bleedingcool.com
>And this week, Batman takes the top two with the Metal one-shot and regular series. No other Metal crossover for the week let a few more Marvel titles in the top ten, but Invincible’s final issue also brought people out for the conclusion.
Other urls found in this thread:
Batman The Drowned #1
Batman #33
Superman #33
Mighty Thor #700
Justice League #31
Invincible #593
The Wild Storm #8
X-Men Gold #14
Nightwing #31
Super Sons #9
>Again and again, Metal leads the charge with Baman: The Drowned at #1 in our store’s Top Ten this week. Batman: The Regular made it to #2 which is normal but I feel like I have to mention the absolutely gorgeous art from this week’s issue. Metal #3 on it’s second week managed to outsell every new Marvel book from this week in the #5 spot. That being said, Marvel did pretty well this week (just not with Legacy).
>The Mighty Thor was the only Marvel Legacy book in our Top Ten this week. Even then, it was outsold by Deadpool vs Old Man Logan. Star Wars: Captain Phasma was the third and final Marvel book in the FFF Top Ten. Thor normally sells well and I’m sure the big round number on the front helped to boost sales a little bit, hopefully the upcoming movie will help maintain the numbers. Star Wars being the Top Ten is no surprise, but it’s been a hot minute since a Deadpool book has done so well. Invincible Iron Man made it into our Top Twenty at #17, which goes to show that big numbers might not always mean big sales.
archive.fo
>On the indie side of things, Realm made it to #8, Babyteeth (on it’s second week) was #15 and Invincible crept into #16. Realm was definitely a sleeper hit that came out of nowhere. A hot #1 means a hot #2. Hopefully it stays that way and we don’t see a sharp spike downwards. Babyteeth is a store favorite, so no surprise to see it still doing well in the second week. Invincible has kept steady numbers. The fact that it’s ending so soon has actually helped us push older back issues, but the new stuff is staying consistent with its numbers.
>DC rules the roost again.
We do very well with Black Hammer and the fans were eager to get Sherlock Frankenstein.
>Just to counter Brevoort’s “Everything is awesome!” tweets, here’s the sell through of the books we had to over order to get lenticulars:
Week one books – 57%
Week two books – 44%
Week three books – 45%
We can’t pay the rent on 45% sell through.
Shit, messed up the greentext
>Marvel Legacy continues to languish– Thor 700 would’ve charted with or without the gimmick, and that’s the only Marvel book in our top 10. This was a very expensive gamble for us, supporting this initiative… and it’s a gamble we lost badly. Thankfully DC is firing on all cylinders to pick up as much slack as possible, but we’ve definitely lost a bunch of Marvel-faithful customers. Image continues to impress as well, with Steve Skroce’s excellent MAESTROS outselling everything except Batman-related books.
>Metal is stealing all the thunder every week so far of Marvel Legacy. Lenticulars and storylines have peaked interest again for people but not in the same way it did when DC had Rebirth. The trepidation seems stronger this week in terms of sales than the past two. Honorable mention does go to Monsters Unleashed, and historically low seller for us, for selling so many Lenticulars with the neat homage to FF #1. Our Plastic Trade Paperback sales were strong this week in preparation for next weekends Doug Wagner signing we’re hosting.
>Marvel is back. Thor 700 is exactly what my customers were looking for. Hopefully Marvel keeps it up. The Metal train will not stop. Metal books keep selling no matter what else comes out.
>Legacy titles are definitely stronger this week. Mighty Thor #700 was our top seller overall, and a couple other Legacy books showed up a little further down the list. Invincible Iron Man #593 very likely would’ve made the list, too, but our shipment was late (just received them like a half hour ago). We’ve got a good amount of subs signed up for it, and those sales alone would’ve gotten it in the top 10. The only #1 to make our list this week is Jeff Lemire and David Rubin’s Sherlock Frankenstein & The Legion of Evil #1.
>Batman continues his hold as reigning champion of our sales charts, as BATMAN #33 takes our top seller spot featuring the continuing aftermath of the Big Proposal. Just behind that is the latest of the Metal tie-ins, THE DROWNED #1. Speaking of Metal, DARK NIGHTS METAL #3 earns a spot in our Top 10 for its second week in a row, in case there was any lingering doubt that Metal has been a hit.
