As you may or may not know, Marvel Comics told retailers that the 600th issue of Captain America would be available for sale today, a Monday (Wednesday being the day new comics normally go on sale), because there was going to be a biiiiiiig announcement.  They thought there was going to be similar coverage to the Death of Captain America issue, which caused a rush on comic shops and a near immediate sell-out of the issue.

Well, it’s Monday.  Sure enough, just like when Captain America died, there’s an article in the New York Daily News.  There’s just one little problem.  The article says Captain America is coming back in the “Reborn” mini-series next month.  (Not that most comic fans hadn’t already figured that part out.)  The article does not mention issue #600.  Nor does it mention that issue is on sale today.  Whoops!

Now, the fact that there’s a story about an upcoming storyline might drive a little traffic in today, and then again it might not.  The article plainly says the good Captain will be coming back next month, not today.  We’ll see if there’s sufficent foot traffic generated today to justify Marvel telling shops to order more copies of this issue or whether the retailers complaining they didn’t find out about the scheduled publicity quick enough to up their orders are relieved they didn’t.

Of course, the next question is how many mainstream media outlets pick up on the Daily News piece, and if any of them talk about the new issue being specially available today.  A media placement in a major market newspaper is always a good thing, but promoting a comic that isn’t out for another month might not translate to a ton of sales.  Time will tell.