I think we all agree that selling out of an artificially created print run is pretty much meaningless.

If you remember last year's Captain America Dies fiasco, you can see where the selling out of an issue means little. Demand was so high for that issue that Marvel mysteriously claimed to come up with more copies, copies they claimed were actually first prints, and copies that they couldn't get delivered for an additional week. They also claimed that the issues had been sitting at the printers waiting for covers. That doesn't make sense. My opinion is that they had the printer rush through an order for more "first" printings, thereby possibly manipulating the market.

Now, if a smaller publisher sells out his print run, I am more likely to believe them when they issue a press release. If they have pre-orders for 3800 copies and print 4000, they might actually sell out.

I wrote on this stupid PR push with New Exiles earlier this month, when the February icv2 numbers were released:

http://novayahavoc.blogspot.com/2008/03/lets-bust-this-new-exiles-sells-out-bs.html

If stores were able to return unsold issues it wouldn't be a big deal to me, but as it stands, store owners are ordering a lot books that they MAY have to dollar bin in a few months.

One further point to remember, that SanctumSanctorumComix already mentioned, is the print to order deal. As I understand it( and I could be completely wrong...Brian?)In the past Marvel had true print runs. It might be as low a 1000, or higher than 100,000. They printed, then tried to "sell" these copies to news stands, or the direct market. IF they sold all copies of this they had a true sell out, and they would print more editions. If they printed too many THEY were stuck with the inventory. With print to order now the retailers are the ones that get stuck if an issue doesn't sell. It is in Marvel "best" interest to get the LCS to order as many issues as they can sell. Now I ask you this, what if the combined LCS of the world thought this direction wouldn't sell and had cut back on orders? Wouldn't that make it impossible for Marvel to show the success that they want. Wouldn't that make it hard for them to state THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER! in an interview.?

Any comic store owners out there want to chime in?

Regardless, on their big titles they have been overprinting quite consistently, especially big push titles.

In this instance, I believe it should be considered "sold-out" by Marvel since they no longer have copies to sell (regardless of how they got rid of them).

They are the most useless press releases.

Sure, maybe dealers care - so just let them know directly instead of making a bog deal about it. How many fans out there are going, "Darn! Now I can't get a copy directly from Diamond!"

Of COURSE you sold out of the issue, you only PRINTED what was ordered.

However, for this instance; where a substantial amount of extra issues were printed in an attempt to reach greater readership, it's a bit more difficult to discern WHAT constitutes "selling out" of the stock.

Sure, they sold out what was effectively available "for sale", but they DO have excess issues that are for promotional purposes.
In that regard, NO, they did NOT sell out.
However, an asterisk need be placed by that statistic because of how they are setting up the options of how to GET that issue makes selling out impossible until (nearly) all of the extra issues are ordered.

Be that as it may, the whole concept of Marvel EVER boasting of a "sold out" issue is ludicrous unless they end the print-to-order practice.

However, I'm not a retailer nor am I a marketing guru, so count my 2cents as one fans (semi)educated opinion.

~P~
P-TOR