(I apologize upfront for any weird formatting errors — my outbound screen is really nice looking in format, but who knows how it will translate to you?)

Just in case this is your first time reading a sales report from us, let me give you a little background and a longer look at my CV. My name is Brian Hibbs and for most of the year, I owned two comic book stores in San Francisco: Comix Experience at 305 Divisadero St, and Comix Experience Outpost at 2381 Ocean Ave. I opened the original store more than 32 years ago on April 1st, 1989, when I was merely twenty-one years old, and I purchased Outpost on 1/1/2014, in order to stop it from closing overnight. However, in 2021, both staff members at Outpost announced they had to permanently leave the store at the exact same time for personal reasons, and I simply didn’t have the will or the bandwidth to effectively “have to start over again” there. There was a moment where it looked like Outpost was going to flat out close, but at the last moment we found a buyer in the form of James Teal. However, they haven’t updated ANY internet listings or social media that I can see yet, so this link is the best I can give you to the new version. Our last day owning Outpost was August 31st, 2021, giving me seven years and eight months of owning two stores. I am MUCH happier with just one!

(We also have a webstore if you want to support our efforts, but don’t live locally)

San Francisco is currently home to now seven comic book stores. The stores are, well us and Outpost, as well as Amazing Fantasy, Cards & Comics Central, Isotope, Jeffrey’s Toys, Mission: Comics. At least two of those are only open half-hours, or are not open to walk-in customers while COVID still rages.

This, however, is down from twenty-four stores when I opened in 1989, so comics in San Francisco are not once they once were...

There are also something around a dozen general independent book stores (note that San Francisco has no national chain bookstores! Is ts unique among “major cities”?) that also carry a solid selection of “graphic novels” (which is usually really just a highfaluting name for “bound collection of comics”, and isn’t really any different in any substantial way from “comic book”, except that it makes people feel better about themselves) – but as far as I can tell by viewing and conversation, it is the comics specialty stores that are selling the most comics material, and it is my belief that Comix Experience is the single strongest comics specialty store in SF by a wide margin.

COVID is a pretty big problem for retail in San Francisco – not so much from transmission rates, etc (San Francisco is doing very well for a major city, actually), but more from we were among the first places to get fully shut down in March of 2020, and while we were allowed to reopen that May, we’ve had strong masking mandates in place ever since then (except for just a few short weeks in June 2021) – this keeps citizenry nervous and not in the mood for shopping, and we’ve pretty much lost our twin pillars of commerce: tourism and tech workers in office jobs downtown. Couple this with crazy rent and cost-of-living, spiraling drug and theft problems, and a radical increase in the unhomed on the street (I, for one, trace most of the drug and unhomed problems to when Ronald Reagan was Governor and essentially shut down all mental health funding… what stuns me is 40-whatever years later, we’ve never turned that ship back around, sigh), well SF retail vacancy rates are the highest I have ever seen them, and it appears to my eyes that more store fronts are closing than opening here at month 22 of this plague.

(What? Only 22 months? It feels like five times that, yeesh!)

It’s also important to me to note that how much I think that the comics industry has bobbled things for the last bit. The Last Three Months in particular has been the most challenging I’ve ever seen in the thirty-eightish I have worked at or owned a comics store – and I have lived through two distinct market crashes! So even without the specific-to-San-Francisco external pressures, there are meaningful internal ones working against making money selling comics right this second.

As I noted, I have been selling comics since 1989, and we’re the oldest comic store with the same ownership in the same location in San Francisco. For a quarter of a century I’ve written “Tilting At Windmills”, a regular column about comics retailing, also published in two volumes from IDW Publishing; I’ve been a judge of the Eisner Awards (Comics’ equivalent of the Oscars); I’ve sat on the Board of Directors of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (an organization that protects the First Amendment rights of comics creators), I was one of the original founders of ComicsPRO (the comics retailer trade organization); and I even led a successful Class Action lawsuit against Marvel Comics that won more than a million dollars for comic book retailers internationally.

