ETERNAL Sales, and Why New Comics Need To Be Made

by ryankl

ETERNAL landed last week, and it did alright, alright, alright.

This shieldmaiden ghost story at Black Mask Studios from me, Eric Zawadzki, Dee Cunniffe, Dan Hill, and Courtney Menard has been a crazy passion project and we were beyond excited to see stores rally behind us and get us to #51 on the sales chart for January!

This is a staggering success for us, but the party isn’t over.

So I just wanted to link you to this twitter moment I set up:

MAKE THE TWITTER MOMENT GO!

The gist of it is this:

Eternal has launched strong, but an OGN needs to sell over time, too. Hopefully forever, but I won’t get ahead of myself.

Many stores have sold out of their stock. One store told me they sold out 2 weeks in a row, so they’re dipping back in for a third week. I want these stores to know they should re-up their stock. Which I’m sure they are doing, but I want them doing it in great numbers again. They will do that if they *know* the market is there.

So, what can you do?

  • Talk to your LCS and ask for a copy if you don’t already have one.
  • Talk to your LCS and ask for a copy and put it away for a future birthday party or work Secret Santa. Perfect gift for just about anyone who reads.
  • Talk to your LCS about how much you loved the book and they could sell heaps more to smart readers :]

Doing all of this supports the book, which certainly supports me, but I think it could go a little way to helping out comics in general [as I see them].

Y’see, I want more comics of different sizes – this book was oversized pages, longer than a one-shot, shorted than a standard OGN, it was cheaper, it was gorgeous paper, it had a spine. It was something we felt was relatively untested [not a first, but not something in Previews every month] and it’s landed well. So let’s keep pushing and hopefully the market is receptive to more of this. Hopefully Black Mask lead the charge to make more. Hopefully more stores know there’s a readership for this, and money to be made for them. Hopefully more readers bend their Wednesday habits to include stuff like this in their list.

ETERNAL feels like the start of something big for us, and hopefully all of us.

Spread the word, talk to your LCS, and thanks for all of those who’ve already been so generous with all their time. You’re the best.

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