Swamp Thing Artist At Millennium Comics On Saturday And DC Overtakes Marvel In Sales

Saturday November 5th is an interesting day this year. Besides being the last Saturday before my birthday, it will also be the day that the current artist for Swamp Thing will be at Millennium Comics signing autographs. This is a big deal for me, as the store is located literally two blocks away from the intersection nearest my home. Yanick Paquette will be available from 1:00pm until 5:00pm. While big news, it pails in comparison to the fact that this month marks the first time in a while that DC overtakes Marvel in sales.

No, you read that correctly. According to Diamond Comic Distributors, which is the largest distribution company in the comic book industry, October 2011’s sales officially show that DC overtakes Marvel in sales, both in regards to comic books and in regards to graphic novels. Altogether, DC’s sales accounted for 51% of the market, whereas Marvel’s sales totalled a slightly less impressive 30.3%, representing second place overall.

That’s not all, though. DC comic books occupied the ranks of 19 out of the top 25 comics sold last month, with seven of the top 10 being theirs, as well. The rest belonged to Marvel, whose top three highest-selling comic books ranked seventh, eighth and ninth place. DC also took half of the top 10 graphic novels, with the number one selling GN being Flashpoint. Marvel’s only GN sale within the top 10 took last place.

Ironically, Flash Vol. 2: The Road to Flashpoint, as in, the series of stories leading up to the major DC crossover, only drops in a few weeks. Regardless, it should be noted that a two-page spread in Flashpoint itself suggests that the world of The New 52 was actually supposed to exist as the original New Earth as of the One Year Later arc, but some unknown enemy or force shattered “The History of Heroes” into three timelines: the DC timeline as of One Year Later, the classic Vertigo titles as a second timeline and the Wildstorm universe as a third one. I’ll be reading some of the World of Flashpoint tie-ins over the weekend to see if anything else can hint at what happened (as well as to try and spot any time travel-related plotholes).