Like in any industry, comic books and their companies listen most to one thing and that’s your money!  What does your money tell them?  What does it tell us as fans?  What series do people say they adore but can’t seem to catch a break and what books to people hate that sell out?  What are the trends?  What looks good?  What looks rough?

All these questions and more will be answered here, every month in ‘By The Numbers’ by comic writers, editors and fans, Glenn Matchett and Ray Goldfield.

Glenn Matchett is a comic writer and editor.  He’s worked in the industry for 5 years but grew up reading comics.  He loves the format deeply and spends way too much time concerned that his favorite books will be cancelled.  He is currently working on 4 separate projects but still wants to do more and possibly give up sleeping.

Ray Goldfield is a fan of comic books for going on 25 years, starting with the death of Superman. He is a writer and editor for Grayhaven Comics, in addition to his day job. Ray’s weekly budget for comics also is often equal to the amounts some small countries have in value.  The owner of his LCS knows him by name and thanks Ray every week for the new Porsche that he was able to buy due to his amount of comic orders.

What Went Well

Glenn:  Ahoy sales enthusiasts!  Its the time again where the two of us try to read comic sales numbers like tea leaves!

Before we start properly, a slight correction to last month’s installment.  Several readers went out of their way to kindly remind me that while Dark Horse published several Darth Vader mini’s during their time with the franchise, they never had him in an ongoing.  Thanks for the info everyone!

I don’t know everything, I just pretend to.

On with the sales!  I actually expected this to be the calm before the storm month but there is a few wacky things to talk about right at the top of the chart.

We have the first issue of the Princess Leia mini-series debut to great numbers!  I think this really proves that the sales of Star Wars a few months ago was no fluke. Marvel is making this a property to be reckoned with and I’m sure they’re beyond thrilled with how its doing.  Of course this issue will be helped by the many variants (with some lovely ones by a favorite of mine in Mark Brooks) but issue 2’s numbers are nothing to sneeze at.

With Star Wars in mind, we have the main title sticking to a very respectful sales number after the big drop last month.  If they can keep this going long term, it would be great for marvel.

2 other new debuts in the chart are Guardians Of The Galaxy Team-Up and who would have thought that 2 years ago that this franchise would be able to support to many well selling titles?  It’s crazy how much the film has completely renewed the interest in what I would have considered a c or d list property.  It doesn’t hurt that they have a top creative team on it but as we’ve seen in past years, a top creative team doesn’t always equal huge sales.

I think the most striking and telling thing in the top ten is that with Howard the Duck has debuted higher and outsold all other publisher books.  Howard The freakin’ Duck.  I feel I’ve landed in bizarro land here.  Is this really just due to his movie cameo?  Surely not?  What’s next? A dancing baby Groot ongoing?  (I’d read that)

Ray: Star Wars certainly seems to be an unmitigated hit. The main title has settled into a safe spot at around 150K, which would make it the top-selling regular title on the stands. Leia debuted very strongly, and given the strong sales of #2, I wonder if they’re rethinking making it a miniseries only. Darth Vader, surprisingly, is not holding up as well as I’d thought, landing at about half the sales of the flagship book. Shame, because that’s the best of the three to my eye.

Guardians Team-Up had a very impressive debut, likely due to incentives and variants, but as always with Marvel, the true tale is told with following issues. This series shipped three issues in one month, the conclusion to the first arc and a Black Vortex tie-in. And those two landed at #47 and #41 respectively. Despite a bow of 155K, this title is going to have the same trouble all their anthology titles seem to. Marvel’s definitely turned Guardians into a marketing machine, but besides the flagship and Rocket, they still seem to suffer from longevity problems.

Howard the Duck is just a crazy combination of incentives from Marvel, a savvy ad campaign, a strong creative team, and some really good luck. Much like Rocket Raccoon, when Marvel has a funny book with an offbeat lead and a strong creative team, they do seem to be able to make it sell. Especially when it’s a funny animal. I loved the first two issues, so I hope it has a long life.

Given how hard most of Marvel’s books drop with the second issue, it’s important to talk about what I think is the most stunning success story in comics right now – Spider-Gwen. Sure, the first issue had a ton of variant covers that drove it to sales of 250K, but I don’t think anyone saw the second issue selling over 100K and handily beating Amazing Spider-Man this month. Just incredible, and I now suspect this title will be around for a very long time. You might have been right about it settling down around Harley Quinn numbers!

By the same note, I was skeptical about Silk surviving long, but its second issue held incredibly well. This might be Spider-Verse lifting all boats, as well as surprisingly good creative reception for her solo book.

DC’s terrible showing in the top ten is mostly explained by the fact that Batman and the Justice League, their two top-selling books, missed shipping this month, but it’s still kind of shocking that their top-selling book was a little-hyped Batman digital-first book with a video game store tie-in. If it wasn’t for that boost, their top book would have been Harley Quinn at #14.

It was a really good month for Jeff Lemire. All-New Hawkeye jumped a lot from the sales of the Fraction run, but the big news is that his brilliant creator-owned book Descender debuted in the top 20. That’s incredibly impressive for a new Image book, and it even beat Mark Millar’s latest already-optioned book, Chrononauts. All in all a good month for creator-owned books, as we’ll see later down the list.

Glenn: Knowing Marvel, if they continue Leia, they will do so with a new number one.  Most likely they’ll have it closer to the film too.