>Marvel made a fair showing for us this week, with PETER PARKER SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #5 showing us that there’s still plenty of interest in some more light-hearted Spidey adventures. Meanwhile in another corner of the Marvel Universe, Ed Brisson takes over CABLE #150 for that title’s return to Legacy numbering. The book features an exciting new X-Team comprised of some much more deep-cut mutants than what we’re seeing in the core X-books.
>Not too bad of week. Marvel’s Lenticular covers are still only seeing a small increase in sales. It was not worth ordering higher to get the lenticulars. Batman the Drowned was easily the number one selling title. Marvel managed to get two titles in the top ten. Deadpool vs Old Man Logan and Venom 156. Both outsold all the lenticular Marvel titles even though they were not lenticular. Marvel has lost its way.
>Another strong week for DC, with Batman books taking the top two slots. Alas, only one Marvel Legcy book cracked our top ten–Cable, at #9. Readers flipped through the books to see if the Odinson Thor was back as Thor or if Tony Stark was back as Iron Man or if Bruce Banner was back as Hulk, then decided that they didn’t need these books after all. Disappointing, since I gambled big that the books would be successful…
>Invincible #593
Not sure if this is Invincible Iron Man or Kirkman's Invincible. Probably someone went full retard and counted both comics as one.
Comixology checks out, the only Marvel title not outsold by Titans is Thor #700
...
>an arguably aquabook made it to number #1
What a time to be alive. I wonder how well aquamans last issue sold.
>Readers flipped through the books to see if the Odinson Thor was back as Thor or if Tony Stark was back as Iron Man or if Bruce Banner was back as Hulk, then decided that they didn’t need these books after all
Hahahahahaha
>Metal #3 on it’s second week managed to outsell every new Marvel book from this week
Kek. Reading those reports has been fun lately.
>arguably
The title of the comic is literally "Batman".
Metal steamrolling the shit out of Marvel so hard even the tie ins sell better than a milestone issue is the best thing
Makes you think what the top 10 will be when Doomsday clock rolls in since Metal will still be ongoing.
This guy don't work with inkers anymore?
Some of those retailer comments feel like they're running on reserves of patience. We can expect very low Marvel numbers in December.
U r an reatrt
This is a real fuck up with the legacy branding.
>The heroes you love are back!
>Except they arent, enjoy this new character we havent given you a reason to care about.
nice to see Thor selling well again
>Alas, only one Marvel Legacy book cracked out top-ten... Cable...
Cable's lucky he's missing an arm or they'd have made him Marvel's first trans sissy boi already.
>Wild Storm over X-Men
AHAHAHA
>Superman #33
>Super Sons #9
>Nightwing #31
good
It's milestone number, don't get used to it.
Plus the movie is coming out
>Metal
>Metal tie-in
>Doomsday Clock
>regular Batman
That's already four books guaranteed to make top ten for the month right there. It's going to be an absolute bloodbath.
>Batman The Drowned #1
>Batman #33
>Superman #33
>Justice League #31
>The Wild Storm #8
>Nightwing #31
>Super Sons #9
The lucky number again and again.
That's just samplesize of retailers. Comichron shows that both X-men titles get 2-2,5x as many orders as WS.
Wonder if we'll get a series for one of the Dark Knights after Metal that goes more in depth than the Cliff Notes version we're getting now allows.
> Readers flipped through the books to see if the Odinson Thor was back as Thor or if Tony Stark was back as Iron Man or if Bruce Banner was back as Hulk, then decided that they didn’t need these books after all. Disappointing, since I gambled big that the books would be successful…
I don't get it.
They can see the numbers.
They can see the complaints.
Know your reader. The customer is always right. That last one is bullshit but there's a fucking kernel of truth in it, if they are not buying, there's a fucking reason for it.
So why not change?
Is there some massive Twitter botnet assuring these writers they're great via social media?
On a related note, holy shit, I forgot about this:
desuarchive.org/co/thread/78076002/
This was from December 2015, back when DC was doing badly and DCYou wasn't a sucess.
