August 31, 2005

"SPIKE: OLD TIMES" SELLS OUT

Just thought I'd mention that, according to Chris Ryall, "Spike: Old Times" has sold out both from Diamond and the publisher (their initial order plus everything they'd overprinted for reorders.)

The guys at Fourth World Comics in Smithtown, NY, where I buy my books (best comic shop in Long Island, folks) have likewise sold out. The canny retailers put copies of the book in the pull file of everyone who had ordered the "Angel" comic as an FYI, and every single person bought it without hesitation.

So that's nice.

I've no idea if there's plans to go back to press.

PAD

Posted by Peter David at August 31, 2005 01:27 AM | TrackBack | Other blogs commenting
Comments
Posted by: Dynen at August 31, 2005 01:45 AM

Peter, do you ever sleep?

I just got back from a screening of "Serenity". It was excellent!! It was one of the funniest movies I've seen in years.

Dynen

Posted by: Neil Robertson at August 31, 2005 01:46 AM

I sure hope so. I ordered seven copies, Diamond sent me two (listed as such on the invoice; they seem to have messed up my original order). I put in a reorder instantly, and was told it was already gone. I have customers who want it.

I'm asking for more copies nicely, folks.

Posted by: Rat at August 31, 2005 02:39 AM

Just out of curiousity, here, but are you still really pleased/surprised/incredulous when your stuff sells out, Peter? I mean, you ARE you, I mean, Peter David, one of the four writers I hope that my stuff could ever hope to be distantly compared to? (I can see it now. "Yeah, his writing's not too good. He's no Peter David!")

Posted by: Nathan at August 31, 2005 02:55 AM

I loved this comic! PAD, please do more Spike stories!

Posted by: hdefined at August 31, 2005 04:36 AM

Fourth World Comics rocks!

Posted by: Bobby Nash at August 31, 2005 05:04 AM

Congrats, Peter. And now, on to Dragon Con. See you there.

Bobby

Posted by: gvalley at August 31, 2005 06:25 AM

Good for ya, PAD!

Posted by: Fred Chamberlain at August 31, 2005 09:20 AM

The fact that a $7.50 independent comic sold out within a week of hitting stands is quite a feat!! Congrats!

The Long Island store that PAD talks about has it right in being both customer friendly and smart enough to do assertive suggestive selling. Come on folks, we were expected to do it by McDonalds when working behind the counter, how can a retailer possibly justify not doing this stuff for his own benefit?

As far as Diamond shorting other retailors, I've heard that larger stores who provide the company with monsterous accounts takes precedence over all others to the point of being able to up their initial orders, leaving other stores shorted. It makes as much, if not more sense to me than the idea that there are obviously counting errors in one out of every 15 to 20 titles ordered.

Fred

Posted by: Rick Keating at August 31, 2005 09:23 AM

As I mentioned on the first Spike thread, my store didn't receive the copy that I'd ordered, and as of last week, were trying to re-order it. Hopefully, they'll be successful in that endeavor.

Rick

Posted by: Jennifer at August 31, 2005 09:31 AM

I know a lot of Spike fans who still haven't gotten their copies, so for their sake I hope they will produce some more. Thankfully, I got my order from IDW.

Posted by: SAM-EL at August 31, 2005 09:31 AM

Indeed an awesome comic. My retailer sold more of this than he did of Angel:The Curse. Shows what briulliant writing will get you.
SAM-EL

Posted by: JamesLynch at August 31, 2005 09:42 AM

Do you have the address and/or phone number for Fourth World Comics? And how far is the store from, say, Roosevelt Field? I have to travel into NYC to get my KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE and DORK TOWER comics, and I'd love to save the $12 on the Long Island Railroad tickets. Thanx.

Posted by: Kathy at August 31, 2005 09:42 AM

Peter...I loved the Spike comic and I pray you will seriously consider doing more one shots...or maybe a mini series for Spike. This character is just fantastic and has so much potential for more stories. Tell Joss we want to see more of future Spike and see if he'll let you spin some more tales. I for one will buy all the Spike stuff you guys want to write....I can never get tired of or have to much Spike. Thanks.

