"The Walking Dead" Dominates Diamond Comics' 2012 Top 500 Lists

[CBR News]

Diamond Comics Distributors has released its lists of the top 500 bestselling comic book and graphic novels as "The Walking Dead" leading the pack for both lists with strong showings from Marvel and DC.


Full article here.

[ColonelLee]

It's a good sign for the future of the comics/graphic medium when a creator owned series can outsell the majors ..

[Ottmeister X]

My Little Pony way above Hawkeye in sales. Does this world know no shame? You're #1 in our hearts, Hawkguy!

[LoneNecromancer]

It's a good sign for the future of the comics/graphic medium when a creator owned series can outsell the majors ..

I dunno if it's a really good sign for most indies if all they have to do to outsell the Big Two is get a successful tv show and a hit video game. That's kinda hard in it's own right.

[Hulk_Is]

Marvel for the win. Wow, Marvel never ceases to impress. Here's to a healthy 2013 (and if NOW is any indictaion, then it should be a good 'un.)

[Devan]

Marvel for the win. Wow, Marvel never ceases to impress. Here's to a healthy 2013 (and if NOW is any indictaion, then it should be a good 'un.)

Nothing could be further from the truth. Marvel is putting out some great books, but they had to mount one of their largest crossovers to date and relaunch/renumber the bulk of their titles in order to BARELY beat DC in market and dollar share. DC has had a much more successfull 2012 imo. What will Marvel do when sales on their relaunched titles start to fall in the coming weeks? The one thing they'll definitely have to do at some stage is rethink their prices. Though I'm a huge fan I am unwilling to shell out 4$ for one issue. And the price and page-count of their trades are ridiculous at this point. I'm actually buying more DC trades at this stage than Marvel ones because they're that much cheaper (e.g. the entire Shade miniseries for 20$, trades reprinting 300+ pages of Hellblazer for 20$, 7 issues of Lemire's and Foreman's Animal Man for 15$), not to speak of Image's output which is very reasonably priced.

Marvel's print division is in a slump - not critically, but commercially.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

I have to give DC props for the fact they don't ship comics all crazy style now. Marvel in the last 2-3 months shipped a 3-4 issues of some titles and its hard to get into it having so much waiting on you to get.

[Mr. Wayne]

I dunno if it's a really good sign for most indies if all they have to do to outsell the Big Two is get a successful tv show and a hit video game. That's kinda hard in it's own right.

Well to be fair the walking dead was selling extremely well before the tv show and video game.
Besides it was the initial success of the comic itself that spawned the show and the game.

This is great news for creator owned comics!

[Libaax]

I dunno if it's a really good sign for most indies if all they have to do to outsell the Big Two is get a successful tv show and a hit video game. That's kinda hard in it's own right.

Walking Dead was dominating the graphic novels sales for years before the tv show and was 30 000 seller monthly before the tv show. The gimmick of 100th issue was the biggest reason it sold immensly that number and the few 1000 sales extra in the monthly sales because of new tv readers.

Kirkman and co made Walking Dead comics critical and commercialism hit. If half of the tv fans read the comics it would sell 3-4 million copies every month. Lets not overrate the fact only few 1000 fans came from the tv show which has 6 million in US only. Plus all the tv Europeans fans is many more million fans that didnt go the comic shop and get Walking Dead.

[Hulk_Is]

Nothing could be further from the truth. Marvel is putting out some great books, but they had to mount one of their largest crossovers to date and relaunch/renumber the bulk of their titles in order to BARELY beat DC in market and dollar share. DC has had a much more successfull 2012 imo. What will Marvel do when sales on their relaunched titles start to fall in the coming weeks? The one thing they'll definitely have to do at some stage is rethink their prices. Though I'm a huge fan I am unwilling to shell out 4$ for one issue. And the price and page-count of their trades are ridiculous at this point. I'm actually buying more DC trades at this stage than Marvel ones because they're that much cheaper (e.g. the entire Shade miniseries for 20$, trades reprinting 300+ pages of Hellblazer for 20$, 7 issues of Lemire's and Foreman's Animal Man for 15$), not to speak of Image's output which is very reasonably priced.

Marvel's print division is in a slump - not critically, but commercially.

Yeah, rethink them to $4.99. If anyone thinks their books are coming down, then they are wishful thinkers.

[dupersuper]

Yeah, rethink them to $4.99. If anyone thinks their books are coming down, then they are wishful thinkers.

I'm a king of wishful thinking...

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Walking Dead was dominating the graphic novels sales for years before the tv show and was 30 000 seller monthly before the tv show. The gimmick of 100th issue was the biggest reason it sold immensly that number and the few 1000 sales extra in the monthly sales because of new tv readers.

Kirkman and co made Walking Dead comics critical and commercialism hit. If half of the tv fans read the comics it would sell 3-4 million copies every month. Lets not overrate the fact only few 1000 fans came from the tv show which has 6 million in US only. Plus all the tv Europeans fans is many more million fans that didnt go the comic shop and get Walking Dead.

Well to be fair the Walking Dead sales before the show was below the 30,000 mark....it was


http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14111.html

December 2008 : 23,582

If you look back for awhile a year or two earlier...sales were in the 20,000 range. The show helped of course by adding more.

The show also helped lure more to single issue sales as before the 100 launch ...



http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/23332.html

Walking Dead #99 : 55,710

That is a pretty impressive increase for the comics series as a whole.

[Hulk_Is]

I'm a king of wishful thinking...

Great song.

[Iangould]

Nothing could be further from the truth. Marvel is putting out some great books, but they had to mount one of their largest crossovers to date and relaunch/renumber the bulk of their titles in order to BARELY beat DC in market and dollar share. DC has had a much more successfull 2012 imo. What will Marvel do when sales on their relaunched titles start to fall in the coming weeks? The one thing they'll definitely have to do at some stage is rethink their prices. Though I'm a huge fan I am unwilling to shell out 4$ for one issue. And the price and page-count of their trades are ridiculous at this point. I'm actually buying more DC trades at this stage than Marvel ones because they're that much cheaper (e.g. the entire Shade miniseries for 20$, trades reprinting 300+ pages of Hellblazer for 20$, 7 issues of Lemire's and Foreman's Animal Man for 15$), not to speak of Image's output which is very reasonably priced.

Marvel's print division is in a slump - not critically, but commercially.

Allowing for the increase in the size of the market it term of both dollars and units, Marvel Publishing's probably doing better than ever commercially.

I agree though that it will be difficult to maintain sales once the Marvel now #1's are all out.

At least until they cancel them all and relaunch them as Marvel Next! six months from now.

[Devan]

Allowing for the increase in the size of the market it term of both dollars and units, Marvel Publishing's probably doing better than ever commercially.

Maybe so, but the sales on Marvel's flagship titles are dwindling whereas DC now easily commands most of the Top Ten -spots on the Diamond sales charts with their flagship titles. By cannibalizing their readership via rising prices, multiple shipping and their writing for the trade -mentality Marvel's unit sales will continue to fall, in turn necessitating in an ever increasing amount of crossovers, relaunches, rising prices and multiple shipping. It's anything but a healthy business model, and they will have to address this problem at some stage. More reasonably priced, critically-lauded, self-contained titles such as Daredevil and Hawkeye might help break the cycle.