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The Bleeding Cool Bestseller List – 5th February 2016 – "Monsters Unleashed Just Isn't Selling"

Published Sun, 05 Feb 2017 11:00:31 -0600

Last updated Thu, 09 Feb 2017 10:44:21 -0600

Not even a 25 cent Walking Dead could knock Batman off his gargoyle perch… though it did come close.

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.

Batman #16
Walking Dead #163
Justice League #14
Superman #16
Star Wars: Darth Maul #1
Paper Girls #11
Star Wars #28
Green Arrow #13
Nightwing #14
Green Lanterns #16

Thanks to the following retailers,

Hourglass Comics, BC, Canada
Rodman Comics of Ankeny, Iowa
Fat Jack's Comicrypt of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Yesteryear Comics of San Diego, California
Dr. No's Comics & Games Superstore of Marietta, Georgia
Famous Faces & Funnies of West Melbourne, FL
Graham Crackers Comics – 11 locations in the Mid-West
Velocity Comics, Richmond VA
Comix Experience Outpost, San Francisco, CA
Issues Needed Comics, Apple Valley, MN
Comix Experience, San Francisco, CA

Who have this to say,

Seven DCs in our store's top ten, one Image, and two Marvel Star Wars books. Yet another week with no Marvel superhero titles in the top ten. Their event book, Monsters Unleashed, sold just under Flintstones levels for us. It's difficult to find the new order levels in a post-Marvel era…

Key Silver Age books moved quite well this week!

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Walking Dead was the obvious winner with a cheap issue for #163. Darth Maul however would have taken the top spot if that was not the case. Rest of the week was decent with the other titles released.

Walking Dead back-issues and Harley Quinn were the big movers. Poe Dameron #10 40th ANN variant has been a nice little cash cow and it looks like Deadpool #26 Keown variant will be the next book too get. Figure this will be the trend since so many stores are not ordering Marvel's…makes for a nice little bonus.

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Not a great week. Not a bad week. Walking Dead 163 took the top spot but we have plenty of copies sense I bought into the buy 500 of them for the variants. The 25 cent Walking Dead followed Red Sonja's earlier 25 cent issue so some people thought it was a rip off idea. At this point I do not see new repeat customers coming from this. Marvel had two titles make it into the top ten. Darth Maul and the main Star Wars title. Some people were confused that there was yet another new Star Wars issue so soon after the last one. Marvel's super hero titles did not do well yet again. Monsters Unleashed 2 is a dud here sadly. Karnak's long delays seem to have killed the following it had. Justice League while still making the top ten is seeing some bleeding of readership. At the rate it is bleeding it may not be long till it is out of the top ten. Worried about the upcoming months sense out of the comics coming out nothing looks like it is going to whip up a lot of excitement with readership. Right now a four-part crossover between Flash and Batman with 3D covers is the most exciting thing coming out over the next few months? That seems odd to me.

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Although our top 10 is fairly split between Marvel and DC titles, the majority of sales overall were from people catching up DC titles like Nightwing and the Green Lantern titles. Sales for Monsters Unleashed really picked up this week along with interest with the tie-ins, which was a bit surprising considering how slow the book was selling last week. The 25c price point on Walking Dead #163 definite boosted sales on the title, many customers who don't even touch the book picked up this is week.

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Surprisingly, even at 25 cents, Walking Dead didn't beat Batman at my store this week. Well, Walking Dead will keep selling at that price for a long time, so it will catch up eventually. With the cost of shipping/sorting/picking/selling I can't help but think we'd have been better off with a regular-priced Walking Dead issue.

Darth Maul did well, but it didn't break into our top 10. Nor did Bullseye.

Nice to see the last issue of Karnak finally ship!

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We have a Marvel book in our top ten for the first time in many weeks with Darth Maul at sixth place. We had a few people grumble about the $4.99 cover price, but most bought it anyway. This week's FFF top twenty is of course 25 cents Walking Dead 163, Batman, Paper Girls, JL, Superman, Darth Maul, HQ, GL, Injustice, GA, followed by 25 cents Vampi, Avengers, Nightwing, Saga making another appearance in week 2 at spot 14, Invincible, All New X-Men, Champions, Deadpool, Moon Knight and Old Man Logan. 7 Marvel titles is our top twenty is a huge improvement over recent weeks. Monsters unleashed just isn't selling and the tie-ins are almost all being put back by customers sick of $4.99 comics, especially since barely anyone is reading the main series. I'm happy to see 4 Image Comics and a Dynamite book in our top fifteen books! Old Guard from Image and Greg Rucka & Leandro Fernandez looks interesting, so I think that might be the next Image book to move the needle. We are still ahead of the same time last year, but overall, this week has been slower than most so far, but it's that time of year where people try to catch up on their holiday credit card spending, so February should be in step, or maybe even a little lower than last February, but overall, a lot of comics are still selling, not to mention a crazy amount of graphic novels, toys and Pops!

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As far as recent back issues, we sold some old What If, Uncanny X-Men, Batman, Detective, Cassandra Cain Batgirl, Spawn, Walking Dead, Runaways and Green Arrow this week.

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With no surprise, our stores top three sellers were all Image comics, (Paper Girls, Walking Dead, and Deadly Class) a Happy Birthday indeed. The rest of our list is a pretty steady tie between DC and Marvel with top titles like Avengers #4 and Batman #16.

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We didn't see any new customers coming in for the quarter-priced Walking Dead issue, but we had multiple customers buy more than one copy. So, about what we expected. The final issue of Karnak charted higher than Old Man Logan and Avengers– the highest charting Marvel non-Star Wars book. Otherwise, it was all business as usual: DC Rebirth books dominate, Marvel Now-ish (whatever this retread is called) sheds subscribers weekly, with Image quietly selling more overall product than the House of Ideas. Can't call it the Big Two any more in our shop

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Weird Week : A 25 cent Walking Dead comic could not topple the Bat. A 43 year old Marvel reprint comic sold better than any other Marvel Superhero comic that came out this week. And people still love Darth Maul (Marvel's best selling book for us since Civil War II)!

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Walking Dead hit #1 thanks to it's ridiculous cover price of 25¢ – customers that turned it down were still given a copy (though not counted in sales) – most were willing to piss a quarter away. Otherwise Batman would have been the clear winner for the week.

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