“Secret Wars” is the top-selling comic for July 2015

Last updated on December 10th, 2021

Once again, Marvel’s “Secret Wars” is the top-selling comic for July, per the latest Diamond sales figures. The top 10 sales figures are below.

On the trade paperback side, here’s the top 10:

Marvel’s total sales for July were at 38.43% in dollar share and 41.59% in unit share. DC came in second with 23.94%/24.3% respectively, and Image in third at 9.48%/10.72% respectively. Total sales are slightly down from a year ago (-2.88%/-6.74% respectively), but up over June’s sales (6.91%/3.61% respectively).

As you can see, “Secret Wars” and its tie-in titles (with a lot of #1’s) did well for Marvel, despite the confusing sounding premise of “Battleworld.” “Star Wars” has become one of Marvel’s biggest and newest franchises, taking three of the top 10 slots.

On the trade paperback side, there’s a more diverse mix of companies, including smaller ones like Dynamite and Valiant.

Archie has good news to report: its highest selling comic in, as far as I can tell, quite a few years. The reboot of “Archie” has gone well critically and in terms of sales, coming in seventh place—a rarity for a non-superhero humor book. As far as I know, this is probably the highest sales rank the regular “Archie” core comic has achieved since the late 1960s, when “The Archie Show” on TV boosted sales of the related books.

Comichron notes another achievement for Archie: despite “Archie””s renumbering with the reboot, it’s still the publisher with the highest-cover-numbered American comic with no significant break, “Sonic the Hedgehog” (now in the 270s). Allowing for breaks, the highest numbered comic on US newsstands is “Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories”; IDW’s kept the revived title’s historical numbering, putting it in the 700s.

DC meanwhile doesn’t look very strong, only placing one title in the top 10: perennial top seller and cash-cow “Batman.” DC’s sales figures also trail Marvel’s by some distance. While Marvel’s become quite dominant of late—DC and Image’s sales figures combined for July don’t match Marvel’s sales—the sales figures still makes DC look lackluster. This is especially given the post-“Convergence” boost DC should’ve received, as well as the various new books released (“Prez,” “We Are Robin,” etc.).

The website Sktchd notes that DC’s only strong sales since the New 52 started have been just for its major events, sinking back to mediocre levels right after the event’s over. Given DC’s history, roster of characters, its “Big Two” status, and amount of hype for its reboots/revamps, it seems odd that, first issue or not, a comic about Lando Calrissian—a secondary “Star Wars” character—has outsold the entire DC line, including “Batman.” Ditto Archie Andrews having outsold everything from DC other than “Batman.” Of course, this is from DC’s business standpoint; for comics as a whole, it’s a good thing that non-superhero genres are selling well.