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Bleeding Cool Bestseller List, 3rd February 2019 – 'Age of X-Man Alpha Didn't Sell Very Well and Makes Me Pretty Worried'

Published Sun, 03 Feb 2019 12:30:00 -0600

Last updated Mon, 04 Feb 2019 14:34:13 -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 till the weekend to get this week's comics. We salute you, and the keenness you bring to your passion.

The three top titles may shuffle their position in relation to each other but it's either Heroes In Crisis, Detective Comics or Justice League Annual which takes the top spot. DC Comics may publish fewer titles than Marvel, but they have a habit of selling more. Though Action Comics seems to be slipping a bit, Age Of X-Man Alpha did not impact in the way that Marvel may have hoped–and is it possible the Heroes In Crisis connection for Flash Annual #2 may not have been promoted as much as DC may have liked?

Top ten bestsellers:

Heroes in Crisis #5
Detective Comics #997
Justice League Annual #1
Amazing Spider-Man #14
Captain America #7
Age Of X-Man Alpha #1
Action Comics #1007
Flash #63
Flash Annual #2
Marvel Knights 20 #5

Thanks to the following retailers:

Famous Faces & Funnies, West Melbourne, Florida.
Ssalefish Comics, Winston-Salem & Greensboro, North Carolina.
Rodman Comics, Ankeny, Iowa.
Comix Experience Outpost, San Francisco, California.
Collector's Paradise, Pasadena, California.
Fat Jack's Comicrypt, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Dr. No's Comics & Games Superstore of Marietta, Georgia
Collector's Paradise, Valley, California
Graham Crackers Comics – now 12 locations throughout the United States

Who had this to say:

Heroes in Crisis continues to dominate at almost double the sales of our second highest book of the week, Detective Comics, also gearing up towards #1000. At FFF, Amazing is still stronger than it's been in years and JL and Action are posting solid numbers. DC has 7 of our top 10 titles, and Marvel has 3 with Amazing in third and then Donny Cates' incredible take on Guardians of the Galaxy beating out all other Marvel (but ASM) even on its second week. Batman also hit ninth for us on its second week to close out a relatively smaller week of comics. Age of X-Man Alpha didn't sell very well and makes me pretty worried for the six X-Men mini-series and the lack of excitement surrounding them. X-Force 2 didn't do well either with people being turned off by the art in the book. A few customers read 1 and asked us to take it off their list.

For some reason, our Monday and Tuesday were a little lower than usual and our slowest days in a while, but somehow our Friday and Saturday more than made up for it with almost double our normal Friday and Saturday without any giant sale or event to still end up about 30% over our goal for the week. We were up 24% in January and 26% for the year, so we're thankful for all the support we see from our local community and from those that watch our weekly Facebook Live auctions. Comics and graphic novels are still over 50% of our total sales, and we're hitting record numbers as we're gearing up for our 25th anniversary in a few weeks. I sadly see several stores struggling and going out of business. I hope to see some positive changes in our industry so that other stores continue to thrive.

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Our sales are super low thanks to the big freeze this week. With the weather being so cold it kept a lot of people away. Which of course we would rather be safe than sorry. Hope to see things bounce back next week.

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Detective Comics took the lead this time around, with more and more people jumping on board in preparation for #1000. Heroes in Crisis did especially well with the B cover because it turns out, people enjoy seeing Jason Todd on the verge of getting his head beaten in. A lot of folks expressed interest in Age of X-Man Alpha, which is certainly nice to see, and hopefully bodes well for the myriad of mini-series about to start up, especially since a good portion of the customers picking it up aren't regular X-Men readers. Fight Club 3 showed a promising start as well, with much of the old reader base excited to get into it. Other than that, the week was ruled by DC annuals, with Flash's actually managing to outsell the regular issue that was out this week.

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HEROES IN CRISIS is the dominant book by a good margin this week. The rest of the top five is yet again a collection of the usual suspects: JUSTICE LEAGUE, ASM, DETECTIVE, ACTION.

X-FORCE has maintained some sales momentum for its second issue, though I'd be surprised for that to be the case by the time we hit #6. Coates' CAPTAIN AMERICA keeps trucking along, and FLASH is moving so fast he ended up on the list twice, with both the most recent regular issue and the Annual.

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A five-five split, Marvel and DC-but it's interesting that former top ten titles like Justice League Odyssey, Flash, and Wonder Woman no longer come near making the list. The DC decline is increasing with each week as more and more readers object to the negative, dark direction that DC has taken post-Rebirth. Five-five may not sound bad–but in our store, a year ago it was almost entirely DC in the top ten. Another significant factor: DC offers variant covers at cover price with no qualifiers, which means that some of our customers buy both customers, earning DC top ten slots they might not have gotten with a single cover. Take note, Marvel!

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Probably the WORST Wednesday release day we've ever had. Having nothing to do with the comics released but the miserable 20 below temperatures in the Chicagoland area. News media constantly warning people "DO NOT GO OUTSIDE UNLESS YOU HAVE TO!" and foolishly forgetting to add the caveat of "except to get your NEW COMICS of course"–so needless to say very few braved the dangerous temperatures and sales were a mess.

Notable sales:

Tons of Spawn to a few different collectors as anything past issue 40 is hard to find and rarely comes in through collections. We have been buying and selling collections of all kinds recently.
Journey into Mystery #89 $350 Early Thor
Batman #171 7.0 $500 1st silver age Riddler

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