I'm So Buying This

Jason Aaron had me at "I'll be playing with some of the cool toys Morrison created", but this cover art has me ready to stand outside the LCS a minute before the doors unlock.

The Dodsons' Dark X-Men Cover In Stages

Sentry: Not Your Father's Superman

Ultimate Comics Walk-Up Sales For Jan 7th, 2009

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 1/7/09. Pull lists are not included, as this is meant to capture what is being bought off the shelf.

Top Ten for the Week of 1-7-09

1. Secret Invasion: War of Kings
2. Punisher #1
3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight #21
4. Secret Six #5
5. Marvel Zombies 3 #4
6. Amazing Spider-Man: Fear Itself
7. Super Hero Squad One- Shot
8. Archibald Chases the Dragon
9. No Hero #3
10. Trinity #32

Commentary -

First an apology. The holidays were rough for me this year. Between business at the shop, a finacially poor year personally, and a couple of new responisbilities online, I got behind in almost every aspect of my life.

Next, a note as to why there will probably be a shift of focus in this list going forward. The great esperiment, the Northgate Mall location of Ultimate Comics closed this past week. This was due to many factors, almost none of them having to do with the economy. Sales for the stores in general either held steady or were up for last year. This year has seen increases across the board, thus far (only two weeks in, but you know). Anyhow, the closing of that store had more to do with the stability of that particular mall and the inability to adjust our hours to the demands of business. We were spending way too much money on labor to justify staying there. The hours of operation there caused us to double our staffing when it opened and the cost was never offset by the sales of that location. Instead it ate away at the profit margins of our other stores.

All that is to say that the customer of that base was consolidated (with a few exceptions) to the Ninth Street location where the shelf sales generate this list. It was good to see a couple smaller books get some love on the list, but it is much more a Marvel and DC show than I remember it being (or maybe I am remembering with rose colored glasses, who knows?).

1. Honestly, I expect this thing to drawf sales of the Annihilation books, between a strong word of mouth for the individual titles going in and the inclusion of the cosmic X-People and the Inhumans while spinning it out of Secret Invasion, I think this one is a winner. The banner saw bumps in Guardians, Nova, and Kingbreaker opened stronger than Emperor Vulcan.

2. My new found love for the character, the Dark Reign Banner and a solid actioner with some good word of mouth created success here. Will it hold out?

4. The little book that could, this book sees incremental growth with each issue for us. That is a great thing, in the era of attrition, I am happy when a book holds steady. To sell more with each issue is great.

6. If Man-Thing is such a selling point, why won't anyone buy the statue in my display case?

7. Kids love comics. They really do. I love selling books to them too. I wish every shop would embrace the kid's titles.

8. Archibald rules. If you are not reading this great book by Grant Bond, than you are missing out. Seriously, everyone who picks up this book loves it.

I'm still not recovered from the holidays and job search stuff, myself, so you can all have at this. ;)

I've Been A Bit Of A Marvel Event Hater...

(image found at DeviantArt)

...but thinking about it lately, I've come to remember all the types of stories I wished that the super-hero comics would tell. We always settled for Elseworlds, What Ifs and plain ol' out-of-continuity mini-series to get our fix of that really complicated story idea that you knew would never happen in the regular books because it would be too difficult to coordinate and too big of a gamble for the publisher to take (in case readers thought it sucked).

I've been too caught up on holding editorial and creative teams to hyperbolic statements made in fluff interviews to sit back and really appreciate the balls it must take to ALMOST ALWAYS have some major changes happening to their fictional universe that has ripple effects (or more) through their entire catalog.

I, also, get stuck on the idea that they went in this direction instead of that one or maybe weren't quite as ballsy with the changes as I'd like to have seen. That kind of reaction is either testament to how well they've been pulling it off (that my major complaint is that they should have gone further), a bit of entitlement or both.

When I review books (which I'll get back to shortly, whether you want me to or not), I make a point of trying to step back and evaluate the execution as much or more than I evaluate what story direction they've chosen. I've kind of lost sight of that in the last few months.

That doesn't mean that the execution of the last few years of events has been flawless, mind you. Just that I think that a lot of fans forget that, at one time, they asked for this sort of cohesive storytelling to the fictional universes they read about and now try to tear it down because it went off in a direction different from what they would have preferred.

You have to take the good with the bad and, sometimes, just have to step back and realize that the next major change might bring along that story you've been waiting for them to tell for years.

Ultimate Comics Walk-Up Sales For Dec 10th, 2008

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 12/10/08. Pull lists are not included, as this is meant to capture what is being bought off the shelf.

1. Secret Invasion: Dark Reign
2. Final Crisis #5
3. Punisher War Zone #2
4. Justice League of America #27
5. Captain Britain and MI13 #8
6. Final Crisis Revelations #4
7. Wonderful Wizard of Oz #1
8. Amazing Spider-man #580
9. Watchmen #1
10. Civil War House of M #4


Commentary

1. The customers are generally excited about Dark Reign.
2. Delays hurt this one (besides any storytelling problems)
3. People dig this one.
4. meh, we'll see if the gimick helps sales stay up.
7. YAY!
9. I guess at this point, it means we are officially in a fever for this product!

1. Seems to be something you're either very excited about or looking to tar and feather the EiC for, with very few people in the middle.
2. There's so much that can be claimed to have hurt this book, with the two mentioned being in that long list.
4. Read the issue. McDuffie did the same job introducing the Milestone characters into the DCU that you'd expect from a work-for-hire hack, rather than someone who has a care. The issue read pretty bad, IMO, and I doubt is getting many new fans for the introduced characters.
7. Yay? What's got you so excited there, Lee?

For Those Waiting For Mr. Anonymous Info...

I had a crisis of conscience about revealing the new spoilers that I had been given. I had decided to hold off on direct spoilers, but it became moot because Mr. Anonymous had asked me to hold off on revealing them until he was ready and fairly certain there was no chance at things getting changed last second.

One of those things came out at the Retailer Summit today.

DARK REIGN

Our boy had this nugget and at least one more. That other one? I promised someone that I would only go so far as to run it with asterisks if my source gave me the go ahead to run it. But I can't control whether Mr. Anonymous goes to another source to have this info shared directly with the world.

Mr. A is still out there. I know be cause he popped by to link me to the retailer summit report on the 'Rama. So, if you're reading this, I can possibly tease that other spoiler for you, but not outright reveal it to teh interwebz. Which way you go on that, sir, is your choice...and I'll respect that choice whatever it may be. Do feel free to hit me with an IM every now and then to BS, regardless.

Oh...and to any of the Bendis Board posters who read the first batch way back and then ran to bash me over on 606studios.com, do tell Mr. Bendis that I apologize for any frustration that first batch caused him and hope that having held off on Dark Reign all this time demonstrates the sincerity of that apology.

So I've been listening the the Bendis Tapes...sue me.