Six years ago, in response to rising costs in San Francisco, we launched an international Graphic-Novel-Of-The-Month Club where we hold streaming meetings with the authors for literally hundreds of folks around the country (and globe!), and we also have a sibling club for kids age 8-13 ( “middle readers”). And last year we expanded the Club offerings with a new “Comics Masterpieces” club looking at comics throughout their long history. We’re now somewhere around 250 hour-plus long serious interviews with a diverse lot of comics creators, and I think I’ve really gotten good at interviewing creators, so absolutely check out the channel!

Personally, I’ve had a chunk of rough time too – I had a heart attack in late 2020, and this year I fell down a flight of stairs concussing myself and breaking my wrist. All this around the middle of closing down Outpost, coping with the changes to the industry for distribution, delivery, and profitability, and just being ineffably ineffably weary of COVID and masking because there’s a too large fringe that has decided to just not GAF, prolonging this crisis past the point of any reason. Just get vaccinated already, will you? But, anyway, I feel like (KNOCK WOOD!) that I am doing OK despite all the physical challenges. I just had my annual, and my primary doctor was happy with my overall health, so there’s that!

So, how about the stores? Well, as I said last time, 2020 was down ~33% from 2019, but 2021 brought some of our numbers back. In fact, we’re actually up for the year at Divisadero St. in 2021 by almost exactly 33%, though because of how math works, we’re still down about 12% from 2019, which shows you that lingering COVID impact. For the eight months we owned Outpost this year, the result was largely the same – though, obviously, year-over-year at Oupost ended up down because we only have eight months instead of twelve. The Graphic Novel Clubs (which is a subscription based model, so… very different than the underpinning ideas of the retail store!) grew by a great 15%. Thanks, I think, to the Omicron variant, December 2021 radically underperformed the rest of the year at Divisadero – the last month of the year was only ~5% over 2020, but having said that, with everything combined, 2021 was our sixth best year for sales in our 32 years in operation.

When it comes down to what we’re selling, in 2021 almost 65% of our sales at Divisadero St were new graphic novels. This is a slightly growth from 64% in both 2019 and 2020, but nothing crazy. 28% of sales come from new periodical comics. What I find interesting about this is that, ever since the pandemic started, we have been very consciously racking fewer and fewer periodicals, yet we’re not seeing any real percentage decline – it shows how much prices have been rising overall on the comic book format. Roughly 3% of our sales are coming from used/damaged/overstock graphic novels (collectively “sale books”), and 1% is coming from back issues. No other category is a solid percentage. I can’t give you specific breakdowns of what Outpost’s year was like – I captured the gross sales numbers for ’21 before I sold it, but I didn’t bother with the detailed specifics, sorry (Well, I *could* pull it off the Z tapes, but that’s way too much labor for something that is no longer actually germane to the future, right?)

Pulling from the category data, let’s talk about BOOKS at Divisadero st!

One important consideration here is that these numbers DO NOT include the Graphic-Novel-Of-The-Month Club numbers, each and every one of which would top the #1 in-store book! We’ve got some 275 members of the Adult GNC when we include the school accounts, about 450 now for the Kid’s club, while the Comics Masterpieces Club has a sub 100 number — all much more than the best-selling book sold to a walk-in customer (by many multiples, in the case of the Kid’s club!) In fact, we’ve been told that, for at least some of the titles we selected, the book club order is an actual meaningful percentage of sales, impacting sell outs or triggering further printings. Our 2021 releases were, in order of release:

Adult Graphic Novel Club selections for 2021 (You can click these links to purchase copies that have SIGNED bookplates!)

