‘Blackest Night’ Tops in September
DC’s Blackest Night crossover continued its strong showing in September, with the top book and five out of the top ten September comic releases. More impressive were the month-over-month changes on the Blackest Night titles, with #3 of the flagship dropping only 6,000 copies from #2, Green Lantern #46 actually going up around 1,000 copies from the previous issue, and the second issues of two titles (Blackest Night Batman and Blackest Night Superman) actually selling more copies than the first issues, a very rare occurrence. The other Blackest Night titles that declined (Green Lantern Corps #40, Blackest Night Titans #2) were down only slightly from the previous issue.
Marvel’s bestsellers were the second best-selling title, Captain America Reborn #3 (down about 17,000 copies from the previous issue), the #5 title, Wolverine Giant-Size Old Man Logan #1 (around 94,000 copies, wrapping up the delayed storyline), a few titles wrapping up the Dark Avengers / X-Men crossover and the new issues after the crossover (all generally down), plus the mainstays.
We hear a lot of kvetching from retailers about the number of titles that Marvel has raised to $3.99 and the impact on sales, with the Ultimate #2s (Avengers and Spider-Man) dropping a around 25,000 copies each from the first issues as possible examples of this effect. Another title recently converted to $3.99, Hulk, is also down substantially, with #15 down about 15,000 copies from the last $2.99 issue.
There were eighteen titles down in the top 25 comics, and four up, a fairly heavy downward skew, with three new titles.
Only two titles from non-Big Two companies made the top 100 copies: Buffy #28 from Dark Horse at #31, and Archie #601 at #56.
In graphic novels, it was a fairly unexciting month, with the top title, the latest Buffy collection from Dark Horse, selling in only around 7200 copies. Dark Horse had the top two titles and three of the top five.
Marvel’s Wonderful World of Oz came in at #4 with around 4500 copies sold in, and was the #2 dollar book of the month, lagging behind only the Absolute V for Vendetta hardcover from DC. Both should be solid holiday items.
Dark Horse’s direct-friendly Berserk was the top manga volume, with Viz’s Bleach right behind (at #11 and #12, respectively).
Related posts:
- ‘Siege’ Tops the Charts
- Blackest Night #1 Goes Back To Press For 2nd Printing
- ‘Blackest Night’s’ Reign Continues
- Blackest Night comic book news
- ‘World War Hulk’ Finishes Strong
