retailing

In which I’m basically just rewriting something I posted in 2013.

filed under Categories retailing, self-promotion

So this week’s Question over at Trouble with Comics is about “enhanced” covers (versus the variant cover topic we covered last week), and what we thought about ’em, and whether there were any we liked, et cetera, et cetera. I threw an answer or two into my response, including one cover I discussed on this site, lo, a decade ago now so I supposed enough time had passed to revisit it.

Fellow Troublemaker Logan had this to say in his own response:

“With the possible exception of the poly-bagged Deadpool card, can any retailer still move their copies of X-Force #1 at even face value? Yet it still gets mentioned in conversations regarding how many copies were sold, how popular the book was, and so on. The only gimmick to it was that there were different trading cards bagged with each issue,* and I don’t recall there being a shortage on any particular card, Mike Sterling would have a better memory of that though.”

The asterisk there was to an editorial footnote reminding us of the “reverse image UPC boxes” which I’d somehow driven out of my mind, though apparently that was a big deal in regards to how “collectible” and “rare” any particular variant of X-Force #1 happened to be. And by “collectible” and “rare” I mean “just slightly more copies of X-Force #1 out there than, say, grains of sand.”

Now, as I do recall, the cards themselves were available in equal numbers. It’s been a couple of decades, but that’s my recollection. But as I noted in this post from a few years ago (where I note the then-decline of Deadpool’s recent popularity and the lack of any kind of promised Deadpool movie…boy, that’s almost “political pundit” levels of foretelling, there), those comics sold like crazy, and even sells once in a while to this day. Yes, even at more than face value. Why, one can get upwards of $3 to $5 bucks per copy, even! Not very often, no, but it does happen.

There is still no shortage of these in the direct market, especially at stores that were open at the time, and even in new stores like mine where they just kinda turn up whether you’re trying to buy ’em from collections or not. And I think it’s because of that proliferation that, even now, even after an actual Deadpool movie is in honest-to-God real-life movie theaters and viewed by presumably willing audiences, there is, like I noted in that old post, still negligible interest in the Deadpool appearances in those early X-Force comics. I mean, people still want those New Mutants #98s with his first appearance, sure (I even had one in my shop for about five minutes last week before it was claimed), but that Deadpool trading card edition of X-Force #1, or that story with Mr. ‘Pool in #2…nope, no one’s biting yet, movie or no.

You could probably get a full run of Blue Devil on eBay for less than what that one issue was priced.

filed under Categories retailing 5 Comments

Dental issues have kind of thrown me off this week (and why not take a look at my eBay listings, he said completely coincidentally), but I’m still putting together material for this site, and, shhhh, don’t tell anyone, but I may have an End of Civilization post again soon, at long, long last. But, in the meantime, life goes on, and your pal Mike has been processing a few beat-up long boxes of what was once back issue stock for a long-defunct comic book shop. And in these boxes, amongst the copies of Serenity comics with Scotch tape affixed directly to the covers, and forgotten late ’90s Image books that will never ever sell again even in the bargain bins, I found this:

warlord102price

Now, there was a time when Warlord comics were, if not necessarily “hot,” but definitely in demand. However, it was not anytime during or after the release of this comic, which in no way, at no point, should have been priced anywhere close to $24.00. The current Overstreet has it at $4 in near mint, and was likely listed in the guide at that price or even less whenever the pricetag was actually affixed to this issue. Oh, and it probably goes without saying that the comic wasn’t anywhere close to near mint, and I suspect that wasn’t from mishandling in storage, but rather wear that was present when it was slipped into its bag and board.

I don’t think it was a case of switched bags or anything, given that I also found a few issues of Blue Devil, each with the proper issue number inscribed on the tag like above, also priced at $24. This is almost DC-obsessed-with-the-number-52 level, what with all the $24 pricetags. Suffice to say, any given issue of Blue Devil generally isn’t worth $24 even if you stuffed a twenty dollar bill into the comic bag with it. And hey, I love Blue Devil, but c’mon.

I don’t know if this was an honest mistake from misreading the price guide (unlikely, given the multiple instances), or, as was suggested to me, just wishful thinking (“only takes one person to go for it!”) much like the $5000 price tags you’ll see on, say, an issue of Care Bears on eBay or Amazon or wherever.

