I swear to God, I never want to type the words "Captain" and "America" in that order ever again.
Here’s an ad from Richie Rich Billions #14 (Jan. ’77):
Okay, talking about Halloween costumes in March is, perhaps, a little untimely, but man, dig that crazy Jaws costume:
The only actual photo of this fantastic costume I could find online was on this page, about halfway down. (Note: pop-under ads on that site, some with sound).
In other, non-Halloween, news:
- I keep finding people via the referrals logs who think this article is real. That’s what I get for not making my spoofs funny, I guess.
- This is perhaps an odd consequence of the past week’s Captain America mania: the latest issue of Onslaught Reborn has two covers, one prominently featuring Cap, and one that does not. Guess which cover is consistently outselling the other? COINCIDENCE?
- In response to comments left on my site, and seen elsewhere: I don’t really blame Marvel for last week’s Cap shenanigans. They tried to get people to order more Caps without coming right out and saying “hey, he’s gonna die! DIE I tell you!” and spoiling it for everyone…though honestly, reading between the lines in the solicits, it was pretty clear what was going to happen and when. So it wasn’t as if we ignored them or anything…we looked at what was going on, we gauged customer interest, we looked at sales of other Civil War tie-ins, and ordered accordingly.
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.
- So, does everyone think this Cap-mania is going to carry over into future issues of Captain America and the “Fallen Son” tie-ins?
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.
- I also saw elsewhere an inquiry into sales of Civil War: The Return, and how that fared in comparison to what’s going on with Cap now. Well, in our case, again, we saw how Civil War tie-ins were doing, we noted that Marvel indicated this was the return of a major once-dead character, and we ordered accordingly.
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’ve also seen Civil War #2 (the Spidey reveals his identity issue) being thrown around as some kind of indicator that, due to the media attention that received, and due to the fact that Marvel tried to get folks to up their orders on that book, we should have listened when Marvel tried to get us to do the same with Cap.
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.
- Okay, and that makes every day SINCE LAST WEDNESDAY that I’ve talked about this. Until I have something new to say (i.e. noting sales on the restock of the first printing, sales on any reprints, people trying to sell me full cases of the comic once the market for ’em bottoms out), I’m dropping the subject. (But let me link to what The Rack has to say about all this before I do.)
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:
Ah, crazy-scary Jaws costume, deliver me from this maddening world. - SPECIAL NOTE TO FOLKS WHO WRITE ME E-MAIL: Please keep sending me e-mail, as I always enjoy hearing from readers of the site. But please keep in mind that, um, my response times to your e-mails are, shall we say, suboptimal.
I’ll answer your e-mails, eventually, I promise, sorta.
So long, Richard.
