Comix Experience Best-Sellers: 2024
/This is an overview of the best-sellers for Comix Experience in 2024. It’s very long, sorry!
Also? Don’t forget to look at the new issue of COMIX EXPERIENCE ONOMATOPOEIA, where we currently are showing you what’s shipping in March of 2025. Also, also scope on our Jan 2025 Graphic Novel Club events, on the events page. This is a fantastic time to join the Graphic Novel Club, because we’ve got a great stack of books coming to you throughout the next year, and it’s the most direct way you can support Comix Experience if you want the kind of store that we are to continue into the upcoming years.
(I apologize upfront for any weird formatting errors – my outbound screen is really nice looking in format, but it usually comes out weird on the internet because there are so many formats and devices it might be converted for!)
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 I own Comix Experience at 305 Divisadero St in the City of San Francisco. I first opened, in this same location, almost 36 years ago on April 1st, 1989, when I was merely twenty-one years old. If you don’t live locally, but you’d like to support our efforts, we have a webstore you can buy from.
San Francisco is currently home to eight comic book stores. The stores are, well us… as well as Amazing Fantasy, Cards & Comics Central, Invisible Jet Comics, Isotope, Mission: Comics, Silver Sprocket and Sour Cherry Comics. In 2024 we lost Jeffrey’s Toys downtown. And right on their first anniversary a business above Invisible Jet caught fire, and the water from putting out that fire ruined Invisible Jet. They’re currently in a “pop up” space down the block, but are not in their “proper” home currently. This number of stores is significantly down from twenty-four stores when I opened in 1989, so comics in San Francisco are not precisely what they once were...
There are also something around two dozen independent book stores (note that San Francisco has no national chain bookstores! I think this is unique among “major cities”?) many of which 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 still is the comics specialty stores that are selling the most comics material in SF, and it is my belief that Comix Experience is likely the single strongest comics specialty store in SF.
San Francisco's broader economy has still not fully recovered yet post-pandemic. A certain percentage of this is from Tech businesses being mostly work from home in the Bay Area (which radically has changed how and when people shop), a certain percentage of this is how the City has dealt with (or not) Fentanyl and the unhomed; and some of this is a drop off in tourism (which mostly seems to do with a lot of kind of false narratives) – neighborhoods are mostly thriving, but downtown is really suffering from these loops. “Big Cities” always have unhomed and addiction problems, and I believe that SF’s, while being more out-in-the-open, perhaps, than ever before, are certainly no worse than other metropolitan areas. It’s just that certain Culture Warriors like to use SF as their poster child, so they exaggerate things. Because of Work From Home at tech, Office Vacancy in SF is at a record high of almost 35% as I write this (!), which means businesses paying downtown rents don’t have the critical masses of shoppers they need to pay those rents. And as anchor businesses then abandon the giant mall at the foot of the Powell st Cable Cars, the surrounding downtown businesses start to go out in a vicious circle. Retail in a city like San Francisco is never easy, but the years since the Pandemic have proven especially challenging for certain areas.
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 third 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 because Marvel mis-solicited years’ worth of comics. But I just run what is just a modest (1200 sq feet) neighborhood shop.
Comix Experience has got what I believe is one of the single best staffs of all comic book stores! Zoe is Manager and does so much heavy lifting in helping steer our diverse inventory. Katie has just been murdering it with art design for our racks and window displays. And Katt is so damn good at keeping our Instagram feed as lively and on point. And that’s on top of just how damn good they all are at matching readers to books. And they’re backed up by Max and Chrissy. It’s just a fucking good crew.
Allllllmost Ten years ago, in response to rising costs in San Francisco, we launched an international Graphic-Novel-Of-The-Month Club where we hold streaming interviews with the authors (and signed bookplates, too!) for literally hundreds of folks around the country (and globe!), and we also have a sibling club for kids age 8-13 (“middle readers”). We’re now well past 300 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! We started a smaller number of audio-only “Podcast” versions of those same shows last year, which you can get here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
CV and background out of the way, then, how did the store do in 2024? Not too shabby! We ended up 8% over 2023, which is a solid enough growth for a thirty-five year old business, I think. I also hear from several of my SF peers that they’re still struggling to make the math work, so it appears we’re on the better end of the curve for the local market? We’ve got quite a while to go to get back to our highest highs, but this was our best year since 2019, so we’re personally past the pandemic peak, which makes me hopeful. I’ve lived through many up-and-down cycles of business since 1989, and I’ve yet to pull several of the ripcords I could, but what local small businesses in your area really need is your support! Me? I’ve got a pair of Graphic Novel-of-the-month clubs that make a real difference for us. Did I ask you to join already?
