Posted in: Comics, Image | Tagged: amazon, image, paper girls

Paper Girls Sales Quadruple After Amazon Prime Video TV Show

While comic book shops eagerly await the October 5 release of the Saga Vol 10 trade paperback, we'll turn our attention to another Brian K. Vaughan title from Image Comics that's been heating up lately, Paper Girls with Cliff Chiang.

A little bird at Image Comics has run the numbers and dropped intel to me that the sales of Paper Girls Volume 1, Paper Girls: The Complete Story, and Paper Girls Deluxe hardcover editions have all quadrupled in the month since the show hit compared to the previous month… and sales were already on the rise then. Apparently it is the best-selling dystopian graphic novel on Amazon. Invincible is number two. And the hardcovers have now all sold out. And while that's not as high as Sandman sales in total, proportionately it's much higher.

This rapid escalation is on par with what we saw happen for Image's book sales when Old Guard and Invincible adaptations hit viewers and sparked a renewed flurry of interest in those comics.

What makes Image's approach to Hollywood so interesting is the publisher's ongoing commitment to using the TV shows and movies as new fodder for pushing the comics. It wasn't just Amazon studios pushing Paper Girls at San Diego Comic-Con in July ahead of the show—there was a clear collaboration between the two companies to boost the Paper Girls signal with both teams cross-pollinating consumers back and forth. Swag items like a Paper Girls messenger bag, stickers, posters, and more circulated eager fans' post-show social media "hauls" and Image showed off a rare merchandising collab in its tastefully conceived Blackwing pencils. 

And it makes sense, given Image's business model—and how they don't make a dime off option deals or production fees—that they're specifically motivated to keep the focus on the comics' ongoing upward sales trajectory, and that alone. All resources are funneled back into keeping the books going strong (we took note, for instance, when Image put their reprint freeze on hold in order to support Eight Billion Genies when that news hit).

So, this juicy new skinny on Image's strength of IP has us staring long into our crystal ball over here at what will hit next for Image's parade of power-plays – and who will next join their 100K Club.

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