So I’m taking the day off today, but not before posting a couple things:
“Dispatching the alternative minimum tax is like trying to kill the Swamp Thing, a Hollywood horror beast of the 1970s that kept resurfacing no matter how many times you tried to get rid of it.”
Oh, okay, su…wha-huh?
“About me:
“What’s up people? I’m a crime fighting vegetable in the swamps of Louisiana! When I’m not slapping some evil mad scientist like a little b*tch; I’m mackin’ wid da Cajun hos. You ever wanna go slummin’ with me, holla. Oh, and I’m Jewish; so shalom biotch!
“Who I’d like to meet:
“I’d like to meet a woman that knows how to treat a plant right. You know, a woman that doesn’t mind fetching a little miracle-gro for me from time to time. I’m not saying I’m high maintenance, this brother just needs a little sunshine and fertilizer now and then. And I’m packin’ a twelve inch cucumber so if she was tall that would be good too. She also has to like swimming and can’t be afraid of alligators and snakes and sh*t.”
I can’t help but think that this sounds slightly different from the Swamp Thing I’d been reading about all these years.
He’s also a member of the adults-only Myspace group “gEt reaDy fOr a naSty tiMe,” which, again, seems a tad out of character for ol’ Swampy.
See you all tomorrow!
Here’s an ad from Richie Rich Billions #14 (Jan. ’77):
In other, non-Halloween, news:
And then everyone was blindsided by the mass media coverage and subsequent, and non-predictable, huge increase in traffic by folks outside the usual customer base…but I think if I talk about this again, y’all are going to mob outside my castle with the rakes and torches.
I just felt it was probably necessary to bring it up one more time, since I get the feeling I’m going to be used in the very near future as an example of “here’s a funnybook seller who didn’t order enough! Wasn’t he dumb!” with absolutely no acknowledgment of my particular argument.
Yeah, me neither. Haven’t you heard? Captain America #25 was the last issue! At least, that’s what I heard all last week from people looking for it, so it must be true.
And we got it almost perfect, selling nearly all the way through on the shelf, with just a few left over for any stragglers looking for a copy after the month shelflife for the title was up.
Now, if there had been some kind of huge mainstream media push on the comic that drove folks into stores looking for it (which, yes, I know, wouldn’t have happened because this is Captain Marvel we’re talking about, and only nerds like you and me know who he is…though I remain surprised the general public is even marginally aware of who Captain America is), we would have blown through all our copies right quick, and we’d be in the same situation we are now with the Cap thing.
And even if Marvel extolled us to raise orders because they thought retailers didn’t order enough, and if we listened to them…we probably would have just raised orders enough to accommodate possible increased interest from our usual customer base, and not enough to cover the invading hordes of lookie-loos and savvy investors who saw the book on the n…
…okay, “rakes,” “torches,” moving on.
I don’t know about other stores, but while Civil War #2 did get a slight bump in sales at our shop from new customers who saw it/heard it in a mass media outlet of some kind, it was nowhere near what happened with the Cap thing. We didn’t sell out of it during the month it was on the rack, for example. It did finally sell out as a back issue, but that’s because some folks started the series with issue three or four and wanted to catch up.
So, as an apology to my faithful readers who have had to put up with my rantings and my bad temper and my saying the same darned thing over and over again in the hopes that some folks would eventually catch a clue…here’s that Jaws costume again:
I’ll answer your e-mails, eventually, I promise, sorta.
Okay, I just slightly lost my temper about things yesterday, even though pal Dorian told me I wasn’t nearly harsh enough in my dealings with armchair comics-retailing quarterbacks. But, I’m gonna try to let it go, if only because I can say the same thing over and over so many times that even I get sick of it, much less you, the reader.
I’m just trying to get across the fact that we order things as best as we can with the information given, and that we can’t order things by guessing, somehow, that mainstream media coverage on the day of release is going to drive hordes of non-comic fans into stores seeking the book. That’s a fluke event that can’t be predicted or depended upon.
