Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Batman, bestseller, wolverine

Bleeding Cool Bestseller List, 23rd February 2020 – Batman Beats Wolverine… Just

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2020 08:00:50 -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. A lot of variety in the chart, with no clear winner, Wolverine, Batman fighting for the top, challenged by New Mutants, and Legion Of Superheroes coming out of nowhere to out-perform hits like DCeased and Justice League.

Top ten bestselling comics of the week

Batman #89
Wolverine #1
New Mutants #7
Legion of Superheroes #4
Justice League #41
DCeased: Unkillables #1
Marauders #8
Joker: Killer Smile #3
Undiscovered Country #4
Flash Forward #6

Thanks to the following retailers…

Famous Faces & Funnies, West Melbourne, Florida
Ssalefish Comics, Winston-Salem & Greensboro, North Carolina
Comix Experience, San Francisco, California
Fat Jack's Comicrypt, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Graham Crackers Comics – a DOZEN shops Illinois/Wisconsin/California
Rodman Comics, Ankeny, Iowa
Hourglass Comics, British Columbia, Canada

If you would like to contribute to the retailer charts, let me know at richjohnston@bleedingcool.com.

Who had this to say…

DCeased takes the top spot at FFF this week in our Weekly Top Ten bestseller list. The first series was big hit at our store with both customers and employees so it's not a shock to see the follow up do well as well. A big part of it is the variants too though as a lot of people bought at least two of the covers. The other unkillable book, Wolverine was our #2 best seller this week. The fact that an $8 book sold so well IS a bit of a shock, but people love Logan and again, the variant covers gave a bit of a boost to the overall number. We sold as many of the die cut covers as we did the regular cover. Proving that the spirit of the 90s is alive and well. Speaking of, Batman's big book this week actually only hit the #4 spot in our Top Ten. We just cut our numbers on the title as there was a bit of a dip after Tom King bowed out. Batman is still one of our top selling books, but we don't need to stock past what we sell. We just picked the wrong month to do that it seems as everyone and their mothers and their mother's mothers are looking for this issue. We had to limit it to just subs. The good news is we did set up about 10 new folders. Hopefully they come back for Batman #90! One book that beat out Batman this week was a small press title from Madcave Studios called Savage Bastards. It was written by a local friend of the shop and I'm so happy to see so many of our customers take a chance on it. Thor #3 took the #9 spot on it's second week. Justice League is still selling well despite the creator shift. New Mutants, Legion, FF and the Joker Killer Smile round out the Top Ten with no real surprises.

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Batman #89 was naturally the big draw this week. We had so many preorders for the book that there were no copies left for the speculators that came out in droves hoping to make a quick buck on eBay. Those who didn't manage to get the issue weren't exactly nice about it either, slinging the same tired accusations and making the same petulant pleas ('I've always read Batman! I just need the next issue!' Ok, customer we've never seen before). And it was all for a single panel cameo of this "Punchline" character, who people are already claiming to 'love' despite the brevity of her presence in the book and the fact that no one really knows a thing about her. I don't mean to sound so cynical, but maybe that's just what a week of harassment and heckling — over a replacement for Harley Quinn, no less — does to a person. On a less frustrating note, Wolverine #1 is off to a good start.

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Wolverine was a HUGE hit, even if BATMAN still beat it in sheer numbers. Hope MARVEL can keep the momentum on this book. 4 out of 10 TOP 10 books were DC for this week. I'm amazed LEGION made the charts with the sheer number of people 'giving up' on the title already. BMB needs to find his groove fast with this comic and bring out some kind of HOOK to keep people on this title.

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Surprising no one Batman 89 easily took the top sales spot thanks to one frame showing Punchline's mouth. Wolverine 1 people were really excited about until they seen the $7.99 price tag. Marvel loves to have high cover prices on their new first issues, That may be a nice short term sales tactic long term sales are lost by those who wanted to get into a new book like Wolverine though skipped it due to the high price of a the first issue. Flash Forward 6 made the top ten and sold out on Wednesday for us thanks to speculation that it might be a hot book like Batman 89 was. As I type this up Flash Forward 6 is still available for reorder.

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A good week – the first of this year that's felt "normal" to me, with people finally reacting positively to the comics being offered. Of course, it wasn't without its drawbacks – a lot of the response was from speculators, and we ran out of most of the *hot* books instantly – Batman, Aquaman, Bang!, and the Alex Ross cover on Wolverine were the most requested books that I wish I'd ordered more of. I'm a little worried that regular readers will miss out, which could harm future sales on the books when the speculators leave just as fast as they came.

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The Black Label books still do very well for us, even with their larger size. Gonna have to start getting more magazine-sized back boards. Undiscovered Country is selling amazingly for an indy book, and the new DCeased did nearly as well as the previous one.

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Three way tie on the last 3 titles on the list. But once again another release week dominated by the big 2. Surprisingly however the #1s released this week didn't sell as much as some ongoing series.

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