Comic Book Sales by Year
Yearly comic book sales can be calculated in a number of ways. The data currently on Comichron comes in two varieties:
1) Year-by-year rankings of the sales figures found in comics publishers' Statements of Ownership, beginning in 1960. Some of that material can be found in our Postal Data Repository, also reachable by the annual links here:
Comichron has on hand more than 95% of the existing postal data for comics. More will be posted in the future.
2) Aggregated monthly data, combining the preorders and final orders from Diamond Comic Distributors and other distributors to the North American comics shop market for each month from 1996 to present.
The below charts collect the comics shop market data I've calculated across time. The widest grouping, visible below in black, has the widest margin of error; in addition to including the more solid estimates of comics-shop sales, guesses at returnable newsstand comics sales and returnable bookstore trade paperback sales are included.
The most reliable figures are the smaller groupings. These are calculated based on all the public reports issued by Diamond for comics shop sales in each month. The biggest such figure captures all comics, trade paperbacks, and magazines sold by Diamond in a year. As what Diamond has reported from year to year has changed, figures are not available for every category for every year.
| Estimated OVERALL North American Market size, including both print and digital estimates by Comichron and ICV2.com |
DIGITAL sales for Comics (not counting subscription services) in North America, as calculated by ICV2.com (est.): | |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | $715 million | $25 million |
| 2012 | $805 million |
$70 million |
| 2013 | $870 million |
$90 million |
| 2014 | $935 million |
$100 million |
| 2015 | $1.03 billion |
$90 million |
| 2016 | Estimate coming soon! | Estimate coming soon! |
| Estimated OVERALL North American Market size, including estimates for newsstand comics and book channel TPB sales (*joint calculation by Comichron and ICV2) |
OVERALL North American Dollar Sales for Comics, Trade Paperbacks, and Magazines sold by Diamond Comic Distributors to comic book stores (est.): | |
| 1997 | $300-320 million | |
| 1998 | $280-300 million | |
| 1999 | $270-290 million | |
| 2000 | $255-275 million | |
| 2001 | $260-285 million | |
| 2002 | $300-330 million | n/a |
| 2003 | $350-400 million | $310.6 million |
| 2004 | $420-480 million | $328.25 million |
| 2005 | $475-550 million | $352.33 million |
| 2006 | $575-640 million | $395.55 million |
| 2007 | $660-700 million | $430.00 million |
| 2008 | $680-710 million | $436.6 million |
| 2009 | $650-700 million | $428 million |
| 2010 | $660-690 million | $419 million |
| 2011 | $690 million* | $414 million |
| 2012 | $735 million* |
$474.61 million |
| 2013 | $780 million* |
$517.66 million |
| 2014 | $835 million* |
$540.38 million |
| 2015 | $940 million* |
$579.12 million |
| 2016 | Estimate coming soon! | $580.91 million |
| Dollar Sales for All Diamond's Comics (est., based on Diamond's reports): | Dollar Sales for Diamond's Top 300 Comic Books from each month (est.): | |
| 1997 | $244.39 million | |
| 1998 | $210.65 million | |
| 1999 | $202.54 million | |
| 2000 | $190.75 million | |
| 2001 | $186.98 million | |
| 2002 | $196.65 million | |
| 2003 | $207.19 million | |
| 2004 | $213.24 million | |
| 2005 | $221.73 million | |
| 2006 | $252.18 million | |
| 2007 | $270.00 million | |
| 2008 | $263.00 million | |
| 2009 | $279 million |
$257.88 million |
| 2010 | $266 million |
$245.72 million |
| 2011 | $269 million |
$248.44 million |
| 2012 | $310 million | $285.02 million |
