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Bleeding Cool Bestseller Lists, 19th November 2017 – "Sales For October Were Some Of Our Worst, November Is On Its Way To Beating That"

Published Sun, 19 Nov 2017 09:00:20 -0600

Last updated Sun, 19 Nov 2017 10:26:20 -0600

This is the Top 10 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.

Batman and Metal take the top three again, and it was handly to have a Steppenwolf appearance in Superman this week. And while Star Wars titles still top Marvel's sales, this week saw Marvel with as many as four in the top ten, a rarity of late, with DC on five and Steve Skroce's Maestros #2 making it into the top ten from Image Comics. And Donny Cates seems like the right cjhoice for Marvel's Dr Strange right now. He's hotter than the actual publisher.

Batman Who Laughs #1
Batman #35
Justice League #33
Superman #35
Star Wars: Darth Vader #8
Mighty Thor #701
Doctor Strange #381
Nightwing #33
Amazing Spider-Man #789
Maestros #2

Thanks to the following retailers

Dr. No's Comics & Games Superstore of Marietta, Georgia
G-Mart Comic Books – Chicago, IL
Velocity Comics, Richmond VA
Famous Faces & Funnies of West Melbourne, FL
Ssalefish Comics Winston-Salem and Greensboro – North Carolina
Big Planet Comics – 4 stores in the Washington DC area
Geek Out, Burleson, Texas
Comix Experience, San Francisco, California
Comix Experience Outpost, San Francisco, California
Hourglass Comics, BC, Canada
Pittsburgh Comics – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Fat Jack's Comicrypt of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Rodman Comics of Ankeny, Iowa

Who had this to say.
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Sales for October 2017 were some of our worst in years. November is on its way to beating that.

Batman is #1 every time is comes out. Who Laughs would have been number two had we ordered more. Ended up selling out on Wednesday. Metal tie in manages to push Justice League into the #2 spot. Amazing Spider-Man is having a slow uptick in sales coming in at #4 with Superman barely edging out Thor for #s 5 and 6. Rest of our list is essentially uninteresting long-box filler. Nightwing had its lowest showing in recent months at #10.
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Wow, this is the most varied week we've had in a while. Batman still takes the top, but Maestros sneaks in at #3! Donny Cates had an authoritative debut with Dr Strange 381… it might've charted higher but we sold out of our (increased) order by Friday morning. All in all, a solid week all around!
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Same as it ever was, Batman Who Laughs, Justice League and O.G. Batman took the top three spots of the FFF Top Ten. Babyteeth sold just a few copies shy of Batman's numbers. Doctor Strange and Punisher both came in at #6 and #7. Doctor Strange being helmed by Donnie Cates makes it an almost guaranteed store recommendation and Punisher is definitely riding high on the Netflix release. Batman Lost managed to snag the #10th place on its second week which is no shock half because it's a Metal tie-in and half because it was an amazing one-shot.

On the Marvel Side, Mighty Thor fell just outside of the Top Ten and Amazing Spider-Man was actually at #18 which is a bit of a shock. Amazing Spider-Man is one of those books that usually sells well despite the quality of the book. But the fact that it was outsold by Aquaman, Supersons AND Trinity has to be a wake up call for Marvel and their direction (or lack there of) for Legacy. Hopefully with a new editor-in-chief, things will change for the better. But how long that will take is what worries me. Some people won't come back if they think they'll just get burned again.
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Doctor Strange seals the crossover of Donny Cates into the mainstream. We are seeing great sales on his books in preparation for his December signing at our stores. Our number 11 book was the new Punisher, which has been super indie star Matthew Rosenbergs most talked about Marvel book. The Joes books Disney books continue to sell since most shops don't order enough.
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We sold out of the Batman Who Laughs Metal tie-in early on Thursday, and it was, of course, our top seller this week. This was definitely the one-shot people were waiting for. Mighty Thor #701 also did particularly well, which isn't super out of the ordinary, but Thor Ragnarok might've helped drum up some extra enthusiasm. This could also be true of Doctor Strange #381, which now features Loki as sorcerer supreme and was a bit higher up on our top 10 list than usual. However, that could also be because of interest in Donny Cates as the new writer.
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Keeping with the current Way Of Things, sales this week are dominated by Batman – specifically the Metal event. THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS *flew* off the shelves for us, selling at a velocity closer to the earlier days of the event. JUSTICE LEAGUE #33 wrapped up the tie-in B-plot for Metal featuring the League regulars dealing with the various Dark Multiverse incarnations of Batman. SUPERMAN #35 was also near the top of our list this week as well.

Marvel had a somewhat stronger showing for us this week, primarily thanks to Spidey, with AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #791, SPIDER-MEN II #4, and PETER PARKER SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #297 all "charting", as it were.
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As usual, it's Batman in the top spots. Maestros comes in next. We love Steve Skroce.

Marvel gets their Spider-books, Star-Wars books, and X-Men stuff doing okay, as well as Thor, but are otherwise struggling. We're looking forward to CB Cebulski's leadership!
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Lots of excitement for Joker Batman. Marvel showed up with Darth Vader, Peter Parker and Thor. But they weren't anywhere close to the Metal/Batman books (Darth Vader at #5 was 1/3 of Man Who Laughs)

Very interested to see how Marvel responds. Good reviews for Dr Strange & Punisher, but not much in the way of sales out the door. You can only say try "this revamped book" so many times. They have some marketing to do.
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Good sales week. Batman Who Laughs of course was our biggest seller. Did even better saleswise than the last few months of Metal One Shots. Was told that the other stores in the area had sold out on Wednesday while we still had some. Bloodshot Salvation 3 managed to get into our top ten beating out all of Marvel's superhero titles for the week. Darth Vader 8 was the only Marvel title to make it into our top ten. Marvel needs to get back into the game. You have know since October of 2017 you were having trouble sales wise yet over a year later your only answer is lenticalur covers that aren't as good as DCs? What the heck?
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A disturbing week for Marvel: not only did NONE of their titles place in our Top Ten this week (even though they shipped some excellent comics this week), but numbers fell off on average 40% from the first Legacy issue sales to the second Legacy issue sales. That impiies that readers who were willing to give them a try last month were unwilling to invest the money for a second issue. Surprisingly, a week-old DC (Batman Lost #1) took ninth place, meaning that a second-week DC outsold every first-week Marvel. Quite worrisome, since the comics field benefits from TWO successful, competitive companies…
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Significant sales of the week:

Hulk #181 VG $985

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