Sales of comics to comic stores were up 14% over the previous year in the first quarter of 2007, the 9th consecutive up quarter in this recent run of increasing sales of floppies.  Civil War continues to account for a major percentage of sales.  Even a month after the release of the last issue of the main series, Civil War-related floppies were 14% of the total dollars for March.   

Graphic novels (based on sales of the Top 100 graphic novel titles) were up around 8% in Q1, a lower but still substantial growth rate. 

Comics were up only 4% in March, and graphic novels up 2%, the lowest growth rate of Q1.

We are estimating actual sales by Diamond U.S. (primarily to North American comic stores), using Diamond's published sales indexes and publisher sales data to estimate a sales number for Batman (the anchor title Diamond uses in its calculations), and using that number and the indexes to estimate Diamond's sales on the remaining titles.  We can check the accuracy of our numbers by comparing the Batman number that we calculate using multiple data points; our numbers for Batman are within 1/10 of 1% of each other, ensuring a high degree of accuracy.

For the top 300 comics in March, see 'Top 300 Comics Actual--March 2007.'

For the top 100 graphics novels in March, see 'Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--March 2007.'

For an overview and analysis of the best-selling comics and graphic novels in March, see 'Death Sells.'

For the top 300 comics in February, see 'Top 300 Comics Actual--February 2007.'

For the top 100 graphics novels in February, see 'Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--February 2007.'

For an over-view and analysis of the best-selling comics and graphic novels in February, see ''Civil War' Finale Tops the Charts.'  For an analysis of the dollar trends in February, see 'Comics & Graphic Novels Post Gains Again.'

For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through March 2007, see 'ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 100 GNs Index.'