| 2013 | $341 million |
$308.71 million |
| 2014 | $355 million | $313.08 million |
| 2015 | $388 million | $353.18 million |
| 2016 | $382 million |
$344.28 million |
| Unit Sales for All Diamond's Comics(est., based on Diamond's reports): | Unit Sales for Diamond's Top 300 Comic Books from each month (est.): | |
| 1997 | 100.32 million copies |
|
| 1998 | 84.45 million copies |
|
| 1999 | 78.08 million copies | |
| 2000 | 69.26 million copies | |
| 2001 | 66.92 million copies | |
| 2002 | 70.27 million copies | |
| 2003 | 73.02 million copies | |
| 2004 | 74.14 million copies | |
| 2005 | 76.13 million copies | |
| 2006 | 81.85 million copies | |
| 2007 | 85.27 million copies | |
| 2008 | 81.34 million copies |
|
| 2009 | 78.4 million copies | 74.88 million copies |
| 2010 | 73.8 million copies | 69.20 million copies |
| 2011 | 77.2 million copies | 72.13 million copies |
| 2012 | 86 million copies | 80.55 million copies |
| 2013 | 91.8 million copies | 84.51 million copies |
| 2014 | 92 million copies | 82.65 million copies |
| 2015 | 98 million copies | 89.17 million copies |
| 2016 | 99 million copies | 89.35 million copies |
| Dollar Sales for Diamond's Top Trade Paperbacks from each month (est.): | Combined Dollar Sales for Diamond's Top 300 Comics and Top TPBs from each month(est.): |
|
| 1997 | n/a | n/a |
| 1998 | $15.84 million | $226.49 million |
| 1999 | $17.31 million | $219.85 million |
| 2000 | $19.20 million | $209.95 million |
| 2001 | $20.51 million | $207.49 million |
| 2002 | $32.64 million | $229.29 million |
| 2003 | $30.73 million | $237.92 million |
| 2004 | $40.99 million | $254.36 million |
| 2005 | $45.84 million | $267.57 million |
| 2006 | $48.45 million | $300.63 million |
| 2007 | $57.15 million | $327.1 million |
| 2008 | $59.57 million | $327.65 million |
| 2009 | $77.65 million | $335.47 million |
| 2010 | $76.31 million | $321.98 million |
| 2011 | $70.06 million | $318.5 million |
| 2012 | $84.57 million | $369.59 million |
| 2013 | $93.91 million | $402.31 million |
| 2014 | $88.82 million | $401.88 million |
| 2015 | $89.43 million | $442.6 million |
| 2016 | $93.72 million | $437.38 million |
| Average price of comic books in Diamond's Top 300 from each month: | Average price of comic books in Diamond's Top 300 from each month, weighted by orders: | |
| 1997 | $2.62 | $2.44 |
| 1998 | $2.71 | $2.49 |
| 1999 | $2.88 | $2.59 |
| 2000 | $2.95 | $2.75 |
| 2001 | $3.10 | $2.79 |
| 2002 | $3.07 | $2.67 |
| 2003 | $3.06 | $2.84 |
| 2004 | $3.14 | $2.88 |
| 2005 | $3.15 | $2.91 |
| 2006 | $3.24 | $3.08 |
| 2007 | $3.27 | $3.17 |
| 2008 | $3.34 | $3.23 |
| 2009 | $3.47 | $3.44 |
| 2010 | $3.58 | $3.55 |
| 2011 | $3.49 | $3.44 |
| 2012 | $3.54 | $3.57 |
| 2013 | $3.61 | $3.65 |
| 2014 | $3.77 | $3.79 |
| 2015 | $3.83 | $3.96 |
| 2016 | $3.89 | $3.85 |
Note that in the charts above, Diamond from time to time increased the number of trade paperbacks it was reporting on. In 2008, the first 10 months it reported its Top 100, while in the last two months it reported its Top 300. In 2009, the total sum was higher only because the 2009 figure includes Top 300s from all 12 months (and thus figures on 2,000 more trade paperback releases). The links below go to individual yearly pages where that has been allowed for, and apples-to-apples comparisons can be seen.
Beginning with 2011, the "overall" computations are the result of a collaboration with ICv2.com.
The individual pages for each of these years can be found by clicking the links below. Remember that these pages only show what the comics shops of North America ordered, whereas the Statements of Ownership report sales through all channels. More years coming soon!