January 2021: RECKLESS by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips [Image Comics]

February 2021: HYPNOTWIST by Gilbert Hernandez [Fantagraphics Books, Inc]

March 2021: AFTERLIFT by Chip Zdarsky and Jason Loo [Dark Horse]

April 2021: MONSTERS by Barry Windsor-Smith [Fantagraphics Books, Inc]

May 2021: DELICATES by Brenna Thummler [Oni / Lion Forge]

June 2021: WE LIVE by Inaki and Roy Miranda [Aftershock]

July 2021: THE SECRET TO SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH by Alison Bechdel [Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]

August 2021: RAPTOR by Dave McKean [Dark Horse]

September 2021: LOST ON PLANET EARTH by Magdalene Visaggio and Claudia Aguirre [Dark Horse]

October 2021: THE GOOD ASIAN by Pornsak Pichetshote and Alexandre Tefenkgi [Image Comics]

November 2021: TIME BEFORE TIME by Declan Shalvey, Rory McConville and Joe Palmer [Image Comics]

December 2021: FAR SECTOR by N.K. Jemisin & Jamal Campbell [DC Entertainment]

KIDS Graphic Novel Club selections for 2021:

January 2021: CAT KID COMIC CLUB by Dav Pilkey [Scholastic]

February 2021: OH MY GODS by Stephanie Cooke, Insha Fitzpatrick and Juliana Moon [Etch/Clarion Books]

March 2021: STRANGE ACADEMY by Skottie Young and Humberto Ramos [Marvel Entertainment]

April 2021: SEEKERS OF THE AWETO by Nie Jun [Graphic Universe]

May 2021: YOUNG SHADOW by Ben Sears [Fantagraphics Books, Inc]

June 2021: NO ONE RETURNS FROM THE ENCHANTED FOREST by Robin Robinson [FirstSecond]

July 2021: THE WAY OF THE HIVE by Jay Hosler [HarperAlley]

August 2021: THE DIRE DAYS OF WILLOWWEEP MANOR by Shaenon K. Garrity & Christopher Baldwin [Margaret K. McElderry Books]

September 2021: PAX SAMSON by Rashad Doucet and Jason Reeves [Oni/Lion Forge]

October 2021: WITCH FOR HIRE by Ted Naifeh [Harry N. Abrams]

November 2021: WRASSLE CASTLE by Paul Tobin, Colleen Coover and Galaad [Vault Comics]

December 2021: MANU by Kelly Fernandez [Scholastic]

COMICS MASTERPIECES Graphic Novel Club Selections for 2021 (Also all have author-signed bookplates)

January 2021: USAGI YOJIMBO: RONIN by Stan Sakai [Fantagraphics Books, Inc]

February 2021: KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE: BAG WARS by Jolly Blackburn and the KODT Dev Team [Kenzer & Co]

March 2021: DARK KNIGHT RETURNS by Frank Miller, Klaus Janson and Lynn Varley [DC Entertainment]

April 2021: SANDMAN: PRELUDES & NOCTURNES by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg [DC Entertainment]

May 2021: MARVELS by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross [Marvel Entertainment]

June 2021: BONE: OUT OF BONEVILLE by Jeff Smith [Cartoon Books]

July 2021: LOCKE & KEY: WELCOME TO LOVECRAFT by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez [IDW]

August 2021: ELFQUEST by Wendy and Richard Pini [Dark Horse]

September 2021: STRANGERS IN PARADIDE by Terry Moore [Abstract Studio]

October 2021: HEAVY LIQUID by Paul Pope [Image Comics]

November 2021: PEDRO & ME by Judd Winick [

December 2021: ENIGMA by Peter Milligan and Duncan Fergredo [Dark Horse]

(If I am allowed to say, I think it is a SUPERB program, and I really invite you to JOIN TODAY! Each of these books ALSO have a LIVESTREAMED interview that goes with them, which you can find here)

(I also can sell you pretty much all of these excellent books, and the adult ones all have author-signed bookplates, too! Go buy a few, wouldja?)

Again: NONE of the club copies are counted in here as “sales-to-walk-in-customers” - if we did, our Top 36 books would ONLY be these titles – when any of the preceding books appear on the list, it is because we sold additional copies to walk-in customers!

