>>90079620If they're in the top 300, they're listed on Comichron right now. Even well beyond the top 300 there are still items listed - with several thousand copies shipped.
>>90079592Then that should appear in both the top 300 and overall unit shares, and Diamond has fucked up.
Marvel and DC both have sweet fuck all below the top 300 - their cancellation thresholds are much higher than anything way down there sells.
>>90079711It's screwy alright, but it's not money laundering, ya dope.
DC's overshipping of returnable copies showed up as sales as late as last November - the only difference between that and what Marvel are said to be doing is that Marvel aren't even asking for copies to be returned.
But even if it was somehow being compensated for by Diamond (as a result of DC's shenanigans breaking the system), it still wouldn't explain the discrepancy between top 300 and overall unit shares, unless Marvel has literally hundreds of titles shipping a few hundred each. And it seems weird that Diamond wouldn't notify that Marvel were shipping so many additional titles - they simply didn't move that many last month.
The combined dollar shares for floppies and TPBs last month were Marvel 42.26% and DC 35.72%, which is more in line with expectations - Marvel put out about 10 more titles than DC and generally has an audience willing to pay slightly higher prices. Overall dollar shares were Marvel 37.09%/DC 28.93% - again, more in line with expectations.
So what we're seeing here is DC's prices and output being lower than Marvel's and DC's market being eaten away by smaller publishers from below, as has been the case for several years now.