I think, regarding the Guardian’s books that outside of the ones you mentioned, the fact that the others are dropping probably don’t worry Marvel too much.  Back in the DnA days, they had one book at the lower end of the charts and now there’s 3 or 4 at any one time.  I doubt some of them landing about 40k when even a year ago they would have been lucky to scratch 20 will give them much to worry about.

I read on Twitter, someone mentioning how Marvel originally decided to kill Gwen back in the day because no one was interested in her.  The response to the character has been insane and I haven’t felt this way, personally about an out of continuity Spider-Man book since the heyday of Ultimate.  I’m so glad for the creative team and for the fans of the book that this seemingly isn’t just a flash in the pan.  It’s almost worth it to see people who predicted it will be gone in a year be proved wrong.  I just hope Marvel shows some restraint and doesn’t milk this to death.

The Arkham Knight book is a little bit of a surprise to be sure. This is obviously due to a similar thing to Orphan Black (we’ll see how that fared later) and is doing well because of distribution to game stores.  Could things like this be the way to go for companies in the future? Offering titles through incentives and specialist things seems to be a profitable way to get books that may not do well otherwise into a lot of hands.  It doesn’t help that this comic is tied to arguably the most popular superhero franchise either though.

I’m so happy for Descender. It was a stunning first issue and I really hope a lot of people who haven’t checked it out yet, take the opportunity to do so.  I think this has also been optioned for some sort of adaption also but I could be wrong there. With Lemire’s recent signing to Marvel, it’ll only bring more eyes to his Image books later this year.

I have to really commend Mark Millar for managing to make his name alone such a sellable commodity.  His creator owned work can vary in quality but the guy can basically do whatever he wants and make it sell.  He has a Midas touch that I’m sure a lot of other creators would love to have.

We then have our usual group of strong performers like Guardians, Harley Quinn, Walking Dead, Thor and the rest.  We also see Amazing Spider-Man and I believe this is the final part to Spider-Verse.  Normally I would be curious how the title would be sales wise coming out of the event but I doubt Marvel is overly concerned.  After 3 issues the book is cancelled to make way for not one, not two, not three but four Spider-Men books during Secret Wars.  Of course, the main one everyone will be talking about will be ‘Renew Your Vows’ so the sales of Amazing are a moot point until after that. Still, it seems that like all the other Spider-events he’s crafted over his run, Slott has brought in great numbers and a lot of very profitable spin offs (like Spider-Gwen) for Marvel.

I’m also really surprised to see the Amazing Spider-Man special to do so well.  I’m not even sure what this book is and it landed in the top 25. Usually throwaway specials like this one are always selling kinda meh numbers but in the wake of the success of Superior Spider-Man, it seems that Marvels most recognizable character is seeing a major spike in interest, which is great.

Have to also commend Batman: Eternal for its continued success as it reaches its finish line.  You also have to compliment DC for running so many weekly books over the years without missing one issue.  They may have varied in quality but running a weekly book can’t be easy and this past year, DC did it three times.  It’s quite the accomplishment.

Ray:  Yeah, there is no question Marvel has to be happy with how they’ve transformed Guardians. They’ve got two smash hit books and several other books well above cancellation numbers. This is a total turnaround for the franchise.

With Gwen, this really does seem like a repeat of the lightning in the bottle that was the original USM run. It’s also interesting that Gwen, so far at least, seems to have maintained a lot more buzz than Miles did initially, and this was without Marvel doing a mass media roll-out. This really seems to be a pure word-of-mouth sensation, and easily the biggest triumph of the new comics market we’ve seen. Based on these numbers, we’re probably looking at the title staying around as long as Latour and Rodriguez want, and even likely beyond that with a new creative team. Which hopefully won’t happen for a long time.

Millar seems to have been the only name to deliver this level of sales to his creator-owned books so far, but we’ve seen Snyder, Hickman, and now Lemire launch Image books with some really impressive numbers. Lemire has another Image book coming out in a few months, so it’ll be interesting to see if that can repeat the success we saw here.

I think this month was the aftermath issues in ASM, returning the action to Parker Industries, so it’s not surprising there was a dip. I’m expecting both ‘Renew Your Vows’ and the Spider-verse mini to be big hits for Secret Wars. The ASM special, I believe, is part one of a three-part story by Jeff Loveness dealing with Spider-man crossing over with the Inhumans. The first part was fun, but it’ll be interesting to see how it holds up with less big-name branding on the future issues.

Eternal absolutely crushed it over the course of its run. 52 issues in, and it’s still taking up four slots in the top 35. Especially impressive as the other three weeklies from both companies are all clustered in the 70-100 range.

It’s not the same level as Descender or Chrononauts, but I do want to give a shout-out to the debut of Southern Cross. This brilliant new space crime thriller by Becky Cloonan and Andy Belanger landed at 68, in the same area as the Spawn relaunch and selling almost 30K. Very strong debut, and it deserves every copy.

There’s a lot of long-running books hanging around in the middle, selling decently but unspectacularly. It’s worth noting that by the time next month’s attrition kicks in, Rocket Raccoon will be outselling four or five of the six movie Avengers’ solo titles.

Ms. Marvel seems to have settled into the steadiest hold of any comic on the stands. It’s been holding at 30-32K for months now, lapping bigger-name books every month. 32K isn’t the most impressive number, but for a legacy character of a character whose main title is out of the top 100? Wow.

