As to Your Qs Part Five: Still Smokin’.
Almost done answering your questions: here are parts one through four (1 2 3 4) and just below is the, I think, penultimate installment. I’ll finish this week, I promise!
philfromgermany has a germane question:
“I’ll ask the same question as last year and even pester you next year if you don’t get on it:
Have you read John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad yet?”
Egads. Well, you better get on me next year about it, because no, I still haven’t read beyond what I’d already read in years past. And I have no excuse now that they’re beginning to put ’em into trade paperbacks.
I’ve read the first two issues, that one issue that crossed over with the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League, those couple of Millennium tie-ins, and whichever one had the Grant Morrison-inspired “The Writer” character. So I haven’t not read any Ostrander Suicide Squad, but I have yet to read them in sequence. Someday, I promise! I might be in my seventies by then, but I’ll get to ’em!
“Also thanks for the blog, I have made a habit out of reading it at work after I come back from lunch. For about 7 or years now.”
DO NOT GET FIRED FOR READING MY SITE.
Thom H. smacks me with the following:
“How do you deal with adult-oriented comics at your new store? I’m thinking Sex Criminals, Saga, Avatar horror comics, etc. Do they get bagged? Racked separately? Or just include in the regular alphabetical order I assume you use to organize books? I ask because different stores I’ve been to have them displayed in different ways, and I was just wondering what your solution to keeping them out of the hands of kiddies is.”
I addressed how I handled this at my previous place of employment, and I’m sort of doing something similar at the new store.
The upper left hand section of the top shelf of my new comics rack is where I put the more mature-y type stuff: your Vertigos, your Avatars, like that. Sometimes the more extreme stuff will get bagged, and if the covers are too much, they get the blackened “privacy” bags I mention in that previous post. Seems to work okay so far!
ArghSims cries out
“I mustache you, what is the source of the new sidebar picture labelled me1depts.jpg?”
It’s last week’s sidebar pic now (but still visible on the increasingly-startling Wall O’Previous Icons), but it was pulled from this installment of a 1970s series of television adaptations. And it is amazing:
Brian brain-teases me with
“As a long-time comics retailer (and now store owner), how much have you seen the decade’s boom in quality comics film & television affecting readership – either in newcomers or (more likely) returning readers?”
There’s not really anything I can point to, beyond some generalities. I’ve got kids looking for Rocket Raccoon comics because they’ve seen him in the movies. I’ve seen sales on Iron Man dissipate since (at least per my interpretation) the comic can’t seem to duplicate the frisson from the films. I’ve had people declare “oh, there’s a Walking Dead comic based on the TV show?” and buy handfuls of the graphic novels, and I’ve had TV adaptations like Orphan Black start strong and then peter out.
At the very least there is an increased awareness of the comics that inspired the movies and shows, and occasionally that awareness turns into sales, but not always. Which is fine. I don’t know if we’ll ever again get anything like the crazy comic store Bat-rush when the first Tim Burton Batman film was released, but sometimes it’s enough to know that there’s a whole generation of kids out there who know who Groot is. That can’t hurt.
googum googums
“The news of Omega Men’s premature cancellation-then-extension, along with some good reviews, got me to try it, then go all-in on the series. Did anyone else hop on board, or had the train already left the station?”
It’s nice that DC allowed for extra issues to wrap up the story, but, no, I haven’t noticed any increase in readership. It’s a low but steady seller for me, so I’m glad the customers I do have for it will get a complete story. That also may help improve some consumer confidence in trying out new series, without having to wonder “gee, should I bother since it’ll get canned immediately anyway?”
Pal Casie cases the joint with
“Was there someone before Swamp Thing?”
Well, do you mean “were there other swampy-type characters in the funnybooks prior to our favorite muck-encrusted mockery of a man?” And, yeah, sure there were. Man-Thing just barely beat Swampy to the stands, and there was the Heap, who first popped up in the 1940s, and others as well, I’m sure.
Or do you mean “was there a comics character you, Michael Ricardo Anatoly Sterling, were obsessed with prior to Swamp Thing?” and unless you count “Star Wars” as a character…not that I can think of. I mean, I read the Disney comics as a kid, but I wasn’t all like “I must get every appearance of Gyro Gearloose’s helper, Helper!” That sort of peculiar behavior had to wait ’til I was a full grown “adult.”
That was a slightly shorter post, I realize…sorry, got a later start on it than I planned. But I should be able to wrap it all up in the next post…I hope so, I’m running out of names of Cheech & Chong movies to use as post titles. Anyway, thanks for reading, and I’ll be back in the next day or so with the stunning conclusion!
That IS amazing!
I did mean “was there a comics character you, Michael Ricardo Anatoly Sterling, were obsessed with prior to Swamp Thing?” I like your version of my question so much better. Thanks for the answer, Mike!
It’s on my bucket list to someday make it to that lovely comic shop of yours. :)
“We thought that Mike Sterling was a full grown “adult”, somehow transformed into Swamp Thing fan. It wasn’t. It was an “adult” that thought it was Mike Sterling! An “adult” that was trying its level best to be Mike Sterling…”