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Bleeding Cool Bestseller List – 13th February 2017 – "Low, Low, LOW Sales This Week"

Published Mon, 13 Feb 2017 10:00:16 -0600

Last updated Mon, 13 Feb 2017 20:28:43 -0600

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 it's back to the bat…

Detective Comics #950
Justice League Of America: Rebirth #1
All-Star Batman #7
Flash #16
IVX #4
Wonder Woman #16
Suicide Squad #11
Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #7
Titans #8
Action Comics #973

Thanks to the following retailers,

Comix Experience Outpost, San Francisco, CA
Hourglass Comics, BC, Canada
Ssalefish Comics of Winston-Salem, NC
Fat Jack's Comicrypt of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Yesteryear Comics of San Diego, California
G-Mart Comic Books of Champaign, IL
Velocity Comics, Richmond VA
Issues Needed Comics, Apple Valley, MN
Rodman Comics of Ankeny, Iowa
Famous Faces & Funnies of West Melbourne, FL
Graham Crackers Comics – 11 locations in the Mid-West
Jesse James Comics, Glendale, Arizona

Who had this to say,

Instead of the usual Marvel vs DC comments, it's worth noting that we have FOUR books in our top 10 with female protagonists! That's an excellent thing to see, and I expect Batwoman next week to chart very high as well.

We've seen increased interest in Runaways because of the show, also Silver Age Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Thor and X-Men issues. Not sure what's driving that but happy to move some quality older product.

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Low, low, LOW sales this week. DC had some of their best selling titles out this week and Marvel had releases. Image had solid sellers but no hot new #1 that might push the BigTwo out of the way for a spot on the list. Unworthy Thor was the best selling of Marvel's three spots on the list at #4. IVX and Guardians of the Galaxy took spots #9 and #10. Detective was our best seller, edging out All-Star Batman which took me a little by surprise. Moonshine was my favorite book of th week.

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Doctor Aphra took the top spot with JLA Rebirth in striking distance, but the 40th anniversary variants keeping it at arms length. IVX and Kingpin were the other Marvel books on the list and DC Comics took the other seven spots since not independents seem to catch readers eye this week.

Anything X-23 was sought after on the back-issue front.However noticing that DC Rebirth titles were having to be replenished at least twice on most titles.

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Another week, another unimpressive result for a Marvel launch, as Kingpin fails to chart for my store, or even really garner any interest at all. You'd think with the popularity of the character on the Netflix Daredevil that people would be interested, but not so much. Most customers seem to be saying, "Not another Marvel book. They have enough already." Sad.

Justice League of America did a little worse than I expected, as it didn't beat Detective or All Star Batman, but it still sold well. I wonder what this means for late-in-the-game Rebirth books like Batwoman and Super Sons (if anything at all).

Speaking of Rebirth, most of the books seem to be charting in exactly the same place as the last time they came out. There's been a lot of articles on here about "High Returns" and "DC Rebirth – A failure?" but I'm not seeing it. I returned a small envelope of covers back around issue 2s or 3s, and that's been it. Sales have held up consistently with no-where near the usual attrition rate, which in my mind, is far more important than huge initial launches with vast plummets, right?

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Fairly standard week for us here with Batman and Spider-Man related books taking the top 4 spots. IVX continues to sell at the same numbers each week, probably due to X-fans being grasping at anything X-related before the new titles come out.

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DC dominates the top ten yet again with only Doctor Aphra & Moonshine representing other publishers. I have noticed a lot of online Marvel bashing and that is not what we are doing. It does seem that Marvel has lost some of the focus that they are famous for. Marvel books still sell, but it seems that the new Marvel books are not connecting with readers. Daredevil, X-men, and single character books like Black Widow and Cap still have concise sales. The obstacle I notice is books like Foolkiller, Slapstick, Mosaic, IVX (when considering it an event book), Solo, Deadpool the Duck and the latest Hawkeye simply don't sell in "Marvel" numbers. I am on my way to the Comicpro meeting and I hope to really brainstorm with Marvel executives.

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Batman! Batman!! BATMAN!! 4 of this week's top ten featured Batman including last week's Batman #16 which beat most Marvel books. Long live King Batman! Side note : Can't wait to see that Lego movie :)

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Big week for DC with two Justice League titles in the top ten (JLA Rebirth was our number one seller) followed by a solid block of their other big name books including Action Comics, Detective Comics, and Wonder Woman. The only Marvel title to crack the top ten was IVX which hangs by a thread with even our most vehement X-Men readers. I'm hoping the relaunch that follows this lukewarm event will provide a much needed resurgence of sales and confidence in Marvel. But with Rebirth continuing it's streak of pumping out solid stories even over half a year later, Marvel finding it's place back on top doesn't seem too likely. flo

On the bright side, Marvel does have six books in the top twenty with Unworthy Thor falling just outside the top ten. The books that we do sell of Marvel seem to be the ones that embrace the history of the publisher and call back to previous status quo and continuity that our readers discovered and fell in love with. These new characters taking familiar roles just aren't pulling people in the way Marvel seems to hope they will. The one exception to that rule is All-New Wolverine. But that can be chalked up to having an actually competent creative team working on the book.

As for Indie books, we actually sold more of two books from fringe publishers than from Image or Dark Horse. Black #4 (from Black Mask) and Unleash #4 (from Amigo) both sold enough to place inside the top twenty. These are two books that garner a strong and pretty passionate following in our store due to them being the favorites of two of our employees. We'd love to see more books like these find a larger audience.

In the back issue department, we've been selling a handful of X-adjacent books like X-Factor and X-Force from the early to mid-nineties. We've also started selling more and more Old Man Logan related story-lines with a pretty big spike in sales for the first trade. Along with the usual sales of Spider-Man back issues, we actually probably sell more Marvel from twenty years ago than we do their current stuff.

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Wow, a total shut out on Marvel titles. All DC in the top ten. Marvel is bleeding out sales in store. Still sadly. My next Preview order is bare bones for Marvel. Even Star Wars Doctor Alphra now looks in a free fall. Readers that used to get all Star Wars titles are dropping it. If Marvel isn't going to get back into the race till 2018 then this year is going to be a joke for Marvel sales. People that read that don't take it poorly. I want Marvel to sell. I would love to sell hundreds of each Marvel title. Years ago I would never have thought it would be possible Marvel would sink so low sales wise. Putting out titles such as Solo, Foolkiller, and Slapstick is not a good business plan. If comic store owners can look at the first issue description from Previews and know they will not last even a year or a year and a half why even put them out?

It's all about the Flash. Rebirth early issues to current issues are being bought by new readers.

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Rick and Morty continues to be our #1 selling book. Images 90's table has been on fire as well. Great week for Silver age comics.