The comics industry has just experienced its most successful month in recorded history, and it’s all thanks to Rocket Raccoon.
At $53.6 million over the course of July, the comics industry saw its highest sales since these statistics first began being tracked in 1997. Outselling Batman, Spider-Man, and a multitude of other big-name titles, the Guardians of the Galaxy film tie-in comic Rocket Raccoon #1 is estimated to have sold around 300,000 copies, a shockingly high number even for a more established title.
Part of the reason why these numbers are so high is because the company Loot Crate ordered copies of Rocket Raccoon #1 to include in a package of geek culture media and merchandise sent out to over 100,000 subscribers. However, even without this Loot Crate deal, Rocket Raccoon would still be a bestseller.
It remains to be seen whether Rocket will continue to sell this well, but this is still an incredible achievement for Marvel. Not only did the Guardians of the Galaxy movie silence any naysayers who doubted the appeal of such an obscure adaptation, but one of its weirdest characters has come out the other end as the publisher’s biggest hit of the month.
Major comic-book adaptations from DC and Marvel are always marketed in the hope that they’ll attract more readers to the comics, with mixed results. It looks like a gun-toting alien raccoon may unexpectedly be the greatest movie-to-book success story to date.
