DC's Infinite Crisis seven-issue mini-series had held the top spot on Diamond Comic Distributors Top 300 for its first six issues, but issue #7, which actually posted a 2% gain in sales over #6, was overwhelmed by the debut of Marvel's politically-charged Civil War cross-over event, which debuted with sales of 260,804 -- just a hair's breath behind the total of 261,046 posted by Frank Miller and Jim Lee's All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder in July of 2005, which happens to be the best-selling full price comic ever tracked by ICv2 since we began compiling circulation numbers in 2001.  The strength of the market was evidenced by the fact that among the Top 25 titles twice as many books (14) posted gains as suffered declines (7).

 

In spite of the transcendent performance of Civil War #1, for the first time this year DC Comics edged out Marvel in both dollar and unit market share, largely because of the strong debut of the four weekly 52 books, all of which finished in the top ten.  DC had seven of the top ten books and 12 out of the top 25, while Marvel managed to get 13 out of the top 25.  Thirteen May titles topped 100,000, while only seven managed to sell more than 100K in April.

 

Devil's Due's Family Guy Vol. 1 easily topped the graphic novel list with sales that nearly hit 16,000, while DC's Y: The Last Man Vol. #7 was a solid second with sales of over 10K.  DC had five graphic novels in the top ten, while Marvel had four. 2006's best-selling direct market graphic novel so far, V for Vendetta dropped to #88, though it managed to add nearly 1400 to its total.

 

Viz's Full Metal Alchemist Vol. 7 was the top-selling manga title at #12, followed by Del Rey's Negima Vol. 10 at #23 and ADV's NGE Angelic Days Manga Vol. 1 at #25.

 

The top 25 comic titles in May, with our estimates of the number sold to North American comic stores by Diamond Comic Distributors, are:

 

260,804                      Civil War #1 (of 7)

198,442                      Infinite Crisis #7 (of 7)

160,401                      All Star Batman & Robin #4

140,971                      52: Week #1

131,522                      Wolverine Origins #2

128,393                      52: Week #2

123,982                      52: Week #3

123,318                      New Avengers #19

121,440                      52: Week #4

118,821                      Superman/Batman #26

103,702                      Superman/Batman #25

102,860                      Supergirl #6

102,582                      Ultimate Fantastic Four #30

  95,544                      Amazing Spider-Man #532

  93,558                      Wolverine #42

  79,536                      X-Men #186

  79,335                      Uncanny X-Men #473

  78,926                      Green Lantern #11

  77,419                      X-Men Deadly Genesis #6 (of 6)

  77,257                      Batman #653

  75,333                      Moon Knight #2

  74,051                      Ultimate Spider-Man #94

  73,564                      Ultimate Spider-Man #95

  72,954                      Teen Titans #35

  72,235                      Ultimate X-Men #70

 

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 an analysis of the dollar trends in May, see 'May Periodicals Boffo!'
 
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during May, see 'Top 300 Comics Actual--May 2006.'

 

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during May, see 'Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--May 2006.'

 

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during April, see 'Top 300 Comics Actual--April 2006.'

 

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during April, see 'Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--April 2006.'

 

For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through May 2006, see 'ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 100 GNs Index.'