Author: Drew

Ash Ave Comic Book Club RETURNS!

Posted on | by Drew

by

Drew

After a four year hiatus, the Ash Ave Comic Book Club returns on Sunday, April 21st to discuss Tom King and Mitch Gerads’ latest work, The Winning Card. Originally serialized in the DC Comics anthology series Batman: The Brave and the Bold, King and Gerads pick up where their Riddler graphic novel left off, with a pivot to the Clown Prince of Crime. The Winning Card is a re-imagination of the first Joker story from Batman #1 in 1940, setting out to create a comic book that, as Mitch Gerads has stated, “actually scares you,” the reader.

In one day we sold through the initial dozen copies we received, and we have more copies on the way for anyone looking to read it. Now, when it comes to how the Comic Book Club works, the main sticking point is that you need to purchase the graphic novel from us to attend the meetup. If you have already purchased a copy from the shop last week and would like to attend the meetup, then please reach out ASAP to claim your spot. If you want to attend Comic Book Club, your purchase of the graphic novel and your verbal or written commitment to attend the meetup is what we need. After all, seating is limited. And we have to have one extra open seat, as artist Mitch Gerads will be sitting in and joining us for our meetup… just like the good old days. (Mitch is a great sport, and loves to talk comics. Back in the day, he previously attended the Ash Ave Comic Book Club meetups for his maxi-series Sheriff of Baghdad and Mister Miracle).

Looking forward to seeing old and new faces for the first Comic Book Club in a long while. Shoot the shop a DM or email with any specific questions, or to reserve a seat and copy of the book. We do recommend that you get the book as soon as our restock arrives, and get to reading ASAP so you will have had some time in the week leading up to the event to think it over, and maybe put together some questions, analysis, or criticism to share with our discussion group.

Staff Picks: Best of 2023

Posted on | by Drew
Best of 2023: Staff Picks | AshAveComics.com

Better late than never, here’s the staff favorites from the year. Matt and Varun are familiar faces to anyone who shops in our brick and mortar store on the storied Ash Ave. They both provide a wealth of knowledge and assistance to shoppers, whether a customers is browsing for the first time and needs a recommendation, or for the longtime reader who is looking for a real deep cut of a read to take them off of the beaten path. Paul holds down our webstore and shipping, making sure that all of our customers around the country get their books shipped out in top form. And I’m Drew, the owner of the shop for the last 21 years, and while it seems that I am always working on 20 different tasks, I still make time to read a stack of comics every week. My favorite for the year? Greg and Fake’s Santos Sisters, a top notch bizarro humor title from Floating World that draws on an Archie Comics artistic tradition to sneak through some wild subversion.

Here’s to another year of good comics reading in 2024.

See you in the shop!

Best of 2023: Staff Picks | AshAveComics.com

Our Top 20 Best Selling Graphic Novels in 2023!

Posted on | by Drew

Continuing our Best of 2023 round up, here are our top 20 best selling graphic novels, manga, and trade paperbacks released in 2023. The reigning champs take the top two spots once again (the two most recent entries in their Reckless graphic novels were our top two best selling graphic novels of 2022) with their standalone original graphic novels Night Fever and Where the Body Was dominating our sales this year. Not far behind was Daniel Clowes magnum opus Monica, making most of the critics’ choice lists for 2023 as well. Two Viz manga titles made the top 20, Grog the Frog from indy publisher Silver Sprocket did quite well at our shop this year, and local creator Nick Cagnetti’s beloved Pink Lemonade was another of the biggest selling TPB collections released this year.  Our next year end round up post will drop tomorrow, and it will be the staff picks for the year.

How many of these did you pick up this year? Which of these titles do you still plan on reading? Let us know in the comments, and, as always, drop by the shop to snag any of these titles that we have in stock or place an order with us to get one in your hands.

Top 25 Bestselling Comic Books in 2023 | AshAveComics.com

Our Top 25 Best Selling Comic Books in 2023!

Posted on | by Drew
Top 25 Bestselling Comic Books in 2023 | AshAveComics.com

Kicking off our “Best of 2023” series with our 25 best selling comic books for the year. We will be adding some posts featuring other bestsellers, staff picks, and some memorable events from the year as we wind down the whirlwind that was 2023.

A quick note: This list does not combine all of the covers that sold for a given issue, honestly, because it would be a fool’s errand to spend all of that time trying to see how many variants or second printings sold in addition to the main cover. And sometimes a cover B or C by the right artist can move as many copies as a main cover A.

This was a lot of fun to put together and to re-visit some of the best selling comic books of the year (Riddler: Year One #2, for instance, came out the first week of January and was a huge seller just like the first issue in late 2022), and to see the not-so-surprising Batman domination of the top sellers. Still, there were plenty of other series that made the cut, like Saga, Transformers, and Void Rivals, and a strong showing from some of the Spidey books as well. Check it out!

Top 25 Bestselling Comic Books in 2023 | AshAveComics.com