Boom Studios will offer retailers free comics and other incentives to support its new Hexed series, launching this week, in conjunction with making the book available free online on MySpace.

Boom first tried simultaneous free online distribution of its comics with North Wind #1 in early 2008, and had great success, according to EIC Mark Waid.  “We saw a complete sell-out of issue #1 and we saw a 30% increase between issues #3 and #4,” he said.  “What this means is that fans who didn’t have a chance to buy issue #3 on the stands went out and bought issue #4.  The only exposure they had to issue #3 and previous issues was on the MySpace Comic Books page.  In 25 years of comics I can’t think of another time I’ve seen that sales of a miniseries like that go up.”

Despite the positive impact on sales, feedback from some retailers at the time of the North Wind online distribution was negative because they were caught by surprise by the online distribution and were concerned that their sales might be negatively affected.  The retailer side of the promotion was done in order to address those concerns.  In addition to distributing five extra copies of the book free to the top 500 comic retailers serviced by Diamond Comic Distributors, Boom is also making it returnable, and will be offering a 3% reorder incentive on all issues of the series. 

Hexed #1, which streets this week, is by Michael Alan Nelson and Emma Rios, and tells the story of a thief operating in the occult underworld.