“Trust me, the new creative team on T-bolts had nothing to do with the sales increase on that series. It’s all about Obama,variant covers,and DARK REIGN.”

I’m buying it for Andy Diggle (and to a lesser extent Eric O’Grady), so it’s not “all” about gimmicks. I can’t be the only one.

Is 71k an all-history low for Uncanny X-Men?

I didn’t read the other two, but at least in the case of Agents of Atlas, this is untrue. There was no “Director’s Cut” material in Agents #1, just a backup story (although admittedly, one that guest-starred Wolverine). And it was pretty good, too.

1. The gimmicks I’m talking about are 1 in 10 or 1 in 25 variant covers that are designed to boost sales on a book by trying to get dealers to order a certain amount of copies of a comic in order to get one variant cover. Then there are the huge event crossovers and the mainstream media grabbing stunts like the death of Captain America,Spidey revealing his secret ID,and Obama guest starring in the comics.

2. Trust me, the new creative team on T-bolts had nothing to do with the sales increase on that series. It’s all about Obama,variant covers,and DARK REIGN.

3. Yep, by marrying Storm and BP, Hudlin (with the blessing of the incompetent Hollywood star struck Marvel editorial regime) single handedly ruined both Storm and BP.

5. IMO, no matter who is writing the book, dumb Hulk is a one note boring character and has been played out 30 years ago.

6. My point is/was that just because you put a more popular and/or critically acclaimed writer on a book DOES NOT mean that falling sales on said book will either rise or stop falling.

Odd choice to blame Uncanny’s current travails on replacing him, therefore. Book’s crap, granted, but putting Claremont-as-he-is-now on it would go precisely no way towards improving that.

Getting the medium *out* of the superhero ghetto.

If there are 10,000 people regularly visiting comic shops, you’re not going to be able to float *any* genre book, including superheroes.

If there are 10,000,000 people regularly visiting comic shops, you’re going to be able to float almost any genre book, from sword and sorcery to spies to, yes, superheroes.

It’s in everybody’s benefit to get more people in the door.

1. Which gimmicks are you talking about? I can’t remember much from Marvel lately that was all gimmick and no substance (like some of those awful glow in the dark die cut chromium books of the 90s). The biggest gimmick of them all, the Obama Spidey issue, actually had a pretty good lead story in it (though the Obama story was a bit dodgy).

2. Didn’t a new creative team take over Thunderbolts around the same time as the Dark Reign stuff started? That could also have something to do with the uptick in sales.

3. Agreed that Hudlin’s Black Panther book has absolutely no reason to exist. I hate that Storm’s gotten mixed up in that mess. Heck, I hate that the Panther’s gotten mixed up in that mess, which is a pale shadow of the work that Priest did on the book. Ms. Marvel is OK, but seems to have lost its direction. It seemed like the writer had a bit of a plan in the first year, but it’s careened from one status quo to another since.

5. I don’t know that it’s the dumb Hulk that’s turning people off so much as it’s the dumb writer and dumb stories that’s turning people off. That and, as somebody said earlier, “blue balls” over stringing out Red Hulk’s identity. (It was a dumb idea to start with, and whoever it ends up being will almost certainly be a letdown.)

6. Uncanny’s probably better under Fraction than it would be under Claremont at this point (and I say that as a guy that grew up worshipping Claremont’s X-Men work and still hold that stuff in the highest esteem), but I wish the book and the line as a whole were tightened up. If things were more focused, with more happening in each issue and with events working toward some coherent story point, it would be a lot better. (Yes, Claremont had danglers galore and kind of meandered at time, but the book almost always gave the impression of some kind of direction and momentum when he was writing it, even if you didn’t know exactly where it was going.)

Something’s definitely going wrong with HULK’s numbers too, and I’m sure anti-Loeb people will have lots to say about that.

1. It seems that the gimmicks are SLOWLY (but not completely) loosing their effectiveness to boost sales on books. It looks like fans,dealers,and speculators are finally realizing that these gimmick issues aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.

2. IIRC, Obama has been appearing in the last few issues of THUNDERBOLTS, which is why (along with taking part in the whole DARK REIGN crap) sales are still up on the book.

3. The low sales on the non gimmick issues of MS. MARVEL and BLACK PANTHER has nothing to do with the writers of those books (even though Hudlin’s BP book, IMO, is not very good), but has everything to do with the characters in those books not being able to sustain/carry their own ongoing solo titles.

4. Good word of mouth MIGHT be the reason why CB&MI-13 had a sales boost, but I could be wrong.

5. The reason sales on HULK are falling is because (a) MOST people don’t like the dumb “Hulk smash” version of the character and (b) the gimmicks (the hype behind Red Hulk and variant covers) are loosing their effectiveness to boost sales on the book.

6. Notice how putting a high profile popular and critically acclaimed writer on UNCANNY X-MEN hasn’t stopped sales from falling like a rock on that series. I guess all of those internet fans who said if you fired Claremont off the book and put a “hot” modern writer on the book sales would rise, were wrong. I predict that sales on the newly relaunched EXILES series will also continue to fall (after the initial sales boost for the first issue due to the variant cover).

Plus the numbers on those titles are not all that great given they were all tie-ins. You could even argue that Secret Warriors could be considered disappointing given it had Bendis’ name on the cover, numerous in-house previews and they weren’t exactly new characters. Even though they dropped the ball on them during Secret Invasion, there was enough of a background there.

Those Incognito numbers are excellent though, hopefully they will continue throughout the series.

I’m not sure I understand your point. Among the books you list as being published by Marvel continuously for the past 6 months, about half have lost 25% or more of their sales in that time. I’m not sure how the cancellation of even lower selling titles and their replacement, usually, by books that start out with higher sales but fall fairly quickly, absent any sales-boosting gimmicks, affects my contention at all.

Mike

Mike

The same argument can be made about CAPTAIN AMERICA and HULK, two other titles that will hit their 600th issues in the coming months. Cap’s book started with issue #100 and Hulk’s, with #102; taking over the numbering of TALES OF SUSPENSE and TALES TO ASTONISH, respectively. And, just as THOR’s numbering ignored the return of JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY during Heroes Reborn, HULK’s numbering will ignore the current INCREDIBLE HERCULES title that hijacked the Hulk’s previous series.

The only forthcoming anniversary renumbering that is, actually, legit is DAREDEVIL. Volume 1 ran 380 issues, issue #500 will happen with, what would have been, the 120th issue of Volume 2.

Still, I think they need to consolidate of their own accord before things implode on their own.

Marvel gave away free copies of #1 if you ordered over a certain threshold, which will explain the HUGE drop for issue #2. I took advantage of the freebies and gave it to many my subscribers. Nobody added #2 to their pull list.

Marvel gave a free copy of #10 to my Diamond account. I am not sure if they gave one to every Marvel account though, which in my view explains the increase.

Marvel gave the #1 free for every copy a dealer ordered from a certain list of sale books. So they really weren’t “sales” to dealers.

Keep up the good work! I really enjoy these columns!

As for Agents of Atlas #1’s 30,000+ number… probably a bit puffed up since it has a 1:15 variant… but still, I wish it the best since it’s a neat book.

First step to what? keeping the medium in the superhero ghetto?

Yeah, probably.

But getting new folks in the stores is the first step. If one or two of them are former comic buyers whose interest get re-kindled by being in a good shop again, or a handful are intrigued by what comics have to offer, that’s still a win.

I know that one of the best customers at my shop came in because of the Death of Captain America story. And he’s definitely not the only one who came for the event, stayed for the comics.