The fourth quarter brought a significant change to publisher market shares in the direct market, according to sales of comics and graphic novels tracked at point-of-sale by the ComicHub system at stores selling American comics around the world, and provided to ICv2.
AfterShock Comics, which has been in ninth or tenth place since the first quarter of 2021 (see “Comic Store Publisher Market Shares – Q1 2021“), lost enough market share in Q4 2022 to move it out of the Top 10. The manga publisher Seven Seas Entertainment is now in 10th place.
Aftershock filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy at the end of 2022 (see “AfterShock Comics, Rive Gauche Television File for Bankruptcy“).
At the top of the chart, Marvel Comics’ share went down from 37.3% in Q3 to 34.0% in Q4, while DC Comics’ share increased from 24.8% to 27.1% during the same period. Image Comics stayed stable, and all other publishers except Dynamite Entertainment either gained market share or stayed the same. The “All Others” category, which increased sharply in the second quarter of 2022, ticked up a little bit to 10.1%.
|
Comic Store Market Share (Dollars) – Q4 2022 [ComicHub Data, via ICv2] |
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|
Rank |
Publisher |
Dollar Share |
Percent Share |
|
1 |
Marvel Comics |
$2,432,628.80 |
34.0% |
|
2 |
DC Comics |
$1,937,114.07 |
27.1% |
|
3 |
Image Comics |
$780,630.65 |
10.9% |
|
4 |
BOOM! Studios |
$319,041.88 |
4.5% |
|
5 |
Dark Horse Comics |
$293,580.68 |
4.1% |
|
6 |
IDW Publishing/Top Shelf Books |
$259,262.50 |
3.6% |
|
7 |
VIZ Media |
$186,788.16 |
2.6% |
|
8 |
Dynamic Forces/Dynamic Entertainment |
$94,489.96 |
1.3% |
|
9 |
Kodansha Comics/Vertical |
$74,724.59 |
1.0% |
|
10 |
Seven Seas Entertainment |
$49,076.64 |
0.7% |
|
All Others |
$719,128.80 |
10.1% |
|
|
Total |
$7,146,466.73 |
100.0% |
|
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 graphic novels around the world. During the period for which these reports were generated, there were over 100 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.
The differences in how the data behind these charts is collected compared to past market share charts based on sales by Diamond Comic Distributors to comic stores are many. Here are some:
Sell-in charts show all the launch sales happening on the same day, while sell-through sales happen over time, moving sales into different periods.
Sell-in shows what retailers think they will sell, while sell-through shows what they actually do sell.
Sell-in sales are influenced by incentive variants, which increase the number of copies ordered (to get a variant that can be sold at a premium price), but may not increase the number of copies sold at retail by the same amount.
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
