Which Of The Four New Valiant Titles R U Most Excited About?

kevinbastos · Post by **kevinbastos** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 5:28 am

I said Harbinger, but reserve the right to change... Once, uh. I want to?

myron · Post by **myron** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 8:07 am

A & A

initially, Harbinger was one of my fav comics (back in the day)

after rereading numerous times I've grown more and more fond of A& A, not that I'm less fond of Harby, but the nuances of A&A make me laugh out loud...and I seem to find more everytime I read through it...

dave · Post by **dave** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 9:06 am

I am intrigued by Bloodshot and Archer and Armstrong the most. I think it is going to be pretty easy to make a great Bloodshot book, so that's exciting. On the other hand, AA is going to be hard to match up the greatness that BWS brought to the book, so the fact that they are attempting it, rather than say, Ninjak or Shadowman is very telling.

caniac · Post by **caniac** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 9:16 am

Harbinger

StarBrand · Post by **StarBrand** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 11:25 am

I voted for Harby, but we've seen more of X-O and that looks like it could be a great book...

myron · Post by **myron** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 11:39 am

dave wrote:I am intrigued by Bloodshot and Archer and Armstrong the most. I think it is going to be pretty easy to make a great Bloodshot book, so that's exciting. On the other hand, AA is going to be hard to match up the greatness that BWS brought to the book, so the fact that they are attempting it, rather than say, Ninjak or Shadowman is very telling.

It will be very tought to match the BWS goodness of A&A 0-12...after those, however, the book was quite meh.

StarBrand · Post by **StarBrand** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 12:13 pm

Archer and Armstrong came storming back, and is now trailing Bloodshot and X-O by only one vote each.

superman-prime · Post by **superman-prime** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 3:44 pm

harby 1 vol 3

Ross2 · Post by **Ross2** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 5:46 pm

Hey I love Archer and Armstrong, I really liked the original BWS run. I just felt that title was almost useless after all the Shooter/Layton/BWS-ness left it.

I hope its successful, as I wish for all the Valiant titles.

I can't see myself buying everything in the future, and at this point is my 4th fav of the 4.

BloodShot · Post by **BloodShot** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 5:57 pm

StarBrand wrote:Of the four new Valiant titles announced so far, which one are you most excited about?

Hmmm, I wonder

...

superman-prime · Post by **superman-prime** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 9:39 pm

so its xo for ya.

BloodShot · Post by **BloodShot** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 9:46 pm

superman-prime wrote:so its xo for ya.

Actually, no; I was thinkin' ice cream

...

Ross2 · Post by **Ross2** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:05 pm

So whats considered sustainable sales in comics nowadays?

I remember when Marvel would ax anything that had less than 25,000 a month in sales. What do you think Valiant's hope is?

superman-prime · Post by **superman-prime** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:08 pm

20 k per number one has to be possible, there are a lot of old valiant fans and some are shop owners, ill buy 10 or so of each CKB will buy a ton as will some others id bet we will pick up about 500 issues on the board alone per, and i know others buying ALOT like half a longbox. and thats just here in phx. so 20 k is very possible id hope for like 35 k though.

Brother Darque · Post by **Brother Darque** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 1:56 am

Bloodshot.

i'm excited about that one the most.

400yrs · Post by **400yrs** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 6:22 am

Ross2 wrote:So whats considered sustainable sales in comics nowadays?

I remember when Marvel would ax anything that had less than 25,000 a month in sales. What do you think Valiant's hope is?

Marvel's axe number seems to be a little lower these days.

It's impossible to know what VEI's target numbers are. Depending on how much they expect other things to bring in revenues - movies, tv, toys, games, etc. the number could be vastly different than if they are only a comic publisher.

It's still too early to guess at a number on X-O #1. Although VEI will have a good estimate in a month after the orders are in, we won't see an estimate until mid June.

About the only recent thing to compare this to is Dark Key's Solar #1 which was 22K. Dark Horse, although recognizable, the company itself isn't really a pull for sales. Also, they really botched their marketing by not putting out an issue anywhere near the FCBD issue and then not really doing any advertising at the launch time.

VEI's marketing is above and beyond DK. So far, they've done everything that I would expect a company to do to give themselves the best shot possible. They started viral a while ago. They ramped things up in the order month - including interviews, comic website articles, reveals of creators, reveal of retailer incentive variants, have brought some innovation with the pullbox variant and the talking poster AND most importantly fully done preview pages which look great. To me, order month seems like the most important month to market as that is when people are ordering books..... I mean duh. Why not market like crazy when you can have a direct impact on getting your numbers up? If you market in April and May when orders are cut off, you can't affect your #1 orders because orders were already cut off. I have no idea if Final Order Cut-off applies to VEI or only the big companies - if it does (and I hope it does), they should continue with the strong marketing.

Based on all that, I wouldn't be surprised if they doubled Solar #1 around 45K. That would probably be my guess at this point. However, with the strong showing of creators they revealed, much higher wouldn't surprise me. It's not that any one creator in that list is a big numbers pull..... because they aren't.... It's more that VEI has hired all quality guys. Some are pretty new, but quality. Some are established and well respected. Looks like they have the perfect blend.

