Mike has to do all his Christmas shopping today, so think good thoughts for him.
- A quick follow-up on the whole League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier thing from yesterday…when I was doing reorders on Sunday, I noticed that the “variant cover” edition of the hardcover was still available from Diamond. ‘Course, too late to do us any good, since by the time we receive it, it’ll be Christmas, or just about.
However, I did try to reorder the Wanted graphic novel while there’s currently some interest in it due to the forthcoming film adaptation. I hear tell the trailer looks…er, less than promising, but I haven’t seen it yet myself. Okay, you know, I’m going to go look for it online right now, and I’ll return to composing this post as soon as I’ve seen it. Hold on a moment.
(tempus fugit)
Woo boy. All those people looking for the graphic novel based on what they saw in the trailer are going to be unpleasantly surprised. “Hey, what’s with all this superhero crap?”
It’s a moot point, anyway, since the graphic novel is currently unavailable. Figures.
- Speaking of trailers, apparently there’s a new Batman movie coming soon.
I forget where I saw this…I think it was from one of my Twitter pals, but man oh man, look at all the websites Warner Brothers put up for this movie. Remember those names, because they’re going to turn into spam/porn sites soon as Warner Bros. stops renewing those domains.
- A few days ago I was going on about the Watchmen book and how the movie may negatively impact sales after its release. Well, with the movie still a threat lurking over the horizon, the book sales are still strong…we sold through our restock from last Wednesday over the weekend.
On a related topic, this gentleman is running a poll on who may or may not have read Watchmen, divided by “comic readers” and “non-comic readers.” Unsurprisingly “comic readers who have read Watchmen” are leading by a wide margin.
- Rich from Cable and Tweed had this question for me in my comments section from yesterday:
“…Does the negative online and verbal reaction to Ultimates 3 translate to shops ordering fewer copies? I know it was a hyped-up #1 and all, but I’m pretty sure my local shops all sold out.”
Well, the online reaction, not as such. There’s usually a pretty wide gulf between what online fans are saying and what the people who walk into stores are actually buying. Case in point: Countdown, Countdown: Arena, All Star Batman…all reviled online, all sell great for us at our shop.
Verbal reaction from our customers in the shop…yeah, we should pay attention to that, but here’s the thing. Comic fans may complain about the comics they read, online and in the real world, but a good amount of the time, they’re still buying the books they’re complaining about. (Assuming they’re actually buying, and not just mooching free reads off online scans or at the chain bookstores.)
Now, there was no way Ultimates 3 #1 was not going to sell well…it was a highly anticipated book, and curiosity value was high due to the new creative team. That it ended up being crap is not an issue…well, not yet, and I’ll get to that in a second. Even if the word-of-mouth is that the book is bad, it’s still going to sell because 1) it’s a number one, 2) it’s a Marvel number one, 3) it’s a Marvel number one in its Ultimate line, and 4) that Battle Chasers guy is drawing it, and he still somehow has fans despite not having a whole lot of work in the industry over the last decade.
We can’t drop orders yet based on customers’ complaints because, as I said, comic fans can have the habit of continuing to buy books they don’t like to “maintain the collection,” or to follow a particular character they like, or whatever. So, we’re going to have to wait and see how issue #2 does before we start making any drastic changes to our order numbers. Some minor adjustment downward, sure, and maybe even lower if we start getting our comic saver folks cutting the title from their lists, but it’s still too early to say for sure if Marvel has a dog on their hands.
And, you know, as noted in that comments section from yesterday, some people did like Ultimates 3 #1. And, sincerely, good for them. Every comic, no matter how low your opinion of it, has its fans.