So, at the Mothership on Divisadero (which I say again: book-forward comics shop), here are the Top 100 best-selling BOOKS — this is by NUMBER OF COPIES SOLD

1 GOOD ASIAN TP VOL 01

2 BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH MONSTERS HC

(TIE) CAT KID COMIC CLUB HC GN VOL 01

4 RECKLESS HC

5 SECRET TO SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH GN

6 WE LIVE TP VOL 01

7 SANDMAN TP VOL 01 PRELUDES & NOCTURNES 30TH ANNIV ED

8 YOUNG SHADOW SC GN

9 STRANGE ACADEMY GN TP FIRST CLASS

10 FRIEND OF THE DEVIL HC A RECKLESS BOOK

(TIE) MONSTRESS TP VOL 05

(TIE) MONSTRESS TP VOL 06

(TIE) ODESSA GN

(TIE) SAGA TP VOL 01

15 GENDER QUEER MEMOIR GN

16 DISPLACEMENT SC GN

(TIE) DUNGEON CRITTERS SC GN

(TIE) FAR SECTOR TP

19 MONSTRESS TP VOL 01

(TIE) PILU OF THE WOODS GN

21 INVINCIBLE COMPENDIUM TP VOL 01

22 DELICATES TP

(TIE) SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN TP

(TIE) WATCHMEN TP NEW EDITION

25 SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING TP BOOK 01

(TIE) TIME BEFORE TIME TP VOL 01

(TIE) WAY OF THE HIVE HONEY BEES STORY GN

28 DESTROY ALL MONSTERS HC A RECKLESS BOOK

29 BUG BOYS YA HC GN

(TIE) MONSTRESS TP VOL 04

(TIE) UNDERSTANDING COMICS THE INVISIBLE ART

32 BUG BOYS YA HC GN VOL 02 OUTSIDE AND BEYOND

(TIE) CANNONBALL GN

(TIE) FRIDAY TP BOOK 01 FIRST DAY OF CHRISTMAS

(TIE) LONELINESS OF LONG-DISTANCE CARTOONIST HC TOMINE

(TIE) NO ONE RETURNS FROM THE ENCHANTED FOREST GN

(TIE) Y THE LAST MAN TP BOOK 01

38 DIRE DAYS OF WILLOWWEEP MANOR GN

(TIE) GRATEFUL DEAD ORIGINS GN VOL 01

(TIE) RAPTOR TP

(TIE) TIMO ADVENTURER GN

42 AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER METALBENDING ACADEMY TP VOL 00

(TIE) AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER OMNIBUS TP THE PROMISE

