2018 set a new sales record for the comic book industry

A lot of people have this idea that the comics industry is on a constant downward spiral, and while it has its ups-and-downs -- as does every industry -- comics, graphic novels, and digital sales of those items brought the industry to have its best year ever in 2018.

Infinity Gauntlet was the best-sold graphic novel in 2018.

"After a brief downturn in 2017, the market bounced back last year,” Comichron's John Jackson Miller said. “Popular releases helped right the ship in comics shops, even as other sales avenues made significant gains."

As reported by Miller and ICv2's Milton Griepp, all channels combined for $1.095 billion, which is slightly higher than 2016's record breaking $1.085 billion.

"A historic shift is playing out as the market grew, primarily in the book channel, in 2018,” Griepp said. “While comics stores are still the largest channel, they represented less than half the market for comics and graphic novels in 2018 for the first time in at least three decades."

In 2016, local shops accounted for $570 million of the total, but in 2018, shops only accounted for $510 million of the total ( which is even $5 million less than what shops brought in in 2017, which was an overall down year for the industry). In 2018, the slack was picked up by book channels and digital sales, together totaling $585 million worth of sales.

Check out these official diagrams to visualize the industry's ups-and-downs:

While it's no surprise to see digital sales growing, it is kind of sad. I recently went digital for comics, and while I've learned I much prefer reading my books this way, I miss the weekly visits to my local comic shop. Going in there every Wednesday, I was liable to spend an hour or more talking with employees and other customers, and I almost definitely learned something new every visit.

But, I also definitely spent way more money than I ever intended when going in. While it's good to see the industry thriving, it's easy for me to get ahead of myself and maybe contribute a little too much to those overall sales numbers. With digital books, I'm a lot less likely to buy something I wasn't already planning on buying, which is great for me personally, and some graphics I've come across are half the price of their used, physical counterpart.

In short, the comic industry is far from dead -- it's actually thriving -- and you have more routes than ever before to access the books.

But, $1.095 billion is only as much as Avengers Endgame made in its opening week or so, and I think if people would start actually BUYING their comics more -- instead of pirating them -- we will see these numbers continue to grow over the next few years and beyond.

For more comic updates, keep it here at RED News!