“Secret Wars” is (again) the top selling comic for August 2015

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Last updated on December 10th, 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.

Anthony Dean

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

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