We’re still collating comments and results from the unprecedented Monday-shipping CAPTAIN AMERICA #600, but while you’re all waiting, Marvel is proclaiming success in the usual way…with a second printing!
This week, there’s no bigger super hero than Captain America and mainstream media frenzy caused Captain America #600 to sell out immediately (though copies may be available at the retail level). To meet this overwhelming demand, Marvel is going back to press with Captain America #600 Second Printing Variant, from Eisner Award-winning scribe Ed Brubaker and a cavalcade of artistic superstars! How does the Marvel Universe react to the one year anniversary of Captain America’s death? What happens when Rikki Barnes meets Patriot? And just what does Sharon Carter know that leads into the hotly anticipated Captain America Reborn #1? Find out here! Captain America #600 Second Printing Variant features the stunning interior art of Butch Guice on a new cover!
Following an unprecedented Monday on-sale of Captain America #600 and mainstream media coverage of Captain America, retailers nationwide report that Captain America is all the rage!
“Captain America #600 is selling extremely well for us, and fortunately we’re prepared with lots of copies…Lots of consumers came in looking specifically for this book and spiced up our Monday sales. Thank you Marvel!”– Gerry Gladston, Midtown Comics (www.midtowncomics.com)
“We very much appreciate the discount package and free copies that Marvel has offered to help capitalize on this media event, and welcome further opportunities when future mainstream media events comics come out…We at Jim Hanley’s Universe think the Captain America #600 is quite an impressive introduction to Cap, his supporting cast, and his history. Ed Brubaker is one of the finest writers working in comics today (and a long time friend of Jim Hanley’s Universe), we all here eagerly await Captain America Reborn, to see just how he brings back Steve Rogers!”—Ron Hill, Jim Hanley’s Universe (www.jhuniverse.com)
“Had lots and lots of customers excited about this and did lots of pre-pays all week long on Captain America #600 and the new Reborn series. Good job by Marvel for getting it done right and realizing they might be shorting their numbers and relationship with the direct market, and extending the FOC on Reborn.”—Mike Malve, Atomic Comics (www.atomiccomics.com)
“People all day were excited and upbeat wondering what was in store for them when they read the issue. A big thank you goes out to you and Marvel for making this possible. I know that thinking out of the box can be challenging in the selling of comic books, and not everyone is on board. However, it is nice to see a publisher try to make a historically slow sales day into a fun, and profitable one for us.”– Craig Lopacinski, Neptune Comics (www.neptunecomics.com)
David Gabriel, Marvel Senior Vice-President of Sales & Circulation said, “”First and foremost, I’d like to thank all those retailers who made this amazing event possible by participating in this special advance release on Monday. Despite what might have been the largest overprint we’ve ever done for a book, copies sold out well before even the early on sale date. This is a great indicator for the excitement that we’re anticipating for Captain America Reborn. We’d also like to thank the fans and press for getting behind Captain America #600. Trust me, you’re in for a lot of fun and we’re glad to have you along for the ride! ”
Now’s your chance to find out why Benjamin Birdie of ComicBookResources.Com deemed Captain America #600, “An impressive examination of just what Steve Rogers and Captain America meant to Americans.” Don’t miss Captain America #600 Second Printing Variant!
For all the latest Captain America news, please visit www.marvel.com/reborn!
This was a non-starter for our stores. We opted out of the Monday release for a number of reasons, among them the complications with our subscription service and the fact that three of our four stores are closed Mondays anyway. When I opened up on Tuesday, exactly two people asked me about it, both of whom were regular subscription customers who already got the title and wanted to pick it up early. We sold it Wednesday as planned and it sold at its regular (excellent) pace (Alex Ross’s cover sold out quick; I would have figured the other cover, with Steve Rogers actually prominent, would have gone first). A good issue, but overhyped everywhere except where it was meant to (mainstream press) and doesn’t bring back Steve, only kinda-sorta sets up Captain America Reborn. All in all, we felt pretty good about snubbing Marvel on this one.
One can’t tell from the quotes what regulars who came into a store Monday to buy CAPTAIN AMERICA #600 might have bought, if anything, that they wouldn’t have bought Wednesday. The parenthetical (though copies may be available at the retail level) is, in context, a bit odd.
An interesting thing I noticed today while looking at ComicList’s “New Releases” list for the week: the number of variant covers on IDW releases:
Some “fans on the street” comments re CAPTAIN AMERICA #600. I wonder how many comics shops are closed on Mondays?