Posted by: Michael Brunner at August 31, 2005 09:48 AM

JamesLynch (and anyone else interested), if you want to use a subscription service, I recommend Best Comics on Jericho Turnpike. They also ship.
I've been getting my comics & most of my books here for at least a dozen years. Very good service & knowledgeable staff.

www.bestcomics.com.

Posted by: WarrenSJonesIII at August 31, 2005 09:59 AM

Hey Peter:

This sounds like a good reason to do more Spike stories.

Regards:
Warren S. Jones III

Posted by: kathy at August 31, 2005 10:06 AM

Yeah, it's gone everywhere. POWER STAR is out of it.

http://www.tvmerch.com/

Posted by: Jerome Maida at August 31, 2005 10:55 AM

PAD,
Congrats. It looks like a lot of people got past the "sticker shock" of the cover price. If they're like me, they're glad they did.
This is great. Great for you. Great for IDW. Great for Joss. Great for the Angel franchise. Great for retailers. And it's great for the industry whenever anything sells out.
Cool.

Posted by: Jerome Maida at August 31, 2005 11:06 AM

Rat,
"Just out of curiousity, but are you still really pleased/surprised incredulous when your stuff sells out, Peter?"

Seriously, why wouldn't he be pleased? Jerry Rice is the greatest receiver in football history, yet he's still pumped whenever he makes a big play. Because he knows how much work he puts in to get to that point and is ultracompetitive. Why wouldn't PAD feel the same way?
As far as surprised, well if you take into account:
1.) Angel has been off the air for over a year
2.) Both Buffy and Angel ongoings have been cancelled in the past
3.) The high cover price
4.) That this was published by IDW and not the Big Two, with their bigger marketing muscle
5.) That not everything PAD has done recently has sold tremendously well (heck, there are still plenty of copies of the Azzarello/Lee "Superman" issues collecting dust at my local comics shops) and while I don't think anyone thought this book would bomb, a sellout was far from guaranteed.
Which makes this especially sweet:)

Posted by: Peter David at August 31, 2005 11:35 AM

There's always an up and a down side to a book selling out. The upside is,hey, look how much people loved the book. The downside is that it means retailers (yet again) underestimated the popularity of my work. I mean, there was one retailer who made a point of writing to me and telling me that he found the price of the book personally offensive. Although he insisted that this attitude wasn't being conveyed to his readers, lo and behold, he claimed he couldn't drum up any interest in his store because of the price. Mysteriously, Fourth World had NO trouble drumming up interest. But I wonder how many retailers had the mindset of the former and missed out on orders and sales as a result.

PAD

Posted by: Bobb at August 31, 2005 11:40 AM

Say PAD, if you started writing a monthly (or even bi-monthly) Angel book, I might actually be able to get my wife to read some comics. Her main reason for not wanting to is that they're too short, but she loved the Angel TV series (so much that she doesn't think that she'll be able to watch David Boreanez in Bones as another character).

I think I could even get the high IDW price by her...which, considering that I'm going to want to continue with Fallen Angel, might be a bit hard to fit into our budget.

But gratz on the sellout. The next question, of course, is when will the second print be available?

Posted by: J. Alexander at August 31, 2005 12:07 PM

Congrads, Peter. Say did Joss want to do a spin-off tv series featuring Spike and Faith? I would love to see you do a comic book focusing on these characters.

Posted by: Jeff Lawson at August 31, 2005 01:21 PM

Actually, Tim Minear has reportedly said recently that Joss has asked him to write and direct "some blonde vampire movie thing." So, presumably, a Spike project is already in the works. Or possibly a Harmony project, which in its own way is much more amusing.

I do hope that the one-shot opens the door for more PAD involvment in the Buffyverse, though.

