'Dark Tower' Tops March Comics

'Countdown' Picks Up

#1 for March

The first issue of Stephen King’s Dark Tower: The Long Road Home from Marvel was the #1 book in comic stores in March, selling in at around 124,000 copies.  But this was a significant drop from the first issue of the last Stephen King adaptation, Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born, which sold in at over 172,000 copies in February 2007.  In fact, the first issue of The Long Road Home was even below the second issue of Gunslinger, which sold in at around 136,000 copies one year ago in March.  

DC’s Countdown is picking up as it approaches the climax, with significant upticks vs. the month-ago issues.  

Other than Countdown, there wasn’t a lot of happy news in the Top 300 comics, where only two other issues, Buffy The Vampire Slayer #12 and Green Lantern #29, gained sales vs. the previous issues.  

Marvel had 16 of the top titles, Dark Horse one (the aforementioned Buffy issue), and DC had eight titles.

In the Top 100 Graphic Novels list, Batman: The Killing Joke Special Edition Hardcover was the top unit and dollar title, selling in over 10,600 copies in its first month of release.  DC continues to do well with 20 year-old material; Watchmen continues to sell both in comic stores and in bookstores in the run-up to the move.  

Naruto Vol. 28, the beginning of the Shippuden storyline topped Fruits Basket in comic stores, an unusual circumstance; Fruits Basket is normally the top manga in the direct market in its first month of release.  The difference was a relatively small 100+ copies, however. 

Here are ICv2's estimates of the sales by Diamond Comic Distributors to comic stores on the top 25 comic titles in March:

123,839     Dark Tower: The Long Road Home #1 (of 5)

103,046     New Avengers #39

  97,491     Thor #7

  89,835     Amazing Spider-Man #552

  89,054     Uncanny X-Men #496

  88,930     Buffy the Vampire Slayer #12

  87,482     Justice League of America #19

  82,648     Amazing Spider-Man #553

  82,253     Mighty Avengers #11

  82,243     X-Men Legacy #209

  82,149     Mighty Avengers #10

  81,714     X-Force #2

  81,378     Captain America #36

  81,072     Amazing Spider-Man #554

  73,574     All Star Superman #10

  68,651     Cable #1

  68,073     Green Lantern #28

  68,038     Countdown to Final Crisis 8

  68,019     Countdown to Final Crisis 7

  67,895     Countdown to Final Crisis 6

  67,688     Countdown to Final Crisis 5

  67,416     Fantastic Four #555

  66,536     Green Lantern #29

  64,475     Wolverine #63

  63,289     Logan #1 (of 3)

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 Detective Comics (Batman is normally the anchor title Diamond uses in its calculations, but no Batman title shipped in March), 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 an analysis of the dollar trends in March, see "Comics Slip in Q1."

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during March, see "Top 300 Comics Actual--March 2008."

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during February, see "Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--February 2008."

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during February, see "Top 300 Comics Actual--February 2008."

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during February, see "Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--February 2008."

For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through March 2008, see "ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 100 GNs Index."