I don't think anyone expected what eventually happened in 2016 and 2017.
Because their goal isn't to cater to comic shop customers, it's to try and find what bookstore and Amazon customers want. They're doing the same thing that DC did with DCYou, and it isn't necessarily a bad move because in theory that market is several orders of magnitude bigger, and honestly the future of the entire industry depends on publishers figuring out how to get more people buying in those markets than the meager amount that buy at comic shops.
The difference obviously is that DCYou was at least pretty good, but notice it was all the same ideas: major changeups to their key characters and more books that might appeal to people who don't usually buy DC comics, and just like back then comic shop customers weren't interested. The one difference is that Marvel holds up LCS's much more than DC does and has a lot more moviefag casuals that are now raging on Twitter, whereas with DCYou people just continued not buying DC or quietly dropped their books.
So I'll at least give credit to Marvel for sticking with this model more adamantly than DC did, but the unfortunate truth is that those coveted new customers either aren't interested or are buying the first volume and dropping the series. Marvel and DC are never going to reach people who aren't already interested in superheroes, which is why New 52 and Marvel NOW and now Rebirth were such huge successes: they appealed specifically to people who were interested in traditional superhero comics but who were intimidated by the continuity or didn't know where to start.
Brevoort totally understands the sad reality that people who buy superheroes just want shit that's the same as the movies and fans just want shit that's the same as what they've read before, which tells me that the people pushing for the changes and to improve profits by getting those bookstore bucks are executives, not editorial.
Plus Marvel have said they're not doing any events for two years kek but I'm sure they'll just overship the shit out of a bunch of series to make up the numbers.
...
I'm amazed they've had the patience to continue on with Marvel's crap until now, quite frankly, though I suppose the idea of walking away from a publisher that still (somehow) has huge market share is daunting. But if Marvel keeps this up, with the overshipping stupidity and pushing books that NOBODY wants (seriously, with its sales where they are, what kind of blackmail does Gabby Rivera HAVE on the decision-makers at Marvel to keep America in print?!), one can only wonder if the LCS market is rapidly approaching the point where the only sensible financial choice *is* to drop Marvel, come what may.
I've seen alcoholics who were less self-destructive than Marvel.
I think this is a good topic to ask this.
I haven't read any comics (other than Saga and WicDiv) since Rebirth started, the doubleshipping from Marvel and DC was a bit overwhelming for me since I can't make it to my LCS every single week.
I've wanted to get back into reading comics and this week I started catching up on Batman. I plan on catching up to Batman, Tec, Superman, Nightwing, Titans, and Super Sons. What other titles should I pick up (from any publisher)?
>I've seen alcoholics who were less self-destructive than Marvel.
hey...thanks man
I personally enjoy Green Arrow a lot, but the dialogue with him calling himself a SJW unironically might rub people the wrong way
Aquaman is good, it has a good story and great art right now with Stjepan Seljic
if you like buddy cop stuff Green Lanterns is pretty good. And if you are a Green Arrow fan Percy's run is SUPER sexy. has had a couple issues that are pretty much about Ollie and Dinah fucking
This is a pretty bad sample of Otto's art, Dinah is a skeleton here
Royal City and Deathstroke are my current favourites.
Oh yeah, I'll be catching up with Deathstroke as well. It must be pretty good because I always see it at the top of peoples Best Rebirth Titles list. I never thought of Deathstroke as someone who could hold an amazing solo series (despite him being one of my favorite villains)
fine, here's them fucking
...
I can't see Otto's art without figuring Dinah's got a dick there
Look at those shoulders! There's no way she's not packing meat in those pants.
Red Hood and the Outlaws, New Super-Man and Deathstroke are all musts.
My pull list is pretty much that but without Titans and with the inclusions of both GL series and Red Hood and friends. I don't really dislike Titans, it's more of Booth that makes me not pick it up. I'm really behind on New Superman and Deathstroke, but people seem to really like it.
>The customer is always right.
Marvel fundamentally believes the customer is always wrong, unless they agree with Marvel.
Deathstroke, New Super-Man, Red Hood and the Outlaws, and Aquaman are definitely worth getting.