But don’t worry…I’ll be repricing all these at much more reasonable levels. I might even go as low as only $12 apiece. No need to thank me.

Honestly, people, like, ran to the new comics rack.

filed under Categories dc comics, retailing 2 Comments

Adam asks

“What do you think about the three-month rollout of new titles? I would guess that’s a better system than dumping all 32 new titles, with Rebirth special issues, on the market all at once like they did with the New52. Could that make the ordering a little easier? Or could June be like those Secret Wars months when people are missing their regular books? (Assuming, maybe erroneously, that everything DCU not ‘Rebirth’ is ending in May.)”

The thing about the New 52’s month-long onslaught of new first issues is that it felt like a Big Event, nearly unprecedented in the comics industry. DC didn’t even restart everything after Crisis on Infinite Earths, when it would have been totally justified. The excitement over this weeks-long parade of #1s just kind of fueled itself, and I think I remember mentioning at the time that, when we opened the doors each Wednesday for new comics day, people literally rushed to the funnybook wall to get their hands on the latest DC debuts. People I’d never seen before, people who told me “I heard about all these new first issues on the news and wanted to see what was goin’ on” – the immediacy of all these new comics appearing on the stands more or less at the same time got people in the doors.

Of course, keeping them coming back was the real trick, which, um, didn’t work out so well, as New 52 sales eventually dwindled down to pretty much where things were before. And then Marvel attempted their own rollout of new #1 relaunches, but spreading them out over several months, with some titles ending in the midst of others starting and not having a clearly specified line of “everything before this point is old, everything after this point is new” like DC did with the new Justice League #1…well, that didn’t quite build the same kind of buzz.

And in the meantime we’ve had more relaunches and new #1s from both Marvel and DC and it’s all just business as usual, so I don’t imagine we’re going to have anything close to the same sort of excitement with this new batch of DCs. Which isn’t what you’re asking, Adam, I realize, but it’s just something I’m pondering as I think about what I may do in regards to ordering. Yes, rolling ’em out over a few months instead of dumping them all at once is probably the better strategy this time ’round, especially since this is aimed at growing readership out of a market that already exists, rather than trying to attract new readers from outside the market via a big splashy “TONS OF NEW TITLES, JOIN IN ON THE FUN” New 52-esque carnival. I mean, yes, obviously DC would love to get those new readers into the marketplace, but the concern right now is having a solid base of reasonably-selling periodicals in the direct market as it exists, and hoping to attract new readers with other projects and their trade program and what have you.

I don’t think we’re going to have a Convergence (or Secret Wars) style dearth of sales, where folks just kinda skip over these side mini-series while they’re waiting for the regular titles to return. These are the “in-continuity” books, so Superman readers will likely continue getting Superman, etc., assuming people don’t use these as “jumping-off” points (which some readers invariably do). Now, I have no idea what the actual directions/content of these new line of DC books will entail, and whatever is actually in the books will naturally affect that transition of readers from the old series to the new ones.

I probably should look a little more closely at what the actual plans are, but it’s my understanding that 1) the old series end, and then 2) the one-shots and new series come out over the next couple of months. But during this time, DC will surely still be releasing their Vertigo books, they’ve got those relaunched Hanna-Barbera books, they’ve got Dark Knight III (speaking of comics bringing in non-traditional comic readers!) and their other minis, so they’ll still have plenty of books on the shelves for their customers.

So ultimately, Adam, ordering is still going to be a real bear, but I’m not expecting any wild fluctuations in sales numbers. Unless there’s some mind-blowing stuff going on in these new launches, it’ll probably just keep on keeping on, with a slight improvement in profit coming from DC paring down their line to titles that are more or less proven sellers (with one or two titles in the new line-up that just feel like they’re doomed from the start, but we’ll see).

In conclusion: there’s still no new Swamp Thing series listed, so phooey.

The New 32.

filed under Categories dc comics, retailing 11 Comments

Brad asked, in response to my Archie comments in yesterday’s post:

“Why do kids buy Archie Digests but avoid the same material in pamphlet or trade form?”

My guess is perceived value…digests may cost more, but contain a lot more content, and are closer to books than to periodicals in format. Just a matter of preferred packaging, I suppose.

