I haven’t done one of these in quite some time. As I was reviewing some Comichron numbers for February, something interesting stuck me about the top ten selling titles from this month.
Only 1 title surpassed the 100k print run mark and it had a $7.99 retail cover price. Can you guess which one? Here’s the top ten list for review.
- Wolverine 1 – 190,568
- X-Men 6 – 92,287
- X-Men 7 – 76,691
- Batman 88 – 74,423 (56,992 Regular; 17,431 Card Stock)
- Batman 89 – 73,390 (56,409 Regular; 16,981 Card Stock)
- DCeased Unkillables 1 – 72,170 (40,337 Regular; 31,833 Card Stock)
- Gwen Stacy 1 – 68,348
- Giant Size X-Men Jean Grey & Emma Frost 1 – 63,077
- Amazing Spider-Man 39 – 60,302
- Star Wars Darth Vader 1 – 59,045
It’s nice seeing the card stocks separated out. This is due to them having a different cover price since Comichron tracks overall unit sales as well. But definitely nice to see the different print runs between the variants.
Wolverine #1 had a huge print run, almost double that of the X-Men #6 which came in second. Then from there, almost a 16k drop to 3rd place with X-Men #7 which I find interesting as well. That’s a huge decrease for a book that isn’t a #1 and then #2.
Let’s go over some of the notable books from February 2020.
Aggretsuko #1 (print run of just 5,743) was one of the early February books to heat up. As a popular Netflix show, I’m sure some of the fans who don’t necessarily hit the shops each week came out for this one.
Sets of 4 covers reached as high as $120 at their peak. The D variant was an easy $40 on average for a while as it was limited but things have settled since. Sets of A & B went as high as $40 themselves, singles on average between the two were $10 to $20 at their peak.
Now for those who were patient, some recent sold listings have gone for under cover price on auctions for either A, B or the Blank Variant.
Lois Lane #8 (print run of 18.827) saw some love with a new villain named Kiss of Death.
This one quickly became a $10 book on average. I think the winner is the variant B cover but both seem to fetch the same price, but it’s all over the place on recent completed listings. Seems the prices are anywhere from a little over cover price (for auctions) and BIN are still fetching anywhere from $5 to $10 upwards of $15 on a really good day. Sets still seeing high prices around the $20 range.
Darth Vader #1 (59,045 print run total) is the next volume and installment of the greatest villain in all of the galaxy, that’s far far away. With the surprise appearance and the story telling filling in immediately after Empire Strikes Back movie, this is a definite hit for fans of Vader.
You can still find some listings for a little over cover price but sold out at most online retailers, some secondary sales are seeing peak prices of $10 to $15.
I think this one is a hold if you got extras. Could be one of those books sought out later by Star Wars fans.
The Marvel Tales Virgin variants that are pretty much non-existent still commands some hefty dollars. Marvel Tales Wolverine #1 Virgin Variant if you could actually find one (reported overall print run of 9,107) and under $100 could net you some decent profit from last month.
The auctions are the ones to watch. A couple landed around the $50 range while all the BIN go or went for $120 or more on average. The only one that did reach a significant amount was an auction that ended up at $270. Hard to believe why that one would go that high. The only thing I can think of is it started a bidding war between two buyers where they got caught up and spent too much, just to win.
Click the next page to see the rest of the month mentions (mostly dominated by Punchline but there were a few others worthy of mentioning)..
Just have to say that I love the month in review posts ?
Good to know. I’ll try and squeeze them back in the rotation again. 🙂
Me likey too.
Great review! Thanks!
Comichron are sales numbers not print runs.
Yes, we know this already. We will never know the actual print run numbers but this is the closest thing we have to know how many are out in the world based on sales since most are distributed by Diamond.
If the comic was sold, it therefore must have printed. There is a correlation there.
Yes. We don’t know how many extra publishers might have printed (kept some for internal purposes, handed out to employees, sold indirectly outside of Diamond, etc) but the sales numbers correlate a good estimate of actual print run numbers. It’s the best tool to assume such numbers. I think most of us and CHU readers understand how Comichron numbers work.
Best tool to assume, in other words guess.
It is the best educated guess. There is no assumption. The data that is given is hard. Using that hard data at hand, within reason, allows us to reach a reasonable conclusion without making assumptions. If the book was sold/distributed, it therefore had to have printed. There is a direct correlation there.
Sometimes when retailers go back for more copies those additional copies show up in the following month’s comichron numbers until they are so,d out.
They are not exact but if you total the numbers across a couple months you’ve probably captured 99% of what was printed.
https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/402666-110-125-150-1100-are-distribution-numbers-not-print-run-numbers/
If you like making inaccurate conclusions go ahead. But any conclusion made with this data is inaccurate to the point that it should not be relied upon to make any purchase based on print run.
Also, this article is full of assumptions. Every book is touted as having x print run, based off these numbers. To claim such is misleading.
No, actually it’s not misleading. Unless a publisher comes and provides the actual print run for each issue, this the best data we got and it probably as close as it will ever get to the print number.
What other data would you have the comic industry use, Rick?
Speculation is gathering information and data based on little to zero facts. Most speculators know the numbers at comichron are not 100% accurate. They’re just the next best thing we have to go on. It’s not hard to comprehend nor get your panties all knotted up over.
For DC, it is easy to figure out a close print run number. They print in 3 batchs, each batch corresponding to a distribution center. If you have a full case from the printer, it will tell you how many boxes were printed for that distribution center. In the case of Hell arisen 3, we were lucky that one retailer was trying to sell a case on ebay. this gave us all the information that we needed to “guesstimate” a print number. 160 comics per case with a case count of 79. times that number by 3 and its a good estimate. Comichron is proof that the math works. Granted this only applys to north america, it is still a good approximation. Image and Boom also use 1 printer, though they dont distribute to all three, diamond does that. So a case from either of them will give you the estimated print run as well. I havent ordered enough from IDW to make these correlations and Marvel is weird with all the store variants padding the print run.
And if extrapolate populations from foreign countries, and applied the ratios from NA, you could also get a somewhat accurate distribution number for other countries, like England.
Please elaborate why it is inaccurate? Just because you say it’s inaccurate, does not make it so. Why wouldn’t a distribution number give you an educated guess given the correlation between shipped and printed? Yes, there are factors to consider, and, as involved members of the comic community, we can pretty much figure those out, and extrapolate given the hard NA distribution number.
According to your theory, Rick, if Comichron says they distributed 50k of any given issue, then the actual print run could only be 10k, or 25k, or 1,000,000, because you are choosing to ignore the data at hand. I can make a post on the CHU forum, and post a link here, saying how one could easily extrapolate numbers from Diamonds distribution numbers and that would just as much weight as your link to the CGC forums. Do you see how you are choosing to believe one, and choosing not to believe the other? ?
Wow!!! Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. You don’t have to get all grouchy. Geez Rick take a chill pill or some wacky tobacky and relax man. Life is to short and crazy for someone to get upset over numbers.
Exactly.. like I’ve stated, most know the comichron numbers are sales and that’s the best we’re ever going to get on what the print run is close to as the publishers never reveal such info, ever.