From around the web to your door, updated comic sales for 2004. Here's the comics shipping in 2004 that've sold 100,000 copies or more. Numbers culled from Here:
As can be expected, tons of Bendis & Mark Millar representation. And for the speculative, the 100K+ contenders for the rest of 2004 (providing they ship on time): -Astonishing X-Men, guaranteed. Great reviews, only question is whether or not it'll ship on time. -Avengers Finale & New Avengers #1 & 2. Avengers #500 got huge bump, so Finale might have good numbers. New Avengers is reportedly getting HUGE pre-orders (200K+, perhaps) -Ed Brubaker's Captain America & Warren Ellis' Iron Man got tons of great reviews and got ordered heavily. Second issue dropdown is a big factor, though. -Mark Millar's Wolverine sold awesome, and supposedly #22 is high on orders (and #23 would be also, assumedly). -Speaking of Millar, Ultimates 2 will sell huge. -Superman/Batman & the Azzarello/Lee Superman issues look to continue to sell huge, although Loeb & Turner are crazily late.
Originally posted by odessasteps IS that initiral orders or does it include reorders?
Sales, including reorders. Before, the just used order numbers. Astonishing #1 did around 210K initally, but with reorder & reprint sales it bumped up HUGE.
"Illusions, Michael. A trick is something a whore does for money...or candy!" - G.O.B. Bluth, Arrested Development
It's going to be interesting to see which of the three huge releases of December - New Avengers #1, Identity Crisis #7, or Ultimates V2 #1 comes out ahead, and how they fare compared to the overall year numbers. Based on advanced hype / reported pre-orders, they could still potentially wind up 1, 2, and 3 on this list, respectively (although AXM has a frailly big lead).
Out of curiosity, how well did the major titles sell in the 80s or 90s? I'm guessing the numbers were significantly higher, correct? Nowadays asides from a handful of Borders stores you cannot find a comic anywhere besides a local shop.
"Remember, it's not a lie if *you* believe it." - George Costanza
The 90's were pretty much it for the big sellers, with X-FORCE, SPIDER-MAN, and X-MEN are the top selling comics, I believe, with X-MEN #1 selling somewhere around eight million copies. You also had the first line of Image books selling around a million or so and DC had SUPERMAN #75 selling close to two million copies.
EDIT: I was managing a comic shop here in Florida back during the 90's boom, and I remember being rather sickened by over 90% of our subscribers wanting to buy EVERY cover of X-MEN #1 and buying five copies of X-FORCE #1 plus an extra one to keep sealed. Sealed books were the worst, cause collectors were basiclly FORCED to buy two copies of a book as to keep one in M/NM condition and one just so they could read it.
While it was great for business, money wise, it was horrible on the customers having to waste all that money on the same book.
(edited by Cerebus on 24.11.04 1243) Cerebus: RIP 1977-2004.
"What do you think it's like being created by a manic-depressive, paranoid schizophrenic, hypochondriac, misogynist with delusions of grandeur and a messiah complex?"
As an admittedly biased former Borders manager, sad to see, but only a matter of time. But when your model allows people to sit around on comfy couches and read the books instead of buying them, you are asking for trouble.
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