Sales data for the first four Sonic IDW comics have surfaced, since the publisher announced that all issues of their new blue-blur run had sold out, and it’s looking incredibly positive for the rebooted series. According to data compiled by Diamond, not only did they become IDW’s best-selling comics for the month, but they have become the best-selling Sonic comics since records began in 1997.
Issues 1-4 sold at least 13,000 copies – a huge feat for an independent publisher like IDW – with Issue 1 in particular selling 21,632 copies. This totals over 60,000 copies for the launch month of April, across all four issues! The biggest-selling Sonic comic before IDW #1 was Archie’s Sonic Boom #1 (by quite some margin against all the other Archie comics), which sold 17,228 copies. IDW even smashed Archie’s best by around 5,000 copies.
Below is a chart (courtesy SonicSourceBlog) which compares the IDW issues sales data with all other available data for major Sonic comic releases. As you can see, there’s plenty of reason for IDW to celebrate right now.
It’s worth pointing out that Diamond sales data accurately captures comic book distribution to American comic book stores, but it doesn’t track sales from other outlets like bookshops and super markets, nor does the data account for digital sales. So the complete figures for IDW Sonic 1-4 could be even higher than this.
Well done IDW, it looks like there’s a bright future ahead for the new Sonic comic series!
Early promise, but the true measure of success will come in a year from now, when the numbers have settled down somewhat. And if they’re still higher, then credit where it’s due 🙂
You can slap a digital sale of each issue on to that total from me.
And two physical issues (covers A and B) from me, as I bet UK sales aren’t included in those figures.
I hope that kind of success continues. But honestly? Those first four issues *really* didn’t impress me.
I mean I’m a huge Archie Sonic fan and I knew that I was going to have to wait and see if there’d be some continuation of the Archie ideas. I went in expecting a whole new book. But this book is made by the exact same team as the old book. And honestly? The new book has replaced what could be interesting new story threads with much too much action or focus on continuity of games that they expect the fans to have played over natural storytelling and letting the characters speak for themselves.
But there is *one issue* that was really good. It’s issue 2. It’s fantastic. It’s the only one of the four issues that actually works and yet I’m still kind of bothered about how Sonic’s treating Amy and Amy’s own writing feeling oddly… offish?
Also why this setup? All of the casual fans and people who have a passing knowledge of Sonic know the old Genesis crew of Tails, Knuckles, and Amy. These books being set up the way they were were much too repetitive and I can’t see Sonic non-fans being won over with how… average these books were.
Listen. I read Squirrel Girl, the new Venom book, sometimes DC might put out something good, IDW’s licensed work is usually fantastic in Transformers, Ghostbusters, Turtles, Ponies, and Jem and the Holograms. But this Sonic book? It’s their weakest book so far. It has been a huge let down. But I don’t blame IDW.
I blame Sega for this new book being boring. IDW does a lot of licensed work for fun companies. They also had something unique where they had a ton of liberty to do fun and loose stuff with the other properties. Nickelodeon and Hasbro allow IDW to do whatever the hell they want as long as it’s good and sells books. But Sega has a twisted sense of authorship where they’re dictating too much of what goes on in this book and it’s suffering for that.
The book may be selling well *right now* but the problem is that later? What if people are already tired of the book after the first four issues? Right now, people are just hungry and want the new Sonic book because they liked and miss having a Sonic book to get. Now they have it but at what cost?
And yeah? I say this not as someone who wants this book to fail. I love Sonic comic books. I love Archie Sonic and Sonic the Comic has a fond place for me and I love to read the fancomic Online. But this new IDW Sonic just hasn’t done what a comic book should really do. It’s been far too light on the story and nothing besides action and a whole bunch of fighting happen. At least *stuff* happens in Squirrel Girl with its unique stories all having something new going on in each issue. But here? The story arc is clear but it’s not really *moving at all.*
The problem is that the new book is boring to me.
And that sucks.
I bet Archie would’ve regretted cancelling the original comic by now.
I’m a very proud IDW Sonic subscriber. I’ve loved every issue so far!