On Usenet, Paul O’Brien has posted his analysis of Marvel’s numbers for January. I’m particularly interested in how The Pulse has done in light of its Secret War crossover:
“45. PULSE
Feb Pulse #1 – 51,130 (+81.8%)
Mar Pulse #2 – 45,479 (-11.1%)
Apr n/a
May Pulse #3 – 43,655 ( -4.0%)
Jun n/a
Jul Pulse #4 – 39,883 ( -8.6%)
Aug n/a
Sep Pulse #5 – 37,812 ( -5.2%)
Oct n/a
Nov Pulse #6 – 40,895 ( +8.2%)
Dec n/a
Jan Pulse #7 – 34,779 (-15.0%)
6 mnth (-12.8%)
Back to normal numbers after the SECRET WARS tie-in. The title doesn’t seem to be holding on to its readers all that well. The bimonthly format may not be helping.”
Hm. Not much of a bump from the crossover (even with Wolverine on the cover!), then sheds what seems to be all of its new readers and a fair chunk of its existing audience (about an 8% drop from the September figure). I dropped it because of the crossover after enjoying the first arc, and I noticed a number of other bloggers did the same. Seems like we’re not alone. Of course, some might have switched over to trades or plan to pick it back up after the tie-in is done. (Must… mask… unseemly… schadenfreude.)
Y’know, if Marvel’s new content ratings are good for nothing else, they’ve at least provided fodder for online comedy. First, Scott at Polite Dissent riffed on the possibilities. Now, Jog (of the Blog) has been driven to heights of preventive abbreviation in his latest Komikwerks column. His test case is Wolverine 25:
“An X-Man, you see, would be dead by the end of that issue, and I was afraid my grief would drive me over the edge. And just imagine a child, a dear child gazing upon such an awful scenario! Unspeakable. Every flag in the United States of Jog flies at half-mast when an X-Man dies, and I spend weeks recovering.”
Good times.