(TIE) AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER SEARCH OMNIBUS TP

(TIE) DEADLY CLASS TP VOL 01 REAGAN YOUTH

(TIE) DOG MAN GN VOL 10 MOTHERING HEIGHTS

(TIE) LIGHTFALL GN VOL 01 GIRL & GALDURIAN

(TIE) NUBIA REAL ONE TP

(TIE) OH MY GODS GN

(TIE) SHEETS GN

(TIE) WITCHES OF BROOKLYN SC GN VOL 01

52 BONE COLOR ED SC VOL 01 OUT FROM BONEVILLE

(TIE) DUNE GN BOOK 01 DUNE

(TIE) MONSTRESS TP VOL 02

(TIE) PAPER GIRLS TP VOL 06

(TIE) SAGA TP VOL 02

(TIE) TWINS GN VOL 01

58 5 WORLDS GN VOL 01 SAND WARRIOR

(TIE) DIE TP VOL 01 FANTASY HEARTBREAKER

(TIE) HYPNOTWIST SCARLET BY STARLIGHT DOUBLE FEATURE HC

(TIE) PAX SAMSON TP VOL 01

(TIE) SMASHED JUNJI ITO STORY COLLECTION HC

(TIE) UNRIG HC GN

64 DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH TP VOL 01

(TIE) HILO GN VOL 07 GINA GIRL WHO BROKE THE WORLD

(TIE) INVINCIBLE COMPENDIUM TP VOL 02

(TIE) REMINA HC JUNJI ITO

(TIE) SAGA TP VOL 09

(TIE) SOMETHING IS KILLING CHILDREN TP VOL 01

70 AKIRA KODANSHA ED GN VOL 02

(TIE) BABY SITTERS CLUB COLOR ED GN VOL 09 CLAUDIA & NEW GIRL

(TIE) GIRL FROM THE SEA GN

(TIE) INVINCIBLE TP VOL 01 FAMILY MATTERS

(TIE) PAPER GIRLS TP VOL 01

(TIE) WITCH BOY GN VOL 01

76 AMULET SC VOL 01 STONEKEEPER NEW PTG

(TIE) CYCLOPEDIA EXOTICA TP

(TIE) EAST OF WEST TP VOL 10

(TIE) GRAFITYS WALL HC

(TIE) LETS MAKE RAMEN COMIC BOOK COOKBOOK

(TIE) MONSTRESS TP VOL 03

(TIE) PRIMER TP

(TIE) PRINCE & DRESSMAKER GN

(TIE) SNOTGIRL TP VOL 01 GREEN HAIR DONT CARE

(TIE) SPARKS GN

(TIE) USAGI YOJIMBO SC VOL 01 RONIN

87 AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER RIFT OMNIBUS TP

(TIE) DANCING AFTER TEN HC

(TIE) HARLEY QUINN BREAKING GLASS TP DC INK

(TIE) SACRIFICE OF DARKNESS ORIGINAL HC

(TIE) SAGA TP VOL 03

(TIE) SANDMAN TP VOL 02 THE DOLLS HOUSE 30TH ANNIV ED

(TIE) SHIRLEY & JAMILA SAVE THEIR SUMMER GN

(TIE) THIS WAS OUR PACT GN

95 AFTERLIFT TP

(TIE) AKIRA KODANSHA ED GN VOL 01

(TIE) DARK KNIGHT RETURNS TP NEW EDITION

(TIE) DEADLY CLASS TP VOL 02 KIDS OF THE BLACK HOLE NEW PTG

(TIE) DIE TP VOL 03 GREAT GAME

(TIE) HIDDEN WITCH GN VOL 02

(TIE) HILO GN VOL 01 BOY WHO CRASHED TO EARTH

(TIE) MAGIC FISH GN

(TIE) MAN-EATERS TP VOL 01

(TIE) MEGA DOGS OF NEW KANSAS GN VOL 01

(TIE) MIDWINTER WITCH GN VOL 03

(TIE) MILES MORALES SHOCK WAVES GN

(TIE) NIMONA GN NEW PTG

(TIE) PAPER GIRLS DLX ED HC VOL 01

(TIE) RAINA TELGEMEIER GHOSTS GN

(TIE) SEEKERS OF AWETO GN VOL 01 HUNT IS ON

(TIE) SOMETHING IS KILLING CHILDREN TP VOL 02

(TIE) TEA DRAGON SOCIETY HC

(TIE) WEATHERMAN TP VOL 01

As usual, this seems like a pretty wonderfully eclectic list to me! (I kinda love my job)

Observations (you may have others):

A) Nine of the Top Ten end up being Graphic Novel Club selections this year (and the tenth is a different volume of a GNC series) That’s probably an even split between us focusing on promoting these 36 books each year and those books being fundamentally good in the first place.

Further, if you count “the later volumes”, there are just a few books which AREN’T connected to GNC: SAGA, DUNGEON CRITTERS, INVINCIBLE and WATCHMEN are *it* in the top twenty-five. DUNGEON CRITTERS in particular is purely and 100% because of handselling by the staff (While INVINCIBLE was because of the TV show)

B) Our #1 book (THE GOOD ASIAN) was backed up by having a in-person signing with author Pornsak Pichetshote – it’s the *only* signing we had in 2021 as well, as COVID got us freaked out for doing in-person events right after we booked this. In years without plagues we try to do 24 or more signings!

C) several of these books had regular stock outages this year, making this performance even more impressive -- for example, we haven’t been able to restock SANDMAN PRELUDES & NOCTURNES for like 2-3 months now. Same on STRANGE ACADEMY. And how did DC let WATCHMEN go out of print over Christmas? [Maybe it’s going to revert, bwahahahaha!] Ultimately, I see just over 10% of our top selling volumes were unavailable for some portion of the year. That is a very poor way to run a railroad.

