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Folklords #1 Is The Biggest Creator-Owned Launch of Matt Kindt's Career

Published Tue, 22 Oct 2019 09:30:02 -0500

Last week we told you that comic shop retailers were the ones generating quite a bit of buzz for Matt Kindt and Matt Smith's Folklords #1, their new creator owned series launch from BOOM! Studios in November that flips the Harry Potter paradigm on its head, taking a kid from as fantasy world on a quest to find our world of technology and mysteries.

Folklords has been the subject of surprising pre-FOC speculator activity from folks who might be a bit excited after a string of giant hits from Boom Studios this year including Faithless, Once & Future and Something is Killing The Children – all of which had record-setting sales and then needed multiple printings to meet demand from both readers and speculators.

In their defense, this is the exact thing we've been warning you about for some time now – and, wait for it, we were right again.

We've learned that Folklords #1 increased over 93% at FOC to 22,471 units ordered, with initials around 11,650 units.

This makes Folklords the biggest creator-owned launch of Matt Kindt's career, massively outselling sales of his other Boom projects in Black Badge and Grass Kings, along with his Dark Horse projects like MIND MGMT and Ether.

This is probably the moment where Image's Eric Stephenson would like to remind you that November's Undiscovered Country #1 is on pace to be the best-selling creator-owned launch of the year, and Spawn #300 to be the best-selling creator-owned comic of the year, but don't let that get in the way of the wonderfully never-ending Marvel vs DC-esque creator-owned comics feud between BOOM! and Image.

Then again, some might point to the rumor that Grass Kings has reportedly been optioned by Legendary as a television series…

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…though we've yet to see Boom officially comment on the news (something they rarely do in these cases).

But there's no denying that both Boom and Image are seeing a massive upswing in the sales of creator-owned comics in a market traditionally resistant to new ideas, with Boom series showing a new incredible staying power issue to issue – as evidenced by our own Top 10 list where Once & Future and Something is Killing The Children are challenging some of the biggest Marvel and DC titles.

As we await the now traditional Boom announcement of second, third and fourth printings before the first printing hits stores, all eyes turn to The Red Mother #1, the new horror series from Jeremy Haun and Danny Luckert in December that we already identified as a launch Boom is betting will be their next hit. And given their track record with selling horror like Faithless and Something is Killing The Children – remember that fifth printing announced during NYCC – it might be worth asking not if this will be BOOM!'s next hit, but how high the ceiling might be.

Though, if you ask Image Comics, I'm betting they'll just tell us to look at those Undiscovered Country #1 numbers once again…

Folklords #1 is on-sale in comic shops on November 13th. Anyone else want to bet that the second print will be on-sale November 20th? Just in time for my birthday?