Basement X

Both were among the most highly anticpated titles out there. Annoyingly enough WW was also sold out at my regular comic shop, but before I hit up ebay (again) I went to Midtown and to see if they had it and Yay, they did. This is the second time my shop has under ordered. I suppose it'll won't happen as much in the future but for now its frustrating.

Anyho,

Batgirl was a great read with amazing art. The main selling point of the story seems to be that the events of The Killing Joke still happened but they're not telling us how Barbara recovered from it. Furthermore, while Babs physical injuries have healed, emotionally she is still very scarred and is dealing with some post traumatic stress regarding the shooting and it is effecting her crime fighting abilities. I am onboard with this title.

Wonder Woman was, I felt, a great re-introduction to the character without feeling like a reboot at all. It seemed to be a regular WW story without requiring the reader to know anything about WW beyond what her basic backstory is. Also, the story is new reader friendly. All you need to know are the basic myths about the Greek/Roman pantheon and then some. In the past Azzerallo has been hit and miss (mostly miss) with his mainstream super hero stories. WW is Azzerallo, seemingly, getting it just right. And Cliff Chiang's art is great.

These were among my two favorite DC titles last week.

Anyone else?

95% of stores under-ordered, only 1 in Calgary ordered a reasonable amount of comics (75 or so of each)., and 1 ordered big (1000 copes of JL and Action), everyone else was maybe 25.
No one wanted to bet that this would be successful.

Batgirl was great. (I got the first one Gail Simone signed!) I couldn't care less she isn't crippled anymore as long as the story is good.

Wonder Woman I have, but have yet to read.

Both were very fun reads and books I was really looking forward to, and I'm on board for them for awhile at the very least.

I have to say, of the books that I have read, none of them have been horrible. However, I'm still only reading about 10 books total in the DCnU so I can't say every book they put out is great, but I have enjoyed what I've read.


As for under-ordering, it's kind of difficult to gauge the scope of what you'd need. My shop ordered record numbers for every book for the most part. Upwards of 50 issues for big titles, and 30 issues for many others. Some of the lesser books were small orders, but everything has sold out. Books like Men of War and Grifter had small orders, but they weren't expected to sell out. The problem for being out of books came when new costumers came in and wanted to join up on the 52 club and get every book, yet they placed this order weeks after it was due in.

Sure it would've been smart to order more, but he also didn't want to get stuck with 25 extra copies of books like Men of War or Blackhawks that he wasn't sure would sellout.

I'd say it's better to sellout of books and underorder than overorder and get stuck with 30 copies of something you can't move for weeks.

The other problem is DC under printed.

If they had such faith it was going to be successful, they should have over-printed and made re-orders available day of release.

Instead, they wanted to be able to issue press releases saying "SOLD OUT, SECOND AND THIRD PRINTINGS, WEE LOOK AT US!".

If JL sold 200K+ (with Europe) copies, they should have printed 250-300, easily, and had them available for re-order the next week.

What is the point of getting new readers if the stores sell out and cannot get more copies?

Another good point. It was all about being able to say books SOLD OUT immediately rather than having them available. How are you going to get new readers when you have to tell those who walk in Day Of that 'If you come back in 2 weeks I'll have a book that came out today for you'? They're going to just shrug it off and figure it's something they shouldn't bother with.

Ordering is always difficult, but the real challenge is going to be ordering issue #2 of all of these books. A lot of our readers for #1 were people just for the All 52 Club, so it's no guarantee all of them will get issue 2. It seems we'll see the real numbers after issues 2 and 3 have hit the market.

I think issue 6 or 7 will be the real ones to look for, and more than anything, the sales figures on the first trades.

If after this first set of storyarcs, the sales numbers aren't at least 10 or 15k above what they were, across the board (some argue 30k, which I am inclined to agree with. This has to have costed DC a fortune) then this whole thing is a failure. I agree with at least 30k on the main titles.


This speculators market is going to die when the first trades come out, and probably a little next week when second and third printings hit the shelves.


I think the fact that the 2nd and 3rd printing of JL are coming out on the same day shows something hokey was happening at DC.

That's a very good point. That first trade might show the real figures, but being 30k higher than previous numbers sounds very high for some books. The top 3-5 books, definitely, but most others that seems impossible for that to be a consistent sale. I doubt even 30k higher on some books will last passed issue 6 to be honest.