Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Batman, bestseller, bleedingcool, civil war, Comics, dc, entertainment, marvel

Bleeding Cool Bestseller List – 27th November 2016 – DC Floods The Chart Again

Published Sun, 27 Nov 2016 08:00:05 -0600

Last updated Mon, 02 Jan 2017 12:06:16 -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.

Looks like Marvel was right to expect much from the Venom launch – though it still gets beaten by the Bat and the Flash. The story seems to be that Marvel only gets traction with launches, central event titles (though Death Of X is notably missing) and… Star Wars. The run of the mill, day to day,

The run of the mill, day to day, jobsworthy superhero titles that used to be Marvel's forte are systematically being beaten by those of DC Comics, post-Rebirth. Will that change any time soon?

1. Detective Comics #945
2. Civil War II #7
3. Flash #11
4. Venom #1
5. Action Comics #968
6. Wonder Woman #11
7. Titans #5
8. Star Wars #25
9. Harley Quinn #8
10. Teen Titans #2

Thanks to the following retailers

Dr. No's Comics & Games Superstore of Marietta, Georgia
Rodman Comics of Ankeny, Iowa
Jesse James Comics of Glendale, Arizona
Issues Needed Comics, Apple Valley, Minnesota
Famous Faces & Funnies of West Melbourne, Florida.
Rodman Comics of Ankeny, Iowa

Who had this to say

It's a lighter week than usual with a rare day off for Thanksgiving, and not too giant of a week of comics to begin with. As usual, DC decimates even with the secondary titles like Detective Comics, Wonder Woman, Action, Flash, Hal Jordan, Teen Titans & Batgirl all beating out Civil War 7 at FFF, which is our highest Marvel title in eighth place. Batman Beyond and Titans fill out our top ten narrowly edging out AD: After Death, which is a tough one to figure out how it would sell with the odd size and heavy price tag, although it does have some serious talent involved. So far, Harley & Deathstroke beat out Venom 1 (our 14th book this week), which has been well received by those that read it, but early sales have it at about a third of our Detective and Wonder Woman sales in just the first few days, but I expect Venom to have some serious legs on it.

Black Monday Murders ties Death of X and Han Solo as our 15th bestsellers this week. This doesn't bode well for IvX, although I appreciate Marvel shipping retailers a 50% overship on the zero issue next week, since they believe in the title and the $4.99 price tag more than we do. While I am always thankful for free copies to sell, use to give away to promote or whatever, Marvel really has to do something to reach out to a new audience, since actual sell through on these new books is at an all time low, while the rest of the industry seems to be in sold shape. Most Marvel books have seen a major dropoff of 20% to 30% on total sales or total subs these last few months and they have to find a way to course correct that. We are still selling over 100 copies of Saga, Walking Dead, Paper Girls, Batman and other books every month, so it's not like we don't have a healthy amount of customers. Some weeks, I sell more Walking Dead TPBs than Uncanny X-Men or Avengers comics, in those comics first week of release! Ouch. Great for Walking Dead, scary for Marvel.

When Batgirl 5 is outselling your big summer event, Civil War 7 in my store, you need to make some serious changes to your content, your pricing and your marketing. DC brought a ton of new readers in with Rebirth and they're still coming in every week at issue 11. Why can't Marvel put out some TV commercials or social media outreach to do the same? There are several recent Marvel books we ordered 40 or 50 first issues of, and we're not even selling double digit amounts on. The interest just isn't there on a lot of these new characters, who can't support their own books. I wish Marvel would get back to "less books, better books" where we could get their major titles to higher numbers again, but they're losing long time customers left and right, and I don't know if there's anything they can do to get them back on the current path they're on.

We are STILL moving lots of Walking Dead, including several covers of #100, lots of 1990's Uncanny X-Men, Amazing, Batman and even some Teen Titans. Sold a little bit of Suicide Squad, Preacher and Y: The Last Man this week, as talk of a FX Y show gets closer. We have our Small Business Saturday event this week, so it will be interesting to see what back issues we move while they're all on sale.

For the first time since we have been reporting our top ten Marvel beat DC and took the two top spots with Civil War II and Venom! Which just proves that consumers love Events and Number 1's so expect this to be part of our culture for a very long time!

Marvel places three book in the Top Ten this week–how long has it been since that happened in our store? Venom seems to be the surprise hit, joining The Unworthy Thor in that very small group of Marvel Now relaunches that readers are truly excited about.

We've seen a pickup in interest in Thor and Captain America back issues–the Don Blake Thor and the Steve Rogers Captain America, that is.

Sadly this list will not mean much thanks to Thanksgiving. Lots of regulars out of town for Thanksgiving for the week throwing off the numbers. Frank Cho on Harley Quinn covers though? Pure gold. Sold out of them on Wednesday. Another surprise was Action Comics selling out on Wednesday. Civil War II issue 7 clocked in for fourth but again with Thanksgiving it doesn't mean to much. We had more sales on Friday than we did on Wednesday. Now next week things should be back to "normal".

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