Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: bestseller, Comics

The Bleeding Cool Bestseller List, 22nd August, 2019 – Once & Future Sales

Published Sun, 22 Sep 2019 11:00:46 -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 till the weekend to get this week's comics. Overall, House of X's penultimate issue tops the charts ahead of Batman and Spider-Man, but there was little consistency between stores. Flash Forward launched strongly, while Once & Future's second issue made a significant impact and even Second Coming sneaked in…

Top ten bestselling comics of the week

House of X #5
Batman #79
Spider-Man #1
Justice League #32
Absolute Carnage #3
Superman #15
Once & Future #2
Flash Forward #1
History Of The Marvel Universe #3
Second Coming #3

Thanks to the following retailers…

Graham Crackers Comics – 12 stores in IL/CA/WI
Famous Faces & Funnies of West Melbourne, Florida
Rodman Comics, Ankeny, Iowa.
Ssalefish Comics, Winston-Salem & Greensboro, North Carolina.
Comix Experience Outpost, San Francisco, California
Fat Jack's Comicrypt, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Collector's Paradise Pasadena, California.

Who had this to say:

Hocks & Pocks continues to dominate weekly sales on most every book, we've yet to find the true ceiling at each location. Spider-Man #1 did tremendously well, and while I found the story a bit of a cliche by the numbers approach – most customers were thrilled by it. Not sure how it fits into EARTH 616, is it MC2? Is it a WHAT IF? Whatever.

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Once & Future #2 just missed making the top 10 in the shops, so that's nice to see a BOOM! book doing so well. And it's a nicely done comic at that, both well written, well drawn – the entire team is bringing their A game.

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Marvel takes the top three spots in our weekly Top Ten at FFF this week. JJ Abrams seems to be the only person alive who could knock both House of X, Absolute Carnage AND Batman down off the #1 spot. We actually sold more copies of the Chip Kidd cover than the regular. But we sold a lot of both and a handful of the other covers as well. House of X and Absolute Carnage sold pretty close to each other but House managed to sell just a handful more. Once and Future seems to have dried up for some stores but we sold pretty well on the second issue this week. But we also have a lot of Kieron Gillen fans who are thirsty for something in between issues of Die. Batman hit at #5 in our Top Ten list, the lowest I've seen it sell in a long time. But being up against Abrams, Hickman and Cates makes for a difficult week for non-Marvel books. The back half of the list sees regulars like Justice League, Guardians and Superman mixed with Flash Forward and Lex Luthor. Flash Forward is an interesting book that I hope keeps readers but I don't see many going for it unless it comes with another In Hyuk Lee cover.

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Batman tops out House of X. Not a super sales week.

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The lesson of the week is don't underestimate the ire of a Star Wars fan scorned. Spider-Man clocked in at only #4 and House of X ran laps around its numbers. What I thought was a good sales tactic by mentioning that the Spider-Man book was very new reader-friendly because it isn't set in continuity may have also been read as "this book doesn't count". It has definitely taken a lot more effort than usual to sell it, or even explain what it is to burdened wallets that are all about to lock into getting all of the X-Men books after the stellar run that House and Powers have been, an event that has succeeded in justifying the hype. Abrams' name has had mixed reactions, on some lips it read like a swear. Number 4 isn't a terrible place to be on the charts but it should have been a much bigger deal.

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No surprise HOUSE OF X is top dog this week, though worth noting that we've got last week's POWERS OF X on the list this week too, now that we've managed to get our orders better in line with the hype.

Most notable is JJ ABRAMS & SON'S efforts on the first issue of their SPIDER-MAN mini, with lovely art from the always-excellent Sara Pichelli. BATMAN camps out at the #3 spot, patiently waiting for Marvel's event/gimmick books to take a break so it can move back to its usual spot at the top.

For my own part, extremely happy to see Kieron Gillen and Dan Mora's ONCE AND FUTURE holding strong sales on its second issue. Wonderful book.

Notable sales

Spider-Girl #59 vf $50 We pulled this book on Tuesday night and it sold first thing on Wednesday morning.
Uncanny X-Men #266 VF $80
Amazing Spider-Man #700 9.6 $1,200 signed by Stan Lee & Ramos – 1 in 200 Ditko Variant CGC graded
Tales to Astonish #42 gd/vg $90 We just got in a small collection with some nice silver books from 1959-1962. It's all pretty low grade, but I think we can get some people interested in most of it.
We sold an entire run of the first Micronauts series. All 59 issues with both annuals. Nothing special except for issue #8 which is the first appearance of Captain Universe. I'm sure it made one specific person very happy to have the whole run. $630.

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