When it comes down to what we’re selling, in 2024 63% of our sales were from new and used graphic novels. 35% were from periodical-format comics (including back issues). Almost 2% are from supplies (bags, boards, boxes, etc), while the last (under 1%) is from everything else. For our sales, 92% comes from credit cards -- which means we’re only making ~98% of our stated sales there! That super sucks.
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Since it is our largest category, let’s talk about BOOKS sales at Comix Experience.
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’re selling somewhere between two hundred and four hundred copies of each selection each month, depending on whether it is kids club, or adult. 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. However, when I report on the charts below, I am only reporting retail sales, not club sales. There is a real and meaningful difference between a subscription box, and a walk-in customer pulling a Jefferson out of their pocket at the counter!
Our 2024 GNC selections were, in order of release – the hotlinks below will take you both to the book as well as to the video interview with the creators!:
ADULT CLUB selections for 2024
Jan 2024 GREAT BRITISH BUMP OFF TP John Allison & Max Sarin
Feb 2024 ZODIAC GRAPHIC MEMOIR GN Ai Weiwei & Gianluca Costantini
Mar 2024 BUNT STRIKING OUT ON FINANCIAL AID GN Ngozi Ukazu & Mad Rupert
Apr 2024 TENDER HC Beth Hetland
May 2024 ADVOCATE HC Eddie Ahn
Jun 2024 SACRIFICERS TP VOL 01 Rick Remender & Max Fiumara
Jul 2024 GRIZ GROBUS TP Simon Roy
Aug 2024 BRITTLE JOINTS GN Maria Sweeney
Sep 2024 RARE FLAVOURS TP Ram V. & Filipe Andrade
Oct 2024 BENEATH THE TREES WHERE NOBODY SEES TP Patrick Horvath
Nov 2024 DRAFTED GN Rick Parker
Dec 2024 WE CALLED THEM GIANTS HC Kieron Gillen & Stephanie Hans
KIDS CLUB selections for 2024
Jan 2024 SKIP GN Sarah Burgess
Feb 2024 K IS IN TROUBLE GN Gary Clement
Mar 2024 EOWULF GN VOL 01 OF MONSTERS & MIDDLE SCHOOL Mike Cavallaro
Apr 2024 UNICORN BOY GN VOL 01 Dave Roman
May 2024 MAGIC GIRLS GN VOL 01 KIRA & MAYBE SPACE PRINCESS Megan Brennan
Jun 2024 PLAIN JANE & MERMAID GN Vera Brosgol
Jul 2024 CAMP PRODIGY Caroline Palmer
Aug 2024 RUNE TALE OF A THOUSAND FACES GN Carlos Sanchez
Sep 2024 HOW IT ALL ENDS GN Emma Hunsinger
Oct 2024 BUCKLE UP GN Lawrence Lindell
Nov 2024 MONSTER LOCKER GN VOL 01 Jorge Aguirre & Andres Vera Martinez
Dec 2024 DETECTIVE BEANS GN CASE OF MISSING HAT Li Chen
(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 24 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 anyway, at Comix Experience (which I say again: book-forward comics shop), here are the Top 100 best-selling BOOKS – this is by NUMBER OF COPIES SOLD
Comix Experience BOOK Best Sellers 2024, By Quantity Sold
1 ZODIAC GRAPHIC MEMOIR GN
2 ADVOCATE HC
3 BENEATH THE TREES WHERE NOBODY SEES TP
4 ITS LONELY AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH TP
5 SAGA TP VOL 11
6 MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR TP
7 SACRIFICERS TP VOL 01
8 RARE FLAVOURS TP
9 TENDER HC
10 NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE TP VOL 01
(tie) THIEVES GN
12 DETECTIVE BEANS GN CASE OF MISSING HAT
(tie) RUNE TALE OF A THOUSAND FACES GN
14 PLAIN JANE & MERMAID GN
15 FAMILY STYLE MEMORIES OF AMERICAN FROM VIETNAM GN
