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Bleeding Cool Bestseller List, 14th April 2019 – The Batman Who's Laughing at Sales

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 till the weekend to get this week's comics. We salute you, and the keenness you bring to your passion.

'Batman Who Laughs #4': How DOES He See Through That Thing? *SPOILERS

Normally DC Comics split Batman and The Batman Who Laughs up for scheduling purposes. But today they both hit and the clear winner is the one with a big smile on his face. There is also a post-#1000 bump for Detective Comics, but the real story will be the recovery of Amazing Spider-Man in recent months. The series had dropped quite a way since the Superior Spider-Man days, recovered for the final Dan Slott up-to-#800 issues, dropped again when Nick Spencer's run began but is now recovering significantly. And with Web Of Venom and Symbiote Spider-Man, there are three Spiderbooks in the top ten to four Batbooks. Amongst all this it's quite the achievement for the launch of Fairlady to make it in…

Top ten bestseller list

  1. The Batman Who Laughs #4
  2. Batman #68
  3. Amazing Spider-Man #19
  4. Detective Comics #1,001
  5. Superman #10
  6. Symbiote Spider-Man #1
  7. Web of Venom Cult of Carnage #1
  8. Catwoman #10
  9. Fairlady #1
  10. Avengers No Road Home #9

Thanks to the following retailers

Who had this to say

Batman managed to take our top three spots this week, but, somehow, it wasn't the main title in first- that honor went to Batman Who Laughs (Affectionately dubbed "Batman Who ROLFCOPTERS", this time around) which was a pretty big surprise. That said, though, it might entirely be due to the fact that we were shorted a little on Batman and Detective, and we've been sold out on the shelves since Wednesday. Symbiote Spider-Man did really well, as did Web of Venom Cult of Carnage, which was also a little surprising since the rest of those Web of Venom books have been relatively lackluster in terms of sales. A lot of our sales were concentrated around a handful of bigger titles, though, with a lot less spread than usual- Then again, the weather has been abysmal, so it's keeping a lot of folks away.

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It's all Symbiotes and Batmen at the top half of the FFF weekly bestseller list. Batman Who Laughs took the top spot closely followed Web of Venom: Cult of Carnage and Batman regular which were neck and neck in sales with Carnage just barely squeaking ahead. Detective Comics and Amazing Spider-Man were then just behind those. Triple Batman in one week makes for a great Wednesday, especially hot on the heels of a hit book like Detective #1000. There wasn't a whole lot of buzz around it initially, but we're still selling the various covers at a solid rate. Even without the direct involvement of Donny Cates, Carnage gets enough people pumped to be on board with a one-shot. The recent announcement of a Carnagecentric event doesn't hurt either. Symbiote Spider-Man definitely benefits from a few gorgeous covers for it's first issue. We'll see if it can hold the numbers next month though without the aid of Artgerm.
Conan is surprisingly still selling well enough to crack the Top Ten each time it comes out. We've even gotten a few new subs out of the relaunch. I honestly could not have called that when they first announced he was returning to Marvel. Especially after they announced multiple series. But here we are, about four months in and the titles are still going strong. Avengers No Road Home is actually getting a slight Cimmerian bump with a few customers only picking it up because of Conan's appearance in the series. On the topic of anticipated books, we have Journey into Mystery, a War of the Realms tie in that had a lot of buzz around it because of the writers. We had people who have never been in our store come in and ask about the book. A handful even asked us to hold a copy for them. And it sold well. But the initial hype around the book just didn't match the end result. I hope we'll sell more in trade, but the fact that we only sold about half of what we ordered does not inspire hope for the rest of the miniseries.

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War of Realms JIM did better than expected. After getting burned by MARVEL so many times with spin-off books that no one wants/needs, we played it cautious with this one.

Too soon to tell if it's just a curious beginning or if the readers will genuinely stick with all of these forthcoming min-series books based off the main event. I remain doubtful.

—-

It's all bats and spiders this week! DC sort of overdid it with a spread-shot of all the big Bat-books this week: *both* mainline titles with BATMAN and DETECTIVE, alongside smash-hit miniseries THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS gave the Dark Detective almost complete domination of the top of the list.

Marvel seems to have responded in kind, with a slew of Spidey titles. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN manages to break up the Bat-party at the top of the list a bit, while FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN and new miniseries SYMBIOTE SPIDER-MAN help to fill out the bottom of the list.

The rest is pretty much usual suspects, with CATWOMAN continuing to sell well along the likes of SUPERMAN and AVENGERS NO ROAD HOME.
For this week there was a hype for the DC section. Die is slowly moving up the rank as well as Fairlady. Hopefully more non hero comics join up the ladder.

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Good week. I bought an old comic collection and it has been selling well. Batman Who Laughs 4 easily took the top spot. Superman with out an Artgerm cover did not make our top ten. Amazing Spider-man keeps selling very well.

Three Batman family titles in our top ten this week, four Spider-Man family titles (if one counts Web of Venom as a Spidey family book)–that didn't leave room for much of anything else! The ultimate breakdown was four DC's, six Marvels, with Superman joining the three Bat-titles in the top ten. Until recently, Superman and Action sold pretty much the same, but we're seeing a number of people drop Action while continuing with Superman a bit longer.

Notable sales:

Conan the Barbarian #1 9.6 $550 Photo Variant signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger

Giant Size X-Men #1 5.5 $1,200


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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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