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Bleeding Cool Bestseller List – 17th April 2017 – "X-Men Gold #1 Sold More In Week 2 Than It Did In Week 1"

Published Mon, 17 Apr 2017 08:30:41 -0500

This is the Top Ten 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.

It's no surprise that Detective Comics tops the list. But Marvel launches strong with X-Men Blue and Weapon X – though a regular issue of The Flash still beats both. The biggest jump has to be Seven To Eternity which was two stores best seller of the week and featured in plenty of others top tens too…

Detective Comics #954
Flash #20
X-Men: Blue #1
Justice League of America #4
Action Comics #977
Weapon X #1
Seven To Eternity #5
Amazing Spider-Man #26
Titans #10
Wonder Woman #20

Thanks to the following retailers,

Dr. No's Comics & Games Superstore of Marietta, GA
Fat Jack's Comicrypt of Philadelphia, PN
Comix Experience Outpost, San Francisco, CA
Jesse James Comics, Glendale, AZ
Famous Faces & Funnies of West Melbourne, FL
Yesteryear Comics of San Diego, CA
Velocity Comics, Richmond VA
Rodman Comics of Ankeny, IA
Alter Ego Comics of Lima, OH
Comix Experience, San Francisco, CA
Ssalefish Comics of Winston-Salem, NC
Geek Out, Burleson, TX

Who had this to say,

Marvel's two mutant premieres, Weapon X #1 and X-Men: Blue #1, cracked out top ten this week. Thanks to a very solid turnout for a signing by artist Jorge Santiago Jr., Spencer & Locke #1 came in at seventh place in Dr. No's top ten, and the response to the book was most enthusiastic. It's always good to see a solid indy title get strong reader support–and the comic couldn't have asked for a better ambassador than Jorge, who chatted and sketched for almost an hour more than scheduled!

Increased interest in 1980s and early 1990s Marvel and DC titles, particularly in the sub-$10 range.

Seven to Eternity sold way more than everything else for us, and is well on the way to becoming our next Saga-level book. It's a well-deserved success, it's gorgeous and thoughtful! Beyond that DC and Marvel tied for number of spots with 4 each this week, lots of curiosity for X-Men Blue (not enough to beat Detective or Flash) but I don't know if it'll sustain past this issue.

Doctor Aphra took the top spot and 5 more Marvel books followed with high interest with the mutant books.Seven to Eternity was a huge winner and Godshaper was almost a complete sell through which was a pleasant surprise.

The back-issue market was mostly just Detective Comics and Batman this week…and obviously X-Men Gold was sought after by a ton of people that i have never seen in the store before since it was all over the internet and news.

Our FFF top ten is Detective, X-Men Gold, JLA, Action, Flash, Titans, X-Men Blue, Hal Jordan, Deadpool Vs Punisher, and Red Hood & The Outlaws. Our top 10 was 7 DC and 3 Marvel, and our top 20 was 11 books featuring 11 books featuring DC characters, 6 Marvel and 3 or 4 indy books (including Planet of the Apes/GL at spot 13). Detective continues to be the most improved seller which is still selling several times more than it used to even after almost a year of Rebirth. Flash is one of other most improved sellers, selling more in the first few days than it used to sell in the whole month. Action, Titans and several other DC books are also still way higher than they used to be, so it's safe to call DC Rebirth a giant success. We're still seeing new people come into our store to check out the early issues and TPBs. I'm hoping Marvel's promised increased advertising that we'll see over the next few months will really bring in a new and lapsed audience, but we'll see what happens.

X-Men Gold 1 sold more for us in the first few days of week 2 than it did in week 1 because of speculators buying it from us (at a limit of 1 per person) and some genuine new and returning fans that are excited about the new jumping on point. X-Men Blue did okay, but not phenomenal numbers, but overall, I think our Gold sales will stay higher as there seem to be a lot of fans burned out on the time displayed young X-Men that may have outstayed their welcome.

Amazing 26 sold a little slower than average so far, because we know we had 2 or 3 regulars pass on Amazing 25 because of the $9.99 price sticker, and it appears that they're not coming back. Maybe it was burnout from the Clone Conspiracy crossover that didn't seem to have any lasting effects, but not everyone wants to pay $9.99 for a single issue. $10 comics have done long term harm to my Deadpool subs and now it's not helping Amazing either.

Paper Girls made the list at 19 in week 2, where just like Walking Dead and Saga (which are our 3 bestselling books overall), they sell throughout the month and not just their majority on the first week like some titles do. Other indy books this week were Planet Of The Apes/GL at 13, Rat Queens at 14, and Wicked & Divine at 16. Weapon X did okay at spot 17, but I don't see it really being a giant hit. Scooby Apocalypse is still holding solid numbers at spot 18, higher than expected after a year.

It sounds like Marvel may have actually heard some retailer concerns at their recent meeting with retailers, so I hope they can refocus their line to "fewer books, better books and cheapers books" so that they can sell more comics. They missed the mark thinking that retailers don't want diversity or female characters just because a few said that. They can't replace all of the main Avengers with B list versions all at once, and then expect fans to support all 41 new numbers ones they launched in October and November. I knew over 80% of those would be canceled by issue 6 because the market can't and won't support all those new books. There were a few great books that got lost in the shuffle, because we're still not seeing that Tumblr and Twitter crowd coming to comic stores that thinks some of these new characters are great, but not great enough to spend $4 or $5 on each issue. Let's hope Marvel can streamline and find a new audience or bring back their lapsed customers one way or another. I would love to sell more Marvel comics and not just recommend 10 and 15 old books as the best jumping on points for most of these characters. X-Men Gold is a step in the right direction, but so far we've sold more because of speculators and the controversy than we have off of genuine interest from new and returning customers. We will see what happens with the rest of the X-Men relaunch.