“What DO kids buy these days anyway? The Disney titles from IDW? My Little Pony? Transformers? Manga? Captain Underpants?”

Yes to most of the above, as well as Sonic the Hedgehog (which is an Archie publication, so there’s that), Simpsons, Avatar the Last Airbender, Star Wars, Mad Magazine, Deadpool if the parents say “yes” — there’s a wide variety of comics to choose from, and kids’ tastes run the gamut.

rebirthcurtainSpeaking of comics, as I usually do here making that a fairly redundant transition, DC Comics announced yesterday just what they were gettin’ at with that image they’d been posting in social media here and there for the last few weeks. As it turns out, it is another linewide relaunch, rejiggering the DC superhero line-up to snap the company out of the publishing doldrums it’d fallen into after the massive New 52 debut sales back in 2011 had since faded away into a distant memory. Marvel’s had line-relaunches for their own books since then, initially goaded on by DC’s success, and have had scattered relaunches of several of their titles before their most recent sorta-post Secret Wars first-issue fest which we are still in the midst of. Basically what I’m saying is that this was a swell time to open a new shop, where I have to make some wild guesses as to how a bunch of new #1s are going to sell.

You can see the list of what DC’s planning to unleash right here, and on one hand, yes, good, they’re standardizing cover prices at $2.99, kinda of like a few years back when they were promising to “hold the line at $2.99” until stuff got pushed up to $3.99 anyway, and well, what can you do. It’d be nice if maybe that would pressure Marvel to follow suit, but it’s more likely the DCs will creep back up to $3.99 before Marvel does any extensive price-drops.

On the other hand, about half those titles are planned to be biweekly, so instead of spending a pocketbook-punching $3.99 on a new issue of Action Comics every month, you’ll be spending the incredibly low price of $5.98 each month for two issues of Action, so, um. But on the other other hand, instead of 52 monthly titles, there will be only 32, and it’s not likely you were going to buy Every Single Title DC was going to publish anyway, so maybe it’ll be at least a wash, or perhaps even a small savings for you. Costwise, $6 a month for 40 pages is a better deal than $4 for 20 pages, if you want to look at it that way. And that’s assuming the format will still include 20 pages of story.

I suspect the schedules are not set in stone…if there’s enough resistance to these selected titles double-dipping each month, DC can scale things back. I’m also concerned about maintaining that cover price…DC cut a couple of pages from the books during that original “hold the line at $2.99” push, so I’m wondering if more page cuts are possible. I would certainly hope not…I would prefer a price increase to that, and hopefully DC will remember that “$3.50” is a possible price point as well.

On the whole though, I do like that the number of titles have been scaled back to a reasonable amount, so that even if readers do decide to follow the double-shipping series, it won’t be as much of an impact at it would appear at first glance. For example, looking at what I’m likely to continue reading after “Rebirth,” it amounts to four biweekly titles, one monthly title, and maybe two or three other of the new monthly titles, depending on just what the actual contents are since all I’m going by is the name (like whatever The Super-Man is). That works about to about 9 to 12 comics a month, which isn’t too bad.

Of course, this is just the main DC Superhero Universe line of ongoing books. This doesn’t count mini-series and special event books and all those Hanna-Barbera relaunches and Vertigo and whatever else.

I saw a lot of comments online about how we should wait and see the creative teams/contents before giving the People’s Eyebrow to DC’s latest publishing endeavor, but I don’t think that’s entirely necessary. The idea of making half your line biweekly is a challenging one, particularly in this marketplace where consumers are looking to spend less money. And, especially after Marvel’s oddball scheduling issues over the last few years (ranging from “every two or three weeks or whatever” to “maybe we’ll see another issue again someday”), the last thing anyone wants is to feel like Lucy and Ethyl staring down that conveyor belt feeding them more candies than they could ever hope to wrap. I mean, yes, maybe the teams on these books will be so amazing that we’ll wish they were weekly, but I don’t think we should judge if someone finds, just from purely physical/economic response, the new DC plans to be a tad intimidating.

