Saturday, September 19, 2009

Top 10 Preorders at Rogues Gallery 9/23/09

It's another relatively light week, although there are representatives from both Blackest Night and Dark Reign, as well as the long-awaited conclusion of another late Mark Millar book (Old Man Logan this time), so it's going to be a satisfying book for a lot of folks, I'd guess.

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 Superman #2 (tie)
1. Uncanny X-Men #515 (tie)
1. Dark Reign List X-Men (tie)
2. New Avengers #57
3. Detective Comics #857 (tie)
3. Anita Blake Laughing Corpse Necromancer #5 (tie)
4. GI Joe #9 (tie)
4. Justice League Of America #37 (tie)
4. Wolverine Old Man Logan Giant-Sized #1 (tie)
5. Wednesday Comics #12
6. Conan The Cimmerian #14 (tie)
6. Guardians Of Galaxy #18 (tie)
6. Nova #29 (tie)
7. Enders Shadow Command School #1 (tie)
7. Incredible Hercules #135 (tie)
8. Amazing Spider-Man #606 (tie)
8. Invincible #66 (tie)
8. Superman Secret Origin #1 (tie)
9. Immortal Weapons #3 (tie)
9. Wolverine Origins #40 (tie)
10. Supergirl #45 (tie)
10. Superman Batman #64 (tie)
10. Marvel Zombies Return #4 (tie)

Tied for 11th: Halo Helljumper #3, Hellblazer #259, Doctor Who Black Death White Life & Power Girl #5.

This is the last week for Wednesday Comics, which means: A) It's the first weekly book we haven't been left with tons of on the shelf - because of the limited run, it never had a chance to lose momentum as fast as 52, Countdown and Trinity did and B) I need to find a new benchmark against which to compare preorders.

But for this week, Wednesday Comics is again the benchmark. Last week it was ranked #8, this week it's #5, which gives the general impression of a lighter week. Blackest Night again tops the preorders, and the majority of the orders for Blackest Night Superman are for All Blackest Night. In fact, the Blackest Night Superman has more than twice as many preorders as Superman, the highest-selling Superman book. We're pulling Superman: Secret Origin #1 for all of those subscribers, and we'll see how many wind up wanting it. Given that it's Geoff Johns and Gary Frank, we're betting it'll be a significant percentage, and that it will do well on the shelf as well.

Dark Reign The List is not really moving the needle. It's doing OK, but it's clear that in terms of momentum, DC's event Blackest Night is doing much better than Marvel's scattered deliberate non-event Dark Reign. I can't help but think that if Dark Reign had been a six-issue miniseries with the premise of "Norman Osborn vs. the now illegal heroes in the Marvel Universe" it would be selling a lot better, and probably pushing the tie-ins better as well. The Dark Reign The List X-Men one-shot this week is being pulled for our Uncanny X-Men subscribers, and I wouldn't be surprised if several of them are put back on the shelf. Uncanny X-Men, however, is holding up nicely in sales... it didn't really gain any readership from the Dark Avengers crossover, but it's a solid seller anyway.

Our anomaly this week is probably that due to overwhelming GI Joe love, that book charts pretty high in our top 5 chart.

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