Futures End ended its run with a respectable 29K. Wolverines has already slipped below it, and Earth 2: World’s End slips out of the top 100 with its final few issues. It makes what Eternal accomplished even more impressive.

At 77, we have Jem and the Holograms, which had the benefit of a ton of variant covers and a lot of internet hype. I expected a bit more impressive given that, but for a cartoon adaptation from the 80s, not bad at all.

And that’s where we start seeing some grimmer numbers, as we head to the bottom of the top 100. Namely, Squirrel Girl and Angela, which are hugging the very bottom of the top 100 and proving that Marvel’s recent success with female-led titles doesn’t extend to everyone. And with Inhuman at #95, it’s not a surprise Marvel is getting ready for a relaunch there.

Glenn: The success of Spider-Gwen is really interesting.  It actually is a fantastic idea on paper but as we both know, there are plenty of fantastic ideas that sometimes don’t catch on for one reason or another. It could be because this character has been dead for so long or that she’s a really good lead for female readers or the movies or something else. It gives me a new comic to enjoy every month is all I know!

That’s really impressive for Southern Cross! Things have definitely improved in the industry

in regards to people trying out new books with new characters which is just brilliant.

I wonder if the Squirrel Girl numbers if we’ll perhaps see a similar eventual results for Howard?  I suppose time will tell.  Like you said, it seems that although we’re getting great results from books like Harley and Spider-Gwen, there are going to be some that don’t quite hit the mark. Worth a try in any case.

The Inhumans books are a weird one. Marvel is clearly investing a lot into them with their books and a lot of time spent focusing on them in SHIELD but to me it seems very early. We’re a long way away from the Inhumans movie and them possibly getting a Guardian’s level infusion.  It seems to me we’re getting the cart before the horse and here we see the result.

Ray: Howard debuted much higher than Squirrel Girl, so I’m optimistic, but I doubt we’ll be seeing it in the top 10/20 for long. I may be surprised, but I think it’ll find a more reasonable level soon.

Glenn: Well if it lands in the top say…150, that wouldn’t be too bad for a Howard The Duck title. With all the crazyness to come in the coming months, that might not be likely though.

I think that’s our major top sales news!

The Middle Ground

Glenn: One thing I was interested in seeing is how many of its amazing sales Orphan Black held onto this month and the result is…not many. It lands at 181 with sales at just over 10,500. So its pretty much on par with similar adaption books. I wonder what those extra 500 thousand odd people did with their copies…

We have all our usual suspects here, of course. I don’t really see anything out of the ordinary. I think Wytches has landed at a very respectful number at 53, although I think that Snyder’s creator owned Vertigo book ‘The Wake‘ did much better numbers through its run.  This will probably be a book that’ll do very well once collected though.

I’m still very happy to see Spider-Man 2099 do so solidly, its a great book. Peter David never gets the huge sales but he has a consistent level performance that even most of the top people at both companies can’t boast.  I would be surprised if we’re to believe this book will be saying goodbye after Secret Wars like Marvel indicates.

It did okay but I’m sure Image is sadly disappointed with sales just under 30k for a new Spawn book.  Like you said, it got outsold by Southern Cross. This title’s heyday as Image’s biggest book seems to have long past.

Another decent Image debut is Invisible Republic at 103. I doubt it’ll be this high next month but it’s better than it surely would have landed maybe even 5 years ago.

Ray: Orphan Black…ouch. To put this in perspective, it sold 500K last month with Lootcrate, and just over 10K this month. That’s a 98% drop, right down to the level of a standard-issue IDW media tie-in. Of course, this is retailer orders and not actual demands, so watch for news of sell-outs. They may have underestimated demand a bit. Still, this doesn’t seem to have duplicated the results of Rocket Raccoon.

At this point, I think Spawn has been totally supplanted as an Image icon by those dastardly zombies topping the charts. It feels like a character from a bygone era, so I’m not surprised it didn’t do that impressively.

Both Invisible Republic and the Dodsons’ new book Red One debuted just out of the top 100 for Image, as well as Ales Kot’s trippy new title The Surface. While those numbers aren’t shocking, they’re very healthy for Image titles. I think they’ve got to be happy enough with these debuts.

After this is where you see a lot of titles that are either ending their run (mostly for DC) or are in danger of doing so for Marvel. Silver Surfer, Loki, Black Widow, Punisher, Captain America and the Mighty Avengers, all hovering around or below the 20K mark. I think some of them may be getting relaunches after Secret Wars, but they’re all in the danger zone.

Cullen Bunn’s new creator-owned book for Oni, Hellbreak, sold 14K with its $1 premiere issue. While the price is a big factor, that’s one of the best showings for an Oni book that I’ve seen. Impressive.

And there’s Klarion and GI Zombie, finishing their runs at 292 and 290 respectively. Let’s hope DC has a plan to make some of their more offbeat June launches do better than this, because these are the worst numbers we’ve seen for any main-line DC book since the days of The Shield and The Web.

Glenn: We’ll see how it does next month I guess, in regards to Orphan Black. There could be people checking out the show on the back of the loot crate and pick up the comic down the line so we might see the benefit in a few months.  It seems that most people who the TV tie-ins appeal to are trade waiters so it could be there that IDW sees a benefit from the loot crate exposure.

