After two years of land-office business, it was almost inevitable that a stratospheric rise in comic sales would come back to earth. And “comic sales” are really a mixed bag with three main prongs: new releases, graphic novels, and back issues. New comic sales have taken a beating over the last year, while the graphic novel category has largely held steady, and back issues remain a wild horse that’s usually a good bet.
ICv2 got the hard sales data from a number of retailers comparing September – December 2022 to the same period in 2021:
Phil Boyle, Coliseum of Comics, 12 stores in Florida
New comics, overall down 3.2%. Within that…
• DC Comics down 10.4%.
• Marvel Comics down 3%.
• Image Comics down 27.1%.*
• BOOM! Studios down 28%.
• Dark Horse Comics down 25.6%.
• Indie comics down 36.7%.
• Manga up 28%.
Other categories:
• Back issues up 7%.
• Funko up 29.4%.
* An example of the boom/bust cycle: Image Comics may be down 27% at Coliseum, but this follows a 4% increase in January – May 2022, preceded by a 38% increase in 2021. Nothing lasts forever…
John Robinson, Graham Crackers, 13 stores mostly in metro Chicago
• Overall chainwide sales down 4%.
• Backlist graphic novel sales down 10%.
• New indie comics (everything except Marvel and DC) down 5%.
• Back issues down 1%.
Jen King, Space Cadets Collection Collection; Oak Ridge North, Texas
• Overall store sales down 3.5%.
• Graphic novels down 8%.
• All comics, new and back issues combined, down 48%.
• All items NOT comics or graphic novels, up 6%.
For the top graphic novel franchises in four categories, see:
Top 10 Author Graphic Novel Franchises – Fall 2022
Top 10 Kids Graphic Novel Franchises – Fall 2022
Top 10 Manga Graphic Novel Franchises – Fall 2022
Top 10 Superhero Graphic Novel Franchises – Fall 2022
The full-length version of this article appeared in Internal Correspondence, and is now available on the ICv2 Pro site, click here.
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Source: ICv2
