I haven’t really given much thought to the Dark Tower comic book series published by Marvel since the first issue was released, which is why this interview with the plotter and editor behind its launch caught me by surprise. It turns out that issues of Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born has been exceeding 100,000 copies sold on a regular basis, and has been consistently within the top five bestsellers for the direct market. This is pretty amazing for a non-superhero title.

What’s especially encouraging about it is that many of the people buying these comics are probably not regular readers of the medium. One of the main problems with the direct market’s reliance on superhero comics is that there are only so many superhero purchasers to go around. When the major comic companies release yet another superhero comic it prompts the purchaser of that comic to either pay more money for his or her monthly fix, drop a title (which counteracts the point of releasing the new title in the first place) or give up buying comics altogether. On the other hand, while a title like Dark Tower or Buffy will still draw in a crowd that is comprised at least in part of people who buy superhero comics, a significant portion of the people buying the title will be new customers with money that isn’t already tied up in superheroes. It may even persuade said readers to check out other comics, and eventually grow accustomed to the nuances of the medium.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 10:25 am and is filed under Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.