It shows how much the market has moved on in terms of what the people want from their small press books. They’re not looking really for super powered beings, they’re looking for interesting drama with real people.  Some of the new Image books being put out sound better than some TV shows…which is why a lot of them are getting turned into shows or films I’d wager.

We could see a lot of great stuff coming from Oni. I’m excited for their open period in May, not only for my own prospects but I know (as do you) how many ridiculously talented undiscovered people there are out there. If Oni can start offering creators another viable outlet for their work, it only benefits not only creators but readers also.

It’s not a good sign that Prez has very quietly been turned into a mini. I’m also wondering how many fans of the

more popular books will be here when Convergence settles in. I hope having 3 months off doesn’t hurt some of their books.

I was glad to see Nailbiter go up in sales a little this month. Not by a major margin but this was a crossover with Hack/Slash so its kind of a throwaway but still did okay. I hope that Williamson’s creative expansion to Marvel will bring new eyes to his creator owned work because it really deserves it.

Big props to the Daredevil team for keeping their numbers so steady.  I’m really surprised that Marvel isn’t taking the opportunity to shine a bigger light on him considering the commercial and critical success of the Netflix show.  Daredevil is one of my favorites and the Waid/Samnee team will be hard to top.  I still think Marvel’s missed a trick here, I don’t think Daredevil even has a related Secret Wars mini.  I do wonder if post Secret Wars we might see a return of a certain secretary?

It’s also the debut of a Bill and Ted title. Selling over 10k and landing at 184 has to make someone happy because lets face it…its 2015 and rumors of a third one aside…its Bill and Ted.

Ray: Oni opening submissions could be the big game-changer for the company, I think. They’ve been putting out a lot of great work, but they haven’t gotten the attention of other companies like Image and BOOM!. I think this could change that.

The lengthy gap for DC’s surviving books is going to be a big issue. However, I think DC has taken the smart approach, having most of them end with either memorable cliffhangers or natural stopping points, so it’s a fairly smooth transition back in. And they’ll be getting previews in the second month of Convergence. Marvel will be doing the same thing with the Secret Wars minis taking over, but unlike DC, the universe is changing there and we don’t know what shape it’ll be in when we come back.

Daredevil has been one of Marvel’s most consistent books for a long time, both in quality and sales. However, with Waid leaving and another relaunch likely coming, that’s all up in the air. I suspect this is what Charles Soule’s next big project will be, given that he’s a lawyer in his day job. And given her prominence in a certain Netflix show, I definitely think Miss Page is high up on the list of characters who might be resurrected in the post-Secret Wars reality. Maybe the most likely, now that 616 Gwen Stacy has been supplanted by the new model.

IDW’s been having a bit of a streak of bringing back semi-obscure properties as comics. Bill and Ted, The Fly, Millennium. Bill and Ted had a healthy debut for this type of book, while the others are more iffy.

Glenn: Sure hope so! I am personally very excited, not only for my own prospects but the amount of stuff I know really talented people will be throwing their way

I personally think it’ll be a triangle shape!

Karen or regular Jean Gray may be the top candidates. Gwen could go either way. Bringing her back could be a bad call but it must be a tempting button for Marvel to push if Secret Wars goes a certain way.

Soule on Daredevil makes sense. Lemire could be another great choice there but considering Soule just finished up on She-Hulk, he seems like a logical choice. I wouldn’t mind Lemire taking over Daredevil with Andrea Sorrentino who he worked with to great acclaim on Green Arrow.

They may have landed a bit of a good one on X-Files now there’s talk of the show coming back properly.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see a big relaunch when the show comes back. I just want to know where I’m getting my Twin Peaks comic!

Ray: Good point about Jean Grey. I’m skeptical that the time-displaced X-kids will be around post-Bendis run, and Secret Wars seems likely to sort out the timelines a lot. Jean could definitely be coming back to the land of the living, along with a few other characters, especially if they’ve got any significance in the MCU or other big-name properties.

With Lemire just going exclusive at Marvel, he could also be a good choice, but Soule on Daredevil seems like one of those choices that is too perfect NOT to happen. Call it a hunch, but I think Lemire could do an amazing Hulk run.

It’ll be interesting to see if the show coming back gives X-Files a boost. There’s such a big difference with licensed titles, with some at the top of the charts and mo

Glenn:  It seems that every event makes people think Jean will be back so who knows…

With a lot of their big talents going into creator owned, the sky could the limit either way for both guys.

It all depends on what FOX wants to do, I suppose.  It would seem like a no brainer but IDW will take what they’re given most likely.

Hopefully some of these great indie books don’t get overswamped in the madness to come!

The Danger Zone

Glenn:  POWERS is back, yay? Considering this is a book by one of Marvel’s biggest writers and has its own online show and is the 4th (I believe) relaunch, I thought it might have done better. I’m curious how this would have done at Image? Maybe it’s like I said earlier, the indie market don’t want anything to do with superheroes and POWERS is long past its heyday.

Most of the low performers at Marvel and DC are waiting to be swept aside in the wake of Convergence/Secret Wars and rebranded as something or other.

One of the books that seems to spend a good portion at the lower end of the sales chart is Rachel Rising. Admission time, I’ve never read it but I see some serious support behind this book. It seems that everyone says its brilliant but no one seems to care.

Ray:  I think the combination of mixed reception for the Powers TV show, plus the very irregular schedule of the comic, blunted any real interest in its return, too.

