Star Wars, as we reported previously, is currently the American box office champ and has a pretty good shot at being the global one, as well. But the box office isn’t the only medium Star Wars is competing in, and it pretty much clobbered everybody in comic books, too.
Diamond, the company that distributes comic books to comic shops, just put out their top ten bestselling comics for 2015. Star Wars #1 topped the list, surprising not least because that book came out in 2014. Star Wars books like Vader Down and Princess Leia also took the 6th, 7th, and 10th slots, and one of those, Darth Vader #1, was also a reprint. Interestingly, in the graphic novel department, Star Wars got bumped by Saga, which took up five slots on the top ten bestsellers, with The Walking Dead putting two on the board; only the first volume of the main Star Wars comic showed up, at #10.
While it’s worth noting that Diamond doesn’t track sales on digital platforms, and those numbers are all but impossible to find, they probably don’t affect Star Wars much. Vader Down #1, for example, moved 384,000 copies and likely racked up even more on digital. That said, it’s reasonable to ask how much of this is sales to people interested in Star Wars and how much is to financial speculators.
Regardless of the motives, the money was green, and Star Wars gave Marvel a very good year; it put out 38% of all comics sold with DC at a distant second place with 25%. Of course, this does raise the question of what’ll happen next year, when Batman v Superman arrives with a massive marketing push, right around the time Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be wrapping up its run, and Suicide Squad will be there to take over the comic book hype after Captain America: Civil War comes out. Sorry, folks, but nerd arguments over publisher superiority will have currency for a while yet.
(Via Previews)