SRS
I don’t understand how something could be sold out, but “may be available at the retail level.” I’m not being snarky, I just don’t understand the distinction being drawn.
“May be available at the retail level” = Sold out at Diamond; individual stores may yet have copies, but can’t reorder from Diamond.
Oh, that’s just funny. Leading with two quotes from NYC retailers. The article was in a NYC paper (prominently, if you can judge from the website). Of course they did well.
Saw plenty of copies ~5pm Wednesday in Chicago (where there wasn’t any local coverage).
It’s “sold out” in the sense that Diamond have sold the retailers all the copies they had. But that doesn’t mean the retailers necessarily managed to shift them all yet.
who’s Butch Guice?
can’t say i know his work
is Joe Simon still drawing?
if he had anything to do with this, i might have picked it up just out of respect
Wouldn’t Marvel choose the amount to print based on Distributor orders? To sell out would seem to imply that stores sold so many those first two days that they re-ordered them and quickly went through whatever was left to cover re-orders. However, I’m not seeing that level of sales reported from stores. Would Marvel under print them to create a false sense of demand? They have a new cover for the second printing ready after the first printing has been on the shelf 3 days. Did Butch Guice do it last night?
I’m not sure why I care.
The Butch Guice art that leads off this piece is an interior page from Cap #600.
Unfortunately this was over-hyped, but it was yet another solid issue from Brubaker and co.
Got the books on Monday to all of our stores and while there wasn’t a rush for it, we had a nice little stream of people coming in for it, we had zero problems for our pulls as we did pulls for that book on Monday to make sure they got it. Tuesday it sold a nice little pace. However on Wed. the book exploded in our stores, plus in one of locations we had Roger Stern signing so we got a nice bump in sales for that as well. BTW…Roger is a total class act.
“…copies sold out well before even the early on sale date.”
So this only shows that retailers bought into the hype, not that the book has actually sold well.
>>who’s Butch Guice?
Pretty talented realist artist that looks to be influenced by guys like Al Williamson, Hal Foster, Alex Raymond, and all the classic illustrators. He’s been around at least since the 80s – first saw him on a Micronauts book – and I think his best work might’ve been for the Holmesian Crossgen book, Ruse.
He’s not dissimilar to Steve Epting and, like Epting, he’s shown pretty regularly on Brubaker’s Cap book.
Used to be credited as Jackson Guice. Changed his pen name a while back.
“Wouldn’t Marvel choose the amount to print based on Distributor orders?”
Basically, yes. It’s very easy to engineer a sell-out if you want to, simply by not printing very many extra copies. Plenty of middle- and low-selling books “sell out” too. It isn’t very meaningful, but publishers seem to think it makes for a good press release (and, perhaps more to the point, an excuse to do another variant cover).
But selling-out and doing another print costs them sales because retailers typically have to wait 3 or so weeks to get the 2nd print, and by then the urgency is gone. If they overprinted, like DC does, retailers could get those extra issues in the next week, when there was still buzz. Now they are at the mercy of whether or not there is an additional printing.
And it has to be more expensive to do a 2nd print rather than just printing additional copies. Paul, do you have an idea of what the average 2nd printing sells? I know it will vary, but if its under 5,000 copies, you’d have to think that keeping the presses running on the first print would be more cost effective.
But, I think you hit the nail on the head. They like the press releases. “Look, Mr. Investor. We have had 200 sell-outs in a row! Our product is flying off the shelves!”
Didn’t Cap die in issue # 25 or 50? How the heck did Marvel publish 550 issues in 2 years to get all the way to #600?
I also heard about Deadpool #900. Does Joe Quesada just slap any issue number he wants on a comic whenever the wind strikes his fancy? If that’s the case, why stop at #600, why not make it Cap # 1000?
And how the heck does the people who buy Marvel Comics keep their issues in any kind of order when Quesada is constantly playing the numbers game?
I may not buy Marvel Comics anymore but I sure love reading the news to hear how Con Artist Joe Quesada is going to scam consumers next.
From the 6/12/09 “Cup o’ Joe”:
The book was another solid read from Bru but, like others have said, it should not have been hyped as much as it was. That overhype took away from the quality of the issue. My LCS had 15 out of 90 or so still left as of Thursday, and all of them were the non-Alex Ross cover. No for Reborn to see how well that goes. At least people are talking about comics.
@jacob lyon goddard–
Actually, Joe Simon *did* have something to do with Cap #600. Better go find a copy.
So he did. From a review by Matt Price:
Was there a mainstream media frenzy?