My View of Diamond’s JULY 2009 Sales Chart.
July was a big month for comic books. According to Diamond Comic Distributor’s July 2009 Sales Chart for the Top 100 Comics (found here) Marvel and DC comics split the Top 10 comics almost evenly, with Marvel coming away with 6 of the top 10 comics, including the #1 book of the month, CAPTAIN AMERICA REBORN #1. DC took spots #2 and #3 with BLACKEST NIGHT #1 and BATMAN AND ROBIN #2.
Naturally, people are surprised that REBORN #1 took the top spot (myself included). BLACKEST NIGHT had incredible hype and momentum behind it leading into July’s issue #1. So does this mean that REBORN is more popular than BLACKEST NIGHT? Is the sales chart really showing the full picture? The answers to these questions are: Maybe, and No.
Something that I’ve found to be increasingly apparent from my time working in retail is that these sales charts don’t tell the whole story. Yes, REBORN #1 was the top-selling comic to retailers in July, but it doesn’t say how many copies were bought by costumers in comic stores. The shop that I work at, Fallout Shelter Comics, quickly sold out of our initial order of about 20 or so copies of REBORN #1, and so we decided to order more copies. On the retailers message boards there were plenty of people looking to offload the excess amount of unsold REBORN #1’s that they had. We ordered an additional 20 copies and have sold about five of those additional copies.
BLACKEST NIGHT, on the other hand, has been a huge success. We ordered FIFTY copies, (the most of any single comic that we have previously ordered had been 25, and that was for SECRET INVASION.), and sold out of all of our copies by the day issue #2 arrived. Every single day at the shop I have had people come in asking about BLACKEST NIGHT, literally every single day. The only day that anyone came in or asked about REBORN #1 was the day it came out. After that, all interest in the book has seemed to wane and so we kept our orders at the initial twenty. We still have copies of both issue #1 and #2 in stock for REBORN, but we’ve already sold out of issue #2 of BLACKEST NIGHT.
So while REBORN #1 may have been the most ordered comic in July, it was not necessarily the best selling comic to customers. We’ll see more accurate sales once issues 3 and 4 hit shops. In reality, what do all these numbers mean? Nothing. Both of these books are enjoyable and have sold well-enough to make both Marvel and DC very happy. Too often are people caught up in the numbers found in the sales charts to realize that it’s good for everyone in comics when books sell well.
