot here on Thinking Critical. And Marvel’s performance the past 3 months is exactly what we’re talking about. X-Men is driving a surge in their unit and dollar sales. And reinvigorating the entire comic market in the process.
ICv2.com reports, Sales to comic stores were up dramatically in October, according to information released by Diamond Comic Distributors, with periodical sales up 21.05% over October 2018. Graphic novel sales continued their long decline, with sales down 3.32% vs. October 2017. But combined sales of comics and graphic novels were strongly positive, up 14.09%. Year-to-date sales are now up 1.81% vs. 2018, with comic sales up 4.19% and graphic novel sales down 4.16%.
Marvel Comics' market share lead was down a little from previous months, at less than 8% more than DC Comics', indicating that even though Marvel may have had a good month, DC’s sales also contributed strongly.
ScreenRant reports, Thanks largely in part to X-Men #1, relaunching the Marvel series from writer Jonathan Hickman, October 2019 was the best month for comic sales since August 2016 -- and the fourth best month in the last decade! While much of the sales benchmark can be attributed to the historic and high-profile X-Men #1, there are other titles that more than likely helped October sales as well, in..
