Dynamite Entertainment is marking the 50th anniversary of Red Sonja with a new ongoing series, and the first issue racked up orders for over 72,000 copies by Final Order Cutoff.  As a result, Dynamite went  back to press and printed at least 85,000 copies of the comic, which was released today, July 19, 2023.

The new series, by writer TorenGronbekkand artist Walter Geovani, starts with Red Sonja fleeing a false charge of murder and trying to deal with a nagging voice in her head.  Dynamite has announced 15 variant cover for the issue (see “Preview: ‘Red Sonja’ #1 Covers”).

Dynamite’s first Red Sonja comic, Red Sonja #0, had pre-orders of 200,000 when it was launched in 2005 (see “Red Sonja #0 Sells 200K”).  At the time, that was the best performance by a non-Marvel or DC comic in over a decade.

Red Sonja was created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith for Marvel Comicsand first appeared in Conan the Barbarian #23, with a cover date of February 1973.  Her last Marvel appearance was in Red Sonja: Scavenger Hunt #1, a 1995 one-shot.  Dynamite began publishing Red Sonja comics in 2005 (see “She-Devil with a Sword Returns”).