Star Wars Continues to Outshine in August

Both Star Wars #34 and 35 are top 10 books in August and Star Wars continues to reign over Marvel's other ongoing series.  Indications are the numbers for the comic industry in August 2017 look really bad compared to August 2016; units shipped are down over 25% compared to last year's August sales.  This has been a down year overall with comic sales off almost 7% compared to last year at this time.  To be fair, DC had their line wide Rebirth launch in 2016 and Marvel still has their Legacy launch coming in the next few months, so it is still possible for things to turn around.

Let's just look at the main Star Wars title and extrapolate the health of the industry from that.  Here is a table that shows how this title has done since it's launch in 2015:

Year	# Issues	Total Estimated Unit Sales	Average Estimated Sales	Lowest Estimated Sale	Highest Estimated Sale
2015	13	2,777,890	213,683	123,133 (Star Wars #12)	985,976 (Star Wars #1)
2015 (minus Star Wars #1)	12	1,791,914	149,326	123,133 (Star Wars #12)	203,817 (Star Wars #4)
2016	13	1,250,390	96,183	75,234 (Star Wars #25)	118,471 (Star Wars #14)
2017 (through July)	7	504,585	72,083	70,175 (Star Wars #30)	74,969 (Star Wars #33)

It needs to be noted that the total estimated unit sales is based on the preliminary units sold as calculated on the Comichron website.  It does not include subsequent printings, which would make 2015 look even better than it does.  Obviously, Star Wars #1 is an giant, having sold over 1 million issues by the time you add in the subsequent prints.  If you remove #1 from the equation, the top selling issue in 2017 is Star Wars #4 (again, not counting subsequent printings.)  Without Star Wars #1 in the equation, the average sale this year is less than half of 2015.  Now, consider the main Star Wars title has been Marvel top selling ongoing series for nearly 3 years.  Star Wars has been a top selling title with weak competition.

Do not get me wrong, Star Wars is by far more entertaining than anything being put out by the Big 2.  And I believe it should be a top seller.  But, the title probably wouldn't be a top 10 book if the rest of the Big 2 titles were doing better.  In a way, I wish the other comics were performing better so Marvel had to work a bit harder to keep high sales on their top selling ongoing title.

Comichron released the August 2017 preliminary numbers in their post August's comics orders can't compare to 2016's Rebirth boom; Dark Nights: Metal, Paper Girls top charts.