SDCC 2012 Variant Cover

After being only on sale for less than a week, Robert Kirkman’s ‘The Walking Dead’ #100 has sold out of it’s initial 383,612 issue order. According to Newsarama, the book has become “the best-selling comic book in initial orders for any publisher since 1997, when Image Comics/Top Cow’s ‘The Darkness’ #11 was released.”

Despite being helped out by the milestone issue’s 13 variant covers, it’s still an incredible achievement. After all, ‘The Darkness’ #11, which reached 357,006 initial orders, had 11 variant covers.

To put things into perspective, DC’s ‘Justice League’ #1, which was the top selling book of 2011, has sold about 400,000 issues, but that’s only after the company has kept the first book of the New 52 initiative on the shelves for 10 months with an unprecedented 8 printings. When the New 52 was first launched and ‘Justice League’ was in pre-orders, it racked up an impressive 200,000 orders, which still doesn’t come close to Rick Grimes and the gang.

On the Diamond Comic Distributers’ list of June Sales figures, ‘Avengers Vs. X-Men’ sold a total of 377,260 issues. While AvX was the top-selling comic last month, it took the title two issues to get those numbers.

In a press release from Image Comics, publisher Eric Stephenson had this to say about Kirkman and Company’s accolade:

“It’s extremely uncommon, if not flat-out rare, for a comic book to see a sustained increase in sales following its first issue, but ‘The Walking Dead ‘steadily climbed up and up since its launch in 2003, and we couldn’t be more proud of Robert, Charlie and the whole ‘Walking Dead’ team.”

If you’re like me and haven’t checked out ‘The Walking Dead’ #100 yet, take a look at Jason’s review of the book and then head out to your local comic shop to pick it up. And before you say anything to me about not picking it up yet, it’s because I was very late to the party on this series and have a lot of catching up to do. But I’m getting to it!