Tuesday, November 10, 2015

By The Numbers

5 Star Wars Issues Top 100,000 Copies in October; Star Wars Accounts for 1 Out of 8 Top 300 Comic Sales

The Comics Chronicles has released the October estimated sales and despite the Marvel superhero title relaunches, Star Wars continues to show impressive numbers.

TitleIssueMonthly RankEstimated SalesLast Estimated SalesPercent Change
Star Wars106134,613135,817-0.89%
Chewbacca17122,952N/AN/A
Star Wars: Shattered Empire28119,508208,884-42.79%
Star Wars: Shattered Empire312105,496119,508-11.72%
Star Wars: Shattered Empire413105,284105,496-0.20%
Darth Vader101594,372100,235-5.85%
Darth Vader111692,86694,372-1.60%
Chewbacca22474,311122,952-39.56%
Star Wars: Lando53259,76061,542-2.90%
Star Wars: Kanan74744,12745,402-2.81%

Star Wars: Shattered Empire continued to show strong numbers with issues #2 - 4 of this 4-issue mini-series shipping in October.  All three issues sold over 100,000 copies.  This title has accounted for over half a million comic sales in the past 2 months alone!  The Chewbacca mini-series debuted to the lowest sales numbers for a modern Marvel Star Wars mini-series with 122,952 copies sold.  Still, it shifted more copies than Kanan: Last Padawan #1 which had sales of 108,167 copies.  Given that Chewbacca was a top 10 title for the month of October, I do not see the lower sales as a problem.  In fact, Chewbacca #2, which also shipped this month, had a lower than usual drop of just under 40%.  The final issue of the Star Wars: Lando mini-series shipped with a negligible drop in sales.

The Star Wars title lost just over 1,200 copies, making Star Wars #10 the lowest selling issue for this title despite the modest drop in sales.  In the next few month we will see if the Star Wars title will regain the top selling ongoing series or if one of Marvel's many superhero title relaunches hangs on to that coveted position.  The Darth Vader title dropped over 7,000 copies between issue #9 and 11.  Because Darth Vader double shipped this month, that title now has one more issue than the Star Wars title.

Star Wars: Kanan shed a little over 1,200 for a very modest drop in sales.  New Rebels episodes are back on Disney XD, so hopefully this title will begin to see an uptick in sales.

The Vader Down event starts this month and since it has already been reported that Vader Down #1 has sold over 450,000 copies, it will be interesting to see if that issue will be the top selling comic this month or if one of Marvel's superhero relaunches or DC's Dark Knight III: The Master Race achieves that top spot.

Here is a table with the number of Star Wars issues sold per month since January 2015 along with the average number of sales per issue.  Note this chart does not include reprints.

Month/YearTotal Estimated Sales# IssuesAverage Sale per Issue
January 2015985,9761985,976
February 2015526,4513175,484
March 2015596,2994149,075
April 2015537,8124134,453
May 2015324,8353108,278
June 2015396,931499,232
July 2015597,0235119,404
August 2015430,241586,048
September 2015551,8805110,376
October 2015953,2891095,329

The average sale per issue would rank 15th on the top 300 chart for the month of October.  The 10 Star Wars issues alone account for almost one million comic sales in the month of October or roughly 1 out of every 8 top 300 comics sold!

Take a look at the Star Wars Sales Estimate Chart and please read the blog posting Marvel relaunch impact: Fourteen comics titles top 100,000 copies ordered in October, most since 2007.

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