Does GL start off slow or something? When Rebirth started I remember people hated it and said it was the worst series (next to Justice League).
>Titans is outselling all Marvel comics
Wallyfags really like digital apparently.
Of course DC will still make an excuse for why he can't get a solo.
these two and i would toss in The Flash
putting another vote for
Red Hod and the outlaws
Deathstroke
New Super-an
Supersons
also Green Lanterns (not the one with Hal)
The Direct Market is doomed to fail, whether Marvel is doing well or not, and the future lies in strong trade sells. Image is already killing it in trade sales. DC does pretty well there thanks to Batman being the ultimate normie-bait and their collection of "classics" which will always top the charts like Watchmen and The Killing Joke.
Marvel, on the other hand, has very few "trade hits" and loathe as we are to admit it, the ones they do have are things like Fraction's Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Civil War, and Squirrel Girl. Seeing that those are the things that have worked for them, they're trying to double down on them hoping to create a backlog of popular-in-trade books that they can establish as their backbone for that market.
Unfortunately, this is coming at the expense of their floppie market (which they still desperately need for the time being since while floppies are on the way out, we're still years away from that being the reality) and it's not even working all that well in terms of creating that trade backlog. If you look at what their top trade sales through bookscan are, it's still mostly the same stuff that was already making those charts rather than new stuff.
My current pull-list is:
>Superman
>Deathstroke
>Batman: The White Knight
>The Wild Storm
>Astro City
>Kamandi Challenge
>Black Bolt
>Unbelievable Gwenpool
>All-new Guardians of the Galaxy
>East of West
>The Fix
Also going to give Dr. Strange, Moon Knight and Marvel Two-in-One a shot out of Legacy but they're not out yet so I can't speak on them one way or the other. I'm also interested in Avengers: No Surrender, but not enough to actually shell out $4 a week on it. Probably just going to pirate it as it comes out then pick up a hardcover for all 16 issues if it ends up being good.
Action, Red Hood, Teen Titans, New Superman, Aquaman, both Lantern books, Flash, Deathstroke and Mister Miracle.
Red Hood is good now? They must have really overhauled it since the last RH&O series was complete shit.
>Red Hood is good now?
It really is. What's really funny though it's it's still being written by Lobdell. But somehow he managed to turn it around.
Hot
>That's just samplesize of retailers. Comichron shows that both X-men titles get 2-2,5x as many orders as WS.
We're not talking about Comichron and physical sales. Legacy sales are going to be completely inflated due lenticular covers, the necessary order exceed requirements to get those lenticulars and overships that have already been confirmed by numerous retailers.
We're talking actual customer purchases. As of this post WS is at #12 on Comixology and again matches this list fairly well. That means that Wildstorm is very very likely currently selling to customers above every Marvel title except for Thor #700 and Invincible Iron Man.The fact that this is true is both amazing for WS and completely embarrassing for Legacy.
>Wild storm in the top 10
The fuck? While i'm personally enjoying it, I thought the sales were doing super shit. Like sub 15k.
>Brevoort is shitting on DC.
>Actual posters in that thread are more worried about what's coming on the horizon for Marvel because they can see shit coming a mile away.
KEK
>Because their goal isn't to cater to comic shop customers, it's to try and find what bookstore and Amazon customers want.
That's not true though because Marvel of all people doesn't prioritize trade sales. They're fucking FIFTH when it comes to trade sales. The largest comic book company is FIFTH, well behind both DC and Image. Hell, they even stated that they didn't want their trade sales to be cheaper because it would devalue and decrease floppy sales. Saying this is some sort of unfortunate keikaku by Marvel so they can continue on with their bookstore domination is hilarious.
>Brevoort "Not one man could fix DC
>Johns "Hold my beer"
Is there anyone more arrogant than Brevoort?
>The fuck? While i'm personally enjoying it, I thought the sales were doing super shit. Like sub 15k.
Wild Storm sales are:
02/2017: 54,442
03/2017: 37,818
04/2017: 30,595
05/2017: 25,571
06/2017: 24,206
07/2017: 22,640
Not amazing compared to a mainline title. But good for an imprint and it looks like it's settled into a fairly steady readership.
