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Bleeding Cool Best-Seller List, 14th May 2017 – All Starred

Published Sun, 14 May 2017 15:00:17 -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.

And this week it's the battle of the bats…

All Star Batman #10
Detective Comics #956
Titans #11
Star Wars: The Screaming Citadel #1
Action Comics #979
Justice League of America #6
Amazing Spider-Man #27
Wonder Woman #22
X-Men Blue #3
Suicide Squad #17

Thanks to the following retailers

Dr. No's Comics & Games Superstore of Marietta, Georgia
Alter Ego Comics of Lima, Ohio
Rodman Comics of Ankeny, Iowa
Fat Jack's Comicrypt of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Comix Experience, San Francisco, CA
Comix Experience Outpost, San Francisco, CA
Geek Out, Burleson, Texas
Graham Crackers Comics – 11 shops in Illinois/Wisconsin
Ssalefish Comics of Winston-Salem, NC
Famous Faces & Funnies of West Melbourne, FL
Velocity Comics, Richmond VA

Who had this to say

This week DC retook major control of our store's Top Ten, holding eight spots. Marvel placed two titles, both X-books, at 8th and 10th place respectively. Marvel's major new Star Wars project barely cracked out store's Top Fifteen; it appears that the Star Wars magic has begun to fade. The big surprise is the decline of interest in All Star Batman; readers are complaining that the book doesn't seem to fit into continuity at all and doesn't have the style and polish of the core Batman series.

Strong interest in affordable 1980s and 1990s Marvel and DC continues. Meanwhile, the rapid sale of mid-grade Hulk #s 180-182 makes it clear that the demand is still there for these book at the right balance between condition and price.
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Good week. I dropped the ball. My own fault. With two stores closing I should have known that there would be new customers. It has been years since a store has closed so I forgot some business lessons. That's on me. Deadpool shocked me and snuck back into the top ten even at the $9.99 cover price. It sold way better than the $9.99 Amazing Spider-man issue. Amazing Spider-man is still dieing sales wise sadly and did not make the top ten. We weren't lucky enough to pick up new Spider-man fans. Red Hood and Outlaws made it into the top ten. Not a single past issue of the current series is in the store. It has been increasing sales in store. Some titles sold out quickly with new people coming in. Star Wars Screaming Citadel 1 was a solid seller. Hopefully we will be on the ball now and keep some of the new customers.
Archie back issues were popular this week. Yes, Archie!
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Kind of a weird week for us – none of our bestsellers were really standouts in terms of sales. 5 different titles tied for first in our top 10, including All-Star Batman, X-Men Blue, and After Death Book 3. Even weirder, last week's Walking Dead sold as well as just about everything else in our top 10. But, in better news the second issue of Simon Spurrier and Jonas Goonface's Godshaper is getting just as much love as the first issue, cracking the top 10 once again.

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Fairly typical week for us, with DC dominating 7 of the top 10 spots. The most interesting observation this week was how sharply the sales of Secret Empire plummeted in a single week. We'll see how issue 2 fares.
All Star Batman continues to be one of our highest selling Batman titles, due partly to many of our customers getting two, if not all of the covers. We ran a special on Deadpool where the first week it would be $5.00 instead of $10.00. As a result it sold very well, but wouldn't have otherwise. The last time they had a $10.00 issue even our subscribers put it back saying that enough was enough.

*SPOILER WARNING* We had a copy of Thor #165 which had been in our store since 2015. Unsurprisingly, it sold after a certain scene in a certain blockbuster.

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In a week where no new Button issues came out, Batman #22 outsold every other book that came out. This was probably our first time ever where our top selling book for the week was a book from last week with Batman 22 narrowly beating out Detective Comics. DC dominated the Top Ten with 9 out of 10 books and 14 out of 20 for the Top Twenty. Even the oddball books are selling better than almost every other established name coming from Marvel. Both Superwoman and Bug! outsold both X-Titles out this week. Titans selling so well points to high interest in the Lazarus Contract crossover. I don't anticipate The Button numbers, but it should still sell well.

Marvel first pops up at #13 with Amazing Spider-Man. X-Men Blue and Weapon X both sold okay placing at #18 and #20. The (rapid) return of the same issue codes doesn't seem to have done much to bring up the numbers. Marvel just keeps burning their readers in one way or another and people are beginning to realize that the cycle isn't breaking and they're not coming back. I'm relieved that the store doesn't rely on Marvel to pay the bills because we'd probably end up like one of the many stores across the country who are sadly closing their doors forever.

Image had two books in the Top Twenty with AD: After Death coming in at #11, right behind Walking Dead. Again, big names sell indie books and Scott Snyder and Jeff Lemire both have their fanbases. Walking Dead's ending seems to have caused a slight increase in interest as it still outsold every other Marvel book even in its second week!

Justin Ponsor and Karl Moline were our guests on FCBD and they both were awesome enough to sign a bunch of books for us that we sell for cover price. Those books have been selling well since last Saturday. Guardians back issues (including Rocket & Groot and Starlord) have also sold well. Also, X-Men, Spider-Man and Batman continue to sell. Early Rebirth issues are still doing great too.

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Batman beats Star Wars, this week twice w/ Detective and All Star! This is the first time in months that Marvel and DC have an even split of 5 spots a piece… I'd chock that up to it being a real small week. Saw some increased interest in Titans because of the 'Lazarus Project' crossover, which was nice. Surprise of the week was Red Rising #1, which might've made my top 10 had I ordered more… didn't expect demand there at all.

Sales of Kirby issues of Thor & Journey into Mystery have picked up, presumably because of the movie? Or just because they're awesome? On the DC side we've seen more action on Deathstroke issues, especially the first volume with the great Mike Zeck covers. Independently speaking Michel Fiffe's Copra is the book we get the most requests on. God Country remains white hot as well.
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Extremity and God Country continues to be in high demand, with even 2nd and 3rd printings selling almost as fast as they come in. Back Issue sales continue to be steady, for copper, bronze and silver age, along with an increase in current series back issues for DC titles – mostly Flash, and all Batman titles. We also saw a significant increase in the number of new subscribers to current series this week. While Marvel titles did see a small increase for "core" titles and characters, titles with current low sales numbers saw next to no new subscribers. We saw the biggest increase in subscriptions across the board for DC and Independents.

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Regardless of the MARVEL haters being so vocal in the industry right now, Marvel took 4 of the 5 top 5 results in our stores. Bit of a 'meh' week with lots of mediocre comics hitting the racks at the same time.

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