The Watchmen “trailer effect” continues to be felt in the book market as the collection of the 22-year-old miniseries leaps 54 places up USA Today’s Top 150 list to No. 29.
USA Today’s chart tracks all genres and formats of books sold in some 4,700 brick-and-mortar and online stores.
Released July 17 with The Dark Knight, the teaser for Zack Snyder’s film adaptation quickly boosted sales of the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons trade paperback. Within three days of the trailer’s debut, Watchmen had rocketed to No. 83 on the book chart and as high as No. 2 on the Amazon.com bestseller list (it now sits at No. 3).
Last week publisher DC Comics ordered a 200,000-copy new printing to meet increased demands.
But Watchmen isn’t the only comic to receive a movie bump this week: Batman: The Killing Joke, the 1988 graphic novel by Moore and Brian Bolland, enters the USA Today list at No. 114. The work served as the inspiration for the depiction of The Joker in The Dark Knight. (Dennis O’Neil’s novelization appears on the list, too, at No. 141.)
Other comics on the USA Today chart: Jeff Kinney’s hybrid Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, at Nos. 49 and 54; and Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto, Vol. 30, at No. 101.
July 31st, 2008 at 8:43 am
I am expecting that Watchmen will outsell all but the Secret Invasion and Final Crisis tie-ins this month.