D) Forty-Four of these books are aimed at “kids”, while there are really very very few featuring in-continuity DC/Marvel characters – STRANGE ACADEMY and FAR SECTOR are my two because I think, say, SANDMAN is kind of a reach – and this list basically does not pair up with the Periodical comics list in the slightest (it doesn’t help that HoX/PoX spent most of the year OOP)

E) Every book here sold “at least one copy a month”, mathematically speaking. The best-sellers sold like 4-5x that

Our #1 book is THE GOOD ASIAN. As noted, that’s likely because of Pornsak being here in person.

#2 & 3 are a tie, and it couldn’t be further apart in tone or style: BWS’s MONSTERS and CAT KID COMIC CLUB. *Damn!* I LOVE comics!

#4 and #10 (and #28) are volumes of RECKLESS – however, this is fewer # of copies sold than I was selling of CRIMINAL as a periodical comic (and then we’d sell more copies of the collections on top of that) – ultimately, I think Ed & Sean are costing themselves money here, but I’m no good at convincing people that!

#5 is Alison Bechdel’s THE SECRET OF SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH, which has sold at least 3 copies a month every month since release.

#6 is WE LIVE. It’s a GORGEOUS book, but it surprises me a tiny smidge that it placed that high.

#7 is SANDMAN and like #9’s STRANGE ACADEMY, suffered from many many stocking issues this year. When Vince was in charge of reprints at DC, they’d NEVER be out of such a significant book. How the mighty have fallen. While #8 is YOUNG SHADOW…. I have seen no copies available to restock for last three months, but luckily, we had copies on hand so we never ran out. (down to our last copy now!)

There were almost 5000 different graphic novels that we sold at least a single copy at full price in 2021 – we carry more like 6500 at the moment though. I should tighten stock more – but we like having comics to browse, and most of them will sell *eventually*!

Because I have to pay staff and rent and electricity and all of the other myriad of costs to run a store, I usually actually think of stuff in terms of dollars sold, rather than units. Not going to do the entire top 100, but here’s what the Top 20 looks like if you look at Dollars sold – cover price makes a real difference!:

1 BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH MONSTERS HC

2 INVINCIBLE COMPENDIUM TP VOL 01

3 RECKLESS HC

4 SECRET TO SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH GN

5 INVINCIBLE COMPENDIUM TP VOL 02

6 FRIEND OF THE DEVIL HC A RECKLESS BOOK

7 FAR SECTOR TP

8 GOOD ASIAN TP VOL 01

9 SANDMAN TP EXPANDED EDITION BOX SET

10 SANDMAN TP VOL 01 PRELUDES & NOCTURNES 30TH ANNIV ED

11 WE LIVE TP VOL 01

12 ODESSA GN

13 WATCHMEN TP NEW EDITION

14 LONELINESS OF LONG-DISTANCE CARTOONIST HC TOMINE

15 YOUNG SHADOW SC GN

16 CAT KID COMIC CLUB HC GN VOL 01

17 RAPTOR TP

18 INVINCIBLE COMPENDIUM TP VOL 03

19 UNDERSTANDING COMICS THE INVISIBLE ART

20 MONSTRESS TP VOL 05

———————————

But what about the periodical on Divisadero? Well, it’s a different picture for sure. Here’s the Top 100 by number of copies sold, this should be properly and accurately adjusted to account for variant covers (smallish thing at Divis, but, damn, it was at least 30 min of work to sort that through…)

1 BRZRKR #1

2 X-MEN #1

3 PLANET-SIZED X-MEN #1 GALA

4 X-MEN #17

(TIE) X-MEN #21 GALA

6 X-MEN #2

7 X-MEN #20

8 X-MEN #19

9 X-MEN #18

10 GOOD ASIAN #1 (OF 9)

11 JOKER #1

12 FUTURE STATE THE NEXT BATMAN #1 (OF 4)

(TIE) GEIGER #1

14 MARAUDERS #21 GALA

(TIE) WONDER WOMAN HISTORIA THE AMAZONS #1 (OF 3)

16 BRZRKR - BERZERKER - #2

17 ETERNALS #1

(TIE) INFINITE FRONTIER #0 ONE SHOT

(TIE) MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR #1 (OF 5)

