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Bleeding Cool Bestseller List – 14th September 2014 – Death Of Wolverine Keeps Batman's Future Off The Top Spot

Published Sun, 14 Sep 2014 10:00:00 -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.

Marvel's spoiler project for DC's September wide promotion seems to have worked again, taking the top spot with the second issue of Death Of Wolverine and pushing the traditional headliner Batman off the top, though missing his usual creative team may have contributed to this.

But, as we reported earlier, that won't fly next week.

And amidst all this cover-led event promotion, Walking Dead, Amazing Spider-Man and Batman Eternal take their usual strong positions in the chart. It certainly was a big sales week for most. Avengers #34.1 got a lot more sales than if it have been called Hyperion One Shot. And Edge Of Spider-Verse just made it on…

Death Of Wolverine #2
Batman: Futures End #1
Amazing Spider-Man #6
Batman Eternal #23
Walking Dead #131
Superman Unchained #8
New Suicide Squad: Futures End #1
Batgirl: Futures End #1
Avengers #34.1
Edge Of Spiderverse #1

Thanks to the following contributing retailers,

Jetpack Comics of Rochester, New HampshireLibrairie Astro of Montreal, Que, Canada
Yesteryear Comics of San Diego, California
Pittsburgh Comics of McMurray, Pennsylvania
Fat Jack's Comicrypt of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Rodman Comics of Ankeny, Iowa
Jesse James Comics of Phoenix, Arizona
G-Mart Comic Books of Champaign, Illinois
Dr. No's Comics & Games Superstore, Marietta, Georgia
Graham Crackers Comics of Illinois – Plainfield, Naperville, Downers Grove, St. Charles, Wheaton, DeKalb + Chicago LOOP/Edgewater/Lakeview

Who had this to say,

Sales are up from the previous week. People are buying doubles of Death of Wolverine. Customers are warming up to the latest 3D covers. Batman Futures End 1 being the big winner of course. New 52 Futures End 19 sold out on Wednesday. And really Marvel? Death of Wolverine a limited series that was suppose to be a weekly series and the third issue is now delayed till next month? Would have been nice to have a heads up so my customers know. Been receiving Diamond invoices on Thursdays recently instead of Wednesdays. Good week though. Marvel and DC have generated excitement for their comics.

Guardians of the Galaxy back issues are still in demand. Deadpool is in demand. Batman back issues are in demand along with of course Superman. Something about an upcoming movie.

Great week for sales. Death of Wolverine was still strong and expect a sell out of issue 2 by Friday. Rot & Ruin #1 sold over a 100 copies in 3 hours with a signing with Mr. Maberry. Image titles still the butter on the bread with consistent sales with established books, not so much with the newest batch of #1's so far this month.

Batman and Guardians of the Galaxy still doing great in the back-issue market. Wolverine has picked up a little with core title and key stories in the X-Men books,people coming into pick up books from their childhood that they remember.

A big week of books. Batman Futures End and Walking Dead lead the way with the Death of Wolverine right behind. Wolverine is suddenly selling 3 times what the lead-in was selling. Go figure. Batman Eternal is still holding strong and not shedding any readers. Hoping that the Futures End tie ins will bring some new readers to that series. Edge of Spider-Verse had a decent start, selling about half of Spider-Man. Prometheus Fire & Stone was a real surprise, selling out of what I thought was a decent order on Wednesday. Disappointment in the shipping schedule and ending of series has caused Hawkeye to be left on the shelf.

I've been reading on message boards that the DC 3D covers and Death of Wolverine haven't been doing well for some stores, but I have had zero trouble moving any of them. Sold out of 4 of the DC 3D titles this week even though I upped my orders over the regular series numbers across the board. And it's nice to see that DC overprinted and reorders are on the way.

Nothing really moved trade-wise, which lead to a disappointing Wednesday compared to last week.

This week was an Image Comics fans dream week! Tons of great books that have been scooping up more and more readers with each issue, like MPH, Velvet, Lazarus, Spread, East of West. Copperhead #1 sold excellent as well. Couple that with the two hit Kirkman combo of Walking Dead and Invincible in the same week? Good luck touching that, Marvel or DC. However, DC's 3D covers sold alright, pretty much the same as last week. We aren't seeing people flock into the store for this batch like they did last year. Death of Wolverine's second issue sold like crazy, customers were VERY happy to see that Marvel kept going with the holographic covers, rather than ditching the gimmick after the first issue like they did with ORIGIN 2 and Age of Ultron.

There was a push back on Futures end at our stores this week. Not one title made our top ten as Marvel and Image titles took center stage. Last year most customers bought both regular cover and 3d covers, however this year its either or and sales are splint between the two. With only Batman Eternal hitting our top ten from Dc we will have to refocus on future orders and adjust to this trend.

I'm kinda surprised to see "Death of Wolverine" so far down there- almost as surprised as I am to see Diamond still taking in-stock reorders.
Looks like the old "killing a character = automatic sales generator" stunt isn't quite as much of a sure thing as it used to be.

A lot of enthusiasm for Jay Faerber's new Image series Copperhead pushed into the Top Ten in a week otherwise dominated by Marvel and DC. Surprised by the absolute lack of interest for Dark Horse's new Prometheus: Fire and Stone; if they had anticipated this being the franchise that would replace the lost Star Wars license, they need a new strategy. The strength of Amazing Spider-Man continues to surprise–it outsold Batman this week!

Increased interest in back issues of Constantine and Hellblazer, as well as Hellblazer trade paperbacks.

In spite of the power of the third dimension Marvel took the top three spots at our store this week. Death of Wolverine is doing quite well. Better than expected. People go nuts whenever a new issue of Hawkeye hits the stands and Spider-Man is Spider-Man. While not making the top ten, Edge of Spider-verse did quite well too. Velvet was another just out of top ten range. Three of four N52 titles on the list have "bat" in the name. MPH was DOA. Our worst selling Millarworld book and dropping.

Batman Futures End #1 came close to beating out Death of Wolverine, but not quite. Thankfully Batman Futures End #1 was a good stand alone issue, the best so far of all the 3-D motion covers..

So I keep selling out of X-FORCE #2, a comic that normally gets tossed in my 50 cent bins, keeps getting plucked from the regular back issues at $2 to $3 bucks a pop.

Takes me multiple sales to notice and finally look into what's going on… X-FORCE #2 (Liefeld series) happens to be the 2nd appearance of DEADPOOL. After consistently selling NEW MUTANTS #98 for $200 bucks people started looking for the 2nd appearance (hey – look at Wolverine's 2nd appearance!). Clearly undervalued and under priced, most stores have these in their 50 cent bins or in the regular back stock (assuming they have a back issue stock) for $2- $3 bucks! Good time to snatch them up!