ICV2 have published their estimates for the actual sales by Diamond Comic Distributors to comic stores, on the top 300 comic titles published in January, 2011.

The top selling comic book of the month was Fantastic Four #587, which sold a meager 115,000 copies, which is the highest total for a direct market comic book since X-Men #1 launched in July of 2010.

As previously revealed, it looks like sales were down by 28% from December, and 22% from last January. ICV2 take a why this might be, and notice several contributing factors, such as the fact that due to delays, a number of heavy-hitters from DC did not ship in January, when they were scheduled to; in addition, the overall number of titles that shipped during the month was generally lower than what is considered normal.

Things are also looking pretty bad on the graphic novel front, with the #1 selling graphic novel, Vertigo’s Jack of Fables Vol. 8 selling just 3,913 copies, the lowest monthly total for a #1 graphic novel since ICv2 began its graphic novel sales reporting in late 2001!

Ouch! It’s pretty hard times to be a comic creator right now, those are some ridiculously low numbers. To read far more in-depth analysis, head over to ICV2, because they really are the best at sales analysis, and always publish incredibly insightful analysis: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/19329.html

I have posted ICV2′s estimates for the actual sales of the Top 25 titles, below. To see their estimates of actual sales for the Top 300 comics, click here, and for the Top 300 graphic novels, click here.

Related posts:

1. Diamond Announces January 2011 Sales Statistics. Sales Down 22% From Last January. Comics Media Freaks Out!
2. Indy Comics & TPBs/OGN Sales Charts for November 2009
3. Indy Comics & TPBs/OGN Sales Charts for December 2009
4. Diamond Distribution’s Top 20 Publishers, Top 300 Comics, and Top 300 TPBs & GNs for January 2010
5. The Indy Comics & TPBs/OGN Sales Charts for the Year of 2009