(TIE) X-MEN #3

21 KING IN BLACK MARAUDERS #1

(TIE) X-MEN #4

23 GOOD ASIAN #5 (OF 10)

(TIE) LOCKE & KEY SANDMAN HELL & GONE #1

(TIE) MARAUDERS #17

(TIE) MARAUDERS #20

(TIE) WAY OF X #1

28 GOOD ASIAN #3 (OF 9)

(TIE) MARAUDERS #18

30 BATMAN #106

(TIE) GOOD ASIAN #4 (OF 10)

(TIE) LOVE & ROCKETS MAGAZINE #10

33 BATMAN #107

(TIE) BATMAN FEAR STATE ALPHA #1 ONE SHOT

(TIE) GOOD ASIAN #2 (OF 9)

(TIE) MARAUDERS #19

(TIE) MOON KNIGHT #1

(TIE) RAIN LIKE HAMMERS #1 (OF 5)

(TIE) X-FORCE #18

(TIE) X-FORCE #20 GALA

(TIE) X-MEN #16 XOS

(TIE) X-MEN #5

43 BATMAN #108

(TIE) BATMAN #109

(TIE) BLACK PANTHER #24

(TIE) BRZRKR BERZERKER #3

(TIE) FUTURE STATE WONDER WOMAN #1 (OF 2)

(TIE) HAHA #1

(TIE) MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR #2 (OF 5)

(TIE) STAR WARS HIGH REPUBLIC #2

(TIE) STAR WARS HIGH REPUBLIC #3

(TIE) STRANGE ADVENTURES #9 (OF 12)

(TIE) X-FORCE #16

(TIE) X-FORCE #19

55 BATMAN #110

(TIE) BATMAN #116

(TIE) BATMAN CATWOMAN #2 (OF 12)

(TIE) DARK NIGHTS DEATH METAL #7

(TIE) MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR #4 (OF 5)

(TIE) MARAUDERS #22

(TIE) NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE #1

(TIE) STAR WARS HIGH REPUBLIC #1

(TIE) STAR WARS HIGH REPUBLIC #4

(TIE) STRANGE ADVENTURES #11 (OF 12)

(TIE) WAY OF X #5

(TIE) WONDER GIRL #1

(TIE) X-FORCE #17

68 BATMAN #115 FEAR STATE

(TIE) BATMAN CATWOMAN #3 (OF 12)

(TIE) ETERNALS #2

(TIE) EXCALIBUR #21 GALA

(TIE) GOOD ASIAN #6 (OF 10)

(TIE) HARLEY QUINN THE ANIMATED SERIES THE EAT BANG KILL TOUR #1 (OF 6)

(TIE) LOCKE & KEY SANDMAN UNIVERSE HELL & GONE #2

(TIE) MONSTRESS #31

(TIE) MONSTRESS #33

(TIE) MONSTRESS #34

(TIE) NEW MUTANTS #15

(TIE) NEW MUTANTS #16

(TIE) STRANGE ADVENTURES #8 (OF 12)

(TIE) ULTRAMEGA BY JAMES HARREN #1

(TIE) WAY OF X #2

(TIE) WAY OF X #4

(TIE) WONDER GIRL #2

85 BATMAN #111

(TIE) BATMAN #112 FEAR STATE

(TIE) BATMAN #113 FEAR STATE

(TIE) BATMAN CATWOMAN #5 (OF 12)

(TIE) BLACK PANTHER #25

(TIE) ETERNALS #4

(TIE) EXCALIBUR #17

(TIE) EXCALIBUR #18

(TIE) INFERNO #2 (OF 4)

(TIE) MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR #3 (OF 5)

(TIE) MONSTRESS #35

(TIE) NEW MUTANTS #19 GALA

(TIE) RORSCHACH #4 (OF 12)

(TIE) STAR WARS HIGH REPUBLIC #5

(TIE) WHATS THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE #1

(TIE) X-CORP #1 (OF 5)

(TIE) X-MEN TRIAL OF MAGNETO #1 (OF 5)

I don’t know that I have a ton of periodical notes this year — pretty much X-MEN and its satellites ruled the roost, while the main BATMAN title did similar at DC, but these numbers are DRAMATICALLY lower than they were in 2020. I especially want to point to the relaunch of X-MEN as something that is clearly showing as selling fewer copies of the series, even while issue #1 was the biggest superhero book of the year. “Fear State” exerted the same downward pressure for BATMAN, and while “Future State Batman #1” launched big, the audience quickly decided they didn’t like that.

