Will Jae Lee Propel Boom’s Grim Over 50,000 Copies?

The similarities between James Tynion IV and Werther Dell’Edera’s megahit Something Is Killing The Children and Stephanie Phillips and Flaviano’s Grim just keep growing. We brought to your attention the many ways that Grim’s Jessica Harrow reminds us of monster hunter icon Erica Slaughter.

In addition to revealing the art for the 1-in-50 variant cover by Eisner Award-winning Mike Del Mundo, publisher Boom Studios revealed yesterday a surprise variant cover by fan-favorite Jae Lee… as we predicted. Lee’s cover on Something Is Killing The Children #1 continues to be highly sought after on the aftermarket. If we’re right and Jessica Harrow is the next Erica Slaughter then early adopters will definitely want to snag a copy of this new variant… although the 1-in-75 sketch variant will be much harder to track down.

This move is also exactly like when Boom added their first-ever J. Scott Campbell cover to Dan Panosian and Giorgio Spalleta‘s Alice Ever After #1 just ahead of Final Order Cutoff. A cover reveal that helped rocket orders for that title to over 50,000 copies.

Speaking of Alice Ever After #1, which released in comic shops yesterday, word is that retailers’ received the wrong quantities of the Campbell covers due to a printing mixup. As a result, there are fewer copies of the open-to-order Campbell variant with the logo on it and extra copies of the 1-in-10 full art incentive variant and 1-in-50 sketch incentive variant in the wild. But word from Boom is that they are printing more copies of the open-to-order Campbell variant with the logo and retailers should receive them in the next two weeks. And since Alice Ever After #1 contains the first appearance of Jessica Harrow in a first look of Grim #1, that’s a good thing indeed.

With Jessica Harrow’s first appearance in stores and murderers’ row of cover artist including Del Mundo, Lee, Jenny Frison, and Dave Johnson, heat is continuing to build for this series’ launch ahead of FOC. Advance praise from comic pros is continuing to roll in with writers like Dan Watters;

…and Zack Kaplan…

… joining artists Dan Panosian, Cully Hamner, Peter Krause, and Michael Avon Oeming. Which begs the question, with this momentum going into FOC, how high will the orders for Grim #1 go? Will retailers bet on Boom to deliver another hit franchise from Phillips, who has been building their profile at DC in much the same way Tynion did before Something Is Killing The Children? Or will we soon be reporting the publisher needing to rush back to a second printing to meet demand? Grim #1 FOCs next Monday, April 11th. Expect us to update you after it does… and don’t say we didn’t warn you.