(tie) HOUSES OF THE UNHOLY HC
17 GRATEFUL DEAD ORIGINS GN VOL 01
(tie) SAGA TP VOL 10
19 DUNGEON CRITTERS SC GN
(tie) HOW IT ALL ENDS GN
(tie) MONICA HC
22 CHARLES BURNS FINAL CUT HC
(tie) MAMO TP
(tie) NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE TP VOL 02
25 DOG MAN GN VOL 12 SCARLET SHEDDER
(tie) GREAT BRITISH BUMP OFF TP
(tie) UZUMAKI 3IN1 DLX ED HC JUNJI ITO
28 GOOD ASIAN TP VOL 01
(tie) K IS IN TROUBLE GN
(tie) SOMETHING IS KILLING CHILDREN TP VOL 01
(tie) WE CALLED THEM GIANTS HC
32 BUNT STRIKING OUT ON FINANCIAL AID GN
(tie) FANGS GN
(tie) SAGA TP VOL 01
35 CRYPTID KIDS GN VOL 01 BAWK NESS MONSTER
36 BUG BOYS YA HC GN VOL 01
37 DELICIOUS IN DUNGEON GN VOL 01
(tie) MINOR THREATS TP VOL 01 QUICK END TO A LONG BEGINNING
(tie) THIS WAS OUR PACT GN
(tie) UNICORN BOY GN VOL 01
41 AMULET SC VOL 09 WAVERIDER
(tie) CLOUD TOWN GN
(tie) FAR SECTOR TP
(tie) HOOKY GN VOL 01
(tie) MONSTRESS TP VOL 09
(tie) THIS COUNTRY SEARCHING FOR HOME IN VERY RURAL AMERICA GN
(tie) TMNT THE LAST RONIN HC
48 THE INCAL TP
49 EVIL EYES SEA GN
(tie) MY FAVORITE THING IS MONSTERS GN VOL 02
(tie) SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING TP BOOK 01
(tie) ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN BY HICKMAN TP VOL 01 MARRIED W CHILDREN
53 AKIRA KODANSHA ED GN VOL 01
(tie) HOOKY GN VOL 02
(tie) MAGIC GIRLS GN VOL 01 KIRA & MAYBE SPACE PRINCESS
(tie) MONSTRESS TP VOL 01
(tie) SUPER BOBA CAFE GN VOL 01
(tie) WHERE THE BODY WAS HC
59 ARCA TP
(tie) AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER OMNIBUS TP THE PROMISE
(tie) BATMAN YEAR ONE DELUXE SC
(tie) LIGHTFALL GN VOL 01 GIRL & GALDURIAN
(tie) SQUIRE GN
64 BIRDKING TP VOL 01 ESCAPE FROM FEATHER HILL
(tie) CALVIN AND HOBBES PORTABLE COMPENDIUM SC 1
(tie) GRIZ GROBUS TP
(tie) INCAL HC NEW PTG
(tie) INVINCIBLE COMPENDIUM TP VOL 01
(tie) SQUIRE & KNIGHT GN VOL 01
(tie) SUPER TRASH CLASH GN
(tie) WATCHMEN TP
72 BERSERK DELUXE EDITION HC VOL 01
(tie) CAT KID COMIC CLUB HC GN VOL 05 INFLUENCERS
(tie) GOOD ASIAN TP VOL 02
(tie) IMPENDING BLINDNESS OF BILLIE SCOTT OVERSIZED ED
(tie) MY PARENTS WONT STOP TALKING HC
(tie) NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE THE DELUXE EDITION HC
(tie) SANDMAN BOOK 01 TP
(tie) SCHAPPI GN
(tie) SOMETHING IS KILLING CHILDREN TP VOL 03
(tie) STAR TREK LOWER DECKS WARP YOUR OWN WAY TP
82 BATMAN THE LONG HALLOWEEN TP
(tie) BELLE OF THE BALL GN
(tie) BLUEY FIVE MINUTE STORIES
(tie) BLUEY SHADOWLANDS TP
(tie) BRITTLE JOINTS GN
(tie) EOWULF GN VOL 01 OF MONSTERS & MIDDLE SCHOOL
(tie) GODZILLA STOKOE DLX ED HC
(tie) INVINCIBLE COMPENDIUM TP VOL 02
(tie) MAGE TP VOL 05 HERO DENIED BOOK THREE
(tie) MONSTRESS TP VOL 08
(tie) ONE PIECE OMNIBUS TP 1 VOL 1 2 3
(tie) SOMETHING IS KILLING CHILDREN TP VOL 02
(tie) SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN TP VOL 07
(tie) SUNDAY TP
(tie) UNICO GN VOL 01 AWAKENING
97 ATANA GN VOL 01 ATANA & FIREBIRD
(tie) AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER SEARCH OMNIBUS TP
(tie) COMPLETE PERSEPOLIS TP
(tie) COYOTE DOGGIRL HC
(tie) DAYTRIPPER TP
(tie) DOG MAN GN VOL 13 BIG JIM BEGINS
(tie) HILO GN VOL 10 RISE OF CAT
(tie) HOOKY GN VOL 03
(tie) ICE CREAM MAN TP VOL 01 RAINBOW SPRINKLES
(tie) LUNAR NEW YEAR LOVE STORY GN
(tie) NARUTO 3IN1 TP VOL 01
(tie) NIMONA GN NEW PTG