For me, the hapless retailer, the trick is figuring the numbers to order. Now, when DC did their linewide New 52 relaunch, that was fairly unprecedented, and received a lot of attention, and sales, not just from the initiated but from non-traditional consumers as well, driven to comic shops for the very first time to check out what was going on. As noted, there have been several attempts at relaunches/reboots from both companies since then, with diminishing returns, so the crowds that turned out for the New 52 aren’t likely to rematerialize. But if this stokes the excitement of the folks already coming to shops, well, that wouldn’t hurt. I expect a small bump in sales, and if the books are any good, and hopefully they are, maybe we can get some medium-to-strong-ish consistent sales on the ones that survive. That alone would be a welcome improvement.

The most unexpected announcement was that Detective and Action would revert back to their old pre-New 52 numbering. Good…I despaired of ever seeing an Action Comics #1000, and it looks like my weird prayers have been answered.

Okay, more like a dozen Batman series.

filed under Categories retailing, self-promotion 7 Comments

So Chris in the comments to Monday’s post noted that he often wondered why superhero movies didn’t lead to higher sales on the related comics. His answers — price and availability — are part of the problem, clearly. The other answer, essentially spinning off the idea of availability, and one I’ve noted on this site before, is that it’s practically a lifestyle choice. Going to a comic book store on a regular basis to follow the serialized adventures of superheroes is a commitment, as opposed to seeing a superhero movie every few months or a TV show beamed directly into your lean-to every week, which is good enough for most people.

The other problem is, as Chris also mentions, is that the stories themselves often don’t tend to welcome new readers. I think it goes even beyond that…if someone sees an Avengers movie and comes to a store looking for an Avengers comic, there’s at least three or four to choose from. Or Batman. Or Spider-Man (which, for bonus confusion, has a side series numbered 1.1, 1.2, etc.). It can be hard to pick which one is the one to follow. At least in most cases, if someone comes in and says “I want a Batman comic” there’s usually a comic that’s just straight-up called “Batman” that I can hand them. And to Marvel’s credit, while their flagship Amazing Spider-Man title is doing some different stuff with the character, there’s a side-series, Spidey, which is a more recognizable version of old Web-Head that’s not tied into any post-Secret Wars, pre-Civil War 2 hoohar for the uninitiated to worry about.

Now, it’s not as bad as all that. I still do reasonably good business (and repeat business!) in folks young and not-so-young just popping in and trying out comics that look interesting. Plus, of course, there are always the trade paperback collections for anyone seeking out longer reads. This is generally despite the comics themselves, with confusing numberings and constant reboots making it difficult for titles to get traction and for new readers to catch on and catch up.

Anyway, as usual, there are no answers here. It’s a weird business, but generally a rewarding one for readers who decide to put the effort into it and figure out just how to keep up with the mostly-bonkers publishing end of things.

Be sure to go back and read the comments to Monday’s post…some good discussion there.

• • •

The latest Question of the Week over at Trouble with Comics is regarding favorite romances in comics, and while I considered the Brain and Monsieur Mallah, I went with the response that will surprise none of you.

And four bedroom houses only used to cost twenty bucks.

filed under Categories pal plugging, publishing, retailing 17 Comments

So the other day a lad and his grandmother came to the shop to look around, and everything was going well until the grandmother took a close look at the new comics rack and exclaimed “comics cost $3.99!?” It was a bit of sticker shock for her, as that was quite a bit higher than the new comic prices she remembered from her youth.

I mentioned this on the Twitters, and as the discussion continued from my initial post there, I realized there were two different issues that were perhaps being conflated. The first issue, and the one of greatest interest to those of us who regularly consume this particular artform, is that of perceived value. “Did I get my $3.99’s worth out of this comic?” “Did I just blow through this $3.99 comic filled with splash pages and no dialogue in two minutes?” “Did I just spend 20 minutes slowly absorbing the intricacies of dialogue and appreciating the beautifully-rendered art?” All questions we’re familiar with, I’m sure. And it is an important concern, that everyone from the reader to the publisher to the retailer needs to worry about: is the product worth it?

There’s no simple answer, of course. Maybe you don’t like the all-splash page comic with no dialogue, but maybe someone else loves the art in that comic and is thrilled to have huge images and no text to get in the way. Maybe I like dialogue-heavy comics that take me a while to read, and maybe someone else thinks if they wanted to read a prose novel, they’d have bought one. Everyone decides for him-or-herself if the price they’re paying for a comic is worth the value they get from it.

