Saturday, September 12, 2009

Top 10 Preorders at Rogues Gallery 9/16/09

Top 10 Preorders at Rogues Gallery 9/10/09

Despite the two big "summer" events (Blackest Night and Dark Reign) just now hitting their stride, it seems like we're out of the big summer week pattern. There aren't a ton of books this week, but there are a lot of books folks seem to be anticipating.

This doesn't measure sales, just pre-sales, as we see how many subscribers had preordered on various titles, just to gauge relative interest levels.

1. Blackest Night #3
2. Batman And Robin #4
3. Thor Annual #1
4. Angel #25
5. Captain America Reborn #3
6. Dark Avengers #9 (tie)
6. Dark Wolverine #78 (tie)
6. Fables #88 (tie)
7. X-Men Legacy Annual #1
8. Wednesday Comics #11 (tie)
8. World Of Warcraft #23 (tie)
9. Mighty Avengers #29 (tie)
9. Action Comics #881 (tie)
9. Batgirl #2 (tie)
10. Amazing Spider-Man #605 (tie)
10. X-Factor #48 (tie)

And Tied For 11th Place: Agents Of Atlas #11 & Ex Machina #45.

Wednesday Comics has become the benchmark to measure preorders, and by that measure, this week is definitely bigger than last, as Wednesday Comics is at #8 instead of #6. In addition, the numbers of preorders up at the top are significantly higher... Blackest Night is probably our highest preorders of the moment, and Batman and Robin might be #2, amongst everything we sell. Thor and Angel are both high up on the preorders, but their shelf sales have plummeted. Also this week, Thor and X-Men Legacy are annuals, which tend to sell less than the main book. I wouldn't be surprised if some of our regular subscribers to those titles decide to pass on the annuals.

Dark Reign The List Daredevil doesn't chart here, even with Daredevil orders figured in. Despite the long-standing quality of creative teams on Daredevil, it's still a niche book for us, and the Dark Reign List hasn't really gained event status. One could argue that the strong showing of Dark Avengers and Dark Wolverine is an argument for Dark Reign bringing in some interest, but honestly I'm not sure how much the Dark Reign story has to do with the popularity of Wolverine, and you probably could have gotten the same sales results by putting Bendis on a relaunched Thunderbolts based on Warren Ellis's revamp, which is essentially what Dark Avengers is.

No huge sales anomalies this week, I don't think. The World of Warcraft books may do slightly better for us because of our gaming crowd, and X-Factor is in the top 10, which I think is not where you'd guess based on its placement in the Diamond Top 100, but other than that I think the sales are in-line with general trends.

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