DC Comics has been the big winner in comic store market shares over the past year, culminating in Q3 2025, when its market share was nearly 10 points higher than it was in Q3 2024. The growth has been steady over the past two quarters, with DC at 25.5% in Q1 2025 (see “Marvel Gains Share“) and Q2 2025 (see below) and 29.5% in Q3 2025. That compares to a 20.1% share in Q3 2024 (see “Q3 2024 Market Shares“).
DC’s growth in share is tied to the launch of its Absolute titles, which kicked off in December 2024 with Absolute Batman #1. As the number of Absolute titles has growth throughout 2025, and as DC has continued to reprint all of the Absolute issues to continue to make them available, DC’s market share has grown in tandem.
DC’s market share growth has come in part from Marvel Comics, which is down from 39.9% in Q3 2025 to 36.6% in Q3 2025, but also from Image Comics and smaller publishers. That doesn’t mean any of those other publishers are down in sales, however, as the market for comics and graphic novels in comic stores has grown 27% in the first eight months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024 (see “ICv2 White Paper“). DC is just getting a bigger share of the growth, and based on what retailers are telling it, is fueling it.
| ICv2’s Comic Book Publisher Market Shares – Q3 2025 | ||
| Rank | Publishing | Market Share |
| 1 | Marvel Comics | 36.6% |
| 2 | DC Comics | 29.5% |
| 3 | Image Comics | 11.9% |
| 4 | IDW Publishing/Top Shelf Prod. | 3.7% |
| 5 | Dark Horse Comics | 2.7% |
| 6 | BOOM! Studios | 2.1% |
| 7 | Dynamite Entertainment | 1.9% |
| 8 | VIZ Media | 1.6% |
| 9 | Oni Press | 1.0% |
| 10 | Titan Comics | 0.9% |
| All Others | 7.0% | |
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| ICv2’s Comic Book Publisher Market Shares – Q2 2025 | ||
| Rank | Publishing | Market Share |
| 1 | Marvel Comics | 36.5% |
| 2 | DC Comics | 25.5% |
| 3 | Image Comics | 14.4% |
| 4 | IDW Publishing/Top Shelf Prod. | 3.4% |
| 5 | Dark Horse Comics | 3.3% |
| 6 | BOOM! Studios | 2.2% |
| 7 | VIZ Media | 2.0% |
| 8 | Dynamite Entertainment | 1.7% |
| 9 | Oni Press | 1.2% |
| 10 | Kodansha Comics | 1.0% |
| All Others | 8.9% | |
The data on which these market share percentages are based is from sales tracked at point-of-sale by the ComicHub system at stores selling American comics and graphic novels around the world. During the period for which these reports were generated, there were over 125 stores using the ComicHub system. As this is a small, non-random sample of over 3,000 stores selling American comics worldwide, these rankings may not be typical for all stores, but do represent a variety of locations and store emphases.
For monthly sales rankings based on ComicHub POS data, see “Comics and Graphic Novel Sales Rankings Based on Comic Store POS Data Index.”
Source: ICv2
