Guardians Of The Galaxy arrives August 1st, as we’re sure you know by now, and the hype for it is huge. How huge? Well, we can already pick out who the breakout star is going to be, and it’s Rocket Raccoon… because people are snapping up his comic.
For non-comics nerds, we need to offer a little contrast here: If a comic book moves, say, 50,000 physical copies, it’s doing pretty well. And people were looking forward to Rocket Raccoon, the solo book written and drawn by Skottie Young, Marvel’s resident lighthearted smart-ass. Still, it’s Rocket Raccoon, a character that’s a bit of a cult favorite even by the standards of comic book nerds and not exactly well-known.
What a difference a movie makes. The first issue has sold 300,000 copies so far, according to Comic Book Resources. Admittedly, about a third of that is courtesy of the delivery service Loot Crate, part of a larger push on the part of various companies to fill your home with plastic and resin representations of everything you loved when you were eight. Still, take that out and you’ve already got the number one comic book for July, with two weeks to go before it hits the stands.
Hopefully, this means more people who aren’t “into” comics are picking up books and trying them out. One of the best side effects of DC and Marvel having a string of hit movies is being able to talk people into trying comic books, especially if they think comics are all superheroes. Granted, a talking raccoon with a massive armory is just a very small slice of comics as a whole, but the more people reading, the better.
It also means you can expect more of a marketing push for more obscure and cult comic book characters. After all, what’s the point of spending millions in marketing if you don’t use it?