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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2014 9:26:18 GMT -5
Word is Amazing Spider-Man #1 did somewhere in the range of 700,000 copies. For those of you who have visited your comic stores recently, has #1 been moving briskly? I'm wondering if there will be a 2nd printing or if the market has been flooded?  |
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Post by Randle-El on May 11, 2014 13:44:39 GMT -5
Word is Amazing Spider-Man #1 did somewhere in the range of 700,000 copies. For those of you who have visited your comic stores recently, has #1 been moving briskly? I'm wondering if there will be a 2nd printing or if the market has been flooded? I saw a pile of what looked to be about a dozen unsold copies of #1 at my local store when I was in on Saturday. Granted, it's not the biggest nor busiest store in my area, but I thought it was noteworthy for such a high profile #1. |
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2014 13:48:53 GMT -5
I only saw four or five copies, but they were all store-specific variants.
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on May 11, 2014 14:08:49 GMT -5
I was at a Newbury Comics today - which probably is not a good gauge, as they are more about music than comics - but they had a lot of copies sitting around. They had two normal copies, one variant copy and then about 15-20 Newbury Comics store specific variants as well.
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on May 11, 2014 14:59:00 GMT -5
Tried a couple new comics today.
I read Rat Queens #6 and then #1. I'm on the fence. Starting with #6 - which was what was available to me - probably didn't help. Even though it's the first issue of a new arc, it was clearly in the middle of something and didn't feel like a great jumping on point. The main problem I had was that there felt like a bit of a storytelling disconnect. I'm not sure how the creative process works for Wiebe and Upchurch, but it read to me like Wiebe was doing it full script and Upchurch wasn't quite hitting the right beats with his art.
Not that his art is bad; it's not, it's pretty cool. But there were several moments in the first half of the issue where the dialogue has an inflection, for lack of a better word, implying that the character is reacting to something another character is doing non-verbally, only it's something we haven't actually been shown. Like, Character A will say something that makes it seem like they are reacting to character B rolling their eyes, only Upchurch didn't draw that. So as a reader, I had to do a lot of work to figure out exactly what was going on. It ended up feeling very choppy as a result.
As an example, there was one bit where a character makes a comment in response to something another character has just said - except, the whole thing is actually a new scene, with no transition at all. So not only do we not get the dialogue they are responding to, we have to figure out that it's a new scene, taking place some period of time later, and they are responding to a character that wasn't even in the previous scene.
The writing itself seemed fine in terms of dialogue and stuff, but there just seemed to be a disconnect between what Wiebe thought he was writing and what Upchurch was actually drawing. It could have been a lot smoother.
On the other hand, I then had a chance to read #1, and it was much more engaging. It also had a much simpler task - to introduce the characters - which I think helped. So, I dunno. I'll probably get the first arc and decide after that if I want to keep reading or not. I think I see why people who like it love it, it has potential, I'm just not sure from my sample size if it's meeting that potential or not. Plus, there were a couple "too clever for their own good" anachronistic moments, which are always a red flag for me with fantasy stories. But I'll give it a chance.
I also tried out Ms. Marvel #1-2. Like Rat Queens, I'm on the fence whether or not I want to keep reading. i thought it was very well done, with interesting art. I'm just not sure I want to read a teen drama at the moment. Usually, I like that sort of thing when it is well done, but maybe I'm just getting old, because I'm not sure I want to go through all the high school angst again. The take seems fresh, but the one drawback universal themes have is that we've seen them all before. So, I don't know on this one either. I might pick up #3 and see if it grabs me yet.