Posted by: Karen at August 31, 2005 01:31 PM

I mean no disrespect to Mr. David, but I believe the success of the Spike comic had more to do with the subject of the comic than the author. I'm sure Peter David is a very good author but I know I've never heard of him much less ever even bought a comic, but I bought Spike. And, I believe, this is the same for the majority of the other people who bought this comic. I believe the reason this comic was such a huge success was because the fans of James Marsters/Spike are always hungry for merchandise that spotlights him and eager to purchase it. Now if Mr David's other work becomes more popular I would say that it was a reflection of being well received by so many new readers.

Posted by: Fred Chamberlain at August 31, 2005 01:48 PM

Karen:
>I mean no disrespect to Mr. David, but I believe the success of the Spike comic had more to do with the subject of the comic than the author. I'm sure Peter David is a very good author but I know I've never heard of him much less ever even bought a comic, but I bought Spike. And, I believe, this is the same for the majority of the other people who bought this comic. I believe the reason this comic was such a huge success was because the fans of James Marsters/Spike are always hungry for merchandise that spotlights him and eager to purchase it. Now if Mr David's other work becomes more popular I would say that it was a reflection of being well received by so many new readers.

Wow, your post was a bit surprising since Peter David is one of the biggest names in comic writers and a best-selling fiction writer. You speak of his popularity as if he is a newbie when, in fact, he has reached the level of popularity that you are wishing on him. I'd say that it was probably a healthy combination of his own fans and fans of the show/character.

Fred

Posted by: J. Alexander at August 31, 2005 02:25 PM

I second Fred's comments, Karen. Peter has his own group of loyal fans that know that he is a great source of entertaining writings in comics, books and screenplays. James Marsters is one hell of an actor, but do not discount the fans of Peter. By the way, Karen, if you have not checked out Peter David's New Frontier novels, you should do so. It contains the same type of witty dialogue that makes some of the Buffy series seem to be so memorable.

Posted by: Zeek at August 31, 2005 02:49 PM

Oh man, I hope it's there when I finally get the chance to pick it up!

btw, did ya hear the rumor they're making a mad-for-tv movie featuring Spike? Or was that already mentioned somewhere elese?

Posted by: Zeek at August 31, 2005 02:49 PM

Oh man, I hope it's there when I finally get the chance to pick it up!

btw, did ya hear the rumor they're making a made-for-tv movie featuring Spike? Or was that already mentioned somewhere elese?

Posted by: Tim Lynch at August 31, 2005 02:49 PM

I'm going to defend Karen's post here. If I remember correctly when Peter first announced the Spike one-shot, he was hoping that it would bring in a lot of new readers who were previously unfamiliar with his work.

Karen's post here shows that it's done exactly that. Why is that something worthy of ... well, not scorn, I suppose, but criticism?

Peter absolutely has a group of loyal fans -- but compare the average book sales of ANY comic to that of Buffy's viewership. Buffy wins by more than an order of magnitude. (I wouldn't be surprised if the same went for Peter's NF novels, but I don't know for sure.) Now, obviously not every Buffy fan went out and bought this comic ... but clearly an awful lot did, and we should be happy about that.

I think Karen's right at least in part, in that interest in Spike was at least as big a factor in the book's sales as interest in PAD's work. Peter's job here is to entice all those new readers over to his other work, and I'm hoping that's exactly what'll happen.

Karen, welcome aboard -- glad to have you here. And do check out some of Peter's other work -- if you liked his dialogue in SPIKE: OLD TIMES, rest asssured that much of the same energy and wit permeates most of his other comics and novels as well.

Tell us your other interests and we'll steer you appropriately. :-)

TWL

Posted by: Zeek at August 31, 2005 02:49 PM

Crap. Sorry for the double post!

Posted by: Peter David at August 31, 2005 03:04 PM

No, Karen has a valid point. I think it's fair to say it's a combination. There were any number of people who swore up and down that they wouldn't plunk down that amount of money for a "Spike" book under ordinary circumstances, but were doing so because I had written it. By the same token, I have no doubt that many people would have bought it if it had been written by Joe Shlobotnik because, hey, it's Spike. I was just speaking from the personal experience of having some retailers lowball my work and then, lo and behold, it's gone. The entire "Many Happy Returns" storyline, "Hulk: The End," and now this. I will not be at all surprised if both "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" and "X-Factor" both sell out.

