Posted in: Comics | Tagged: ben templesmith, Comics, dynamite, entertainment, Evil Earnie, Justin Jordan

What's Eating Evil Ernie?

Published Fri, 08 Jul 2016 16:00:52 -0500

The funny thing about the comic industry is that, you never know what is going to take off and what isn't. Sometimes you see a book and you think, "this is going to do well", and it doesn't. Back in May I did a story about a new Evil Ernie: Godeater series from Dynamite. I figured it would be an easy sale. You have Justin Jordan doing his first work for the publisher on a character with a built in fan base. Jordan has built a strong following having worked for Marvel, DC, Valiant, Image, etc. You'd think fans of his would love to see what he did with Evil Ernie and EE fans would want to see what JJ would do as well.

But besides that, there is Colton Worley on art who did the Project Superpowers: Blackcross series with Warren Ellis. You have a back up story by Keith Davidsen (Re-animator) and Cezar Rezak (Purgatori) about a female singer in a Scandinavian death metal band who is somehow connected to Ragnarok. And you have four different covers including a painted one by Lucio Parillo and another by Ben Templesmith, one of the go-to guys for horror.

Like I said, seems like a good bet. Yet, with the order cutoff coming up on Monday, I'm hearing that order for the comic stand at under 8,000 units. For the first issue of a five-part mini-series, that's not exactly good. So, what's going on here? Jordan has a strong horror pedigree and a good fanbase. Evil Ernie has been around a long time and enjoyed success recently with the relaunch of the Chaos Comics by Dynamite. The truth is, I can't see why this one isn't doing better. Sales like this would make a publisher think twice about a follow up series.

If this is a series you want, you should make sure you've told your retailer over the weekend.