Top 100 Comics: May 2016

Wally West's return to the DC Universe ushers in a new era for the DC Universe and a new mystery for its heroes to unravel in Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, Ethan Van Sciver, and Phil Jimenez's DC Universe: Rebirth #1 from DC Entertainment, the best-selling comic book of May 2016.

In total, DC Entertainment had three titles among the top ten; in addition to DC Universe: Rebirth in the top spot, James Tynion IV and Riley Rossmo's Batman #52 ranked #4 and Justice League #50, the conclusion to Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok's "Darkseid War," ranked #7.

Marvel Comics rounded out the top ten with seven titles, led by led by Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel's Civil War II #0 at #2. Also in the top ten for Marvel were Becky Cloonan and Steve Dillon's The Punisher #1 at #3, Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 from Nick Spencer and Jesus Saiz at #5, Jason Aaron and Leinil Francis Yu's Star Wars #19 at #6, Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca's Darth Vader #20 at #8, Ta-Nahesi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze's Black Panther #2 at #9, and Dan Slott and Giuseppe Camuncoli's Amazing Spideran #12 at #10.

Among the premier publishers, Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead #154 was May's top Image Comics book at #13. IDW Publishing's top book for the month, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #58, ranked #120. Finally, Hellboy in Hell #9, the penultimate issue of Mike Mignola's final Hellboy story, was Dark Horse Comics' top book at #132.

TOP 100 COMIC BOOKS
Based on Total Unit Sales of Products Invoiced in May 2016

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

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.

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 month, as Batman did not ship, Convergence #8 from DC Entertainment was used as the control index.) 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.