I used to devour the monthly comic sales charts over at the Pulse and later at The Beat. In a strange way for me 2-3 years ago, the lists were a badge of honor and taste as I’d marvel (no pun intended) at the number of great books that I was buying regularly just weren’t selling. Books like Sleeper and The Losers come immediately to mind. These two titles epitomize critical success that never translated into financial success while New Infinite Civil Crisis and appropriate tie ins would dominate the chart.
Over the last year or so, I’ve begun to wonder what’s the point? Why should anyone care about those sale charts other than the retailers, publishers and creators? From a fan point of view, I think it’s easy to tell what’s selling by looking at the racks at your local comic shop or two and to see what everyone’s talking about online.
Now I find discussion about sales from a retailers perspective fascinating. Get Brian Hibbs on your site or podcast and I can’t get enough of it. That’s an informed perspective that I trust but honestly, it doesn’t color much how I approach comics. Just because Hibbs thinks that The Ant (or whatever it is called) is a lousy seller and he won’t order it doesn’t mean that I’ll not look at the book. (O.k. I won’t look at The Ant but not because of Hibbs.)
Online discussion of sales is just arm-chair quarterbacking, an exercise that I don’t believe affects much of anything. Do people adjust their buying or reading habits based off of these charts and graphs?
Buy what you want. If it’s New Avengers, buy it. If it’s DMZ, buy it.