(tie) PAPER GIRLS COMP STORY TP
(tie) PEANUTS TP SNOOPY TOUCHDOWN
(tie) POKEMON ABC LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK
(tie) POKEMON ADV COLLECTORS ED TP VOL 01
(tie) ROBOT DREAMS TP
(tie) SKIP GN
(tie) TOMIE COMPLETE DLX ED HC JUNJI ITO
(tie) ULTRALAZER TP
(tie) UPGRADE SOUL GN
(tie) WOMAN WORLD GN
Every single one of these books sold more than one copy a month each month of the year (on average) – some sold much much better than that
It shouldn’t be any massive surprise, but I am absolutely thrilled by the range and variety of our sales – not just from genre, but also creator’s voice as well as intended audience. This list makes me super proud to sell the comics, yo!
Some notes!
Our #1 book for the year was the January released ZODIAC GRAPHIC MEMOIR by Ai Weiwei and Gianluca Costantini, which we almost hit triple digits on. A pretty big chunk of these sales happened in the first two quarters, as our copies were signed by Ai Weiwei. Once we ran out of signed copies, sales declined a bit. This is what happens when you have an internationally famous artist doing a memoir?
Our #2 book, ADVOCATE, is by local creator Eddie Ahn. It’s a great book, but I suspect the “local” angle moved a solid chunk of those. Local boy does good!
At #3, we have BENEATH THE TREES WHERE NOBODY SEES, which is my pick for the book of the year. This was released nearly in q4, so that’s a stupendous performance for this lovely, dirty little book – it’s Richard Scarry meets DEXTER!
#4 is last year’s best-seller, ITS LONELY AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH, which is showing mighty strength coming in so high for a second year running – we sold more than one copy each and every week this year
#5 is SAGA v11 – this was released in Nov of ’23, and there hasn’t been another volume since. This is a very strong performance, but it’s about half of the velocity that SAGA was selling when it came out more frequently
At #6 is THE MANY DEATH OF LAILA STARR by Ram V and Felipe Andrade, which is a real power team for Comix Experience. This one is one the staff’s favorites to hand-sell, and it shows with that placement. The same creative team also did book #8, RARE FLAVOURS!
#7 is Rick Remender and Max Fiumara’s THE SACRIFICERS. I liked this book a lot, but I am a teeny tiny bit surprised that it came in so high, because it did it mostly by itself – I can’t really remember specifically hand-selling it to anyone this year? That’s great when that happens!
#9 is Beth Hetland’s TENDER which is some gnarly body horror, but from a woman’s perspective.
And #10 is our first tie, where NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE ties with THIEVES by Lucie Bryon. You can’t find two books that are more tonally and formally apart?
Finally, as far as notes go, our first kids-aimed book comes in at #12 with DETECTIVE BEANS by Li Chen. If I had two more weeks of the year to go, it absolutely would have pulled into the top ten. This is the single cutest book we sold this year, I think!
The very first superhero comic to appear on our list is FAR SECTOR at #44 by N.K. Jemisin and Jamal Campbell
While it takes a bit of judgment calls, I’d say that 38 of our top 118 books are explicitly intended for “kids” or “Young Adults”. I am very happy with that ratio.
