Comics and graphic novels continued their upward trend in 2014, with annual sales increasing 4.39% over the previous year, as comic book sales specifically were up 4.03%, while graphic novel sales rose by 5.18%.
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Marvel Comics took the most marketshare this year in both dollars and units sold, as well as nine of the top ten spots of the year for single-issue comics. The tenth went to The Walking Dead.
Both the second- and third-highest-selling books of the year — The Walking Dead #132 and Rocket Raccoon #1, respectively, had both outside media attention driving sales and lucrative deals with online retailer Loot Crate, who selll subscriptions for monthly gift boxes filled with “mystery” items built around a particular theme. Rocket Raccoon sold hundreds of thousands of copies, about half of which went to Loot Crate according to rough estimates, and The Walking Dead did even better, since their Loot Crate deal came later in the year after the company had enjoyed significant expansion.
The Death of Wolverine four-issue weekly event also left its mark on the charts, with all four issues appearing in the top ten. The top-selling comic of the year was, probably unsurprisingly, The Amazing Spider-Man #1.
Written by Dan Slott and illustrated by Ramon K. Perez, Amazing Spider-Man #1 marked the return of Peter Parker as the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler and saw his return to heroism after a year and a half of Doctor Octopus in control of his body.
Marvel Comics finished the year with a 34.38% Dollar Market Share and a 36.78% Unit Market Share. Their other top ten titles were Thor #1, Original Sin #1, and Superior Spider-Man #31. Marvel had 53 of the 2014’s top 100 best-selling comics.
DC Entertainment was the comic book specialty market’s number two publisher in 2014 with a 28.86% Dollar Market Share and a 32.47% Unit Market Share. DC Entertainment’s top comic, Batman #32 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, charted at #14; overall, DC had 43 of the top 100 comics for the year.
The third volume of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ Saga from Image Comics was the year’s top-selling graphic novel and boosted Image Comics to the year’s third largest comic book publisher, with a 9.23% Dollar Market Share and a 10.41% Unit Market Share. Image Comics took nine of the top ten graphic novel spots, including all four collections of Saga as well as four volumes from Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, along with Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky’s Sex Criminals Volume 1 at #7.
IDW Publishing’s was the comic book specialty market’s fourth largest publisher, propelled by its licensed titles including My Little Pony, Transformers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Transformers Vs. G.I. Joe #1, pitting the beloved Hasbro toy franchises in battle, was IDW’s top-selling comic book for the year, and the publisher had two volumes of Joe Hill’s Locke & Key among the year’s top 100 graphic novels.
Dark Horse Comics came in fifth with a 5.07% retail dollar market share. Two volumes of Avatar: The Last Airbender, based on the Nickelodeon television series, ranked among the year’s top 100 graphic novels along with Mike Mignola’s Hellboy In Hell: Descent.
