Meet DC Comics’s new publicist: James Gunn!

When DC Studios heads James Gunn and Pater Safran revealed their first 10 initiatives for Chapter One of the revamped DCU, one factor jumped out straight away: they had been all primarily based very intently on comedian books. And as I’ve famous many instances, the nearer the comics-to-media connection, the extra copies the comedian will promote.

And certainly, backlist titles for All-Star Superman, Supergirl, The Authority, Swamp Thing and Booster Gold instantly noticed a run on Amazon. I didn’t display screen screenshot all of the rankings, however Supergirl from Tom King and Bilquis Everly offered out, The Authority Vol. 1 is offered out in print and All-Star Superman is at present #7,521 in Books, which I assure wasn’t the case previous to the announcement.

One can solely think about the scene at LA’s The Golden Apple comics store, the place Hollywood varieties historically make a run to select up comics they want for improvement and what not. I’m certain anxious stars and brokers grabbed each obtainable copy of The Authority to see whether or not they’d be higher to play Apollo or Midnighter.

James Gunn isn’t any johnny come these days to comics – his work  reveals a deep information of comics lore, and his social media is filled with plugs and paintings. But his twitter feed has rapidly change into not solely the prime place to debunk DC rumors – however the place to plug new DC comics. Witness this trade final evening (Screenshot):

This is a PR dream in motion. Gunn tweeted an attractive piece of Swamp Thing artwork by the late nice Berni Wrightson, DC’s official twitter tweeted that “SWAMP THING WINTER SPECIAL #1 by @TomKingTK & @JasonFabok is now Free-to-Read with registration here https://bit.ly/3HCWYMX on DC UNIVERSE INFINITE.”

And Gunn retweeted that! An 80 web page big, no much less.

A short while later, Gunn had an much more direct touch upon DC Studios’s impression on DC Comics gross sales.

Oh yeah! #ReadComics @DCComics https://t.co/mNFMJHzAt7

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) February 10, 2023

Given my present obsession with gross sales charts, I dug into the origin of this graphic, and it’s a website known as CovrPrice, that tracks aftermarket gross sales and gives to “SEE WHAT YOUR COMICS ARE WORTH. REAL SALES DATA, REAL VALUES” together with different collector companies. According to a narrative on the DC gross sales surge on ComicBook.Com, 

Want to know what comedian books are trending every week and why? COVRPRICE.COM makes use of dwell gross sales analytics to determine and compile probably the most sturdy market worth information, highlighting the weekly prime trending comics. No opinions. Just information. Each week, they current a newly up to date record of the TOP 10 COMICS trending within the aftermarket. These developments are on account of rumors, fan-favorite covers, story-driven content material, and content-related information.

Hm, should examine extra.

A previous tweet from Gunn proper after the Chapter One announcement immediately plugged the supply comics, like Grant Morrison’s Batman and so forth. And Gizmodo reported on the gross sales spike:

According to Amazon’s present record of best-selling superhero comics and graphic novels, readers are snapping up Morrison’s Batman and Superman books in addition to King’s Supergirl (in each paperback and Kindle editions). The comics and graphic novels record (with out the “superhero” subcategory) additionally reveals the identical three books within the prime 14.

This is simply at some point after Gunn’s tweet, so you possibly can solely guess that these numbers are going to go up as soon as DC’s numerous initiatives transfer alongside in manufacturing. Is James Gunn the new Oprah’s Book Club, inflicting a publishing increase within the comics world? None of those titles had been precisely obscure to start with, but when it turns extra moviegoers into comedian fiends, we’re all for it.

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