Rachel Rising is published by a very small company, and it’s been steady, so I think they’re getting what they want out of it. I’m more saddened by the low sales for The Woods, which is one of my favorite titles by a popular DC writer, and is on the verge of falling out of the top 300. I hope trade sales are buoying it there.

Looking ahead to next month, Marvel is wrapping up its pre-Secret Wars output and doesn’t have any big launches aside from the Ultron Forever miniseries. DC, on the other hand, is set to throw the entire top 100 into complete disarray with the launch of Convergence, a weekly title and forty-four miniseries set throughout the history of the DCU multiverse. The big question is, are retailers going to order this as big-name event tie-ins, or as stand-alone minis that will likely be irrelevant in June. DC’s staking a lot on this question.

Glenn:  You know, I thought this month would be a quiet one but there’s been quite a few surprises at the upper end of the charts.  Like you said though, next month the insanity really sets in.  This could be the most insane Summer in the industry since Civil War and a lot of the lower end books will probably suffer from it.

Like you said, it’ll be interesting to see how retailers treat convergence. To me, its like when DC does one of its September ‘events’ where, by and large you get a month full of fill-ins. DC is replacing their entire line, essentially with fill in books which will either do stupidly well or stupidly not well.

It’s something that I honestly can’t wait to see next month.  Then when Secret Wars hits and Marvel ‘cancels’ like 15 of their books or so, all bets are off.

Call me crazy but could we be looking at a top ten that has all six figure numbers before the summer ends?

Ray:  This will definitely be an insane summer. April actually seems like a pretty interesting month for new creator-owned and smaller-press books as well. There’s James Tynion’s new Boom thriller, UFOlogy, two big-name Image debuts in Mark Millar’s Jupiter’s Circle and Todd McFarlane’s Savior, the latest strange Archie crossover Archie vs. Predator, Jeff Lemire’s solo Valiant debut Bloodshot Reborn, Chip Zdarsky’s new Image book Kaptara, and Ed Brisson’s Pisces. It’ll be interesting to see where these place on the charts.

Wow, that’s a bold prediction. But Star Wars seems to be locked above 100K, Spider-Gwen may stay there for a while as well, there’ll be two issues of Secret Wars every month, Batman and Justice League will likely come back over 100K easily, and all the new debuts may place some there as well. It’s a long shot, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see one or two months where it happens!

Glenn:  Oh, I don’t think it’ll be long term but I could see it happening for a few months for sure.  Which will just lead to more of these type of things, I suppose.  A relatively stable month for the majority of the charts, do you want to build the shelter for the storm or should I?

Ray:  Well, that stability is over. By next month, half the Big Two will be in complete upheaval. A month later, both will be. It’s going to be a crazy year of events, miniseries, and relaunches ahead.

Until next, month, then, when we should have even more to discuss!

Enjoyed what you read? Let us know and follow us on Twitter @glenn_matchett & @raygoldfield

Welcome back everyone! It’s time for another round of discussing the sales charts with myself, writer and editor, Glenn

Matchett along with writer and editor, Ray Goldfield!

Glenn Matchett is a comic writer and editor. He’s worked in the industry for 5 years but grew up reading comics. He loves the format deeply and spends way too much time concerned that his favorite books will be cancelled. He is currently trying to figure out how he can make comics without going broke.

Ray Goldfield is a fan of comic books for going on 25 years, starting with the Death of Superman. He is a writer and editor for GrayHaven Comics, in addition to his day job. He started out as a DC Zombie, but has broadened his tastes to Marvel and indie books in recent years. He is currently trying to figure out how he can continue to read comics without going broke.

All sales figures retrieved from ICv2.com

Please note this was all discussed prior to the announcement of Stuart Immonen being placed on Star Wars and the news of Marvel ‘cancelling’ the majority of its line during Secret Wars.

What went well?

Glenn: Has it been a month already? How time flies! This should be a really interesting month to look into. A lot of new launches, new directions and probably the most unpredictable month before we settle in to the calm before the Secret War/Convergence storm.

Of course, we all know that Star Wars or Darth Vader will take the top spot and prove that this franchise is…

Or not.

Turns out IDW see quite possibly their best selling book ever with the launch of an Orphan Black series. Of course, this is all thanks to the super popular ‘Loot Crate’ subscription for geeky type folks that want to get a lot of cool stuff delivered to their door. Really, if it gives smaller press companies a lot of exposure and a series that would probably have been happy to launch at like mid 30k, sales like this then it can only be a good thing, I think.

I’m expecting the book to sink like no tomorrow next month but maybe some of those near 500k copies will benefit the title long term? I mean it seems to be a verly popular cult show (personally I couldn’t get into it). It could find a whole new series of fans here, who knows?

We then go back to how we expect things to go (sorta) with Darth Vader catching the number 2 spot but then, Star Wars has to wait another space as Spider-Gwen takes the number 3 place on the charts.

I’m sure following the insanity around her debut, people were expecting good sales but I think this surpassed expectation by far. I mean if it wasn’t for the anomaly of Orphan Black, not only would it be the second best seller but it beat Star Wars. STAR WARS!!!!

Ray: Yeah, I think this is a testament more to the success of Loot Crate as a powerhouse tool for spreading the word than anything. Orphan Black wasn’t on anyone’s radar to top the month, but thanks to this new promotion, almost 500K people sampled it. Now, I agree – it’ll fall the highest percentage of any top comic we’ve ever seen next month, but even a 90% fall next month will give it well over 40K, which is a massive success for any licensed comic besides Star Wars.

