Direct market shares of the top three comic publishers dropped in Q2 2022, with other publishers gaining, according to sales of comics and graphic novels tracked at point-of-sale by the ComicHub system at direct market stores selling American comics around the world, and provided to ICv2.
After a sharp rise in the first quarter of 2022 (see “Comic Store Publisher Market Shares – Q1 2022“), Marvel Comics lost ground, dropping from 38.8% in Q1 to 35.5% in Q2. DC Comics and Image Comics also saw their shares decline. All other publishers were up or stable, with IDW Publishing showing the biggest increase of any single publisher, from 3.1% to 4.2%, helped by the release of the collected version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin. That was enough to move it up the rankings to fifth place, even though the share of Dark Horse Comics, which dropped to sixth, also grew, from 3.2% to 3.7%.
The biggest jump, though, was in the “All Others” category, which went from 8.5% in Q1 to 10% in Q2.
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Comic Store Market Share (Dollars) – Q2 2022 [ComicHub Data, via ICv2] |
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|
Rank |
Publisher |
Dollar Share |
Percent Share |
|
1 |
Marvel Comics |
$2,514,969.37 |
35.3% |
|
2 |
DC Comics |
$1,723,332.04 |
24.2% |
|
3 |
Image Comics |
$831,460.69 |
11.7% |
|
4 |
BOOM! Studios |
$330,703.73 |
4.6% |
|
5 |
IDW Publishing/Top Shelf Books |
$299,333.33 |
4.2% |
|
6 |
Dark Horse Comics |
$262,978.78 |
3.7% |
|
7 |
VIZ Media |
$213,217.72 |
3.0% |
|
8 |
Dynamic Forces/Dynamic Entertainment |
$98,250.36 |
1.4% |
|
9 |
Kodansha Comics/Vertical |
$78,706.40 |
1.1% |
|
10 |
AfterShock Comics |
$56,729.40 |
0.8% |
|
All Others |
$712,932.95 |
10.0% |
|
|
Total |
$7,122,614.77 |
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
