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 1/14/09. Pull lists are not included, as this is meant to capture what is being bought off the shelf.
TOP TEN Week of 1-14-09
1. Amazing Spider-Man #583 Obama Variant
2. Final Crisis #6
3. Amazing Spider-Man #583
4. G.I. Joe #1
5. Action Comics #873
6. Deadpool #6
7. X-Infernus #2
8. Faces of Evil: Solomon Grundy #1
9. Faces of Evil: Prometheus #1
10. BPRD The Black Goddess #1
Commentary
1 and 3. Well, duh. Line out my door when we opened gone an hour later.
2. There may not have been a press bonaza and speculator feeding frenzy, but after the top three sales are less than half of any of these books.
4. Glad it was a good read, hope to see it continue its success.
5. Despite internet complaints of New Krypton losing its steam, it still sells at a brisk pace.
8. Due to a shipping error we did not receive this book until that week. However, it has consistantly sold those numbers since it hit our shelves.
10. The little guys still manage a spot, even in the big pony show of this week.
1 & 3: I heard that 5 page backup story was horrendous stuff as far as entertainment value, but obviously gold as far as publicity value. This is the kind of thing we would have gotten in a PSA/free-comic-book-in-school project back in the day. I wonder if Marvel might consider making the 5 pager available to teachers to print out for their elementary school classes in the near future?
2: I know that Chris said FUCK THE HATERS with such conviction that Pedro almost thought it was a book he missed out on in 2008, but this jump-cut crap doesn't work to tell a cohesive story very well in a graphic novel format.
8 & 9: Haven't gotten to check them out yet. Unemployment has made me a touch more cautious about my one-off purchases.
Posts
Promethius was a must read. Grundy was exactly like a Hulk book, the fans are eating it up, but it just wasn't that good.
ReplyDeleteHave to agree with Newman, it was far superior to Solomon Grundy - which really seemed like more of an excuse to de-age him.
ReplyDeleteR-
My sister is a public school teacher, and she made me get the second print Obama cover to show to her class -- and she wants me to scan the backup story so she can print it for her students. So you are right, Kev, in that there is some educational curiosity in this.
ReplyDeleteIt just seems like the kind of story that educators might use to interest kids more in the way the government is run (i.e. get them excited about the President with Spider-Man as a gateway to further discussion). Mind you, Obama seems to have captured even the attention of elementary school kids without such a thing, so maybe I'm just thinking too old school.
ReplyDeleteRich & Lee: tracked down a copy of Prometheus. I enjoyed it. Gates impressed me with how he was able to take a retcon/rehab assignment and make it this entertaining.