Speaking of Star Wars, clearly Vader had an impressive debut this month. Not surprising for what’s easily one of the most popular villains in pop culture history. However, I’ve got to say – as healthy as these numbers are, the drops are kind of grim. Star Wars, which was the top-selling comic of the last ten years, fell about 80%. Darth Vader lost 60% of its sales from #1 to #2 in the same month. Clearly these are huge increases over what this comic used to do, but we can now say these aren’t game-changing numbers. They’re what we’re used to seeing from top-tier comics in the current market.

Now, as to Spider-Gwen, I don’t think I can say enough about how amazing this is. Let’s not forget how this comic started. This was a one-shot tie-in that was expected to come and go with relatively little fanfare. Within less than six months, the public mobilized and not only turned this into an ongoing, but made it one of the top-selling debuts Marvel has put out recently. Now, a lot of the credit has to go to the mass number of variants as always, but a wide swath of fan base still got together and made a female-led alternate universe comic starring Spider-man’s dead girlfriend sell 250K. This is easily the biggest triumph of the new comic book market that I’ve ever seen. And it doesn’t hurt that two issues in, the book is exceptional.

Besides the top debuts, Silk launched with a debut roughly in the range of last month’s Ant-Man and the previous Angela. It seems like this is where retailers are ordering Marvel books that may be more niche. Still, that’s two female-led Spider-titles starring new characters in the top ten, so well done on that front. However, as we’ll discuss later, it might have a rough road ahead.

Batman and Amazing Spider-man seem to be amazingly steady, although we’ll see how the latter holds up once Spider-Verse is over. Thor and Harley Quinn continue to do impressively well, and the Black Vortex crossover debuted strongly and seems to have lifted all boats. Uncanny Avengers also held on a bit better than I expected. And as it wraps up this month, Batman: Eternal is still holding strong in the top 30. This is an unqualified success for DC.

Over at Image, their headliners Walking Dead, Saga, and Wytches continue to draw strong numbers. Also, Grant Morrison had a really good debut with The Nameless, selling 43K at #34.

Below that, though, we start to see a lot of hard falls, especially for Marvel.

Glenn: With Vader, it should be noted that despite his status, Dark Horse never really did a book with his name on the title. It may be perhaps based on the fast that generally, villain books don’t sell but Vader is quite possibly the best known villain out of any genre.

They are some big drops, I agree. However, given how the market is these days, sales of over 100k are nothing to sneeze at. The question is if they can stay around that level. I’m also curious if they can’t maintain sales of say 70-80k how long Marvel will keep the top tier talent on those books.

I think it was also a great month for some spin offs. I know you mentioned Harley but this wasn’t exactly a regular issue. This was a ‘valentines day’ special and these special kind of themed one off’s don’t tend to do well. It shows that the current direction that DC have this insanely popular character in at the moment, is working. It certainty shows promise for the spin off mini coming up in a few months and the books long term survival.

I also think the Thor annual did really well. Again, annuals can be hit or miss and usually land wayyyyy down below the parent title but this one held up well. Thor has become one of Marvel’s dependable books under the guiding hand of Jason Aaron and the direction with female Thor.

Silk got a lot of hype, we’ll see how she fares next month. I may be jaded but I’m sure in a year or two, there will be as many people that remember her as Alpha (although that spin off mini was DOA).

Like you said, otherwise the top performing books are the normal ‘these are the books that keep the lights on’ titles like your Spider-Man, Batman, Walking Dead and such, no big surprises.

Much like his DC counterpart, it seems that Deadpool can handle sales off a spin off book pretty decently. Return Of The Living Deadpool landed only 10 spots and about 5,000 sales under its parent title, which isn’t too shabby.

I’m surprised that this Multiversity didn’t fare better. If memory serves, the last book Morrison and Lee did together was WildC.A.T.S #1 (those were the dayssssss) and it sold over 200k I think. I know the market is very different now but I would have thought them working together would have performed a little stronger than this.

Ray: I think that the regular creative teams being on both Harley Quinn and Thor’s specials gave the impression that these specials actually mattered. Most of the time, they feel like one-offs with no long-term significance. That’s not the case here, and it worked wonders.

I am surprised that a Jim Lee comic sold so low, but this was also the one issue of Multiversity that got very little hype ahead of its release. This wasn’t one of the worlds that Morrison was talking a lot about, compared to Thunderworld, Pax Americana, and The Just. I think it slipped under the radar a bit.

Glenn: Very true, some of the annuals over the last few years have been pathetic. The only ones worth any note are usually the Batman ones and like you said, they usually have the writer or someone close to him doing those and sales follow suit. Funny I was talking about how sales will stay with Star Wars once the all star creators move on, John Cassidy has just announced he’s leaving the book. No big surprise given his level of output but there’s a very short list I feel would be suitable to replace him.Plus those characters have been around for years, decades even. I don’t think Silk is a year old yet and from what I’ve seen, she’s not exactly having people crying out for her, the same way they are for say: Spider-Gwen. I’ve seen Marvel try this with Mattie Franklin, Arana and Jessica (several times), I don’t think Silk can buck the trend. I sure hope that Gwen can but that seems to be taking everyone by surprise. Might it be a flash in a pan? I’m not sure but we’ll see.

Ray: And with that, I think we’ve covered all the big news at the top of the charts!