Most of you get that…I just wish the few that don’t would as well.
Er, not doing a very good job letting go, am I?
To cleanse the palate, have a couple of panels taken totally out of context from Just Married #107 (Sept. 1975):
Speaking of funny (which I’m not, as you’ll recall), the latest installment of Benjamin Birdie and Kevin Church’s webcomic, The Rack, was inspired by an exchange between me and former employee Kid Chris from a few months back. Kevin thanked me for the idea, so I thought that now the strip has been unleashed upon the world, I’d relate said exchange.
First, read the strip. No, really, go read it. I’ll be here when you’re done.
Hmmm hm hm…hmmm hmmm…oh, hi! Okay, here’s the very, very brief conversation Kid Chris and I had:
KID CHRIS: “Mike, you need a new window painting for the store.”
ME: “Like what?”
KID CHRIS: “How about a Civil War painting? You could have Iron Man leading Luke Cage to his prison cell in handcuffs.”
ME: “I’M NOT PUTTING A BLACK MAN IN CHAINS IN THE WINDOW.”
Yeah, for some reason, I thought that painting could be construed as offensive.
I do still need a new window painting, though. Maybe a big picture of Captain America trying to sell a case of Turok #1s.
Sorry, that just slipped out.
Oh, hey, via Metafilter comes this overview of the only good post-Grant Morrison issue of Doom Patrol‘s second series. Well, “good” as in “it’s not good in the traditional sense, but it’s a hoot.” (And perhaps that’s not entirely fair calling this the only “good” issue, since I’ve been told that things pick up a bit in the later Ted McKeever-illustrated issues.)
At the store on Saturday, employee Jeff and I were talking about, for some reason, the possible existence of a Harry Potter role playing game, which brought up the possibility of the horror of a live action Harry Potter role playing game, which brought me to a piece of merchandise I don’t think I’ve seen yet for the Harry Potter-verse.
A talking Sorting Hat (sound at link).
There are plenty of wearable Sorting Hat replicas that I’ve found with the Google. But what I’m talking about is a Sorting Hat that includes a voice chip with randomized soundbytes that play when the hat is worn, announcing which house the wearer belongs to, that sort of thing. And maybe some simple animatronics to make the hat move around and its mouth open and close.
Okay, it’s kind of dopey, and just a little creepy, but I’m totally surprised such a thing doesn’t yet exist (or if it does, I haven’t found it…let me know if I missed something).
THIS ISN’T ME: Swamp Thing on the Myspace.
“Who I’d like to meet:
Nice, ecologically minded people. No one associated with Arcane and his sinister un-men. Friends of John Constantine are o.k.”[…]
“Swamp Thing’s Interests
“General: Conferring with the parliament of trees, reconstituting my physical form in different parts of the world, spending time with my lover Abigail, thwarting my arch-nemesis Anton Arcane, eating psychedelic tubers that grow out of my back.
“Music: The plaintive cries of bayou birds, Creedence”
Dude, I don’t think Swamp Thing eats his own tubers. You know, even as I typed that, I couldn’t believe what I was writing. Look what you’ve done to me, Internet.
…even though I told myself “online arguments” was something I wanted to leave to my long-ago days on BBSes, somehow I found myself trying to beat some sense into people in this Blog@Newsarama comments thread. Apparently we were supposed to raise our orders* of the comic-that-shall-not-be-named based on info in internet rumor columns and because Marvel told us to. Yeah, okay.
My ongoing struggle against people who aren’t in the business of comics retail trying to tell me how to sell comics (because, you know, I’ve only been doing this for TWENTY FRIGGING YEARS) has tired me. Real content will resume tomorrow, maybe.
I’ve seen a few comments here and there admonishing retailers for not listening to Marvel Comics when they told us that we’d better order lots of copies of Captain America #25.
Well, sorry, but no.
1. If we jumped every time Marvel said “JUMP,” and bought into their hype, I’d be adding an new wing to the back room for all the extra unsold overstock.
