June 2012 Comic sales.

BEFORE WATCHMEN: MINUTEMEN #1 107,517
BEFORE WATCHMEN: COMEDIAN #1 104,142
BEFORE WATCHMEN: SILK SPECTRE #1 102,955
BEFORE WATCHMEN: NITE OWL #1 101,297

Only books that sold more last month? Avengers vs. X Men, Batman and Justice League.

Mike

Each copy sold was for a review on the internet.

If this thing actually finishes... and I'm assuming it will... I wonder how they'll collect it. Each mini separately, the whole thing in one magilla or some other configuration. If they do the whole thing as one volume, it will dwarf the original in sheer size.

From here on out, DC will only sell the original Watchmen as part of a single hardcover volume that includes all of the Before Watchmen comics.

Atomic Robo, Roger Langridge's Snarked, and Usagi Yojimbo.

Huh, oh sorry, guess I was asleep and dreaming for a minute there!

Bear in mind those numbers reflect what the retailers bought from Diamond, not what readers bought from the retailers. My guess is the final issues in December-February will be only half those amounts. Which is still sadly better than most comics these days.

I'd also guess that they will be reprinted both as stand-alone volumes and probably in an "ABOLUTE BEFORE WATCHMEN" slipcase edition for people with money to burn.

My guess is a third or less.

On the reprints, I'm thinking they'll do it like Morisson's Seven Soldiers, in two volumes.

Yeah two volumes, which is why they'll do a slipcase.

Nah, they are mostly six part series, designed for a prolonged series of monthly releases, they will most certainly collect each series individually first, then collect them together in a two part trade, then a slip cover edition of the part trade, then a huge omnibus, and then sell a special hard cover slip case edition, directors cut with added materials, interviews and sketches. And then a big slip case edition hardcover collecting the whole BW series with the original Watchmen. And that's when they announce "After Watchmen."

Minutemen #2 and Ozymandias #1 look very good.

Minutemen #2 seems to have a lot going on, and is starting to feel like what I imagined the Alan Moore prequel would have been like.

Ozymandias #1 has gorgeous art and I like Len Wein's wordy style for the script.

Both seem to have a lot of story going on and not decompressed. I'm still not going to buy them though, but I really want to now.

The story in Ozymandias is incredibly weak. It's the backstory of Veidt expanded to feature length. Confirms Rohrschach's "possibly homosexual" comment and then three pages later contradicts it. Veidt's new lady-friend (they met at the Gunga Diner, of course) gets mixed up in drugs at Moloch's club and dies (only four pages later), Veidt becomes Ozymandias to get revenge.

Just to be clear: the richest man in the world EVENTUALLY kills Moloch twenty years later SUPPOSEDLY as part of a conspiracy to make the world a better place, but it was actually just revenge for drugging his girlfriend.



And Len Wein wonders why Moore wanted to leave this alone.

On the alt cover, we already knew Phil Jiminez was worthless.

Crap, you're just kidding I got excited there for a second. I guess I really wanted to believe it.

I may be giving Wein too much credit, but I suspect that Ozzy not killing Moloch will be part of him realizing the whole futility of the masked hero bit.

I'd put Ozzy #1 just behind Silk Spectre #1 for this project so far. Minutemen #2 was better because they finally got to the damn story but out of all the books, only Silk Spectre is trying to do something beyond either just an extended re-mix of scenes or references from the original or flatly contradicting details of the original.

Mike

Looking for the Phil Jimenez cover I came across Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt cover drawn by Jae Lee.

I thought the Jimenez cover was okay by the way, but I originally thought Dave Gibbons drew it. The 3rd cover variant cover is by Jim Lee I think, which I don't care for.

Interesting article about the sales of the original Watchmen series in its first release.

Thanks, Ted, that was interesting indeed!

Number twelve is solicited this month as the final issue.