In the comic book world, publishers like DC Comics and Marvel are known for occasionally relaunching books to increase short-term sales. But this past month, DC Comics relaunched every title with a new No. 1, along with creating several brand-new books as well.
    
DC chose to reshuffle the creative teams on titles, reboot the histories of long-time characters like Superman and The Flash and start the vast majority of the titles from scratch, with no experience necessary.
    
Called The New 52, DC launched the initiative on Aug. 31 with the midnight release of “Justice League” No. 1 by the critically acclaimed creative team of writer Geoff Johns and artist Jim Lee. The book is now in its fourth printing and has sold over 200,000 copies in a comic book age where most titles sell around 50,000 copies or less.
    
Throughout the month of September, the remaining 51 No. 1 issues of the books released. Those releases have driven new customers to Knoxville comic stores and caused existing fans to pick up more monthly books.
    
Bill Langford, owner on Comics Exchange on Chapman Highway, said he felt conflicted when The New 52 was announced months ago.
   
 “As a retailer, I was happy because I knew it would be an influx of new sales,” Langford said. “As a reader, I was slightly disappointed because I had spent a lot of my life reading DC Comics. And the relaunch effectively wiped out a lot of the DC history I was familiar with.”
    
Langford said he understood the new books are reader friendly, but he felt disappointed that a lot of older stores essentially do not matter anymore.
    
Customer reaction has not been as conflicted.
    
“It’s been pretty overwhelmingly positive,” he said. “There have been a few people who stopped buying DC books because they said it wasn’t their universe anymore. ... But I would say it’s been 90 percent positive among my customers.”
    
New customers to the store have numbered between 50 and 100, he said, with many driven by advertisements in movie theaters and on television. DC also garnered press from The New York Times, USA Today and a host of other publications and websites.
    
“It seemed like they were excited to get in on the ground floor of a fresh start on these old characters,” he said. “They’d always wanted to read ‘Batman,’ but maybe it’s been daunting that there’s been 60 to 70 years of history that they haven’t been familiar with. So most of us feel happy that they can start with issue No. 1 and start at the very beginning.”
   
 Langford said “Justice League,” as well as “Action Comics” No. 1 by writer Grant Morrison and artist Rags Morales, are the most popular titles, sales-wise. Customers also rave about the first issues of “Demon Knights,” “Aquaman” and “Animal Man.”
 
In particular, Langford is surprised that those B- and C-level characters like Animal Man and Swamp Thing are having best-selling books.
    
“Two years ago, if you were to tell me I was going to order 50 copies of ‘OMAC,’ I would have said you’re nuts,” he said.
    
Before the relaunch, he said Comics Exchange usually did not sell out of any DC book. But with The New 52, the store has sold out of about 45 of the 52 titles.
    
In particular, before the relaunch, he ordered about 60 copies of “Action Comics.” But with the relaunch, he ordered 200 copies of “Action” and sold them all.
    
He expects DC sales to stay up as long as the company commits to the relaunch. If DC backtracks and returns to the old universe before the reboot, customers might backlash against the company.
   
 He also noted that people are buying multiple copies of the No. 1s and devoting fewer dollars to Marvel to reconcile the comics budgets.
    
Sci-Fi City manager Eric Hess was most concerned about the news that with the relaunch, DC Comics would go day-and-date digital with the comics. So, for the first time, digital versions of the comics would be on sale the same day as print for the same price. A month after release, the digital price goes down $1.
   
 “It doesn’t seem, at least in the short-term, that it has affected my business anyway,” Hess said.
   
 Hess said a lot of customers have bought the new titles, and many new customers are coming in, looking specifically for The New 52 books.
    
“I haven’t had a new influx of customers like that, at least since I’ve been open,” Hess said.
    
Though he has no approximate figures, he said the store has sold out of every issue of The New 52, even though Hess ordered double the amount of what he normally orders for each title.
    
“Most of them still sold out on the first day of release,” he said.
    
The most popular titles at Sci-Fi City are “Justice League,” “Action Comics” and “Batman” by writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo.
   
 Hess has read all 52 of the new books, and he would say “Action Comics” is his favorite. It surprised him because he’s usually not a fan of Morrison’s writing. But he loved issue No. 1.
    
“You don’t get the whole Krypton, last son sent to Earth,” he said. “You don’t get that in the first issue. You just have this guy who is stronger than regular people. He can leap over tall buildings. He’s fast, and he’s fighting mob bosses and regular street-level crime and not intergalactic threats or people trying to take over the world.”
   
 He said Morrison’s rebooted first issue paralleled the 1930s original “Action Comics” No. 1.
    
“In this first issue, (Superman) was more about truth and justice and not so much about law and order,” he said.
    
The most underrated book of the relaunch, in Hess’ mind, is “All-Star Western.”
    
“This first issue was a really solid issue, bringing Jonah Hex to Gotham City,” he said. “And there’s this whole murder mystery, and he was hired to find the killer. It was really interesting, and it was a lot better than people thought it would be.”
    
Like Langford, Hess is surprised at some of the sales of the lesser books out of The New 52.
    
“I ordered so many on a lot of them,” Hess said. “I was like, y’know, I’m not going to sell all of ‘Hawk and Dove.’ I will still have some ‘Hawk and Dove’ on the shelf, and behold, it sold out on the day of release. I never would have thought that would happen.”