Firefly

July 2005 Sales Charts: All-Star Batman & Robin Earns Its Title

Diamond debuted its Top 100 Sales charts and market share report on Friday, and as expected, the debut issue of Frank Miller and Jim Lee’s All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder, easily outpaced the rest of the field to land in the #1 position for the month.

As like last month, Newsarama will partner with CBGXtra soon to deliver some estimated sales figures for the entire month, but All-Star Batman & Robin #1’s Diamond index figure suggests a rough, approximate figure of 260-270k copies ordered by retailers.

Marvel showed strength in the Top Ten in July, placing 7 overall, along with 16 of the top 25, with New Avengers #7 showing staying power as the #2 book of the month overall.

The third and fourth parts of Marvel summer event House of M also showed some legs, at least in relation to last month’s issue #2. Again, strictly by going by an approximate estimate based on Diamond’s index figures, the sales for issues #3 and #4 showed only minor drop-off from issue #2, which if holds up, would be regarded by Marvel as very good news.

On the DC side, their Countdown to Infinite Crisis limited series are also showing pretty strong legs. The OMAC Project #3 stayed in the Top 10, with issue #3 coming in at #8, the same chart position from the previous month, though it may have actually increased readership, going from a Diamond index of 139.88 in June to 143.04 in July. But again, all these figures are in relative relation to how Batman sold in each month, so month-to-month comparisons are sometimes difficult to track by Index figure alone.

Villains United dropped off slightly, from #7 in June to #11 in July, Rann-Thanagar Ear went from #11 to #15, and Day of Vengeance from #18 to #20.

Making a these-days rare appearance in the Top 15 (or 50 for that matter) is a book from a publisher other than DC. Dynamite Entertainment’s Red Sonja #1, buoyed by a slate of five alternative covers by an impression roster of artists, showed up at a surprising #14.

Joining it in the top 50 is Dark Horse and Joss Whedon’s Serenity #1, also featuring three variant covers by top artists, coming in at #49.

Overall, eight titles from the Top 100 came from other publishers other than Marvel and DC.

Looking at the Market Share side, Marvel held onto its lead in both Unit and Dollar Share categories, with 43.45% and 37.95%, respectively, both figures up a few percentage points from June.

DC came in second with 37.05 and 33.57%, also up slightly since June.

Translation - the Big Two’s summer events continue to help them grab record levels of combined market share. Their 80.50% combined Unit market share is just .33% behind the record level of May, and their combined 71.52% Dollar Share is a new high since April ‘04’s 75.98%.

Below are the Top 100 Sales Chart and full Market Share report. Again, look for an update with new information and analysis, including Top 300 sales estimates from CBGXtra here at Newsarama on soon.