I have no idea if The Shade has “The” in its title, or if Huntress doesn’t, and I’m not going to check. So there.
So Trevor A asked in a comment yesterday if I’d discuss some of DC’s post-New 52 titles and how they’re doing in this brave new retail world. The two he mentions specifically are The Shade and Huntress, and…they’re both doing…okay, I suppose, with Huntress selling just slightly better. They’re definitely at the low end of the sales scale when compared to the New 52 line…not as low as Static Shock or I, Vampire, but maybe around Voodoo levels. Not great, but they seem to be consistent from issue to issue at least, enough so that when I heard that talk about The Shade mini-series possibly getting canned halfway through, I was a bit surprised. It doesn’t seem likely now, as that would be definite egg in DC’s face if they had to cut a mini-series short so soon after their big publishing initiative.
Plus, not that I’m some big publishing marketing genius or anything, but I’d think there’d be a payoff in finishing the mini and collecting it into a trade as a companion to the Starman series it spun off from. …Which of course begs the question why they wouldn’t just go straight to graphic novel format to begin with, but that wouldn’t be a strategy they’d take with a third-stringer like the Shade, I’d imagine.
Well, that went off on a tangent a bit. So, Trevor A, what I’m trying to tell you is that those two series at least are selling okay, if not great. Other post-52 series like T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and My Greatest Adventure are selling about as well, with Penguin: Pain and Prejudice being kind of the surprise hit, necessitating multiple reorders to fill back issue requests.
In other news:
- Super-Team Family presents…Swamp Thing and Man-Thing!
- A new storyline over at The Rack begins with Three Days of the Con, Part One.
- Tony Isabella re-presents: Watchmen 2: Rorschach’s Revenge.
- REMINDER: you need more robot detectives in your life. Thus, Copernicus Jones.
- Oh, right…this isn’t a link to anything, but I wanted to thank longtime reader and commenter philip (with the lowercase “p”) for dropping by the store and daring to meet me in person, thus getting to see me in my natural unshaved and mostly undyed state. I of course thanked him for his visit by prying as much money as I could out of his hands. Thanks, philip, for coming by!
- Pals Dorian and Ken have another batch cooked up of those movie trailer reviews that I like so much.
- Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull That Walks Like A Little Stuffed Bull, brings us all what we didn’t know we wanted, but what we definitely needed: 366 Days of Alfred Pennyworth. …It is far more than we deserve.
- Also, I wanted to thank all of you for still coming back and reading my site. December was…not a great month for me, with health issues and working extra hours and just plain getting a bit burnt out, which of course affected content here. I’m feeling a lot better now, so hopefully everything will be up and running here as normal. Or whatever passes for normal. …Thanks, gang, and I’ll see you tomorrow.
I have a request for the New Year, Mike: no more apologizing or feeling guilty about low blog content when something is going on with your health or anything else in meatspace.
You provide us with plenty of free entertainment, and I don’t think anybody is going to stop clicking over here because you were sick or you know, selling physical copies of comics to live humans.
I love the new right-hand corner pic. Those damn Nazi’s, burying Sgt. Rock in the sand and setting loose their Nazi fire ants on him. Sgt. Rock will have some payback on their heads when he gets out of there….
That “Super-Team Family” link is awesome. :)
I don’t really expect ANYONE to come up with 365 super-amazing posts a year. Most of your posts are informative or funny,and if every once in a while there’s one that’s just a Swamp Thing scan,so what? It only cost me a click. I just read the scanned page and move on.
I don’t comment on this site a lot,but I do read every article. It’s my favorite comics blog.
Mr. Sterling, I hope you are enjoying my money as much as I am enjoying my new hardcover of Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane. That’s good comics!
I’m among those folks who aren’t buying The Shade’s maxi-series in single issues. Why? Because I just bought all of STARMAN in hardcover editions, and I want a hardback of THE SHADE right next to them.
Thanks for the plug. I must learn how to include a blogs I love list on my blog, because I sure do love progressive ruin.
Old Bull Lee (or “Ol’ B. Lizzle” as nobody calls him) is right, don’t stress over few off days. This is the only comic blog I still visit on a daily basis and it’s always worthwhile.
All the Swamp Thing content is always welcome as far as I’m concerned, links included. I was feeling adventureous today, went to my city’s major (and as of lately ONLY) comicbook store’s website, searched for “Swamp Thing” comics and came up with “No results found”. Doesn’t it make you weep, Mike? I know I weeped. The only Swamp Thing comicbook I own is a Batman issue where he brings Killer Croc to the swamp. It’s not hard getting comics here, but it’s hard getting Swamp Thing comics here, unless I wanna ship them all the way from US (or download them, but that doesn’t really count).
This blog rocks Mike! You are consistantly funny & have good posts & good links. Don’t appologize, just do your thing. We’ll keep coming back for more.