Updated on December 10, 2021
Once again, Marvel dominates the comic sales charts for August 2015, aided by Marvel’s “Secret Wars.”
Marvel occupies seven of the top 10 selling comics for August, with DC taking up two entries (“Batman” and “Justice League”). Image takes up the final slot, with “The Walking Dead.”
Single issue comic sales figures are below; figures are from Diamond, via Comichron.
| Rank | Title | Price | Publisher | Estimated sales |
| 1 | Secret Wars #5 | $3.99 | Marvel | 204,416 |
| 2 | Star Wars #8 | $3.99 | Marvel | 145,066 |
| 3 | Batman #43 | $3.99 | DC | 124,697 |
| 4 | Darth Vader #8 | $3.99 | Marvel | 98,994 |
| 5 | Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #3 | $3.99 | Marvel | 90,787 |
| 6 | Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #4 | $3.99 | Marvel | 83,549 |
| 7 | Walking Dead #145 | $2.99 | Image | 82,792 |
| 8 | Justice League #43 | $3.99 | DC | 82,304 |
| 9 | Civil War #2 | $3.99 | Marvel | 77,219 |
| 10 | Star Wars: Lando #2 | $3.99 | Marvel | 71,043 |
For graphic novels/trade paperbacks, Image dominated sales, followed by Marvel and then DC. Sales figures are below.
| Rank | Title | Price | Publisher | Estimated sales |
| 1 | Walking Dead Vol. 24: Life And Death | $14.99 | Image | 20,778 |
| 2 | Batman: The Killing Joke Special Edition HC | $17.99 | DC | 5,892 |
| 3 | Black Science Vol. 3: Vanishing Point | $14.99 | Image | 5,480 |
| 4 | Civil War | $24.99 | Marvel | 5,271 |
| 5 | Return Of The Living Deadpool | $16.99 | Marvel | 5,005 |
| 6 | Fables Volume 22 | $17.99 | DC | 4,861 |
| 7 | Chew Volume 10: Blood Puddin’ | $14.99 | Image | 4,592 |
| 8 | Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 1: Squirrel Power | $15.99 | Marvel | 4,382 |
| 9 | Saga Volume 1 | $9.99 | Image | 3,953 |
| 10 | Sunstone Volume 3 | $14.99 | Image | 3,634 |
Marvel earned 36.67% dollar share and 40.13% unit share. DC trails with 25.39%/26.95% respectively, followed by Image with 9.98%/10.41% respectively. Comic sales are down -15.89%/-16.20% respectively from July, but up 6.45%/0.97% respectively over a year ago. For the year to date, sales are up 9.80%/10.22% respectively.
Given there’s a “Star Wars” film due out in December, I’d expect those books to easily continue to be top 10 material for the foreseeable future. It’s also good to see non-superhero-related material taking a sizable share of single-issue comic sales, taking four of the 10 slots.
Still, it seems concerning from a business standpoint that DC trails by such a large margin, with a book starring a secondary “Star Wars” character (Lando Calrissian) topping everything (save two books) DC published. I also note it’s interesting a married alternate-universe Spider-Man also topped everything DC published save “Batman.” That’d suggest the arguments that “married heroes are boring” and “marriage makes characters look old” (part of the incentive for the New 52 reboot/making Superman and Lois Lane unmarried again) aren’t true. Not that Marvel looks completely good—the sales success of “Renew Your Vows” draws attention to the awful writing/big mistake that is Marvel’s “One More Day,” their “make the two characters single again for cynical marketing purposes” reboot.