As is typical, I am really really proud of the breadth of this list, and seeing it presented this way always makes me think, “Damn, I own a really good comics shop, don’t I?” Hell yeah!
Now, that list was sorted by number of copies sold, or really, number of humans that bought one, but as a small retail business, I actually run on dollars sold! It doesn’t inherently change most of the books you already saw, but it absolutely changes just how important they were to the bottom line. I’ll just give you twenty-five titles this time. The start of the list doesn’t change much!
Comix Experience BOOK Best Sellers 2024, By Dollars
1 ZODIAC GRAPHIC MEMOIR GN
2 ADVOCATE HC
3 BENEATH THE TREES WHERE NOBODY SEES TP
4 SAGA TP VOL 11
5 INVINCIBLE COMPENDIUM TP VOL 01
6 CHARLES BURNS FINAL CUT HC
7 UZUMAKI 3IN1 DLX ED HC JUNJI ITO
8 ITS LONELY AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH TP
9 INVINCIBLE COMPENDIUM TP VOL 02
10 MY FAVORITE THING IS MONSTERS GN VOL 02
11 GRATEFUL DEAD ORIGINS GN VOL 01
12 MONICA HC
13 HOUSES OF THE UNHOLY HC
14 MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR TP
15 THIEVES GN
16 BERSERK DELUXE EDITION HC VOL 01
17 NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE THE DELUXE EDITION HC
18 INCAL HC NEW PTG
19 SACRIFICERS TP VOL 01
20 NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE TP VOL 01
21 RARE FLAVOURS TP
22 ADV OF TINTIN COMPLETE COLLECTION SET
23 TENDER HC
24 THE INCAL TP
25 TMNT THE LAST RONIN HC
There were 4923 graphic novels that we sold at least a single copy, at full cover price in 2024. We carry something approaching 7200 books, which is maybe too much chum lurking about, but that’s what you need to do to sell books.
But what about the periodicals at Comix Experience? Well, it’s a different picture for sure!. Here’s the Top 100 by number of copies sold!
Comix Experience COMICS Best Sellers 2024, By Quantity Sold
1 ABSOLUTE BATMAN #1
2 ABSOLUTE BATMAN #2
3 SAGA #68
4 SAGA #67
5 SAGA #69
6 ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #1
7 ABSOLUTE SUPERMAN #1
8 ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #2
9 ABSOLUTE BATMAN #3
(tie) SAGA #70
(tie) UNCANNY X-MEN #1
12 X-MEN #1
13 ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #2
14 DC ALL IN SPECIAL #1 ONE SHOT
15 UNCANNY X-MEN #2
(tie) X-MEN #3
17 ABSOLUTE SUPERMAN #2
(tie) POWER FANTASY #1
19 JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED #1
(tie) ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #1
(tie) ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #3
(tie) UNCANNY X-MEN #3
23 UNCANNY X-MEN #4
24 ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #7
(tie) X-MEN #2
26 ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #4
(tie) ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #6
28 ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #9
29 ULTIMATE X-MEN #1
30 ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #8
(tie) X-MEN #5
32 FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X #1
(tie) RISE OF THE POWERS OF X #1
34 DOOM #1 ONE SHOT
(tie) GHOST MACHINE ONE-SHOT
(tie) PRECIOUS METAL #1 OF 6
(tie) ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #5
(tie) ULTIMATE X-MEN #2
(tie) X-MEN #4
40 HUNGER AND DUSK #5
(tie) MIRACLEMAN SILVER AGE #7
(tie) ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #10
(tie) ULTIMATES #1
(tie) UNCANNY X-MEN #5
(tie) X-MEN #6
46 ALIEN VS AVENGERS #1
(tie) FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X #2
(tie) LOVE & ROCKETS MAGAZINE #15
(tie) PHOENIX #1
50 GODS #4
(tie) NICE HOUSE BY THE SEA #1 OF 12
(tie) NYX #1
(tie) ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #11
(tie) X-MEN #35
(tie) X-MEN #7
56 GODS #5
(tie) RISE OF THE POWERS OF X #2
(tie) ULTIMATE X-MEN #3
(tie) ULTIMATES #4
(tie) UNCANNY X-MEN #7
61 DEPROG #1 OF 4
(tie) GODS #7
(tie) HUNGER AND DUSK #6
(tie) RISE OF THE POWERS OF X #4
(tie) ULTIMATE X-MEN #4
