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Bleeding Cool Bestseller List, 19th January 2020 – "Odd Week", "Small Week", "Abysmal" Week in Comics

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. And it's a bit of a weird week – Marvel shipped a bunch of titles a week early, so there are no Dawn of X titles at all. none of the big ongoing Batman comics, no Black Label books, no Amazing Spider-Man… so the chart looks a little different than usual. And Brian Bendis tops the chart for the first time in a long time with Damian Wayne's future from Ryan Sook, and Warren Ellis gets the number 2 slot with Bryan Hitch for The Batman's Grave, a comic which he recently wrote he thought DC Comics had forgotten they were publishing. They won't have forgotten it this week.

And a welcome back to Hourglass Comics of Canada.

Top ten bestselling comics of the week

Wednesday Comics

  1. Legion of Super-Heroes #3
  2. Batman's Grave #4
  3. Avengers #29
  4. Iron Man 2020 1
  5. Venom The End #1
  6. Question the Deaths of Vic Sage #2
  7. Flash #86
  8. Undiscovered Country #2
  9. Flash Forward #5
  10. Second Coming #6

Thanks to the following retailers…

If you would like to contribute to the retailer charts, let me know at richjohnston@bleedingcool.com. Probably have a few more folk and folk returning in the New Year…

Who had this to say…

Small week at FFF this week with most of Marvel's big books coming out last week and all of DC's Batbooks coming out next week. What did come out sold well, but we didn't get the numbers we would've gotten with an X title or Batbook. Legion was our #1 seller this week followed by Avengers and Second Coming. All three of these books have a following at our store but they normally sit just outside the Top Ten list. With no real competition they get to enjoy their moment in the sun. Iron Man 2020 was probably Marvel's biggest release this week and it hit our Top Ten square in the middle. I don't see it being a huge hit, but the few hardcore Iron Man fans we have will stick with it. Venom took three of the lower Top Ten spots with Venom #22 spending it's second week in the Top now at #7. Ruins of Ravencroft: Sabretooth and Venom The End are very much auxiliary Venom titles but they still deal enough with symbiotes to enjoy a little bit of a bump. Next week will be a big week and our Top Ten will look closer to what it normally does.

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Odd week – with no powerhouse releases – heck a REPRINT comic made it on to our TOP 10 BEST SELLERS list, which is crazy.

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It felt like there were a decent amount of titles out this past Wednesday, but unfortunately there just wasn't really anything of note. Seems like Marvel and DC's heavy-hitters took a week off. Weird that there wasn't any new X-book. Speaking of, the tide of new Dawn of X titles that keeps getting announced is making readers a little dubious about sticking with the line — Despite assurances from us (and Hickman, in a recent tweet) that you don't actually need to be reading every single book in the line-up.

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Not exactly a typical week. Pretty small offerings from all publishers, which worked out okay for us, as we had unusually terrible winter weather that kept people at home this week. Still, the usual suspects wound up on top, with Batman and Bendis doing well for DC and Venom and the relaunched Iron Man leading Marvel. Undiscovered Country topped the everyone-else list, which is no surprise as this weird-but-wonderful series is going strong.

Probably the most surprising thing on our list is the Question. The Black Label books do well for us, as does Jeff Lemire, so I guess it shouldn't surprise me that the Question is doing well, but it does. Even though I'm a fan of the character, I'm not sure I expected so many people to give it the chance, what with the oversized format and the character having been dead (or replaced by Montoya) for so long.

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This was a weirdly small release week, and while the Caped Crusader still captured the top spot the sparse field allowed books like LEGION OF SUPER HEROES and AQUAMAN to place much higher on our best sellers list than usual.

It also resulted in the bottom spots being a multi-way tie between some of the smaller titles, with a nice mix of things from UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY to NIGHTWING and HELLBOY.

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Wow, what a totally odd week. Along with low sales it was an unique top ten week. Question 2 took the top spot and would have sold more if we had ordered even more. Legion is dropping fast taking the tenth spot and might not even make the next top ten as fast as people are dropping it. Bloodshot did well. Iron Man 2020 1 was outsold by Spawn, Bloodshot, and Aquaman here. Not a great relaunch. Iron Man 2020 1 and Venom 1 the End were the only Marvel titles to make the top ten for us this week. Avengers should be a title that makes the top ten though Marvel seems not to do know what to do with a title if it gets into double digits. Other than start it over, yet again.

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Do I use the word 'abysmal' too often? Our top selling comic this week sold 11 copies, so I suppose 'unimpressed' is more appropriate this time. It was a much better week for indies than we've had in a while, at least.

Notable sales:

  • Amazing Spider-Man #101 $500 With that last clip of Jared Leto they dropped off the new Morbius movie my customers have been going nuts. I only had one good copy. I need four more!

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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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