For Non-DC/Marvel comics, obviously the Keanu-driven BRZRKR #1 (and even #2) were big big hits, but it drifts off quickly after that. Not a ton of staying power. Well, funnily the World Premiere of MATRIX 4 was in SF a weekend or two back, and we sold a LOT of copies that week, I think because people were hoping Keanu would sign them?

GOOD ASIAN #1 (at #10) and GEIGER #1 (at #12) were the stand-out Image launches, while MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR #1 (at #17) is a big non-Keanu hit for Boom! The first LOCKE & KEY / SANDMAN (#23) was IDW’s big strike, whereas I am genuinely personally happy that LOVE & ROCKETS hits the top 30 for Fantagraphics.

Further down standout first issues are RAIN LIKE HAMMERS (#33) HAHA (#43), ULTRAMEGA (#68) and WHAT’S THE FURTHEST PLACE FROM HERE (#85). All are Image comics.

But mostly, it’s a lot of Marvel and DC comics in the top 100, even though I’m racking less and less of this work every month, it feels like. As like last year, I have to repeat: Mostly, DC and Marvel sales are a whole lot of “subs +1” or “+2” for the rack. Because they’re publishing so much rack filler the ironic thing is that they mostly work against themselves — we’d sell so many more DC and Marvel comics, if they’d just stop publishing so many damn comics. It’s a rare book (25% of their output?) where I’m ordering what I’d consider a meaningful, or almost worth-the-effort to stock number of rack copies, because the individual numbers are so low, the risk on unsold copies skyrockets. It is a goddamn conundrum for the working retailer. Anyway.

There were roughly 4300 different periodical comics (counting variants as “the same comic”!!!!!) that we sold at least one copy of in 2021. There are less than 100 comics we ordered rack copies of, and sold none of them. Such a different business model than graphic novels!

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Right, so last thing: “market share”. This is everything combined together, but still not including any GN Club pulls – these are ONLY retail sales! This is essentially our Top 20 publishers, with an additional cut off of a half percent of overall sales.

17.05% MARVEL COMICS

15.71% DC COMICS

13.72% IMAGE COMICS

6.67% DARK HORSE COMICS

5.21% IDW PUBLISHING

4.06% FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS

3.67% BOOM! STUDIOS

2.45% MACMILLAN

2.45% VIZ LLC

2.07% PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE

2.00% ONI PRESS / LION FORGE

1.96% SCHOLASTIC / GRAPHIX

1.87% DRAWN & QUARTERLY

1.08% SIMON & SCHUSTER

1.05% KODANSHA COMICS

0.97% ABRAMS COMICARTS

0.95% AFTERSHOCK COMICS

0.79% TITAN COMICS

0.65% HARPERCOLLINS

0.63% HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT

0.59% VAULT COMICS

0.55% HUMANOIDS INC

0.51% NOBROW

There are approximately 243 publishers we are carrying books from in 2021

If GNC was in the above… well, its more math than I feel like doing this second, because am I counting the COVER PRICE of the book, or what we charge for the monthly sub? (Those are different things – and that $40 MONSTERS from FBI was only charged $25 to GNC members, right?) but I am pretty sure that Image would surge to #1 followed closely by Fantagraphics and Dark Horse at #2 and #3

That’s the Comix Experience 2021 round up! Thanks for spending the time reading this – we’re ALWAYS interested in hearing your thoughts and analysis, and you can leave it below in the comments.

Happy New Year!!

Brian Hibbs

Head Cheese, Comix Experience

On Behalf of

Zoe Hu, Manager

Katt Kelly

Katie Borrman

(w/ aid from Mad Max)