Posted in: Batman, Comics, DC Comics, Image | Tagged: absolute, Absolute Batman, Corpse Knight, D'Orc, Fireborn, g.i. joe, Malevolent, Narco, Redcoat, skybound, Tigress Island, White Sky

Comics Sales Explode As Image Comics Gets The "Absolute Batman" Effect

Fireborn & Corpse Knight launch big, Tigress Island, Malevolent, Narco, GI Joe, Scorched, Redcoat, Ice Cream Man, D'Orc sales rise each issue

It was Scott Snyder who credited much of the success of Absolute Batman and the Absolute Universe to taking a creator-owned approach to the characters, even though they didn't actually own them. And seemingly opening up the modern direct comics market to new, younger readers and reviving the collector and speculator market looking for the next hot thing. But then, what of the actual creator-owned, or even just creator-participant titles? Well Image Comics seems to be right there for that new audience too, and doing it with far fewer retailer-exclusive covers I've been hearing from multiple sources inside Image Comics, the biggest publisher of creator-owned comics, that for next month launch titles, both Curt Pires, Franklin Jonas, and Patrick Mulholland's Fireborn #1 and Skybound's Corpse Knight #1 by Michael Chaves and Matthew Roberts each launched with retailer orders of 70,000, joining numerous launches this year out of Image that have hit big at FOC and triggered both multiple sell-outs and multiple reprints.

But even more interesting is what we're hearing from within Image about sales trends beyond the #1 and multiple series bucking attrition. Both Patrick Kindlon & EPHK's Tigress Island #2 orders and Doug Wagner & Daniel Hillyard's Narco #2 orders exceeded that of their first issue sellout orders, and Malevolent #3 orders exceeded that of its issue #2.

But the rising tide reaches even farther than just those second issues. I'm also hearing from sources that W. Maxwell Prince and Martin Morazzo's Ice Cream Man #45 orders came in well above that of #44, Geoff Johns & Bryan Hitch's Redcoat #17 orders were up over that of #16, G.I. Joe #21 orders were up over #20, and Todd McFarlane's Spawn spin-off, The Scorched, celebrated its 50th issue with a whopping 150,000 in orders at FOC.

This is all on the close heels of the D'Orc and White Sky breakout sales numbers, which are apparently still going up, and I understand that D'Orc #3 had orders higher than both #1 and #2. This is the kind of thing I think DC Comics expected from its Vertigo revamp, given all the previews in the Absolute titles. And it worked a bit with Bleeding Hearts, sure, but it seems a little anaemic compared to where Image, Mad Cave, Vault, Oni, and even AMP have found new readers recently. What will Paramount make of all this?

Meanwhile Image Comics collected editions and OGNs regularly grab award nominations, like Jeff Lemire's Fishflies Nebula nomination announcement last week, and starred reviews in the book trade media: Fishflies also raked in Starred Reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and Shelf Awareness. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' latest Criminal saga, Five Gears In Reverse, and the upcoming paperback of Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martín's Barrier, are also locked in Starred Reviews. To the uninitiated, a "Starred Review" often directly converts to sales in the book market. Will Image books' quality outshine even the wiliest sales-incentive-bundle grifts? Or will they need to just say "when in Rome…"

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