The Blackest Night Ring Campaign – a Sales Success for DC, but a Disappointment for Retailers and Fans
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Earlier this week, Diamond Distribution released their sales charts for the Top 300 comic of November 2009.
November was the month in which DC ran their Blackest Night ‘free ring’ marketing campaign. The idea being that seven titles were released that month, and with each title, readers would receive a high-quality plastic ‘lantern corps’ ring. Each title came with the ring of a different ‘lantern corps’, as shown below:
- Adventure Comics #4 – Blue – Hope
- Blackest Night #5 – Green – Will
- Booster Gold #26 – Orange – Avarice
- Doom Patrol #4 – Yellow – Fear
- Justice League of America #39 – Red – Rage
- R.E.B.E.L.S. #10 – Indigo – Compassion
- Outsiders #24 – Pink – Love
In addition, a Black Lantern ring came free with each purchase of Blackest Night #1.
So, how did that work out for DC? Well, check out the difference in sales between October and November.
November:
| Quantity Rank | Dollar Rank | Index | Item Code | Description | Price | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 210.10 | SEP090092-M | BLACKEST NIGHT #5 | $3.99 | DC |
| 5 | 3 | 129.56 | SEP090107 | JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #39 | $3.99 | DC |
| 6 | 4 | 123.43 | SEP090100-M | ADVENTURE COMICS #4 | $3.99 | DC |
| 19 | 12 | 82.81 | SEP090103-M | BOOSTER GOLD #26 | $3.99 | DC |
| 24 | 16 | 77.91 | SEP090105-M | DOOM PATROL #4 | $3.99 | DC |
| 30 | 22 | 74.08 | SEP090110-M | REBELS #10 | $3.99 | DC |
| 31 | 23 | 73.81 | SEP090113 | OUTSIDERS #24 | $3.99 | DC |
October:
| Quantity Rank | Retail Rank | Index | Item Code | Description | Price | Vendor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 192.03 | AUG090086-M | BLACKEST NIGHT #4 | $3.99 | DC |
| 17 | 27 | 85.41 | AUG090147-M | JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #38 | $2.99 | DC |
| 40 | 30 | 62.20 | AUG090132-M | ADVENTURE COMICS #3 | $3.99 | DC |
| 98 | 81 | 30.23 | AUG090140 | BOOSTER GOLD #25 | $3.99 | DC |
| 100 | 117 | 29.98 | AUG090126 | OUTSIDERS #23 | $2.99 | DC |
| 108 | 89 | 28.05 | AUG090142-M | DOOM PATROL #3 | $3.99 | DC |
| 157 | 190 | 15.80 | AUG090158 | REBELS #9 | $2.99 | DC |
That’s a big difference, right? Apart from Blackest Night, which was already the number one seller, everything else has seen a significant jump in sales over last month!
- In at #5 this month is Justice League of America #39, jumping 12 positions over last month, and gaining 44.15 points in the sales index.
- In at #3 this month is Adventure Comics #4, jumping 34 positions over last month, and gaining 61.23 points in the sales index.
- In at #19 this month is Booster Gold #26, jumping 79 positions over last month, and gaining 52.58 points in the sales index.
- In at #24 this month is Doom Patrol #4, jumping 84 positions over last month, and gaining 49.86 points in the sales index.
- In at #30 this month is R.E.B.E.L.S. #10, jumping 127 positions over last month, and gaining 58.28 points in the sales index.
- In at #31 this month is Outsiders #24, jumping 69 positions over last month, and gaining 43.83 points in the sales index.
Wow! I think you could call that a sales success! DC basically took six under performing books, glued on a freebie, hiked the price up, and made a killing!
But how did this event go for everyone except DC? Well, not all that well, to be honest.
Retailers
Whilst speaking to the guys at my local comic shop (to remain unnamed), they told me that in order to take part in this promotion they had to jump through all sorts of hoops, and they had to make a minimum order of something like 50 copies of each comic, in order to receive the bags of promotional rings. In addition to actually buying the comics, they then had to pay $8 US for a bag of rings!
I live it a town with five comic stores, and due to this incredibly high minimum order amount, only one of these stores could afford to take part in the campaign. I mean, lets face it, what small comic store can afford to risk buying 50 copies of each of these comics. It’s not like they could just carry one or two of the lantern rings – this is kind of an all or nothing deal. With a comic like R.E.B.E.L.S., which was ranking at 108 in October, many stores just assumed that no matter what was being given away with the comic, they would most likely be left with huge amounts of unpurchased comics, which would eventually end up in their quarter bins!