This is enough to be ahead of about 1/3rd of Marvel's titles pre-Legacy. Now consider that Legacy has largely has the exact same titles with just a different cover and we've had retailers report that Legacy has prompted more people to drop Marvel than pick it up. And now you'll have an idea of both why Wild Storm is up that high and how terribly Legacy is really doing.
I'm pretty surprised that DC was able to do a 180 and say what you will about Johns but he was able to pull it off by with Rebirth, he even gave people a chance to refund the book if they didn't like it.
Keep in mind, this is the sales for the week's worth of comics, not for the entire month.
For that week, the following Marvel Legacy titles were out:
Cable #150
Champions #13
Incredible Hulk #709
Invincible Iron Man #593
Luke Cage #166
Mighty Thor #700
Monsters Unleashed #7
Spider-Gwen #25
I would say that for the October Diamond sales, they will show that most if not all these books will have higher unit/dollar sales than Wild Storm. But remember that the Diamond chart is preorders and that retailers like that some of the ones on the Bleeding Cool article, they gambled on the lenticulars and upped their orders because they assumed Marvel was sincere about fixing things... only to find limited success or worse.
>When Sup Forums does a better job at highlighting diversity at DC than any other comic book site.
Ah truly nice to see another ant-person browse Sup Forums too.
Too bad the Lenticular covers can't lenticulate. The sketch instruction variants are cool tho.
ANTS
Should've used this one
Can we get Oliver Coipel on Action Comics next, pls?
>I don’t believe any one person can right DC
>"classics" which will always top the charts like Watchmen and The Killing Joke.
What’s with the quotations? Those books ARE classics.
Honestly it wasn't even just him.
Sure, he was one of the biggest reasons and he spearheaded the approach by basically saying "Hey, let's just make stuff that our customers want!" and he wrote a comic that reminded everyone what was great about DC. But the existing leadership was the one who basically looked at itself and said "This isn't working." then reorganized the editorial structure, went with their new up and coming talent, and brought in veterans to help balance the talent pool and act as mentors and examples for the newer guys.
This exact same thing could happen at Marvel. But 1) They don't have anyone who is as well liked as Johns and is as big of a Marvelfag as Johns is a DCfag. Come on, Jason Aaron? Really? And 2) Marvel is too up their asses to ever admit that anything they're doing is wrong.
For all my complaints about Johns I can admit that he seems enthusiastic about what he's writing and I think does a better job keeping the audience's interest, even if I'm not interested in some of his work.
3) There's total internal disfunction at Marvel. The editors have entirely ceded creative control to all the tumblr writers they've hired, and now a bunch of spoiled, edgy tweens are running things. The editors are scared of twitter backlash if they don't indulge every whim of these amateur writers.
I'd say it's a bit more dire with Marvel because of just how incestuous the older writers are with the editorial. To really shake things up there would require a fundamental revamping of their talent, from the bottom tier tumblr writers to their old guard big three of Bendis, Aaron and Slott. The fact that they are fundamentally unwilling to switch up the creative teams (probably the most striking parts of Rebirth, to me, was DC managing to get Greg Rucka back after he swore to never work with them again, and get Christopher Priest out of semi-retirement to write a Deathstroke book, whereas I knew that Legacy was just a ruse the moment the editorial clarified that they had no intention of removing Slott from ASM) shows that they really do think that this' just a temporary slump that they can just sail through.
>DC managing to get Greg Rucka back after he swore to never work with them again
Honestly I wish DC never bothered to mend that bridge. Rucka is as close to a typical Marvel writer as you can get at DC. What did he really accomplish with his return to Wonder Woman? He revamped her origin AGAIN, made Etta Candy black, and Cheetah into an ugly furry.
If they took Slott off of Spidey for Legacy, I would give almost any book a chance because it would have shown that they are actually going to try.
Eh, as much as people dislike his run, I'll at least say he managed to restabilize the character after the Finch run, which was imo the worst the character's been written in decades. The whole thing was basically just Rucka chimping out at Azzarello's run, sure, but it provided a decent enough jumping on point for people who got interested in the series via Rebirth, so I'd say it did the job it was supposed to do.
