Top 50 Small Press Comics and Graphic Novels: May 2018

Valiant Entertainment's Harbinger Wars 2 #1, the first chapter in their new crossover event, was May's best-selling small publisher comic book. In total, Valiant had six titles in the otp ten.

Archie Comics had two titles in the top ten, led by Vampironica #2 at #2.

Aftershock Comics' A Walk Through Hell #1 ranked #3.

Tokyopop's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Zero's Journey #1 ranked #4.

Somos Arte's Ricanstruction, an anthology to raise money to help rebuild Puerto Rico, was May's best-selling small publisher graphic novel.

Silver Sprocket's Daygloayhole Quarterly #1 ranked #2.

Yen Press' Star Wars: Lost Stars Volume 1 ranked #3.

Archie Comics' Archie Volume 5 ranked #4.

Action Lab Entertainment's The Ghost and the Owl ranked #5.

Other publishers in the top ten include Aftershock Comics, Avatar Press, Black Mask Comics, Lion Forge, and Vertical Comics.

TOP 50 SMALL PRESS COMICS
Based on Total Unit Sales of Products Invoiced in May 2018

TOP 50 SMALL PRESS GRAPHIC NOVELS
Based on Total Unit Sales of Products Invoiced in May 2018

This information may not be reproduced in any format without the express permission of Diamond Comic Distributors.

Item codes followed by -M indicate multiple covers and skus at the standard SRP.

How does Diamond calculate the charts? It all starts at the comic book shop.

Data for Diamond’s sales charts — which includes the monthly market shares and all top product charts — are compiled by Diamond Comic Distributors from sales made to thousands of comic book specialty shops located in North America and around the world.  Additional sales made to online merchants and other specialty stores may be included as well.

Unit and dollar market shares are calculated based upon orders for comic books, graphic novels, and magazines invoiced and shipped to Diamond customers during any given month, which comprises pre-orders, advance reorders, and reorders, minus any copies that are received back from a title marked as returnable. Please note that comics marked with an asterisk (*) have had their reported quantities reduced due to retailer returnability, and thus may rank lower on the charts than their actual sales would reflect.

Diamond Comic Distributors defines Small Presses as publishers with a dollar market share of under 1% over the previous six months. In offering these breakdowns of the best-selling small press comics and graphic novels, a spotlight is shown on these publishers, affording them recognition for their strong sales in a crowded marketplace. To help retailers contextualize the relationship between the Small Press sales rankings, each chart offers for each book the overall ranking for the month amongst all publishers.

About the Diamond Sales Index: The Sales Index of selected monthly Best Seller Charts is presented as a comparative tool for retailers and publishers. It presents Diamond’s monthly sales for individual titles in relation to Diamond’s total sales for the issue of DC Comics' monthly Batman comic book. (Batman is used as the control title — with a value of 100 — because sales of Batman usually remain relatively stable.) This allows for easy comparison to other titles and helps retailers gauge their orders for all other titles. This formula is only a guide, other factors may impact a titles’ ability to sell in certain locations and clientele.