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 11/12/08. Pull lists are not included, as this is meant to capture what is being bought off the shelf.
1. Amazing Spider-Man #577
2. The Stand: Captain Trips #3
3. Batman: Cacophony #1
4. Action Comics #871
5. Nightwing #150
6. Wolverine #69
7. Detective Comics #850
8. BPRD: The Warning #5
9. Green Lantern Corps #30
10. Dark Tower: Treachery #3
Commentary:
It was a light week and rain on Friday and Saturday hurt our sales a bit. The new store is on one of those "main street" type strips next to Duke Campus. It is not a mall or a shopping center with a major draw so the weather can have adverse effects on foot traffic into the store. That is what happens when a large group of your clientele is vehicleless and the rest thinks it will be too hard to park... although when the weather is bad Ninth St suddenly becomes an easy place to park.
1. Stupid Spider-Man all over the place. As mentioned in the comments last week, yes the creative team does play a part in this, but natural attrition has not happened since New Ways to Die ended. Seems like a lot of the One More Day haters may have just liked what the end result was after all.
3. Little disappointing. The art is hurting this one big time, I am hearing a lot of gripes in the stores.
4. New Krypton is a success!!! Action is in the top ten.
3. Yeah, that's what happens when you're so desperate to make a splash that you let Kevin Smith have his neighborhood pal (Walt Flanagan) draw the mini-series. Saw that coming from the moment the project was announced. I'm not trying to dump on Flanagan completely, but if he's not close friends with Smith, he doesn't get a gig with DC Comics, let alone a crack at one of the "trinity". It is not a good sign for the health of a publisher and the quality of their product when they're flailing blindly to try to get back in the win column.
4. I'd be interested to see if the New Krypton tide really lifts all boats. Action Comics is the easy sell, with Johns & Frank. Robinson's first arc on Superman was shaky and Sterling Gates is still largely an unknown quantity on Supergirl.
5. Nightwing "goes out" with a bang.
6. Is this still the Millar/McNiven run? I really meant to pick their run up, but missed the 3rd issue, I think, and never went back. I'll probably snag the trade.
Your thoughts? And, as always, if any retailer wants to be added to the column, leave a comment or drop me a line.
Posts
well... Action has been a middling title for a bit and Woods is not exactly a draw, especially when Franks was on it before this. Wolvie is indeed the Old Man Logan... trade waiting might not be a bad idea, this one was all filler.
ReplyDeleteYeah it's still the Millar/McNiven run. I think it missed 2 or 3 months in a row there.
ReplyDeleteI'm tempted to blame Millar, after all Fantastic Four is now running 2 months late despite all the claims from everyone that they were well ahead of schedule. Their Christmas issue in the latest (Feb) solicits is just laughable.
Lee: But Action has ranked above Superman & Supergirl in sales, hasn't it? Or am I screwing things up?
ReplyDeletePaul: Millar? Making exaggerated or untrue statements? Certainly you must be talking about someone else. ;)
Kevin: Probably, but... A. Franks is not on the book currently, Pete Woods is, and even so, it has been a middling title, Kind of like GL, for it to perform so well off the stands is pretty cool. This is a book that wasn't making our top 20 and now it is in the top ten. Although my memory may be faulty and a reader may very well point out that it was, but I doubt it. Selling over Superman and Supergirl is not a terribly difficult thing to do.
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm not trying to say that makes it a negligible bump. I'm just saying that Action Comics was already the easiest of the three to sell...so the New Krypton bump might not be as great on all titles.
ReplyDeleteHope so, it is fantastic so far, even with a little misstep in Supergirl this week.
ReplyDelete