The comic news websites have been full of stories of sold-out issues these last few months, from Serenity to Supergirl. Being a comic fan I am naturally pleased to see good material being so popular but my cynical side looks at this and wonders what sort of print run there was? Did it sell out because it was vastly more popular than anticipated or because the publisher simply didn’t make enough copies?
If you were especially cynical you may consider the possibility that a few underhand marketing types would deliberately allow an issue to ‘sell out’ so they can reap the benefits of free advertising in the form of numerous web-zine news items to that effect and then sell as many again with another print round, which interest has now been stoked in. I’m sure no-one would dream of such a thing, but in a world where a major movie studio was caught out for creating a fake reviewer to post glowing advance reports of their film perhaps a little cynicism isn’t totally out of order. Anyway, today I received an email from Devil’s Due publishing and I thought in that spirit I really had to share it with you:
“Atlanta, GA Oct 12, 2005 Chaos! Comics & Devil’s Due Publishing announced that Evil Ernie in Santa Fe #1 (JUL052787), released today, has NOT sold out. In a shockingly bold move, the company overprinted to allow retailers to fill reorder demand. The overprint departs from the standard industry practice of printing exactly the quantity that has been ordered (or slightly above) and then breathlessly announcing a sell-out upon release.”
Wed, Oct 12, 2005
Comics and cartoons, General