Posted in: Boom, Comics | Tagged: boom studios, hosue of slaughter, james tynion iv, something is killing the children

Will House Of Slaughter #1 Be James Tynion IV's Biggest Launch Yet?

Since 2019, James Tynion IV has been bringing what we dubbed "Big Tynion Energy" to the comic market and enjoying a meteoric rise at both DC and in the creator-owned space rivaled by few in the industry. Beginning with early excitement for his creator-owned series Something Is Killing The Children, and followed quickly by his taking over Batman from longtime writer Tom King, Tynion has broken his own sales records over and over. Only eight months after Something Is Killing The Children (which we'll come back to that series momentarily) launched,, Tynion's new original series Wynd launched at almost 40,000 copies,  beating his earlier record and making it publisher Boom Studios' highest-selling creator-owned series at the time. Then four months later, Tynion launched Department of Truth at Image Comics at over 100,000 copies.

The Big Tynion Energy continued this year when Something Is Killing The Children returned with the origin of Erica Slaughter in issue #16, to the tune of over 155,000 copies followed by JT4 bringing a creator-owned project to DC with The Nice House On The Lake, which he revealed was his "highest selling creator-owned launch," meaning it certainly sold over 100,000 copies at launch. Whether it was ordered at over SIKTC #16's massive 155,000 copies is unclear, but in any case, it's clear that Tynion's career is just continuing to build. And with last week's announcement of House of Slaughter, Tynion may be looking at breaking his creator-owned launch records yet again, this time with co-creator Werther Dell'Edera, co-writer Tate Brombal, and co-artist Chris Shehan in October. Common wisdom would have it that a spinoff title would get ordered in smaller percentages than the original series that spawned it. But in the case of House of Slaughter and Big Tynion Energy, you can take conventional wisdom and throw it out the window and we'll tell you why.

First, while Tynion is seeing massive success with The Department of Truth over at Image, selling over half a million copies thus far, THR reports that Something Is Killing The Children has sold over 1.2 million copies worldwide. This means that while potentially over 100,000 fans had a chance to secure the first printing of Department of Truth, only around a third of that audience had a chance to pick up a first printing of Something Is Killing The Children. So for many fans and collectors, House of Slaughter #1 represents their first chance to get in on the ground floor of Tynion's biggest creator-owned franchise. Given what even ungraded copies of Something Is Killing The Children #1 go for in the aftermarket these days, you can bet fans will want to make sure they secure their copy of House of Slaughter #1 early. Adding even more fuel to the fire, here comes Boom's Enter The House Of Slaughter Free Comic Book Day issue next month, which Tynion confirmed in his newsletter will act as a lead-in to House of Slaughter (and which we speculated on earlier)… ahead of retailers finalizing initial orders for House of Slaughter #1.

Cap all of that off with the recent news that Something Is Killing The Children is in development as a series at Netflix, thanks to Boom's first-look deal, by the team behind The Haunting of Hill House and Dr. Sleep, Trevor Macy and Mike Flanagan, and interest in Erica Slaughter and her rapidly expanding universe are at an all-time high. Lastly, we're hearing that within minutes of making exclusive variants available to retailers, Boom sold out of all available slots with an equally large waiting list of retailers hoping for additional spots to open up. If that feeding frenzy in the first few minutes of the series being announced is any indication, it's entirely possible that House of Slaughter will become Tynion's highest ordered creator-owned launch… and perhaps even eclipse even Something Is Killing The Children #16's record-breaking numbers. Bleeding Cool, of course, will keep you posted as things develop.

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