(tie) ULTIMATE X-MEN #5
(tie) UNCANNY X-MEN #6
68 BATMAN THE LONG HALLOWEEN THE LAST HALLOWEEN #1 OF 10
(tie) GODS #6
(tie) MANS BEST #1 OF 5
(tie) REDCOAT #1
(tie) RISE OF THE POWERS OF X #3
(tie) ULTIMATES #2
(tie) X-FACTOR #1
(tie) X-MEN #32
(tie) X-MEN #33
(tie) X-MEN #34
(tie) ZATANNA BRING DOWN THE HOUSE #1 OF 5
79 FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X #3
(tie) NEW GODS #1 OF 12
(tie) ULTIMATES #5
(tie) X-MEN #8 [ROG]
83 ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #3
(tie) FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X #4
(tie) PARANOID GARDENS #1
(tie) ULTIMATE X-MEN #6
(tie) ULTIMATES #3
(tie) X-MEN #30
(tie) X-MEN #31
90 BATMAN #144
(tie) BATMAN AND ROBIN YEAR ONE #1 OF 12
(tie) FALL OF HOUSE OF X #5
(tie) GODS #8
(tie) HATE REVISITED #1 OF 4
(tie) HELEN OF WYNDHORN #1
(tie) HUNGER & DUSK BOOK TWO #2
(tie) JOHN CONSTANTINE HELLBLAZER DEAD IN AMERICA #1 (OF 8)
(tie) NICE HOUSE BY THE SEA #2 OF 12
(tie) POWER FANTASY #2
(tie) PRECIOUS METAL #2 OF 6
(tie) ULTIMATE X-MEN #7
(tie) ULTIMATES #6
(tie) WOLVERINE #1
(tie) WOLVERINE REVENGE #1 OF 5
I actually recently wrote a whole TILTING AT WINDMILLS about the big change in periodical sales this year, so go read that? I think the short version might be that it’s nice to see triple digit superhero comics happening again – especially in books that have less than 3 months on the stands. The biggest bottleneck to periodicals selling more is my inherent conservatism in risking unsold copies – a huge percentage (75% or more?) of this list would have sold better if I had more copies to sell. Now, do understand that this is almost equally as true for the publishers involved – ABSOLUTE BATMAN #1, for example, was an instant sell-out through four printings so far! – and having there be 3+ week gaps between a sell-out and a new printing really sucks most of the momentum out of the room.
Last year I commented that the bottom of this chart was only about a fifth of the #1 book – while in 2024 the bottom was a lot closer to a quarter. That’s significant growth.
Other than that, I don’t know I have much to say that the list itself doesn’t?
I’m not going to bother with a dollar sort on this list – there’s just not that much of a difference!
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For a last thing, here is “market share” for us. This is books AND comics combined together (along with everything else), but still not including any GN Club pulls – these are ONLY retail sales! I cut off listing anyone not making at least a whole percentage of sales, so this is our Top 17 publishers, as a result. Where you see “imprints”… that’s putting together all imprints from those book-market publishers – outfits like Penguin Random House have literally scores of different imprints that they own!
Publishers by Percentage of Comix Experience Sales
1 MARVEL COMICS 17.63%
2 DC COMICS 13.36%
3 IMAGE 12.98%
4 DARK HORSE 7.18%
5 VIZ 4.16%
6 BOOM! STUDIOA 3.87%
7 FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS 3.86%
8 PRH imprints 3.73%
9 IDW 3.65%
10 MACMILLAN imprints 3.00%
11 DRAWN & QUARTERLY 1.89%
12 SCHOLASTIC / GRAFIX 1.66%
13 ONI PRESS INC. 1.44%
14 HARPERCOLLINS imprints 1.43%
15 TITAN COMICS 1.22%
16 ABRAMS 1.20%
17 DYNAMITE 1.13%
Everyone Else Combined 16.58%
We sold at least one item from 265 publishers in 2024, sourced from about twelve distributors that we ordered at least twice from in the year — there are four distros we place an order with 52 weeks a year. Material selling out at wholesale continues to be the biggest brake on my ability to sell things – if publishers (who have the best ROI of any of the publisher-distributor-retailer legs of the stool!) printed more copies of things that I could reorder, I would be selling more product.
That’s the Comix Experience 2024, feel free to leave any comments in the comments section below!
Happy New Year to you all!
