Retailer website ICv2.com provides an overview of the direct market in 2006, declaring the 15-percent gain in single-issue sales the strongest year-over-year increase since it began tracking such things in 2001.
It will come as no surprise to anyone who has glanced at Diamond’s monthly charts that event comics like Marvel’s Civil War and DC’s Infinite Crisis and 52 spearheaded that jump, along titles such as Astonishing X-Men, Justice League of America and New Avengers, which all featured high-profile creators.
ICv2 gets a little warm and fuzzy about them, saying the books “all contributed to a very special year for comic book sales.”
The site also reports that direct-market graphic novel sales were up 9 percent for the year: “Because of the growing number of releases and the importance of backlist sales, the 9% growth rate for graphic novels sales in 2006 definitely masks a good deal of sales growth in the format because the 9% number is based only on the Top 100 best-selling graphic novels each month, which means that it is likely that real growth rate in graphic novels sales is substantially higher than 9%.”
ICv2 also posts its overview for December 2006, the Top 300 comics chart, and the Top 100 graphic novel chart.
