From Lee Newman of Ultimate Comics, the list of top-selling books at one of their locations in North Carolina for what was released on 11/05/08. Pull lists are not included, as this is meant to capture what is being bought off the shelf.
1. Sandman The Dream Hunters #12. Half price will do it. I don't know how many #1 issues I ordered from DCBService.com simply because they were 75% off cover. Too bad it seems like Loeb gave readers 75% less story.
2. Ultimatum #1
3. Amazing Spider-Man #576
4. Final Crisis: Resist
5. Justice Society of America #20
6. Marvel Zombies 3 #2
7. Cable #8
8. Civil War: House of M #3
9. Adventures Comics Featuring The Guardian #1
10. Trinity #23
Commentary:
1. Woo Hoo, Sandman. 20 years later and still a phenomenon. Beautiful book + great character + great story = great sales.
2. They turned out to see the Ultimate Universe die. OF course, selling it for half price didn't hurt!
3. Spidey just bounces around the list. Stability would be nice.
4. I wonder how many people were confused when they read a Checkmate book? Perfect coda to a great book (Checkmate not Final Crisis) by the way.
6. The fans like this Zombies much better then the last.
3. Wonder if Lee's heard from any of his customers as to why they keep buying Amazing Spider-Man off the shelf rather than pull-listing the book?
4. You know, I was of two minds on that. It's kinda like rooting for the Rough Riders in Canada. I was kinda happy it wasn't really about Final Crisis, eh...but I was, also, bummed that it wasn't really about Final Crisis.
5. I think Geoff Johns did himself and the book a disservice by sticking the Power Girl resolution stuff in the middle of the Gog/Magog arc. I understand that it was the mechanism used to shuffle her off to Earth-2, but it wound up feeling more like something that delayed resolution in the larger arc. Not that it effected sales or anything, here...but I felt like mentioning it.
8. I'm still mystified at how the House of M event has such life in the TPB market (direct and bookstore) that it makes financial sense for Marvel to keep pumping out more mini-series in that world.
Posts
I wish my store would have had Ultimatum at half-price so I could have returned the middle finger right back to Marvel.
ReplyDeleteSpider-man is getting people with creative teams now. The New ways to die was a great way to get subscriptions up, with little trickle off so far. Last week with the annual, I think it was just too much spidey to ask for, by the way that second issue of the Hammerhead moved much better the second week, I think it would have come in somewhere around number twelve for this week, this week's issue is gone... that has to do with us planning for attrition though, it will take a minuite to get the number right we figured 10% above what we had before NWTD was the way to go and undershot a bit.
ReplyDeleteI also really feel that House of M is being continued for other reasons then TPB sales alone, there are an awful lot of loose ends still hanging from that event and I would not be surprised to see them resolved in the next year. Anyone who read Avengers Fairy Tales this week will know that there is a resolution to the story there that we have not seen yet... whether it is a lark or not, who knows, but it would not surprise me for the loose ends to be resolved in a similiar matter... hunt out the issue if you want to know more (and good luck with that, with the massive delay for this issue and sales that were.. well.. almost non existant... it will be tough, it was subscriber only for us with this last issue)
Oh yeah, and FC: Resist was about FC, in fact, it showed us what happened on the day the Crisis happened, unlike you know that book named "Final Crisis"
ReplyDeleteI would imagine people are grabbing ASM off the shelf rather than adding it to their pull-list is probably due to the fact that there isn't a consistent creative team.
ReplyDeleteHotlist, weekend sale and a Previews Picks Bulletin are up at the website now.
ReplyDeletewww.ultimatecomicsonline.com
@Fake Pat, yes that is part of it.
Lee: I get that there are loose ends, but loose ends without sales would just be left loose. From my understanding, House of M has been so strong in TPB sales in bookstores and the DM that Marvel going back to the well is in response to retailer feedback.
ReplyDeleteAnd I know it was kinda about Final Crisis, but not so much that it will actually impact what's going on in FC.
Paul: Ha...sorry, sir.
Fake Pat: Yeah, I figured it was probably the creative teams, but wanted to defer to Mr. Newman, as he'd have been likely to hear feedback from the customers.