Steady books/Books in the Middle

Ray: What makes me the most skeptical about Silk‘s future is the recent performance of other b-list characters who debuted in the top ten and sank immediately afterwards. Ant-Man sold these exact numbers last month, and now it’s down at #44 with 40K sales with its second issue. And Angela is down in the 60s with its third issue. Spider-Man and the X-Men is even lower. That’s not a healthy trend, and the same could easily happen to Silk.

I’ve got to say, though, no drop has got to be worrying Marvel more than Wolverines. The trends were already not good for the first month, with it falling from top ten to out of the top 30 in its first month of release. This month, by the time the month is over it’s fallen all the way down to #68, roughly at the same level of the year-old alternate reality weekly Futures end. This was supposed to be the replacement for Wolverine’s solo title, but it looks like people are treating it more like what it is – an X-23, Daken, Sabretooth, and Mystique weekly at $3.99. If the drops are this brutal after only two months, I can easily see it falling out of the top 100 by Summer.

Given the massive delays, I can’t say I’m surprised that Secret Six #2 is already down to the mid-80s, but it makes me sad.

On the good side, Ms. Marvel continues to be incredibly steady in the 30K range or a bit below. It’s got great word of mouth, and I think Spider-Gwen might find a similar level of stability once it finds its level.

Glenn: It’s an odd one, you think following the strong performance of Death of Wolverine that this weekly would hold up better. I do remember though that back during Dark Reign the Wolverine title got rebranded to Dark Wolverine and starred Daken. Meanwhile, Jason Aaron launched a book called Wolverine: Weapon X and the whole thing fell flat on its face for reasons no one could quite understand. Could history be repeating itself slightly? I do wonder though, given the situation with the x-franchise, how much Marvel is really bothered. They seem to be putting all their chips on the Inhumans so they might not be too bothered that Wolverines isn’t doing so hot.

It seems that Johns and Romita JR have given the Superman title a little bit of juice again. I still think this character and this creative team could and should be doing a lot better but the market has been pretty apathetic to Superman since…well since he died, really.Most books from both companies seem to be at a verly steady level from Green Lantern to Avenger‘s to the main X-books, etc. I’m glad that Spider-Man 2099 is holding well. This seems to be a mutant power that Peter David has on his books. They’re very rarely at the top of the charts but they don’t go through the huge ups and downs that most books face. He has this skill to bring in a decent sized and dependable audience. Mid 30k isn’t bad at all for a character that was at its peak popularity 20 years or so ago.Most books seem to be waiting around for the next big crossover to start and some of them are looking mighty unhealthy while they do it…I think some books have really suffered from some recent creative overhauls. Also, while some Image books are critical darlings, very few manage to keep their audience unless they’re written by people the comic market ‘knows’. I think that Nailbiter is my second favorite book at the moment and its floating way down at 10k and it really deserves better.

Ray: In another year, the headline Wolverine book selling this poorly would have been a sign of the apocalypse, but Marvel seems to have moved the X-line way down the list of their top priorities. Although it’s worth adding that their apparent replacement for the X-men, the Inhumans, is struggling in sales as well. Charles Soule has had some rough luck since landing at Marvel, with none of his big projects catching on.

This current creative team on Superman has been great, but unfortunately Johns is leaving after this arc concludes. DC is taking a huge risk, replacing him with a top-tier graphic novelist who is actually pretty unknown among superhero fans. I’m hoping it can maintain its recent buzz.

Meanwhile, last month’s lower-tier Marvel launch, Squirrel Girl, plunged this month to #87. Those are some grim numbers, and I think it’s safe to say that the audience that made books like Harley, Spider-Gwen, and Ms. Marvel surprise hits didn’t follow them here. I appreciate the ambition to do offbeat books like this and Howard the Duck, but I don’t see this one holding on long.

There’s a lot of lower-tier Marvel and DC books that are struggling. I must say, I’m kind of surprised to see DC keep Lobo going with numbers in the mid-teens, especially since they ended Supergirl, which sells twice as much.

Yeah, it’s unfortunate that Image seems to struggle when there isn’t an a-list name attached. Although it is worth noting that Image keeps on putting out more and more books each month, most of them by new or less-known creators. So even though the sales don’t look that impressive to us compared to the big guns, they seem to be happy with the results.

This and March are definitely in a sort of holding pattern, as both companies are wrapping things up before mega-events that completely alter the line. It’ll be very interesting to see how retailers order on the hundred or so miniseries that are replacing the ongoings for a couple of months.

Glenn: The Inhuman books are a bit strange to me. Obviously, Marvel is giving them a big push but the movie still has a while to come around. I think they would have been better off being patient and doing what they did with Guardians and waiting until closer to the movie. It’s greatly benefited the Guardians line, I’m sure if you would have said that there would be like 5 or 6 Guardian titles from Marvel, you would have been dragged first class to the loony bin.

Ray: Yeah, this was just way too fast, too soon for Inhumans. They don’t have the mainstream profile to sustain this kind of expansion yet. I assume come September, we’ll see yet another relaunch for them, but I don’t know how long this can last. It’s funny that the highest-selling Inhuman title remains the character who was only created a year ago, Ms. Marvel.

