The bestselling comic books of January 2024 have been revealed. It’s Bill Finger, co-creator of Batman’s, birthday today. David Michelinie returns to Venom for Marvel. All on Comic Book Club News for February 8, 2024.
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Episode Transcript:
January’s bestselling comics revealed.
It’s Bill Finger’s birthday.
David Michelinie returns to Venom.
This is Comic Book Club News for February 8, 2024.
January 2024 Bestselling Comic Books Revealed:
January, 2024’s bestselling comic books have been revealed, and no surprise, Ultimate Spider-Man has hit the top of the charts in both units sold, and dollars earned.
In fact, with the rest of the industry taking it slow in the first month of the year, Marvel had an incredibly strong January, according to ICv2. Fall of the House of X and Rise of the Powers of X, the beginning of the end of the X-Men’s Krakoa-era, took the number two and six slots respectively on units sold. Meanwhile, Avengers: Twilight also hit the top ten, as did two issues of Amazing Spider-Man.
Over at other publishers, only one DC title — Batman #141 — came in the top ten, and in fact only 10 DC titles charted in the Top 50. In their place, the Energon Universe from Image and Skybound continues to come on strong, with Transformers at number five, Cobra Commander at number seven, and two issues of Duke hitting 28 and 35.
Meanwhile, Ghost Machine #1, also from Image Comics, came in at number nine on both charts, possibly because they shipped twice as many issues to stores as were ordered, free of charge.
The only other publisher to hit the Top 50 in January? Titan Comics, with Conan the Barbarian #6 at number 46 on units sold. Will we get a more diverse list of publishers next month? Stay tuned.
Bill Finger, Co-Creator Of Batman, Celebrates Birthday:
Today is the birthday of Bill Finger, co-creator of Batman. Born on February 8, 1914, the writer, who was born Milton Finger, died at age 59 on January 18, 1974. So to be clear, he’s not celebrating his birthday today, he’s dead.
To give you some background on Finger, though, in 1938 artist Bob Kane presented Finger with a character following up on the success of Superman that Kane called The Bat-Man, with a dash in the middle. Mostly Superman with a slightly different costume, Finger gave iconic suggestions for the costume like using a cowl instead of a mask, a cape instead of wings, and removing the color red from the costume. And thus, Batman was born.
In fact, decades later, after repeatedly denying that Finger was heavily involved in the creation of the character, Kane admitted that Finger was responsible for “50–75% of all the creativity in Batman.” Again, Finger was already dead at that point, so too little, too late, Kane.
Other creations vary in their origin stories, including The Joker, Penguin, Scarecrow, and Two-Face. Though those are still up for debate in terms of who created them, in 2015, DC Comics officially recognized Finger as the co-creator of Batman, adding him to the credit Kane had held since 1939. Don’t know if I mentioned this, but Finger was long dead by that point.
When he did die, his ashes were scattered on a beach in Oregon by his son, in the shape of a bat. And if you want to find out more about Bill Finger, check out Batman & Bill, a documentary about the late creator’s life that is streaming on Hulu.
David Michelinie Returns To Venom For Marvel:
David Michelinie is heading back to Venom for Marvel Comics. The classic creator is returning for yet another Marvel retro series titled Venom: Separation Anxiety, which will pit the title character against the mind-controlling Purple Man.
Said Michelinie via press release: “I’m always delighted to write a new Venom story in a retro background. With ‘Separation Anxiety’ as the required theme, the problem became how to do something that’s already been done—have Eddie Brock separated from his symbiote ‘other.’ So I thought, what if there was a deeply creepy villain with a decidedly bloodthirsty agenda who was able to take bits of Eddie’s symbiote away every time the two touched, with that enemy slowly growing stronger as Venom slowly grew weaker? And that was the nugget that became ‘The King In Purple.’”
Respectfully, Prince is and always will be the King in Purple, but we’ll let that slide. The new series, with art by Gerardo Sandoval, will hit stores on May 15.
For Comic Book Club News, I’m Alex Zalben. And if Bill Finger was alive today, I bet he’d say “I’m 110 years old, what is a Hulu.” Direct quote.
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