I remember there being a time when I bought every single Marvel comic (and most of DC’s). Those were the days, heh. I’m kind of glad they’re behind me though!

Paul, I don’t think the 30k bumps and drops reflect badly at CW, I was more wondering why the retailers have so little confidence in the books’ inherent selling power. Although, if most of those 30k were people who did buy all the tie-ins, and are interested in that aspect alone, then it makes sense they wouldn’t want to hang around on another book, since that’d eat up more money for other tie-ins. Ah, comics :)

And yes, there are customers who will pick up every single comic that ties into a big crossover like CW. Regardless if they don’t read that book or flat out hate that book. Many of our customers see the whole INITIATIVE thing as either a tie into or continuation of CW.

Well, CIVIL WAR lasted the better part of a year. If the retailers failed to adjust for poor sell-through after that long, more fool them. Also, when you consider the demand for second printings of the tie-in books, that does tend to suggest that sell-through was pretty good.

On the other hand, the immediate drops afterwards suggest that retailers had little confidence in CIVIL WAR to attract and *keep* readers in the majority of cases – but that’s the way it tends to work with most crossovers, so I wouldn’t see that as reflecting badly on CW.

I’ll thank Paul too for his monthly efforts. These are always highly interesting to read, although it’d be very neat if retailers banded together and made a sell-through list. Then we’d really be cooking.

I find it interesting that most of the CW jumps consist of around 30k. So does that imply there were about 30,000 customers who basically wanted everything CW-related? What with most of them dropping right back to the previous levels (all except Nicieza’s books, though, interestingly), it seems clear that retailers only ordered them based on the tie-in nature. But did they do that prompted by specific demand, or guesswork?

I didn’t buy Criminal. I’m buying the trade though. I’m sure hundreds if not thousands of others will do so too. Single issue sales really aren’t that important compared to longevity of sales through collections.

As for Alan’s comment about retailers only being able to buy what they think customers will buy: if both Marvel and DC would wise up and not throw dozens of titles at the market, retailers could take more chances. Unfortunately, since Marvel and DC probably mainly look at the overall total of copies sold, I don’t think they care about boosting sales on specific characters and series, if they can inflate them artificially with very little effort. The variant cover is an excellent way to do it, because it costs them very little indeed, but always makes for fairly high bumps in sales. They’d be fools not to do it, really.

OMT, Paul I have to echo what Michael and Gil have already said, and say that I look forward to this column every month. Keep up the great work, and don’t let the haters get you down.

I know, I know, it sounds like a love letter… but really, man, this is impressive work.

I know I say this a bit often, but these really are one of the highlights of my month. Reading this once a month is one the best activities online there is.

So just in case you ever feel unappreciated, know that I think you’re totally awesome.