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Bleeding Cool Bestseller List – 3rd May 2017 – Walking Dead Getting Closer To Batman

Published Sun, 05 Mar 2017 13:00:46 -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.

The 25 cent Walking Dead from a couple of issues ago really seems to have put some oomph in the title's performance, almost outdoing Batman in the overall chart and definitely in some store's individual sales. Paper Girls also outsold all Marvel superhero titles, with only Clone Conspiracy joining Star Wars in the top ten, and Rebirth showing its effect on titles including Nightwing, Harley Quinn and Green Arrow…

Batman #18
The Walking Dead #165
Superman #18
Justice League #16
Star Wars #29
Nightwing #16
Paper Girls #12
Harley Quinn #15
Green Arrow #18
Clone Conspiracy Omega

Thanks to the following retailers

Dr. No's Comics & Games Superstore of Marietta, Georgia
Fat Jack's Comicrypt of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Comix Experience, San Francisco, CA
Hourglass Comics, BC, Canada
Comix Experience Outpost, San Francisco, CA
Graham Crackers Comics – 11 shops in Illinois/Wisconsin
Ssalefish Comics of Winston-Salem, NC
Jesse James Comics, Glendale, Arizona
Rodman Comics of Ankeny, Iowa
Famous Faces & Funnies of West Melbourne, FL

Who have this to say

Marvel squeaks in at tenth place with Star Wars, Image takes 4th place with Walking Dead–otherwise it's all DC, with Death of Hawkman #6 making a surprise appearance at 9th place. Biggest failure of the week: America #1, the new Marvel title, which only found four buyers in our store today.

People are looking for inexpensive Silver and Bronze age books–DC war books, horror-suspense titles, Charltons, etc.

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Slow and weird week. Marvel had two for the top ten, One was Star Wars 29 the other was Deadpool 28. Not sure if all the talk about the next Deadpool movie is getting people excited again for Deadpool or what. Whatever the reason would love to see Deadpool keep his return to sales greatness. Walking Dead of course made it in the top ten. DC got the rest of the spots. Harley Quinn enjoyed a bounce up the chart thanks to the Frank Cho cover.

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Marvel did very well taking over half of our best sellers this week, with many inquiries on AMERICA #1. If it weren't for SHADE #6, DC would have only landed one bestseller slot with BATMAN #18.

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Image had a few books off to a good start with Royal City and Extremity. Rat Queens is also back, which is good to see. They are all still dwarfed in sales by Paper Girls and Walking Dead, though. Nothing to be ashamed of.

Batman is still going strong. Superman's new storyline bumped it's slaes a bit. I'm really surprised by how Nightwing is doing in my store (really really well). Overall, Rebirth is still doing great. I'm concerned we will see large drops on the monthly books when the price hikes, though.

America did pretty well for us. Monsters Unleashed keeps dropping and no one seems to want any of the crossover books. Clone Conspiracy Omega still sold, in spite of the terrible issue 5. (How a miniseries can be called a five-issue when nothing is resolved in issue 5 and you need "omega" to actually end the story, I dunno…)

We got the Kickstarted "They Have Issues"!
I recommend everyone looks into getting themselves one!

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For the first week in a while, we have three Image titles on our top 10, which had pushed out Marvel titles like Doctor Strange and Moon Knight out of the ranking.
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People are still DC heavy. We have noticed that customers are starting to hate the Tim Sale Batman covers.

Lots of questions about the DC polybagged issues.

Honorable mention goes to Smoke Town 1 by Scout Comics.
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FFF's Top 10 was the most diverse selection we've had in a hot minute. DC still came out ahead with five books, Image had three and Marvel actually had two. #1 was Batman, #2 Justice League, #3 Superman, #4 Nightwing, #5 Paper Girls, #6 Walking Dead, #7 America, #8 Champions, #9 Harley Quinn, and Rat Queens 1 at #10. As for the Top 20, Marvel kept a surprisingly tight grip with four more books. #15 was Spider-Gwen 17 a book from last week that we were shorted our entire order on last week by Diamond that managed to outsell Star Wars (#17) which was once one of our strongest Marvel sales. Detective Comics 951 also from last week placed at #19.

It's interesting to see two Marvel books that don't have Spider or X in the title place so high in the Top 10. America #1, starring 2011's breakout character is about five years too late and while she's starting off stronger than some of the other all-new all-different #1s (coughcough Slapstick), it'll be interesting to see if she can hold her own series. Champions has held a surprising fan-base and continues to sell stronger numbers than almost every other Marvel book. I just hope it can maintain the interest when it inevitably relaunches as #30 in the fall. As for the Spider books this week, Spider-Man/Deadpool has definitely suffered a bit from Deadpool fatigue, but not as much as the other ones as it still made it to spot 20 in it's second week on the shelf.

From Image it's no shock that Rat Queens did well. The people who read it have returned and a few new people have jumped on as well. Paper Girls and Walking Dead are constants in the top ten. So far it looks like the 25 cent jumping on point didn't do as much as it could've, but that could well be because it was already doing so well.

We just celebrated our 23rd Anniversary and this last year has been our best year yet. 2017 is certainly off to a good start at our store as well. We're still seeing a ton of new people everyday and we're happy that there are so many new people finding our shop on a regular basis. Thanks to all of our incredible customers for their years of support and we look forward to many more years of providing the best customer service possible.

This week back issues were actually our number one sold item of the week. Not sure why, but we sold A LOT of back issues in the last few days. The Rat Queens relaunch inspired an uptick in sales for the previous series. We have sold several TPBs and even a few older issues. One customer came in and picked up a chunk of the Judd Winnick Green Arrow/Black Canary series. We also sold the usual smattering of Spider-Man, Walking Dead and Wolverine throughout the week.

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Indies and popular movie characters owned the week. Walking Dead did a double dip this week with over sold and still over selling as reserves came in. Hardcovers and Omnibus sales were amazing. We continue to see our 35 and older customer base increase every week.