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Bleeding Cool Bestseller List, 2nd April 2017 – "Marvel Needs To Suck In Their Gut And Pull Up Their Pants"

Published Sun, 02 Apr 2017 17:00:01 -0500

Last updated Sun, 30 Apr 2017 06:42:15 -0500

This is the Top Ten Bleeding Cool Bestseller List, as compiled by a number of comic stores from their sales on Wednesday and Thursday. It measures what are known as the "Wednesday Warriors", those who can't wait to the weekend to get this week's comics. We salute you, and the keenness you bring to your passion.

And in a DC fifth week, Marvel still fail to beat out Batman and the Justice League with their ResurrXion lead X-Men Prime. Buyt the absence of many DC titles lets the likes of Old Man Logan, Old Guard and Deadly Class to make it onto the top ten amongst the DC Hanna Barbera crossover annuals..

Dark Knight III Master Race #8
Justice League of America #3
X-Men Prime #1
Titans Annual #1
Green Lantern Space Ghost Special #1
Old Man Logan #20
Suicide Squad Banana Splits Special #1
Old Guard #2
Inhumans Prime #1
Deadly Class #27

Thanks to the following retailers,

Dr. No's Comics & Games Superstore of Marietta, Georgia
Famous Faces & Funnies of West Melbourne, FL
Velocity Comics, Richmond VA
Comix Experience Outpost, San Francisco, CA
Comix Experience, San Francisco, CA
G-Mart Comic Books of Champaign, IL
Geek Out, Burleson, Texas
Jesse James Comics, Glendale, Arizona

Who had this to say,

Oof. Terrible week for sales. Marvel takes 5 of the top ten but with numbers that would not place them on the list in a normal week. Dark Knight was a runaway #1, no book came close. X-Men: Prime was our #2 of the week and as for Inhumans: Prime, well the less said about its performance the better. Titans continues to do well and was our third best seller. Whedon books always have solid sales and Serenity took the #4 spot. Venomized covers are giving some Marvel books a decent boost, as is the case with Thanos this week putting it at #5. Bottom half was an expected mix of BigTwo.

Green Lantern – Space Ghost sold the best of the DC/HB books while Suicide Squad – Banana Splits sold the worst. Man-Thing #2 had one of the largest sales drop offs I've ever seen. My favorite book of the week not named Moonshine or Old Guard was Peepland #5. Great conclusion to a fun crime book.

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Marvel needs to suck in their gut and pull up their pants, because even in a Fifth Week where DC put out only 11 books (6 of which were Annuals) they trailed behind in sales at FFF. Our Top Ten this week was astonishingly overwhelmingly DC (with one indie book and one Marvel book). The complete list is #1 JLA, #2 DK3, #3 Titans Annual, #4 X-Men Prime, #5 Animosty, #6 Green Lantern/Space Ghost Annual, #7 Batgirl Annual, #8 Teen Titans 6 (which we were shorted last week), #9 Adam Strange/Future Quest Annual, #10 Kamandi Challenge. It speaks volumes to the quality of the creative output from the Big 2 that people are in fact willing to shill out more money to read an interesting and quirky premise that is actually GOOD and doesn't feel like pure pandering. The one book that DC did put out that would meet this criteria (Harley's Little Black Book) didn't do great, but it still made the Top 20 and beat out most of Marvel's books.

Marvel seems to be getting people interested in the X-Men again. In addition to X-Men Prime being #4, All New X-Men and Old Man Logan were #13 and #14 respectively in our Top 20. I'm hoping as a fan and a retailer, that they can keep the momentum going, but my faith is not high. Darth Maul #2 from last week actually sold more copies this week than most other NEW Marvel books from this week. Marvel was in the perfect position to be on the top this week, but they've been messing up so often that people actually wait for reboots/relaunches/redirections to jump back in. Except Inhumans Prime. Nobody cares about Inhumans Prime.

On the indie side of things, Moonshine was #11 and Old Guard was #12 and as previously mentioned, Saga Vol. 7 was #19. Saga is my favorite book (by my favorite writer) coming out right now, and we get people coming in on a regular basis asking when the next volume comes out. So it isn't really surprising that it sold so well. Aftershock's Animosity has been a store favorite since issue 1, and it usually enjoys a nice middle spot in the Top Ten every time a new issue comes out.

Usually with Fifth Weeks, we don't expect to sell much DC (as they usually only put out Annuals), but this month was shockingly Bizzaro. People are willing to spend $5 on a book that features Serial Killers teaming up with Talking Animals (with a back up about a Flamboyant Pink Lion who also talks). But nobody cares that the Inhumans are going to space.

For back issues, we sold a good bunch of bronze age Marvel and DC as well as some Kyle Rayner Green Lantern, JLA, and Uncanny X-Men. As usual, we also sold a good batch of Batman, Punisher, Wolverine, and Walking Dead. Rebirth is still selling extremely well as people keep coming in wanting to jump in after hearing good things.
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Even in an off week, DC manages to take eight of the top ten spots in our store's Wednesday sales, helped by a surprisingly strong response to the DC/Hanna-Barbera crossover specials. Marvel did very well with its two "back to the basics" books, X-Men Prime (3rd in our store) and Inhumans Prime (9th in our store–and the first time an Inhumans titles has placed in our store's Top Ten ever!).

Increased interest in indy books, with the focus on Image and IDW.

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The DC crossovers did surprisingly well this week, and Booster Gold Flintstones #1 would have come in at #11 for us tied with Deadly Class, Joyride and Ninjak. With X-Men Prime, and Inhumans Prime, Marvel did not generate any interest on their own. Marvel titles were a distant 6th in publisher sales for us this week. DC and Image continue to do well, Boom, Valiant, and Aftershock continue to gain momentum.

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X-Men Prime dominated this week, its numbers actually rival that of any of the Bat titles. Hopefully, this interest carries to the other million X-titles that will be coming out the next few months

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After last week's unusual Marvel domination, our Top 10 this week is much more in line with our store's usual sales. Half the list is from publishers other than Marvel or DC, and includes strong showings from both established favorites such as Deadly Class #27 as well as excellent new books like Old Guard #2. The kick-off of the second volume of Alexis Ziritt and Fabian Ragnell's excellent Space Riders, Galaxy of Brutality #1, also sold well this week.

Most notable, however, is that the Saga Volume 7 trade paperback outsold even our best selling single-issue comic, Dark Knight III The Master Race #8, by several units! It's always good to see strong sales driven by nothing more than excellent, high-quality creative work.
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DC narrowly wins the week with DK3, and our second-best selling item (in units) was Saga Vol 7.

There was heightened interest in the Prime books, but it doesn't seem enough to give Marvel the numbers they're hoping for. It looks like they've worn out their welcome with the Inhumans in their botched attempt to force a franchise, inexplicably removing everything that made the Royal Family interesting in the first place. Inhumans Prime was absolutely a huge improvement, I hope people are willing to check out Royals.

The DC/Hanna Barbera books sold to expectation, and were probably the funnest things out this week. I expect to see interest on them as word gets out of their quality.

Customer response to news of Secret Empire and Generations so far is tepid. Waaaay more excitement about The Button.

Licensed Marvel from the 70s and 80s have been flying out of here– Star Wars, Transformers, GI Joe, even Thundercats are all selling well. Lots of interest in Image #1s as well, people are scooping up whatever we put out.

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Space Riders had a strong week, both in new title and originally title. Lots of Lobo back issue sales. Our sell through on New issues this year has been amazing for us. We have been in the high 90's this year. Chopping your orders down to need not bulk has been the key.

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