In this case, though, it probably would be fair to say that retailers underestimated both the attraction of my name and the interest from the Spike reader base.

PAD

Posted by: Luigi Novi at August 31, 2005 03:08 PM

Peter, I never got onto the Buffy/Angel bandwagon, but congratulations!

Btw, we had a research screening of the new film version of Mel Brooks' The Producers last night, and the audience loved it. I don't recall such an overwhelmingly positive response. Negative comments on the questionnairees were minimal compared to what we normally get, and they applauded after several of the numbers. Just thought you might like to know.

Posted by: Fred Chamberlain at August 31, 2005 03:28 PM

Tim:

>Karen's post here shows that it's done exactly that. Why is that something worthy of ... well, not scorn, I suppose, but criticism?

No criticism, simply pointing out that part of her perception may not be accurate. I understood her point. I respond her desire to share it. The response was to the post.

>Peter absolutely has a group of loyal fans -- but compare the average book sales of ANY comic to that of Buffy's viewership. Buffy wins by more than an order of magnitude. (I wouldn't be surprised if the same went for Peter's NF novels, but I don't know for sure.) Now, obviously not every Buffy fan went out and bought this comic ... but clearly an awful lot did, and we should be happy about that.

True. No disagreement here.

>I think Karen's right at least in part, in that interest in Spike was at least as big a factor in the book's sales as interest in PAD's work.

I agreed with and still agree with this.

Fred

Posted by: kathyc at August 31, 2005 04:10 PM

Spike has a huge fan base, and the fans are obviously eager for anything new on the character. Admittedly, I had never heard of PAD, but when I mentioned that he was doing the comic, people came out in awe and worship of him and said the Spike fans were lucky.

I would guess it goes both ways. Hopefully there are more on the way. (and I hope they do another printing because I can't find one for me!!)


Posted by: Rick Keating at August 31, 2005 04:43 PM

"By the same token, I have no doubt that many people would have bought it if it had been written by Joe Shlobotnik because, hey, it's Spike."

Or, in the case of Charlie Brown, because it would've been written by Joe Shlobotnik, his favorite baseball player.

Rick

Posted by: Sarah James at August 31, 2005 05:39 PM

I have a question for the masses. I live out in the boondocks (aka, Northern West Virginia), and we have difficulties getting a good selection of reading material around here, especially comics, and most especially independent comics.

Do any of you have suggestions or ideas where I could order a copy from, if they hopefully decide to produce more?

Posted by: Knuckles at August 31, 2005 05:53 PM

Doesn't Silver Bullet do mail order? Why yes, he said (answering his own question), they do.

www.silverbullet.com

I cannot and will not vouch for their quality, business practices or dental hygiene, but they have a swell website.

Posted by: Jennifer at August 31, 2005 05:54 PM

If they do produce more you could order a copy directly from IDW Publishing's website. There may be some other online retailers as well.

Posted by: Matt McNamara at August 31, 2005 06:44 PM

Congrats! I never get a chance to go to the comic shop, so I didn't pick it up, but if that's from the script you read at Shore Leave, I enjoyed it. Even not being a Buffy fan.

Posted by: Essex at August 31, 2005 07:05 PM

To JamesLynch, I don't know the address offhand, but I believe that Fourth World comics is located on Rt. 111 just south of where it crosses 25 (a few miles west of the Smithhaven Mall). I'm pretty sure you can Google it to get some info from the local community business organization (they don't have their own website).

Posted by: Tim Lynch at August 31, 2005 08:41 PM

Fred,

No criticism, simply pointing out that part of her perception may not be accurate. I understood her point. I respond her desire to share it. The response was to the post.

Fair enough, but the perception you discussed seemed to be that she was viewing him as a "newbie" author, when from my reading of it she implied nothing of the sort. I guess that response struck me as a little defensive or something. No offense meant, certainly.

