“In prime condition – a real bargain.”
- As reported on my Twitter-thingie last week, some local upright citizen decided to beautify our backdoors:
Or at least attempted to, since he was apparently interrupted and didn’t get to finish. Hmmm…that’s definitely an “S,” and that looks kind of like he was going to paint an “I” — so, Sims, where were you the night of December 1st? - Pal Dorian sent around a link to this article, forecasting big, big sales for the Watchmen trade paperback as the movie looms ever closer.
Longtime readers of this site know my experience with this…movie-related comics tend to peak in sales just before the movie’s release, before dropping down to pre-movie hype sales (or even lower) upon or shortly after the film’s debut. It happened with V for Vendetta, the first Spider-Man movie, From Hell, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and so on. And, judging by customer demand, trade sales could have been bumped upwards by the Sin City and Hellboy movies, but since Dark Horse was incapable of supplying those books to the direct market during peak demand, that’s all theoretical.
The Watchmen movie is the real test, however. The Watchmen graphic novel has been a consistent, constant seller for years. I don’t have the numbers right in front of me, but I imagine it probably outsells several new graphic novels from Marvel and DC in any given month. It has a legendary status within the hobby, and at least some minor amount of recognition outside the hobby. I’m still reordering copies every week…and just when I think that there’s no possibly way everyone hasn’t read this book by now, I sell more copies.
Now, at this point there’s little chance that this movie is going to sink without a trace. It’s a big-budget superhero movie, and it’s gonna get noticed by the general public. Sometime late next year, and especially early ’09, we’re gonna be sick of seeing that smiley-face-with-blood-splash symbol all over everything advertising this flick. So, this movie will almost certainly enter the public consciousness.
If the movie’s good, the comic will become superfluous. “I’ve seen the movie…I don’t need to read the comic.” If the movie’s bad, it’ll be people in the store pointing at the book on the shelf and saying “Oh, yeah, Watchmen…that was a crap movie. Look, there’s a comic based on it!” And then they’ll laugh. (This is also known as the “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Effect.”)
I exaggerate slightly, but not much. V for Vendetta still sells, for example, but not nearly at the numbers it used to. I expect something similar to happen to Watchmen. Hopefully the movie will be at least watchable, so I don’t have the additional burden of trying to convince customers that, yes, this comic is good, no really, it’s not like the movie. (This is known as the “Howard the Duck Effect.”)
- Kid Chris has my back on the movies/comics thing. Also, speaking of Kid Chris…sort of, since he’s absent from the podcast again, the Bispectacult has a new podcast up, entitled “Mary Jane Must Die!” Oh, goodness me. And that darn Dafna has the potty mouth, mind you, so keep those speakers turned down at work.
- Here’s what may be my favorite last line of a comic book, ever, from Barbaric Tales #1 (1986). A barbarian sneaks into a stronghold to confront the sorceress who killed his people. She says to him:
“You seek your revenge with twisted words! An ill-phrased epitath [sic] for an ignorant savage! […] Behold, barbarian…I will slay you as I did your clan…with words!”
As she begins to cast her spell, the barbarian runs her through with his sword, slaying her. And, as he departs, he rubs it in with a little clever wordplay:
Employee Aaron dug up this comic while filing some books, and showed me this story. I was literally flabbergasted, and I do not flabbergast easily. - Comic creator insults Ragnell, then begs for a review and link, proceeds to get what she was asking for.
- I was poking through the recent Super Sons trade that DC put out, reprinting the Bob Haney “Sons of Superman and Batman” adventures from the ’70s, and noticed that it included the Super Sons story from the Elseworlds 80 Page Giant. You know, the Giant that was ordered pulped by the publisher, because someone was a big ol’ girl’s blouse and was afraid that an element in the story where a baby Superman is babysat (baby Supes sitting in the microwave) would be imitated by the theoretical and mostly imaginary children who’d be reading this comic aimed at men in their 40s. So, being reminded of that just annoyed me, particularly since DC was later shamed into printing said Superman’s Babysitter story (by Kyle Baker) when it won an Eisner award or two, thus making all the brouhaha kinda moot anyway.
Another thing the Super Sons book reminded me of, and I’m sure someone out there in the comics internet already pointed out…in current DC continuity, we have Chris, the Kryptonian kid being raised by Clark and Lois…and we have Damian, the son of Batman.
Dude…NEW SUPER SONS STORIES. Surely this must happen.
- Wha…what…? I didn’t see this in the latest issue of Star Wars Insider, did I?
OH SWEET HEAVENS THEY’RE NOT JOKING.Though, God help me, I like the R2D2 shirt:
[…] discussion about whether or not movies lead people to comics is an old one. I prefer to let Mike Sterling have the last word on it, because a) he’s a retailer and most people who argue about this aren’t, and b) it makes […]