Marvel and DC Dominate The Comic Market

With movie franchises like Avengers or Spider-Man, Marvel has firmly dominated the box office in terms of the portrayal of superheroes as well as revenue for years. Three of the eight highest-grossing movies worldwide as of May 2022 were produced by Marvel, which was bought by Disney in 2009 - an investment that will probably pay dividends for the foreseeable future. Our chart shows that the company also continues to outperform its competitors in the industry it helped build more than 70 years ago.

According to data aggregated by entertainment business publication ICv2, roughly 37 percent of the total revenue from comics and graphic novels sold via specialist comic book stores was generated by Marvel products, with DC coming in second with 26 percent. The only other comic publisher with a revenue share in the double digits is Image Comics, which in the public eye is mainly associated with Todd McFarlane and his long-running character Spawn. Marvel taking the top spot isn't exactly news. Since ICv2 took over reporting comic book sales from Diamond Comic Distributors in late 2020, the Disney subsidiary has come out on top in every quarter.

While the figures presented by ICv2 are valid first estimates, they need to be taken with a grain of salt. The raw data is generated by 100 stores worldwide connected to the ComicHub platform, which constitute a small sample of an estimated 3,000 stores selling U.S. comic books around the globe. It's also unclear whether regional differences are weighted to account for market or audience size.