Marvel dominates October 2015 comic sales

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Last updated on December 10th, 2021

October’s comic shop sales figures are in, and thanks to the current Marvel soft reboot (with a pile of new #1 issues), Marvel completely dominated the top 10 this month, as well as the direct market as a whole. The top-selling comic this month was “Invicible Iron Man” #1. Others that did well: “Spider-Gwen,” “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and the usual “Star Wars” books, including one for Chewbacca.

The top 10 sales figures are below; sales information from Comichron.

Rank Title Issue Price Publisher Estimated sales
1 Invincible Iron Man 1 $3.99 Marvel 279,514
2 Amazing Spider-Man 1 $5.99 Marvel 245,873
3 Spider-Gwen 1 $3.99 Marvel 197,103
4 Secret Wars 6 $3.99 Marvel 192,244
5 Doctor Strange 1 $4.99 Marvel 145,456
6 Star Wars 10 $3.99 Marvel 134,613
7 Chewbacca 1 $3.99 Marvel 122,952
8 Star Wars: Shattered Empire 2 $3.99 Marvel 119,508
9 Guardians of Galaxy 1 $3.99 Marvel 118,342
10 Amazing Spider-Man 2 $3.99 Marvel 111,322

DC’s highest selling comic came in at #11, “Batman” #45. “Jughead” #1 also did fairly well,, with the relaunch of that long-running Archie title coming in at #71.

The top selling trade paperbacks are listed below; information also from Comichron.

Rank Title Price Publisher Estimated sales
1 Star Wars Vol. 1 Skywalker Strikes $19.99 Marvel 21,826
2 Star Wars Darth Vader Vol. 1 Vader $19.99 Marvel 10,143
3 Bitch Planet Vol. 1 Extraordinary Machine $9.99 Image 9,979
4 Deathstroke Book and Mask Set $29.99 DC 7,556
5 Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions Vol. 1 $7.99 Marvel 7,514
6 Walking Dead Compendium Vol. 3 $59.99 Image 6,666
7 Saga Vol. 5 $14.99 Image 6,557
8 Outcast By Kirkman & Azaceta Vol. 2 $14.99 Image 6,332
9 Lumberjanes Vol. 2 $14.99 Boom 5,882
10 Injection Vol. 1 $9.99 Image 5,160

While Marvel took the top two trade paperback slots, non-Big Two companies also did well, including popular titles such as “Lumberjanes” and “The Walking Dead.”

The top five comics publishers (by unit share and dollar share respectively):

  1. Marvel (48.26%/43.65%)
  2. DC Comics (22.92%/21.85%)
  3. Image (9.27%/9.17%)
  4. IDW (4.96%/6.16%)
  5. Dark Horse (3.10%/4.04%)

Comic sales are up (by unit/dollar share) 16.59%/11.91% over September. Compared to October 2014, they’re down 12.47%/9.55%. However, October 2014 had an extra week’s worth of books.

This is the first time Marvel’s taken all top 10 selling slots since January 2005, and their highest for the top 300 selling books ever. It’s also a low point for DC’s sales, in turn. DC’s already had a rough time this year, and I doubt they’re pleased with Marvel’s sort-of-a-reboot doing this well. Of course, I assume in the short term, DC will rely even more on Batman and/or the attention for the upcoming “Batman V Superman” movie in March. Expect Marvel’s numbers to sink back to normalcy for November’s sales.

Anthony Dean

Anthony Dean is the owner of Diverse Tech Geek and Diverse Media Notes.

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