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2014 15:33:06 GMT -5
Tried a couple new comics today. I read Rat Queens #6 and then #1. I'm on the fence. Starting with #6 - which was what was available to me - probably didn't help. Even though it's the first issue of a new arc, it was clearly in the middle of something and didn't feel like a great jumping on point. The main problem I had was that there felt like a bit of a storytelling disconnect. I'm not sure how the creative process works for Wiebe and Upchurch, but it read to me like Wiebe was doing it full script and Upchurch wasn't quite hitting the right beats with his art. Not that his art is bad; it's not, it's pretty cool. The art is awesome! Here's a page that's free of F-Bombs and titty flash...  Although #6 does start a new arc, I'd recommend readers get the first 5 issues. My copy is still on the way.... |
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Post by DubipR on May 11, 2014 15:53:49 GMT -5
The new Spider-Man sold extremely well here in the stores around me. One of my stores blew through 250 themselves, including whatever variants they had.
It's nice to see a comic get some push, but the timing of it pushed it further with the week of the film's release and Free Comic Book Day, made that a smashing success.
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Post by maddog1981 on May 11, 2014 15:59:11 GMT -5
My store always has a lot of extras of issues sitting around but there were surprisingly fewer of these than I expected. I remember there being piles of Walking Dead #100 and Uncanny Avengers #1 but I would say this was about average for the over ordering they do.
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on May 11, 2014 16:09:46 GMT -5
CBR has a free preview of the first several pages of Rat Queens #6, which they bill as a "perfect jump-on point:" www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=21515Re-reading it now, some of the choppiness I experienced reading it the first time was due to carry-over from the last arc, where the reader is supposed to know wtf is going on, jumping on point or not. Some of it, though, is due to some minor storytelling quirks that could be fixed easily. For example, page two, panels two and three. In panel three she responds to a look the guy is apparently shooting her, except because Upchurch has laid it out with the girl on the left and the guy on the right of the panel, you read her response before you see his expression. Simply reversing their position to match up with how people read, left to right, would have made the panel work better. There are a couple other things like this later in the sample as well. Minor details, but enough of them combined with the expectation that the reader already knows what is going on and who everyone is (like the bit at the end of page 4) made it a slightly bumpy read for me - and unnecessarily bumpy. But like I said, I'm going to give #1-5 a chance. I suspect these minor things in #6 may bother me less in context. It just didn't feel like a great jumping on entry point even though it's being touted as such. I'd love it if someone could read this preview and tell me if I am imagining this or not. |
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2014 17:43:27 GMT -5
I'd love it if someone could read this preview and tell me if I am imagining this or not. Maybe not imagining...you're like one of those persons who can spot bloopers in a movie while everyone else is just too absorbed in it otherwise to notice (but that's how you are conditioned as a reader)  But yeah, do try the first 5....I did and enjoyed #6 all the same (saw it online, couldn't wait, but my actual copy is on its way). |
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2014 17:50:25 GMT -5
The new Spider-Man sold extremely well here in the stores around me. One of my stores blew through 250 themselves, including whatever variants they had. It's nice to see a comic get some push, but the timing of it pushed it further with the week of the film's release and Free Comic Book Day, made that a smashing success. I'm not sure how to multi-quote so I'm only quoting one response here  My dealer is down to his extras, we have about 15+ copies (whittled down from about 40 on Saturday morning)...those should last maybe 1-2 days. If there's still demand after that we might just order some of those lots available on Ebay which are about half-cover... And as usual, we have more people asking for the exclusive Midtown cover after seeing what it looked like, but they're all gone. |
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2014 19:45:21 GMT -5
Word is Amazing Spider-Man #1 did somewhere in the range of 700,000 copies. For those of you who have visited your comic stores recently, has #1 been moving briskly? I'm wondering if there will be a 2nd printing or if the market has been flooded? Word is somewhere between 60-70% of the copies shipped form Diamond damaged, including whole print runs of certain store variants. I know over a third of the copies we ordered at our shop came in with the top corner frayed and others had creases and bends in the front and back covers. We notified Diamond of our damages but haven't received replacement copies yet. We had enough to cover pull lists, but no copies made it on to the shelves to sell because of the damages. Bleeding Cool had a story about it, but I don't have the link handy. What it means potentially is that there may not be a lot of copies available for reorders, and a lot fewer actually sold than shipped via Diamond because of the damages. -M |
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Post by numberthirty on May 11, 2014 20:48:04 GMT -5
As for Moon Knight, I really want to like it, as I am a huge Warren Ellis fan, but this is stretching my limits of tolerance. The problem with this book is that it really isn't a Moon Knight book; it's a Warren Ellis-written book that happens to have Moon Knight in it, much as the Morrison X-Men era was him telling stories he wanted to that had the X-Men as characters but it could have been any characters really and the stories would have turned out the same. The art in Moon Knight is gorgeous, but the stories, by and large, are thread-bare with little dialogue and virtually nothing that could be built on for the future. It literally took me 3 minutes to leaf through the latest issue and go "huh" at the end. It feels like a combination of elements of older Moon Knight runs and the approach used in Global Frequency. It also seems like he said he planned to be on the title for a year. That would mean building on what is happening now is possible but not a necessity. |
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2014 21:03:22 GMT -5
Shopping list for Wednesday May 14th 2014...