Anyway, we’re all comics people, we know all that. But the other issue I was thinking about, based on that grandmother’s response to seeing the price, was the very fact that the price itself is a barrier to new readers, independent of whether or not the contents could deliver on the cost of admission.

This isn’t a very deep topic, admittedly. “High price drives away customers” – no dur-hay, right? But it reminded me of when I wrote about DC’s “The New 52!” slug that they had on their covers for the last few years. For those “in the know,” it told us “hey, this is part of DC’s newly-rebooted continuity!” For anyone else who hasn’t read comics, it told them “you have no idea what this means, so clearly this isn’t for you.” Even though the New 52 initiative is no longer marketed as such (ending when it did just as reader Ray predicted), the phrase still exists on back issues and on the trade paperbacks and I still hear “hey, what does this mean” from folks new to the industry all the time.

Basically, it’s something on the cover that warns people not already reading comics “this is not for you.” And maybe the higher price points on the regular monthly series (currently averaging $3.99, with Marvel slowly getting us used to $4.99) are yet another warning. Okay, maybe it’s mostly a warning to people who remember when comics were ten or fifteen or thirty-five cents and have somehow wandered back into a comic shop only to discover 1) wait, they’re still making Howard the Duck? and 2) it’s $4.99 a throw? And I don’t think four bucks is too bad a price point for what you’re getting…that’s like a pack of Magic: The Gathering cards (I think…it’s been a while since I’ve had to sell any), or…fancy coffee, I guess? But it’s not “toss the guy a coin and not think about it” pricing…it’s not a significant amount of money, but it’s not nothing, either. And that’s just one more barrier to someone new to comics trying to decide if he or she really wants to take the plunge.

Again, this is hardly a new observation, but it brought me to think once again about what the breaking point is going to be. I’m sure those of us who were around a couple of decades back buying comics for, what, $1.25 or $1.50 each, would have laughed in your face if told we’d be buying essentially the same comics for $3.99. But here we are. And so far any comics that have been $4.99 or higher have had higher page counts or nicer production or some other aspect that improved the perceived value of the item. But then, so did $3.99 comics at one point. And so did $1.99 comics.

My thought was that eventually periodical comics would have to evolve into thick anthology magazines, front-loaded with ads to keep costs down, but attracting advertisers is a problem now for comics, too. So who knows where it goes from here…moving to a trade paperback-only model? Everyone moves to digital comics? Your pal Mike shutters his store and has to find a real job? I don’t know…it’s a thing I have to worry about, and it’s a situation that’s coming whether anyone likes it or not.

Boy, that’s cheery stuff, right? Anyway, this isn’t a “comics industry is doomed” thing, since people have been saying for decades that the business’s death is “five years away.” I’m just curious about what’s coming next, and hopefully whatever’s coming will appeal to new customers rather than try to block them out.

• • •

I wanted to post a brief note regarding pal Dave’s decision to end his blog, at least for the time being. He’s one of my favorite writers…smart, funny, and very insightful, with plenty of interesting things to say on a wide variety of topics which as I type it sounds like a remarkably generic thing to say about someone, but it’s really true in his case. I’ve never been much of a gamer, but his posts on the various games he’s played were just as fun to read as his occasional comics or movie post, which fell more within my specific wheelhouse.

I’m sorry he’s taking down his virtual shingle, but I’m glad he shared as much with us as he did. Plus, I still get to bother him on Twitter, at least until he blocks or mutes me. Thanks for all the good work, Dave, and hopefully we’ll see more from you in the future.

Just badgering you about this for a minute.

filed under Categories retailing, self-promotion 8 Comments

So a few weeks back, Johanna wrote a bit about the forthcoming return of the Badger, a character whose prime period was in the 1980s when it was initially published by Capital and then continued by First Comics.

The point of her post was…well, it’s right there in the title: “You Are Not Owed Pre-Orders Because You’ve Been Around Before.” And that’s true, unfortunately. I’d love to order tons of a new Badger series. I enjoyed the original series, picked up all the revivals (which were of…uneven quality, shall we say), and this new series looks like it should be okay, based on the preview that was presented in Comic Shop News a while back. But, frankly, I can’t order a lot, because I don’t know if it’s going to sell that well.