If anyone has the numbers on Crossgen #1s, that may be a better comparison, but that was a while ago.

However, the comic market is strange. In all honesty, we could see a flop and we could see 100K. There is no way of telling. VEI is doing everything I'd expect and more. If their product is quality, then they've done everything they can to put themselves in a position to succeed and we'll see how it pans out.

kevinbastos · Post by **kevinbastos** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 7:12 am

I tend to agree. As much as I hate those variant covers - and yet will be buying them - they make an interesting market concept. Tons of stock that dealers are looking to sell. Half price? More? Free giveaways? Let's say a dealer buys 50 copies of the book, and I buy ten - and pay whatever he's charging to cover cost. Then, every other book sold is profit. If out of the forty books, he 'gives away,' ten come back and start buying it, then he's selling okay. If twenty like it, the book is a major hit.

Plus, if the variants are really so rare, and unique, the market will pay attention. Think of how much attention they already have.

I mean, USA Today for crying out loud!

superman-prime · Post by **superman-prime** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 8:04 am

ya civil war 1 in 75s go for 20 now a days

Ross2 · Post by **Ross2** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 8:57 am

400yrs wrote:
Ross2 wrote:So whats considered sustainable sales in comics nowadays?

I remember when Marvel would ax anything that had less than 25,000 a month in sales. What do you think Valiant's hope is?

Marvel's axe number seems to be a little lower these days.

It's impossible to know what VEI's target numbers are. Depending on how much they expect other things to bring in revenues - movies, tv, toys, games, etc. the number could be vastly different than if they are only a comic publisher.

It's still too early to guess at a number on X-O #1. Although VEI will have a good estimate in a month after the orders are in, we won't see an estimate until mid June.

About the only recent thing to compare this to is Dark Key's Solar #1 which was 22K. Dark Horse, although recognizable, the company itself isn't really a pull for sales. Also, they really botched their marketing by not putting out an issue anywhere near the FCBD issue and then not really doing any advertising at the launch time.

VEI's marketing is above and beyond DK. So far, they've done everything that I would expect a company to do to give themselves the best shot possible. They started viral a while ago. They ramped things up in the order month - including interviews, comic website articles, reveals of creators, reveal of retailer incentive variants, have brought some innovation with the pullbox variant and the talking poster AND most importantly fully done preview pages which look great. To me, order month seems like the most important month to market as that is when people are ordering books..... I mean duh. Why not market like crazy when you can have a direct impact on getting your numbers up? If you market in April and May when orders are cut off, you can't affect your #1 orders because orders were already cut off. I have no idea if Final Order Cut-off applies to VEI or only the big companies - if it does (and I hope it does), they should continue with the strong marketing.

Based on all that, I wouldn't be surprised if they doubled Solar #1 around 45K. That would probably be my guess at this point. However, with the strong showing of creators they revealed, much higher wouldn't surprise me. It's not that any one creator in that list is a big numbers pull..... because they aren't.... It's more that VEI has hired all quality guys. Some are pretty new, but quality. Some are established and well respected. Looks like they have the perfect blend.

If anyone has the numbers on Crossgen #1s, that may be a better comparison, but that was a while ago.

However, the comic market is strange. In all honesty, we could see a flop and we could see 100K. There is no way of telling. VEI is doing everything I'd expect and more. If their product is quality, then they've done everything they can to put themselves in a position to succeed and we'll see how it pans out.

Around what number on the Diamond top 100 would a 45k book be? Last time I was looking at numbers in the 90s, X-books and Image (and Turok!) books were the top 10 and were pulling in 1M-500K numbers.

400yrs · Post by **400yrs** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 8:59 am

Ross2 wrote: Around what number on the Diamond top 100 would a 45k book be? Last time I was looking at numbers in the 90s, X-books and Image (and Turok!) books were the top 10 and were pulling in 1M-500K numbers.

Yeah.... times have changed. There are many months where the #1 book doesn't even hit 100K. 45K would probably be top 30.

greg · Post by **greg** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 11:02 am

400yrs wrote:
Ross2 wrote: Around what number on the Diamond top 100 would a 45k book be? Last time I was looking at numbers in the 90s, X-books and Image (and Turok!) books were the top 10 and were pulling in 1M-500K numbers.

Yeah.... times have changed. There are many months where the #1 book doesn't even hit 100K. 45K would probably be top 30.

Yep, 45K would have been #37 for January 2012.
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/22085.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

#50 was around 37K, and #100 was 19K.

Just for reference, Spawn sells around 13K.

betterthanezra · Post by **betterthanezra** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 11:46 am

Harbinger

-Brian

kevinbastos · Post by **kevinbastos** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 11:49 am

Heck, Walking Dead sold less than 32,000.

And was Image's highest seller.

leonmallett · Post by **leonmallett** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 2:22 pm

There have been some freakish numbers outside of the big two in the past few years; IIRC Project Superpowers #0 sold 113K.

But as stated previously, 'successful' sales thresholds for VEI as an indie are likely to be very different to those of DC or Marvel.

MarrowMan · Post by **MarrowMan** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 2:40 pm

Sales gathered from valiantfans alone should reach into the $100k mark, rotfl.

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