TWL

Posted by: Fred Chamberlain at August 31, 2005 09:19 PM

Heya Tim, not defensive at all when I typed it, though I could see where it may be interpreted as that. Just struck me as odd that PAD would be referred to as an unknown. I still suspect that most people buying it are comic readers, with a lower percentage being non-readers who ventured into a comic shop the week it hit stands to search out this title. I've doubt doubt that there are a contingency of very loyal fans who did this very thing, but would need some convincing that they were a majority or even close to the number of comic readers who happen to be spillover Buffy fans.

No offense taken, btw. We're just tawkin' heah.

Fred

Posted by: Mike at August 31, 2005 09:31 PM

>>The fact that a $7.50 independent comic sold out within a week of hitting stands is quite a feat!! Congrats!

To be realistic though, most higher-priced issues sell out because the print runs are so small. Retailers don't order that many and the publisher only prints a small overrun.

Since it's IDW and not DC or MARVEL the overrun was probably very small.

Any idea what the print run was on it?

Regardless, congrats on the sellout. I did not read the Spike but I like your Hulk and will check out your new Spidey book.

Posted by: Ravenwing263 at August 31, 2005 09:42 PM

Kickass. I got my copy last week and loved it. I'd like to see more Spike work, but honestly, my bigger hope is that a lot of the people who picked up the one-shot payed attention to the beautiful Fallen Angel ad on the back.

Posted by: Jason Grey at August 31, 2005 11:16 PM

I order all my stuff from midtowncomics.com (This also serves as a reccomendation for the person above who lives in the Boonies, like I do), and they were sold out of Spike before the end of last Wednesday. Fortunately I'd placed my order by then, and I got my copy Saturday morning. It definitely flew off the online-shelves there.

J

Posted by: Kelly at September 1, 2005 12:27 AM

As of closing time tonight, DreamStrands Comics in Seattle still has 12 copies. 5 of those are the photo cover. They do mail order as well, if anyone is interested. They have a LOT of Buffy related stuff in the shop as well. Here's the website for contact info. http://www.dreamstrands.com/

I picked it it up last week and absolutely loved it, as expected.

Posted by: drb at September 1, 2005 04:27 AM

I just wanted to point out that there's a third factor at work here. Sure, a Spike comic written by Joe Nobody would have sold, just because Spike fans have been starved for any comic with him. (Quick, what was the last issue of the Dark Horse Buffy comic that had Spike in it?) With this one comic, it's nearly more with the character than the total he's EVER been seen in comic version before, panel for panel throughout the years, and certainly more than he's ever been seen, TOTAL, as a hero/antihero rather than as a villain in Spike&Dru flashbacks. Out of all the major characters, Spike was, inexplicably, more and more ignored by Dark Horse as his character became more popular, until he was written out of it altogether for the last couple years. So any comic with Spike would have sold. There was a tremendous void that is just now being filled.

But this went far beyond that. It was a Spike comic that was actually GOOD. Really, really good! Great plot, great dialogue, great continuity, great art, great everything. It wasn't this out-of-character thing with stilted dialogue aimed at eight-year-olds, that contradicted all show canon and looked like it was inked with a Marks-A-Lot. It looked and read like it could have been a special Spike-only episode of BtVS or Angel. The long-standing void of Spike in comics got many fans rushing to check it out, but its high quality is what made them buy it and persuade others to do so as well, many of whom had never set foot in a comic store before. Whether or not all those who bought and enjoyed it had ever heard of Peter David is beside the point. It's the great sucess that it is because of him, plus the artist. Mr. David got it right, and magnificently so. Because he's Peter David. That what he does.

Posted by: Myth at September 1, 2005 07:36 AM

WARP 9 in Clawson, Michigan had 100 copies last week. If someone couldn't get the Spike comic, then it might be worth it to call them and see if they will ship.

Posted by: Robin S. at September 1, 2005 11:50 AM

I recently dropped a lot of my comics (went from buying about 50 a month to 11), and when I arrived at the shop yesterday, the comic lady said she'd tossed in a comic I might not want, but she'd added it because of your name, Peter. For whatever reason, it never occurred to her that "Spike: Old Times" fell into my "Buffy/Angel Comics" slot (that's technically multiple comics, which pushes my total to more than 11, but I don't bother with silly details like that) group, but I got it anyway, thank goodness.

