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Bleeding Cool Bestseller List – 21st January 2018 – A "Great Thaw" Taking Place over Marvel's Comics

This is the Top 10 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.

A Batman comic is out this week, so it is the bestseller. How long will it remain at the top of the charts?

Bleeding Cool Bestseller List – 21st January 2018 – A "Great Thaw" Taking Place over Marvel's Comics

Top Ten Bestsellers

  1. Batman #39
  2. Superman #39
  3. Avengers #676
  4. Justice League #37
  5. Mighty Thor #703
  6. Damage #1
  7. Super Sons #12
  8. Amazing Spider-Man: Venom Inc. Omega #1
  9. Star Wars #42
  10. Doctor Strange #384

Thanks to the following retailers (if you would like to be part of this list, do get in touch)…

…who have this to say:

Very weird week. The weather kept the new comics from getting in till Thursday afternoon. Still dealing with the new influx of customers from the sudden closing of another store. Damage 1 did not take the top spot. I did read it. It was all art and no story. Like a 90s Image book. A dead pilot gets more backstory than anyone else in the comic. A lot of work for someone who we never see other than in a bodybag. Though it does seem that DC is more than willing to take Marvel's old fans. Damage is clearly DC's version of the old Hulk. Batman 39 took the top spot. Avengers are looking strong and made it into the top ten. On Friday and Saturday sold a lot of back issues. Issues from Vol 1 of Marvel two Ones with the Thing. Issues of Vol 1 of the Defenders. Silver Age Flash issues. Along with even more recent issues such as Uncharted. A graded Justice League 72 signed by Dan Jurgens was sold. A very good week for back issues.

—–

Things seem to be back to normal this week with the FFF Top Ten as DC takes seven of the top spots led by Batman. Damage was our #2 best seller of the week, riding the Metal wave. Super Sons also saw a small boost with the end of the Super Sons of Tomorrow crossover. Hopefully it can hold the handful of extra readers it gained from the tie-in. For Marvel, the Venom Inc close out issue took the #6 spot with Avengers at #7 and Doctor Strange at #8. Avengers saw a HUGE boost with people looking for the "first appearance" of the Voyager. I guess Avengers #1 doesn't retroactively count.

For the Top Twenty, Ice Cream Man and Made Men were the only indie books on the list this week. Ice Cream Man already seems to be gaining some steam online. We'll see if that translates to better numbers for subsequent issues. Made Men is a favorite of one of our employees who pushes it to almost everybody so it's nice to see it selling well. Doomsday Clock #2 is still selling like gangbusters even close to a month in. All in all, Marvel is starting to sell better than it has been in recent years. Hopefully they can keep it up with the quality over quantity approach it seems like they're taking (except for the 16 part Avengers weekly debacle that's managing to sell well so far). In the meantime, at least we'll have to settle for the consistently great stuff coming from DC.

—–

There seems to be a great thaw taking place, as customers are starting to warm back up to some of Marvel's books! That's good for Marvel, good for us, and good for the entire industry. People are jumping back on Mighty Thor as Jane barrels towards her fate, and the weekly Avengers book is bursting out of the gate pretty strong. While still no match for Batman, Superman and Justice League, they've got firm footholds on the chart now.

Damage #1 sold to expectations… it was pretty good but a weird choice to kick off DC's New Age of Heroes. I expect both Immortal Men & The Terrifics to be chart-toppers whenever they ship.

Star Wars books are on a gradual slide downward. They're still selling 12x what we did on Dark Horse SW titles, but that's down from 25x now. That bears some watching.

—–

Marvel takes 4 of the 5 top spots this week – but nothing can stop the name BATMAN from always taking #1. Suddenly everyone that dropped AVENGERS from their pull list doesn't understand why they can't grab AVENGERS since they are now interested again?

Damage ranked better than we figured it would and we placed a nervous restock early in the week to try and match the demand that putting the word METAL on the cover can have.

—–

Avengers creeped up really close to Batman's numbers this week which was a huge surprise. It is nice to see Marvel rebounding in sales and taking more top spots. It's good for business when the major two are both healthy.

—–

Tom King's BATMAN is in its usual seat at the top of the list (and looking better than ever with Joelle Jones on illustration duties!). The upper half of our list is actually mostly Marvel titles this week, with MIGHTY THOR #703, AVENGERS #676, and VENOM INC OMEGA #1 all selling well for us this week.

Farther down the list, we have a couple new titles that did well for us this week: Ales Kot's DAYS OF HATE #1 and DC's vanguard title for it's New Age of Heroes publishing initiative DAMAGE #1 were both scooped up by curious readers on Wednesday.

—–

DC once again seized control of our store's Top Ten, taking nine out of ten slots. Marvel's sole book to crack our Top Ten this week was Avengers #676 at eighth place. Marvel had five more books in positions 11 through 20, but the failure of Star Wars to crack our Top Ten is an indication that the franchise is losing its luster with some of our readers (probably due in part to the weaker performance of the most recent film).


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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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