To be totally honest, I never expected the Icon sales to be so low. I love the line of books and have been buying them from Issue 1, but the orders after Issue #1 (of Painkiller Jane) were extremely low and I am not sure why.
I think a lot of websites have been ignoring the books they are putting out and spending a lot of time looking elsewhere or at only the superhero books that Marvel has put out.
That’s Painkiller Jane writer and co-creator (with Marvel CCO Joe Quesada), Jimmy Palmiotti, talking about low sales on the book’s relaunch with Marvel’s Icon imprint. A quick glance at Comichron suggests that the Marvel issues sold on par with the series’ run with Dynamite Entertainment (which is to say, U.S. orders in the low 6000s).
Palmiotti seems to be squarely blaming the low orders on websites not covering the Icon books. I’m wondering whether that would change if Marvel put any marketing or promotional muscle behind the line whatsoever (I suspect that it would). As it is, Icon feels like an imprint that Marvel tolerates, not one that Marvel promotes.