2. We’d already ordered what we thought were plenty of copies. First, it was a Civil War tie-in, and for all of Civil War‘s many storytelling and scheduling problems, “not selling well” was not one of them. Second, it had two different covers, so we bumped orders up a little bit more to accommodate that percentage of customers who like buying one of each variant.
3. …And the one thing we did not do was order under the assumption that there’d be last-second real-world media coverage would drive the general non-funnybook-reading public to our store seeking out copies. That media coverage is the only reason this book sold above and beyond our (or anyone’s) expectations, and when we placed our orders two months ago, and when we had the opportunity to adjust our orders just a few weeks back, there was no way we could predict or depend on media-driven sales. Even if we’d been told that Marvel sent out press releases to every outlet in the world plugging this event, even that’s no guarantee of coverage. A silly puff-piece on funnybooks is very easily bumped for celebrity news, or arrested politicians, or, oh, I don’t know, a war in Iraq or something.
You know what you get when you order a comic based on the assumption of real-world media coverage? You get a back room filled with Adventures of Superman #500, that’s what.
The “Death of Superman” issue, Superman #75, was another example of retailers ordering what they thought would be plenty for their customers, only to be ambushed by last-minute media coverage that drove the masses to their shops.
So when it came time to order Adventures of Superman #500, the beginning of what was assumed to be the “return of Superman” storyline, retailers thought about what they ordered on Superman #75, thought about what they could have sold if only they knew that the news had some time/column inches to fill and gave them free advertising…and ordered accordingly.
Of course, by the time AoS #500 came out, the “Death of Superman” was old news, there was no media coverage…and while #500 sold relatively well to comic book fans, there was no panicked rush by the non-fans like the one #75 inspired. And, to this day, you can easily find copies of #500 in bargain bins across the nation.
On a related note, apparently common perception was that the first issue of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 comic was due this week, given the number of people I had asking for it. (Perhaps it did ship somewhere, but maybe Diamond’s L.A. accounts got the shaft again…I haven’t checked yet.)
Now, when we placed our initial orders for this comic, we placed what we thought were very generous numbers…easily five times what we were selling on Dark Horse’s previous Buffy series, and probably ten times more what IDW’s Angel series are selling. This was based on the fact that creator Joss Whedon was going to have a more direct hand in the series, and on how Whedon’s work on Astonishing X-Men has sold…
…And on the fact that, before we even placed the order, I started to have lots of customers ask me about it, and those with comic savers started adding it to their lists. That can (but not always) be a positive indicator of good sales.
Plus, a couple weeks back, there was a large article on the series in the L.A. Times, which bumped up interest even more. Granted, that kind of coverage is most effective when it’s actually during the week the book is released, but I’ve had a number of customers (some of them new) still talking about that article and how excited they are for this new Buffy series.
So judging from the extra interest in the series I’ve been seeing from our customers over the last few weeks, and judging from the number of people who came in Wednesday expecting the first issue to be out…I just doubled our orders on the comic with Diamond. It’s a risk, perhaps, but my direct observation of our clientele tells me that demand is high.
Compare with Captain America #25, which nobody asked me about until they saw it in the papers. I had a few customers comment on the rumors about Cap’s impending “death” ahead of time, usually in the context of “yeah, right, whatever,” which didn’t exactly fill me with confidence that the comic in which he did die was going to be the Best Selling Comic Book Ever. So, yeah, I saw nothing in the weeks leading up to this book’s release that pushed me to bump up orders even more than we already had.
Also, I find this interesting: the second issue of Stephen King’s Dark Tower is mostly just kind of sitting there. It’s selling, but not crazy-selling like the first issue did. Is it just overshadowed by the Cap hype? Did the non-comic-reading King fans already abandon the series, deciding just the first issue was enough to represent this particular endeavor in their collections? Do they just not know it’s out yet? Am I panicking about the loss of sales on this comic too early? (Probably.) It’s worth keeping a closer eye on, at any rate.