Even before Legacy launched I said that there was no fucking way they could sell this as Marvel's Rebirth just on the sole basis that they had nobody at Marvel like Johns.
Some may not like his work, but everyone knows that Johns fucking LOVES everything about DC. He's your basic comic reader living the life and he's impossible not to like because he's always been a pretty nice guy to everyone. When the Rebirth announcement came out we only saw one person - him. Through every Rebirth presentation describing what it was we saw him.
There's NOBODY at Marvel that well liked with that level of reader cred. When we got the Rebirth announcement from Johns saying it was going to be a celebration of all things DC and that things were going to change for the fans we knew that was a PROMISE. When we got the Legacy announcement and had Brevoort and Alonzo saying it was going to be a celebration of all things Marvel we knew that was a SALES PITCH.
Is there any writer that could have been Marvel's equivalent of Johns. The only one I could see is maybe Hickman.
>What did he really accomplish with his return to Wonder Woman?
He brought Diana back to her classic origins. Which is one of the main focuses of Rebirth - getting back to basics. He did the job he was hired for.
>He revamped her origin AGAIN
Going back to the originals isn't revaming.
>made Etta Candy black
New-52 Etta was already black. Rucka just made her fat. Again, back to basics.
>And Cheetah into an ugly furry.
Eh, Cheetah's been an ugly furry before.
>made Etta Candy black,
Uh she was black at the start of the New 52.
>Honestly it wasn't even just him.
it wasn't, it came from higher up. Not to discount Johns, he did a lot of extra work that wasn't just setting out the story. But editors came in to sort shit out, continuity and storylines were nailed down a lot stronger. Though, I'm wondering if it was him that turned Dan around from the "continuity doesn't really matter" to this new DC
None of them are big a fanboy or have a huge pull like Johns (Aquaman and GL were heavily reinvigorated when Johns landed on the title).
In terms of pull
Bendis can't even sustain Spider-Men above Wonder Woman or Harley Quinn, same with Invincible Iron Man, fuck Defenders is selling lower than GL, both of them.
Slott? Might be but Johns in his lowest during his JL Days rarely ever dipped to 60K if ever. while Slott is fluctuating wildly between mid60k to 50k.
Aaron? Mighty Thor is below Jurgens Comics and Strange is below GLs.
But enough about pull. What about pure fanboy heart and charisma?
Abnett is definitely a huge fanboy and has huge respect to continuity, but he has no pull. USAvengers literally went from 1 (Because of Variants) to 100 same month.
Zub definitely shows his loyalty when you see him post in Reddit and he has his loyal followers there too but his books definitely underperform and he doesn't have a huge respect to continuity either. Plus he sucks
>I'm wondering if it was him that turned Dan around from the "continuity doesn't really matter" to this new DC
It was probably the failure of the DCYou, sales dropping back down to pre-FP numbers, and the overall realization that if people haven't accepted the New 52 four years on, they're never going to accept it.
Johns probably helped though.
>Slott? Might be but Johns in his lowest during his JL Days rarely ever dipped to 60K if ever. while Slott is fluctuating wildly between mid60k to 50k.
That and he's just a thoroughly unpleasant person to interact with. Even people who still like ASM pretty uniformly agree that Slott is a grade-A cunt.
I think that might be a part of it too; wasn't there someone in a comments section who said that a lot of writers tried to avoid talking about Slott?
Definitely Deathstroke. It's just good comics.
Goddamn do I hate Batman.
Still, nice to see Super Sons up there.
>This is enough to be ahead of about 1/3rd of Marvel's titles pre-Legacy. Now consider that Legacy has largely has the exact same titles with just a different cover and we've had retailers report that Legacy has prompted more people to drop Marvel than pick it up. And now you'll have an idea of both why Wild Storm is up that high and how terribly Legacy is really doing.
Jesus...this is terrible
>that if people haven't accepted the New 52 four years on, they're never going to accept it.
Which is hilarious because apart from the Super marriage and OG Wally literally nothing has changed
>red hood not in the list
It's not fair bros
Brutal.