Posted by: Joe V. at September 1, 2005 04:54 PM

my shop still has 9 copies. i wasn't going to buy one because of the price, but i did buy one after reading this thread.

Joe V.

Posted by: Julio Diaz at September 1, 2005 05:11 PM

Retailers have been under-ordering all the Whedon-verse titles of late: witness the instant sellouts of the first two issues of SERENITY and the first issue of ANGEL: THE CURSE, all of which have gone into additional printings, with SERENITY #1 already commanding $20-$30 on the back issue market.

I can't imagine IDW won't reprint SPIKE (which was fantastic, by the way), seeing as how they've gone into three printings of ANGEL: THE CURSE #1.

Posted by: Nathan at September 1, 2005 08:03 PM

According to IDW there will be a 2nd printing of Spike. Should see it in about 6 weeks.

Posted by: Luke K. Walsh at September 1, 2005 08:59 PM

I was impressed my comic shop still had four copies (two days ago); then I see someone had, at some point, twelve - ! I don't see too many comics with that many copies these days, let alone a $7.49 one ... What? A store had ONE HUNDRED COPIES?! Wow! That's a pretty big endorsement right there ....

Anyway, congratulations on the - very quick - sell-out, PAD!

(And btw, Fred wasn't the only one who found Karen's letter to be belittlingly dismissive of PAD. While Spike's popularity was clearly a major factor in this sell-out, I also took issue with the assertion of her post, as I read it, that [because she had never heard of him] PAD was some unknown hack whose nobody name clearly could not have had anything to do with the sales of this book.)

Posted by: Tim Lynch at September 1, 2005 09:33 PM

There's the difference, Luke. I didn't see her letter suggesting that she thought PAD was a hack -- he was an unknown to her, and she assumed more people came because of the Spike draw than because of his name. Keep in mind, she said that she'd never bought a single comic before.

At absolute worst, it's just her assuming more people are in her "category" than in the category of those who only bought it because Peter wrote it.

And with no disrespect to Peter intended, I wouldn't be at all surprised if she were right, for reasons I've outlined earlier.

Don't get me wrong -- plenty of people bought it primarily or exclusively because of Peter's presence as well. I'm one of them -- I enjoy Spike as a character, but I'd never have given the book a look without PAD's name as writer. But given the relative numbers of TV vs. comics, and PAD's own statements many times here that most readers buy based on character first and writer somewhere lower down the list, I suspect Spike's name in this case carried more weight than Peter's did.

TWL

Posted by: Rick Keating at September 1, 2005 09:34 PM

I stopped by Warp 9 after work today. They were all out.

Nice to know there will be a second printing, but that doesn't change the fact that either my store forgot to order it, or IDW short changed the store. Either way, I'm not very happy- especially since I put it on my list months ago.

I guess now the question becomes whether my store will get the copy intended for me in the near future, or will I have to wait six weeks?


Rick

Posted by: Luke K. Walsh at September 1, 2005 10:12 PM

Tim -

I do agree that Spike probably has more fame than Peter David (NY Times best-seller Peter David ...) - although it's not, very, very sadly, as though it was ever a top 50 show, ratings-wise, let alone top 10 - and don't even dispute the idea that the character, not the author, was probably the top reason the majority of people bought the book. I was just seconding the impression that Karen felt PAD was due NO credit for the sell-out. She did write "I believe the reason this comic was such a huge success was because the fans of James Marsters/Spike are always hungry for merchandise that spotlights him and eager to purchase it." The problem might be in her next sentence: "Now if Mr David's other work becomes more popular I would say that it was a reflection of being well received by so many new readers." On first blush, I at least read this as "If someone actually starts reading his OTHER stuff, then THAT might be due to his own name." Re-reading it now, I see that she was actually saying that the new readers, such as herself, which PAD may have gained through working on the Spike project could carry over and increase his general readership in the future. Although I do still think that her first sentence which I quoted does say, intentionally or not, that PAD is due no credit for the success of "Spike: Old Times", I do now see that the thrust of her post as a whole was not dismissive. So, thanks for getting me to re-read it!