So, following links to my post yesterday that I found in my referral log, I found a few people who, while being aware of current events involving Captain America, apparently thought “the ‘death’ of Batman” (even though I never said Batman was dead, only “defeated”) was real.
My favorite comment that I came across:
“I think the reason people aren’t realizing that this is a spoof is because spoofs are usually funny.”
Oh, damn.
A couple more things about the alleged death of Cap, before I let it go:
It ended for $200. Assuming that’s a real bid, and not just someone screwing with the seller.
We received a giveaway comic this week, advertising the CourtTV program Til Death Do Us Part, each episode of which, according to the official site (warning: auto-playing video w/sound), features “a husband and wife whose marriage, despite its happy beginnings, inevitably leads to spousal murder.”
Here’s the cover:
The only reason I’m bringing it up is because the host of the show is John Waters as the “Groom Reaper.” That, my friends, is absolutely fantastic.
EDIT: Pal Dorian mentioned this TV show/comic a week ago, and I totally forgot. It’s been a long week, is all I can say.
NEW YORK – Batman appears to have finally met his match – at least for now – at the hands of his longtime nemesis, the Joker.
The caped crusader is unconscious, knocked out by one of the Joker’s nefarious traps, in the new issue of his namesake comic, which hit stands this Wednesday. At the end of the issue, the Joker stands triumphant over his fallen foe, leaving Batman with no chance of surviving whatever evil fate is in store for him.
It appears to be the end of a long run for Batman, created in 1939. Best known for the 1960s television adaptation, the character has also sold millions of comics and countless pieces of merchandise, making a great deal of money for the character’s publisher, DC Comics, and the parent company, Warner Brothers.
However, in the world of comics, a last-second triumph against overwhelming odds is not entirely unknown, and DC Comics president and publisher Paul Levitz said Batman grabbing victory from the clutches of defeat wasn’t out of the question.
Even so, the character’s shocking loss came as a blow to creator Bob Kane, or it can be assumed it would have, if Kane himself hadn’t died in 1998.
Across the country, fans have been clamoring for copies of “the last Batman comic,” catching retailers off guard due to the increased demand. “Honestly, I don’t see what the big deal is,” says Mike Sterling, 37, manager of the Ventura Fun Time Comic Book/Magic Card Store and Video Deli. “Villains always appear to beat the superheroes, just before getting their rears handed to them. It’s typical of the genre!”
Sterling continues, “Why in God’s name would DC put out a press release for this? It’s nothing special! It’d be like putting out a press release for every cliffhanger, every apparent character death, and every other usual plot trope that appears in superhero comics! It’s creating artificial expectations for a product that won’t be met!”
“Remember the ‘Death of Superman’ all those years ago? And all the hype around it? To this day, I encounter people who see the Superman comics on the rack and ask me, ‘Superman comics are still around? I thought he was dead.’ I just don’t see the advantage to convincing a public that’s barely aware of comics in the first place that your most recognizable, marketable characters are no longer being published, all for the sake of a storyline that’ll be resolved in, at most, a few months! What’s wrong with you people? Why are you buying into this?” At this point, Sterling was guided into the back room of the store for some quiet time.
In the comic book universe, defeat is not always final. But even if the Joker has finally defeated Batman once and for all, it’s not the end of the Dark Knight: the character will still live on in merchandise and movies and television shows, where the real money is.
Current auctions on the eBay for Captain America #25.
Seventy-five bucks (as of this writing) for a set of both covers? Really? It’s the panic-buying of Superman #75 (“The Death of Superman”) all over again.
Check the prices again in a few months, once this storyline is over.
How to improve Civil War, in regards to events in Spider-Man: Reign:
“My name is Peter Parker, and I’ve been Spider-Man since I was fifteen years old.”
…
ZZZZZZZIP.
Also:
Why is there no Mr. Mind plushie doll? DC ended their line of stuffed toys too soon, too soon.
Also also:
Halloween costume idea: old time radio hung on a chain around your neck, some green and black body paint, some deelyboppers…instant Mr. Mind costume, not to mention the respect and fear of your peers.
