Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Image, Mad Cave Studios, Vault | Tagged: Bleeding Hearts, D'Orc, Florida Cocaine Hippopotamus Massacre, Nectar, printwatch, vertigo, White Sky

Image's White Sky Second Print Outsells First Print, What's Going On??

As Image Comics' White Sky #1 Second Print outsells its First Print, Bleeding Cool asks "what's going on in comics right now??"

Published Wed, 25 Feb 2026 09:57:07 -0600

by Rich Johnston

Last updated Wed, 25 Feb 2026 10:16:48 -0600

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Article Summary

White Sky #1 second print orders surpass first print, making the original run the true rarity for collectors.
Tigress Island #1 is oversold at distributors, with Image rushing reprints to keep up with surging demand.
D'Orc #2 nears 75,000 orders, while issue #1 tracks a massive 100,000 across multiple printings at Image Comics.
Creator-driven titles like White Sky are fueling a new comics boom, echoing the Image Renaissance of 2012/2013.

We're hearing from our insider source at Image that William Harms and JP Mavinga's White Sky #1 second printing has already outsold the book's first printing with orders exceeding 30,000, making that first printing comparatively rarer than the second, which may be a first. As we were anticipating, we're also hearing Patrick Kindlon and EPHK's Tigress Island #1 is already oversold at the distributor level, and Image Comics' sales department is fighting with printers to set up a reprint of that to meet demand and maintain what seems to be quite a healthy bit of momentum with Image's recent launches.

Meanwhile, we checked in with our Image sources to see if D'Orc is still selling strong or if #1 was just a flash-in-the-pan. Sounds like that one has staying power as, within minutes, our source got back to us to share that orders on D'Orc #2 were already approaching 75,000. Oh, and that's in addition to D'Orc #1 tracking 100,000 total orders across all these printings. Also, orders are up over previous issues on multiple Image books: The Darkness, Exquisite Corpses (its highest orders since #1 and continuing its trend of issue-over-issue increases), G.I. Joe, Ghost Pepper, Wrestle Heist. Our source pointed out that Wrestle Heist #4 orders came in nearly double what its previous issue orders were—and almost identical to #1. And that's to say nothing of the already massive Invincible Universe: Battle Beast, which returns for a new arc with #7 up 40% over #6 as Image and Skybound unleash an entire horde of Invincible Team-Up variants on comics fandom, but that's another story altogether.

It's not just Image Comics, of course, the market has also exploded over Florida Hippopotamus Cocaine Massacre #1 from Mad Cave Studios and the upcoming Nectar #1 from Vault Comics. One retailer we heard from at ComicsPro mentioned that the pattern we saw with New 52 popularity feeding into the "Image Renaissance" back in 2012/2013 is repeating again with DC's Absolute and today's Image. As it was then, so it is now: DC's success with the creator-driven Absolute line, steered by Scott Snyder, seems to have sparked renewed interest in purely creator-driven titles, with Image Comics reaping the rewards. It was notable that the Absolute titles were heavily advertising and promoting the new Vertigo books, ]even as those White Sky orders are eating Vertigo's lunch. But with Karen Berger and Shelly Bond long gone, the case could be made that imprint might be better represented as VINO (Vertigo In Name Only) as Bleeding Hearts #1 is stalling at $7 now… of course, maybe Chris Conroy, editor of Absolute and Vertigo at DC Comics just printed more copies to soak up the demand…