Dark Horse
Star Wars #17
DC
Spectre Vol. 1 Crimes ad Judgments (finally collecting the Ostrader/Mandrake run, I have it all already in single issues and the original 4 issue trade, but I am getting these to support the collection of this type of material since I have been asking for it for so long...)
Marvel
Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #1 (well we'll give it a try...)
Archie
Afterlife with Archie #5
and apparently the Diamond list was wrong for last week and Astro City is coming out this week, or my shop didn't get any copies last week...
-M
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on May 11, 2014 22:07:25 GMT -5
I'd love it if someone could read this preview and tell me if I am imagining this or not. Maybe not imagining...you're like one of those persons who can spot bloopers in a movie while everyone else is just too absorbed in it otherwise to notice (but that's how you are conditioned as a reader) But yeah, do try the first 5....I did and enjoyed #6 all the same (saw it online, couldn't wait, but my actual copy is on its way). Usually I'm not like that, especially at movies. It drives me crazy when I'm watching a movie and into the story and someone makes some comment about some picayune detail. I remember I was at the theater watching Gladiator with a friend and during the sequence where the gladiatorial slave revolt, my friend leaned over and said, "Those tunics are all wrong, the Romans wouldn't have had a dye in that shade of blue." Like, WTF?! In this case, though, there were just enough small bits that made me stop and think about what I was reading that it took me out of the story. Another is the transition from the bottom of page 5 to the top of page 6. In terms of writing, it's a classic comic book segue, was Wiebe ends one page on a cliffhanger, which transitions into a new scene. The problem for me though is that Upchurch didn't quite make the new scene obvious enough at first glance - it cuts from the group standing around talking to the group standing around talking with a vaguely different background. I had to read the dialogue in the panel a couple of times to get that it was a new scene and not a continuation of the old scene, whereas if there had been more of an establishing shot for the new scene it would have been a much smoother reading experience. Not a deal breaker or anything, but there were four or five of those moments for me in the first six pages and it just made it a choppy way to get introduced to the series. All that aside, I have a good feeling about this series going forward, so... ... I am now going to engage in some conversation probably nobody else on this site cares about. Which is whether Rat Queens #1 is worth speculating on. Classic Comic Curmudgeons, cover your eyes and block your ears! INCREDIBLY LONG SPECULATION MONOLOGUE STARTS HERE.
I think it might be worth looking into. In fact, I bought 10 copies of it today, the first time I have speculated on something in probably 20 years. I just have a good feeling, but I also did some research, and while it doesn't seem at first like this is a good bet just because of distribution numbers, after crunching those numbers a little more I changed my mind.
Here are the sales figures for the first five issues:
1 - 21,745
2 - 12,335
3 - 11,967
4 - 11,553
5 - 11,121
Obviously, the first number that jumps out is the fact that there were nearly 10k more copies sold of #1 than #2. That suggests a high level of speculation. Which makes sense given what happened with Kurtis Wiebe's last series, Peter Panzerfaust. That book sold only about 5k copies of #1, then it got a TV development deal and prices went through the roof. So no doubt some people were trying to make sure they didn't miss the boat again, plus when a creator gets a development deal for one project, it means he often gets it for his other projects as well.