Glenn: Going back to Superman for a moment, they’re probably hoping John Romita JR is enough to sell the book, I love his work but I’m not sure that strategy is sound. It sure doesn’t seem to be working on Wonder Woman…

Speaking of which…

The Danger Zone

Glenn: Despite having an a-list artist in David Finch, it seems that the new direction Wonder Woman has taken has got it slowly dripping down the charts. It doesn’t seem that Batgirl is holding up too healthy after Gail Simone left, despite its near complete revamp. The book has been the subject of a lot of controversy over the past couple of months and while any kind of press can be seen as good press, that doesn’t seem to be the case here.

Those numbers for Aquaman and the Others just make you kind of cringe a little. Like you say though a lot of the low-mid selling performers are just clinging on until both DC and Marvel both try to reinvent themselves over the Summer. It’s crazy to think that by the end of the year both lines from both companies may look completely different.

Most of the rest of the low sellers are the usual other media properties. I wonder how happy BOOM is with the sales of Munchkin given how insanely popular the game is at the moment? I’d imagine this is a book that actually see a lot of success outside of the main market.

Then you have the likes of Tomb Raider, Doctor Who, Zenescope and the usual…oh and one of your favorites…Klarion.

Ray: I think Batgirl is holding up okay, for a quirky female-led Bat-book without any big-name creators on board. This title hasn’t been for everyone, but I salute DC for taking one of their biggest-name female heroes and giving the book a total makeover for this new comic book market. It’s hard not to see the book as a response to books like Ms. Marvel and the Kate Bishop-led Hawkeye run, but it’s the biggest success of the lot. And I think it’s likely Supergirl will get a similar makeover when they relaunch her title to tie-in with the TV show, no doubt.

Wonder Woman seems to be in trouble, though. I mean, it’s one of the flagship titles and it’s going nowhere, clearly, but it’s already run into massive delays with the annual being delayed from April 1st to June. We saw the impact those kinds of delays had on another title, Hawkeye, which dipped all the way down to #56 with its return this month.

It looks like DC is culling almost all its low performers besides Lobo, giving a few relaunches, and calling it a day on the rest. I expect Marvel will probably do the same in a few months, although they’re in a bit of a fix. They’ve made much more noise about their commitment to diverse and female-led titles, enlisting the mainstream media to push their efforts. Are they willing to commit to those titles even when the sales aren’t holding up on books like Storm or Mighty Avengers?

What you mentioned about Munchkin illustrates how hard it is for licensed properties lately. I do wonder if they’re having strong sales in game stores to make up for it, though. And then you have a title like Lumberjanes, with tons of critical acclaim and appealing to the new comic market, with only 8.4K sales. It might be that bookstore sales are making up the difference, there.

Glenn: I suppose the story will be in how long these titles last!

Coming Up Next Month!

Glenn: Next month it seems like more of the same, just waiting for the market to implode upon the arrival of the big two’s monster events.

Ray: Yeah, March is probably the quietest month of the year in terms of debuts. Still, there are some interesting subplots going on in the sales.

Marvel launched two new series, their last before Secret Wars. First is All-New Hawkeye, with a top-tier creative team. But the first series has been plagued by nightmarish delays, with the final issue tentatively set to come out almost two months after the new series launched. The Fraction series has obviously suffered in sales, and I’m hoping the new series can rebound.

Then there’s Howard the Duck. At the very least, I applaud Marvel for ambition. Their other foray into comedy, Squirrel Girl, is on its way out of the top hundred, but Howard has a higher-profile creative team and seems more geared towards traditional comic fans. It’ll be interesting to see if it can capture a bit of that Harley Quinn comedy support.

From other publishers, there’s quite a few interesting launches. Southern Cross and Invisible Republic from Image, both futuristic sci-fi thrillers, are making their debuts. The Dodsons are attached to Cold War-era superhero thriller Red One. Matt Kindt, always prolific, has a new series from Dark Horse called PastAways. I’ll be interesting to see if any of these can break out. Mark Millar and Sean Murphy’s latest widescreen concept, Chrononauts will likely make the biggest splash on the charts, though.

Of course, then comes Convergence in April, followed by Secret Wars in May and the DC relaunch in June – followed, of course, by something big from Marvel come the conclusion of Secret Wars. If it is the long-rumored reboot, that is going to have a massive impact.

Glenn: Before we finish off, I wonder how fans feel about the start of the new Hawkeye series before the completion of the old one?

I don’t really recall anything like this since the end of Old Man Logan, I must admit. I think this is Lemire’s first Marvel work so he probably is a bit puzzled (he may not care at all).

This may be Fraction’s last work at Marvel as he seems to be moving solely over to creator owned, so it’s not leaving on the best note (although, it is likely the delay has nothing to do with him).

Ray: It happened a few times at DC, too. Allan Heinberg’s Wonder Woman run ended over a year late and new comics came out in the meantime. There was also a small case of this at Marvel this month, where a Black Vortex tie-in issue of All-New X-Men came out before the previous issue of the title, which was unrelated. However, Hawkeye seems to be fairly disconnected from continuity, so the impact might be minimized. I think the bigger worry is that most fans simply forgot about the book during almost six months between issues.ere was also a small case of this at Marvel this month, where a Black Vortex tie-in issue of All-New X-Men came out before the previous issue of the title, which was unrelated.

Glenn: I think what we’ve learned is that you have a better memory of what’s coming out month to month than I do. This is what you get from ordering your books 3 months in advance…

Ray: I cheat using Midtown Comics order forms, heh. Incredibly useful.

Until next month, then!

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