Posted by: Tim Lynch at September 2, 2005 07:06 AM

Luke --

My pleasure!.

I was just seconding the impression that Karen felt PAD was due NO credit for the sell-out.

The only thing I think I'm going to belabor here is that she wrote, along with the sentences you quoted, "I believe the success of the Spike comic had more to do with the subject of the comic than the author." That came before the stuff you cited, and implies pretty strongly (at least to me) that she's giving Peter's name some credit for the sales, just not the majority of it.

I can see where the first sentence you quoted might give you the impression you got, but I think the one before it sets a different tone that's the one I wound up following.

Whatever. We're all on the same basic page here -- happy the book sold well, happy Peter picked up a bunch of new readers, and hopeful that they'll follow him to other books (particularly Fallen Angel).

TWL

Posted by: chbarrett3 at September 3, 2005 01:53 AM

my store had 10 on order and got none. i asked if it was allocated and she seems to think that it has to do with the change in distributer locations. hmm. at first she didnt believe me that it came out but i referenced her to this site as PAD wouldnt lie about his own book.

Posted by: Mark James Schryver at September 4, 2005 03:34 AM

Ummm . . . am I missing something?

IDW's web site doesn't make a single mention of this book. And, while PAD is listed on the pull-down menu of creators, when you select his name, it comes up with "No titles available." If I didn't know this book existed, there's no way I'd find out about it, from IDW's site.

According to the website for Midtown Comics (the best comic book store in Manhattan), the hasn't come out yet, and isn't scheduled for this week either

Homina? Has the book released, or not? Help!

MJ

Posted by: Mark James Schryver at September 4, 2005 03:37 AM

Amendment: There is a small picture of "Spike" on IDW's front page, appearing about every third time you hit the site. It's alternating with "Shaun of the Dead."

Clicking on the picture links you to a page in IDW's store, with the message, "Product not found!"

Sill perplexed . . .

MJ

Posted by: Michael Pullmann at September 4, 2005 06:17 PM

Midtown Comics in Times Square sold out too.

Posted by: Rich Thigpen at September 5, 2005 03:10 AM

I am SO annoyed. I've been waiting for this book for months, and the comics shop I normally go to (they don't do pull-lists) kept telling me it hadn't been published yet. Now, after hearing that the book had actually shipped, I've called 20 (literally) comics shops all over the Los Angeles area, and they're ALL sold out! :(

Posted by: joelfinkle at September 5, 2005 03:06 PM

My shop hadn't pulled one for me (I do read a fair amount of PAD's comix, but don't tend to read TV-tie-ins), but there were still copies available.

Great story, lives nicely in the Buffyverse, terrific art too.
Thanks,
JF

Posted by: Jennifer at September 6, 2005 10:33 AM

The reason IDW's store says "Product Not Found" is because all available copies of the comic that IDW had available for sale via their website have been sold. Unfortunately, I haven't seen anything from them about doing a second printing.

Posted by: Mark James Schryver at September 7, 2005 12:51 PM

I'm still surprized by the fact that there's almost nothing on the IDW site to promote the book. Even if it's not for sale through them, it's still a product they produced. That it's doing really well seems like even more reason to brag about it. And wasn't there anything on the site promoting the book, back before it released?

Also, I'd've thought they'd assume that people would go to their site looking for info on possible reprinting, etc., once it started selling out. That's a pretty good reason to have something on the site.

Oh well, different strokes, I guess.

MJ

Posted by: Lisa at September 8, 2005 12:05 AM

They still have some with the photo cover at www.zaldiva.com if anyone is looking.

Posted by: Jennifer at September 13, 2005 09:58 AM

MJ - there is something on IDW's site promoting the book.

Posted by: Mark James Schryver at September 20, 2005 02:59 PM

Jennifer,

What does IDW have? I just looked again; still nothing?

What did you see there?

MJ