A mark, a yen, a buck or a pound.
There was a bit of garbled HTML in Wednesday’s post which is fixed now, so Wayne’s question is now properly credited to him. Sorry about that!
But let me attempt one more question here, since I’ve working off a large Thanksgiving dinner as I write this and I ain’t up to typing much.
MisterJayEm wants to know
“What’s something (the biggest thing?) about the comics business that comic book buyers/fans don’t understand?
“Make me smarter about my ignorance, Mike!”
Believe it or not, this is a hard question for me to answer. Sometimes on social media someone will post the discussion prompt “what’s something about your industry that people don’t know?” and I always want to add my one cent (I can’t afford two cents, I am working in comics after all).
I think the problem is that the business is so small and so many elements of the industry are so transparent and “out there” for people to examine and discuss, I don’t know what’s left for people to not know.
Actually, my off-the-cuff one/two cents gag above may be a clue. I think most buyers/fans aren’t aware of the economic realities of comic books. I mean, I’m not even certain of all the behind the scenes stuff involved in getting comics into your hands. A lot of creators can’t make a living just working in comics. Variant covers help bump up sales and bring in much needed extra income. Other little financial decisions that affect prices and print runs and lengths of series and relaunches and so on. Pretty much the answer to every question about “why did they do [x] with that comic?” is $$$.
Sigh. Depressing, I know. I’ll try to be funnier with the next answer to a question.
Thanks for reading, pals, and I’ll see you Monday!
I would love to know more about the economic decisions that drive comic book publishers, especially around cancelling/restarting ongoing series. I’d like to return to knowing sales numbers, too, but I suppose that’s not possible anymore with multiple distributors, digital readership, and the such as.
Getting to see behind the scenes was always a feature of comics collecting that I enjoyed. I realize we never got the full story — and we likely never will — but any glimpse is always interesting.
I’d ask this. Do customers still buy PREVIEWS as opposed to word-of-mouth or a website like yours or mycomicshop.com ?
ALL-AMERICAN COMICS closed in 2022, Carl Bonasera just plain retired as his was the first specialty shop back in 1979 here on Chicago’s SW side. (Three other places closed during the plague in 2020, two re-opening in can’t get a bus there Lansing.)
Nearly all the way to the end, Carl–who started as The Comedian and now looks like Sheriff Hopper from STRANGER THINGS, per his own tellings to young buyers–would still try a rule-of-thumb. Learning from the new52 of 2011 on up.
It is likely even harder than in 2021, but he’d really stay on top of which subscribers didn’t want the new reboot of AVENGERS or one specific new Batman mini. And he was always on the money with Black Label.
But, as with any store where I live, because there are buses and trains to get there, he had a large number of subscribers.
He never had a huge problem with variants because he’d only order for subscribers and it worked for him. If he had extra money, it would go to a few extra variants.
1/I’d assume PREVIEWS has a very tiny print run.2/Mike, I’d be curious as to the ratio of subscribers to walk-ins is. Subscribers were the primary reason Carl stayed open for 43 years, but he built that store up all through the 80s. Moved to a smaller location after the crash of 1994/TUROK#1 but other than that(and 2020 for a few months it was social distancing) he was our only real success story not counting franchises with stores downtown like GRAHAM CRACKERS.
Thanks for the reply, Mike!
Sorry about being the bearer of bummer, but that’s how I roll these days!
— MrJM