Blood Hunt Red Band issue drives sell-outs, at least in NYC. Creepshow is coming back for a third volume. Dark Horse Comics announces Summer Shadows, an LGBTQ+ horror romance. All on Comic Book Club News for May 8, 2024.
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Episode Transcript:
Blood Hunt Red Band issue drives sell-outs.
Creepshow returns for Volume 3.
Dark Horse announces new horror series.
This is Comic Book Club News for May 8, 2024.
Blood Hunt Red Band Issue Drives Sell-Outs, At Least In NYC:
In an extensive — and rare — interview with ICv2, Marvel President Dan Buckley discusses a lot of the company’s current strategy, with one aspect getting picked up by certain outlets. Specifically that we need to start getting comic book readers to come into stores on a weekly basis.
Says Buckley: “We have to find a way to get people in the habit of going to the stores more: let’s get the Wednesday Warriors back.
I do think a lot of those people are still shopping in stores, but they’re not browsing as much. What we’re hearing is that people aren’t coming in every week. They’re coming in every two, three, four weeks, picking up their bundles.
We have to get them to start coming to the store more often, start browsing more often. Yes, we have to get new readers in there, but we have to get the ones that have been habitual readers, or are lapsed readers, to come into the stores more often than they are.”
While this is highly anecdotal, Marvel may have already found a way to drive people to stores: the Red Band, adults-only editions of the just-kicked-off event Blood Hunt.
This is based on an extremely small sample set, but I checked out three comic book stores in vastly different areas of New York City, including the main branch of Midtown Comics, on Saturday, May 4, aka Free Comic Book Day. And every single one had sold out of the Red Band version of the comic. While it’s less surprising that four days after release two smaller but usually well-stocked stores in Brooklyn didn’t have the issue, Midtown in Times Square is usually the place to get anything that is otherwise sold out in NYC.
And not only that, when I hit the store on Saturday afternoon, at the exact same time another customer was also looking for the Blood Hunt Red Band issue — with a Midtown worker noting that the copies had been in high demand.
This may of course point to a rarity of variants, but there’s also clearly a demand here for comics like the Blood Hunt Red Band issues, which are only available in brick-and-mortar stores. So will Marvel start releasing Red Band issues for their entire line? Fingers crossed Power Pack: Red Band is coming soon.
Creepshow Returns For Volume 3:
Skybound’s Creepshow is coming back for Volume 3. The horror anthology will relaunch in September with five issues, starting with a front-story by Chip Zdarsky and Kagan McLeod, and a backup story by James Stokoe.
Further issues will feature John Ridley, Mike Carey, Jorge Fornés, John Arcudi, Ed Brisson, Stefano Raffaele, Chris Condon, and many more to be announced. Maybe even some female writers or artists? Just… One, perhaps? At least?
Anyway, regardless of the dude-heavy lineup, this book is regularly fantastic, very messed up, and I always look forward to new issues. Creepshow Volume 3 #1 will hit stores on September 25, 2024.
Dark Horse Announces LGBTQ+ Horror Romance Summer Shadows:
More dudes, more horror. Dark Horse has announced Summer Shadows, an LGBTQIA+ romance book slash horror comic, written by John Harris Dunning with art by Ricardo Cabral.
Per a press release provided to Comic Book Club, the book focuses on a man looking for his ex on a Greek island, only to discover that men have been disappearing — and a mysterious black yacht called the Nyx might be at the center of it all.
Summer Shadows #1 will arrive in comic shops on September 11, 2024.
For Comic Book Club News, I’m Alex Zalben. It’s a lot of dudes, though, I’m just saying.
Got tips or stories you’d like us to cover? Email us at comicbookclublive@gmail.com.
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