So at first blush it seems as though there are 10k or so extra copies of Rat Queens #1 in speculators hands, which suggests that it's going to be hard for this to take off because supply is high compared to demand.
However, after looking around on ebay, I discovered that some retailers still have bulk lots of Rat Queens #1 for sale at essentially cover price. That's what I paid for my 10 copy order today. Why would speculators be dumping books at cover price already? The answer is that they aren't - instead, the inflated initial sales of Rat Queens #1 are due at least in part because retailers over ordered it in order to get the chase variant.
Rat Queens #1 had a 1:10 variant cover by Fiona Staples. So there are roughly 20k normal copies and 2k Staples variants. So a lot of retailers ordered extra copies of the regular edition in order to get the chase variant. The effect on the number of copies is the same, but it suggests that speculators may still have been sleeping on Rat Queens. And it also means it's still possible to get in on the bandwagon before it goes crazy.
And I think there is potential here. First, there is a lot of buzz - people who like the series tend to love it and recommend it to people, like Cold Water on these forums. Secondly, the sales figures show that it held really well over the first arc. Given that the first issue figures were inflated, the decline from #2 to #5 was pretty darn mild. So once people read it, they tend to stick with it. Which is important because, thirdly, the first TPB collecting the first arc just came out, which will expose the series to a lot of new readers - and potential collectors.
Look no further than what happened to Saga for an example of how the first trade can impact popularity. If you look for back issues now, it's the first six that command the huge prices, because of all the people who started collecting when the trade came out between #6 and #7. Interestingly, while sales are certainly higher now for Saga than they were when they started out, they aren't that much higher. Saga #1 sold 37,641 copies. Now it sells 55k copies. That difference of 18k readers has caused #1 to jump to $80-100 each. Between Saga #6 and 7, though, the TPB sold 15k copies - basically bringing in all those new readers. The latest collection vol. 3, sold 21k copies last month.
The first Rat Queens tpb came out last month and sold 3695 copies. On a % basis of its regular fan base, it sold a little bit less than the first Saga tpb did - Saga sold about 40%, while Rat Queens did 32%. But it's still a strong number. Now, if Rat Queens gets the same bump of new readers of the monthly book that Saga did, we could see that 11k circulation jump up to the 15k range by issue 8 or 9.
Would that be enough to start moving the price of #1 upwards? In and of itself, maybe not. But if it were to maintain that level - and maintain growing through the next arc and tpb - I think it's very possible #1 could start to move even with the extra 8-10k copies floating around. Look at Hawkeye #1 for an even better example. Hawkeye #1 sold 37k copies. Circulation is now at 35k as of the most recent issue. So supply should equal demand. But all those TPB readers factor in, which is why on Friday alone, four copies of Hawkeye #1 sold on ebay for between $30-36!
So that's the weird math I am using for Rat Queens #1. Even with the glut of extra #1 copies in circulation, if the book simply maintains its monthly popularity and gains new readers in TPB form, #1 will slowly become in demand like Hawkeye. If the TPB sales actually adds monthly readers as well, though, then #1 will really start to move, as it did with Saga. And since the book is holding so well among those who read it, and has such good word of mouth to get new people to read it, I think there's a very good chance the book will indeed pick up new readers as it goes. I expect circulation numbers to start rising around #8 or #9 as people start reading the tpb and adding the comic to their pull lists.
Of course... the existence of the Staples variant puts a wrinkle in things. Will all the collecting focus go to the variant since there are so many normal copies available? There's actually an even rarer third variant, a blank variant, which further complicates things in ways I don't want to even think about at the moment. This may be one of the few instances - maybe the only - where because of rarity, a blank cover is worth more blank than with original art on it.
Anyway, we'll see. My guess is Rat Queens #1 is going to pick up despite the fact it was speculated on. I sure hope so, now that I have bought all these extra copies! if not, well, I'll have some cool comics to give people I guess.
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