But how did the promotion go for the one large store that could afford to buy into it? Well, I noticed that weeks after the release of the first comics in the campaign, they still had several copies left on the shelf, and the bags of promotional rings behind the counter were only half empty. So, not so great.
I’ve also spoken to a few other retailers online, who have informed me that they either couldn’t afford to buy into the promotion, or they found themselves with tons of unpurchased comics that no-one wanted to buy.
So, whilst these comics sold amazingly at the distribution level, at the retail level, things didn’t go quite as well.
But how were the comics themselves, well, let’s find out…
The Fans
I’ll admit this straight off the bat, I bought every comic that came with a free ring. Guilty as charged!
I’ve been a huge Green Lantern fan for many years now, and I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get all of thes
e rings. Hell, I have several of the cheap promo rings that DC gave out years ago, as well as set of real metal GL rings (Kingdom Come: Planet Krypton) , and I even have a replica Green Lantern power battery, that lights up and everything! I know, I know, I’m a sucker!
The rings themselves are pretty well made, and far better quality than the cheap GL rings that came with Green Lantern Corps #1 (as well as select GL action figures). Let’s be honest though, these rings were made in China, and probably cost DC about 5c to make. So were they worth the purchase of a $3.99 comic? Here’s a rundown:
Blackest Night #5 – This was the best comic in the bunch. In fact, it was the best issue so far in the series, because it had a lot more Lantern action. This is why I bought the series, as I enjoy the cosmic stuff, and couldn’t really care a less for the hero vs. hero crap. We’ve seen it all before, and there is definitely nothing new here. I have to say though, I was a bit annoyed by the fact that Hal turned up out of the blue with a representative from each of the Lantern Corps. This didn’t lead on at all from BN #4, but instead follows events in GL #47 & #48. Most people reading BN will probably already be picking up GL, but when this is collected in trade, that is going to be messy.
Adventure Comics #4 – Superboy Prime returns! Really? Who cares! I though Johns gave him a great final scene at the end of Final Crisis: Legion of Three Earths, and he really should have left him there. Also appearing in this issue was a Black Lantern version of Alexander Luthor, who died at the end of Infinite Crisis. The issue was fun, but ultimately disposable, and if I’m paying $3.99 for a comic, I want more than that!
Booster Gold #26 – This one was pretty fun. I had to drop Booster several months ago, due to monetary reasons, but it looks like Jurgens is still doing a good job on the title. The plot revolves around the Ted Cord coming back as a Black Lantern, and Booster and Supernova having to battle him. Still, at $3.99, I don’t think I’ll be sticking around for the conclusion.
Doom Patrol #4 – I started buying this title because I liked Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol, and because Keith Giffen used to be a great writer. Something is very wrong with this book though, and Giffen’s writing is just terrible. I decided to drop it with issue #3, but the damn rings pulled me back in! In this issue, the original Doom Patrol come back to take revenge on the new… yawn!
Justice League of America #39 – I gave James Robinson a chance with JLA #38 but he left me incredibly disappointed, with an issue worse than anything in McDuffie’s run on the title. Now in #39 the Justice League Detroit come back as Black Lanterns, and… oh, who cares!
Outsiders #24 – Terra comes back. Badly written, characters that no-one cares about, and just a big pile of junk!
R.E.B.E.L.S. #10 – I couldn’t even read this one. I read the first page, and threw it in a long box. I just didn’t care at all about the characters, and the writing was poor. The artwork was nice though, as it’s by Andy Clarke. Luckily DC have seen sense and given Andy a new gig, he deserves better than this.
DC really took fans for granted here, and tried to use these rings to make us buy into a bunch of second and third tier titles. Sure, I bought these issues, but they are all two-parters, with the assumption that fans would come back to read the conclusion, and then just happen to keep the books on their pull-lists. I very much doubt this is going to happen though, as none of these stories warranted coming back to read the inevitable conclusion (SPOILERS: the good guys win!). There is a reason these comics sold so badly before the ring campaign, and that is because they all suck!
I’d also like to point out that in October some of these titles only cost $2.99, but now they cost $3.99. So not only have we been made to buy a bunch of crappy comics to get our free rings, we’ve been made to pay extra for the privilege! Thanks for nothing, DC!
In conclusion, this event was great for DC, but bad for retailers, and forced fans to buy some truly atrocious comics. On the other hand, the rings were kinda awesome!
Discuss this on Hypergeek’s DC forums
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