We are really excited for Plastic and Redneck next week. Redneck 1 is solid, but like God Country, 2 and 3 are even better, so stick with it if the first issue doesn't floor you. We are selling more new Image and independent books than ever to the new audience that comes in our shop but doesn't want the same old super-hero stuff. Plastic 1 is twisted, but we really liked it and ordered 100 each on Redneck and Plastic. Don't miss out on these books. Donny Cates is the next big writer, so don't miss out on Redneck and Babyteeth coming from Aftershock in a few weeks.
As usual, we sold lots of Walking Dead, Saga, Rebirth, 1990's Batman and X-Men, Wolverine and Punisher.

We sold some older Robin comics, Teen Titans, New Mutants and X-Men Legacy because of the Legion TV show that has helped us sell a few X-Men Legacy TPBs as well.

DC Rebirth steamrolls right through another week. Weapon X was the only thing from Marvel to make a blip on the radar this week. X-men Blue came close, but people definitely expressed far less interest in the youngsters than they did the Gold team last week.

Dark Horse Star Wars sold really well, but that had just been loaded into the back issue bins and it may have been a case of the Star Wars fever going around and these being freshly added. Lots of those Timothy Zahn adaptations and Knights of the Old Republic.

DC once again dominated our top slots, with Flash #20 leading the way for readers to get into "The Button" Batman/Flash cross over starting next week. Four of our top 10, 5 if you include the Boom collaboration with Green Lantern/Planet of the Apes, are DC books, (Flash, Detective, Titans and Suicide Squad) and 2 more (Justice League of America and Hal Jordan) would be added if we went through the top 15. Marvel FINALLY lands more than one title in our top 10 with two titles making it, Dr. Aphra and Old Man Logan, and a third would have been at number 12 (Weapon X). Punisher/Deadpool apparently suffered from the growing feeling among customers that there are just too many Deadpool titles. Indie/Creator Owned titles continue to sell well, with Godshaper #1 from Boom! coming in the third slot, the fore-mentioned Planet of the Apes/Green Lantern cross over, Z Nation #1 and Seven to Eternity #5 all had people excited. Falling just out of our top ten was Jonesy #12 in the number 11 slot.

Readers still are tepid to most Marvel titles, and more than a few customer conversations revolved around the perception that Marvel blames all of its problems on the people who buy (and sell) their books, instead of the company not listening to those same people and delivering mega-crossovers on top of mega cross-overs and other lack-luster stories. Some pointed to the recent debacle of X-Men Gold #1, which was superbly reported on by Bleeding Cool. Sales of that book, sold it out here, but almost 100% of those sales after the news of the "art snuck in by the artist" hit, were from people buying because of speculation, and they said they will not continue reading the book.
Trade paperbacks sales have continued to rise, and some new release trades outsell most Marvel weekly titles.
Back issue continue to see healthy sales, and older Marvel books that readers continue to treasure are leading those sales. Our graded selections from CGC and CBCS continue to see strong demand, and the average time for any book graded above a 7.5 is only about two weeks. There has also been a huge uptick in the number of back issue buyers looking for Doctor Who back issues from any of the Titan series, and the older run from Marvel.

Four Image titles showed up on our bestseller list this week, with Rick Remender and Jerome Opeña's Seven To Eternity #5 taking the top spot in a tie with Wonder Woman #20. We'll take any excuse to look at Opeña's art, but Rucka's Wonder Woman remains great. And, its consistently strong sales a year into its run is a testament to whatever DC did to get Rucka back. It was obviously worth it. Simon Spurrier's Godshaper #1 from Boom! Studios also made the list. Artist Jonas Goonface describes it as having a "rockabilly-60's-folk-punk-hobo-apocalyptic-ish vibe" and boy, does it deliver. Paper Girls #13 also managed to snag a spot on the top 10 for the second week in a row. And Neil Gaiman's American Gods finished out the list with the TV adaptation premiering later this month.

DC claimed nine of the top ten in store all to themself. X Men Blue 1 made it in. Amazing Spider-man was dropped by people. The previous $9.99 issue was a bitter pill for some of the fans and some found it not worth it. Amazing Spider-man sales are now very low and there is a Spider-man movie coming out this year which doesn't seem to be helping. I want to sell Marvel and sound like a broken record saying this but somehow people keep losing interest in Marvel. I need Marvel to quit worrying about selling to the comic stores with the discounts and variants and start selling to the readership. Meaning put out comics that people want to actually read. I see increase readership on titles like Suicide Squad and Red Hood and the Outlaws while the bigger names by Marvel like Star Wars and Amazing keep dropping.
What we had left of X-Men Gold 1 blew out of here over the weekend with it going up in price.

We continue to have amazing increase since the 1st week of the year. Independents comics have outsold Marvel and DC both in total $'s and units and continue to bring in new readers. Lenore, Johnny and Squee and seen huge increases in readership. Rick and Morty continues to be our #1 selling title.

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