That said, I did order the new Badger series. I ordered enough to have copies on the shelf. Already that probably puts me ahead of a lot of shops that ordered it for their pull lists only, if they ordered it at all. I like the Badger well enough, and have enough fond memories of the comics, to order just a little bit with my heart over my head. I’m reminded a bit of when IDW brought back Grimjack, another character that had been off the stands for quite some time. I loved that old Grimjack comic, but realized that the audience that had followed it back then may no longer still participating in the direct market. I ordered reasonable-if-lowish numbers on that series, and it sold at about what I expected…partially to old fans, but some to new readers, too, and it probably helped that they didn’t pick up where they left off. Instead, they went with a very back-to-basics, no-complicated-backstory Grimjack, which was great for both new readers and longtime fans.

It is almost inherent to the nature of the Badger comics that there is no complicated backstory that one needs to know before jumping into a new adventure with the character. That’s part of its appeal, that elements come and go as needed with minimal explanation. Which brings me to another point…Johanna commented that the Wikipedia description of the character made it sound like a string of clichés, and to someone unfamiliar with the Badger, like presumably a good chunk of folks in today’s comics market, that surely doesn’t do him any favors. A dry description doesn’t accurately represent the actual tone of the book, as I tried to explain in Johanna’s comments. There was an overwhelming sense of…well, just plain weirdness, an off-kilter sense of humor at work in the comic that I could only describe in comparison to writer Mike Baron’s other major series, Nexus. It was wacky when it wanted to be, dead serious when it needed to be, with quirky dialogue and clear storytelling. It was more than the sum of the parts listed in that Wiki entry.

Part of the problem in later Badger revivals (and, in fact, later issues of the original run itself) is that something of that tone was lost, and attempts to recapture it never really quite succeeded, in my opinion. I mean, some of the latter-day Badger comics weren’t bad, but there was a you-can’t-go-home-again thing goin’ on, too.

Now, in that Comic Shop News preview I mentioned, the interview with Baron makes it sound like he’s really up and ready to go with new Badger comics, and it’s very possible it’ll be a return to form for that character. I certainly do hope so. As such, I ordered on this forthcoming Badger series as I did on that IDW Grimjack, suspecting the majority of sales will be to folks who remember Badger from before, with a few sales from new readers giving it a try. It does help that there have been Badger series within relatively recent memory, so it’s not coming to the comic racks completely cold, but, like Johanna noted, it’s still just one title among hundreds of monthly titles.

At the very least, I’d like it to do well for entirely selfish reasons: I want more Badger comics. Especially if they’re good. And I’m hoping this one is.

• • •

In other news: the latest Trouble with Comics Question of the Week is up, and it’s regarding our favorite use of sports in comics. Why not click on that link and see what my response was?

By Her Cathy’s Special Request.

filed under Categories retailing 13 Comments

So pal Cathy (AKA the mistress of medical mini-comics Metrokitty) complained upon the Twitters the other day about how she purchased issues #1 and #2 of the new Howard the Duck and, as it turned out, due to recent rebootery, they were two issues from two different series starring said Duck.

This caused Cathy to ask me:

cathystoring

And yes, this can be quite the boondoggle. I remember, as the New 52 relaunch over at DC Comics was looming, having to plan for new back issue dividers for all of these series. I decided that, to differentiate between the previous iteration of titles and the new New 52 versions, I would add “[NEW 52]” to the title dividers after the series name. This is a no-brainer, surely, but necessary for organizing the backstock so that an actual human could find what s/he is looking for.

When it comes to things like the Marvel relaunches, usually adding years to the dividers does the trick (like “UNCANNY X-MEN [2011 SERIES]”). And if the series is done, maybe altering the tag to “UNCANNY X-MEN [2011-2013 SERIES].” Sometimes, if there’s a real chance of confusing the multiple series, some kind of notation on the price tag may be necessary as well, particular with titles like, as Cathy noted, Howard the Duck, which has had two series launches in the same damn year. I’ll have to mark the tags on those “1st series” and “2nd series” — and even that isn’t technically correct since there was a prior color series in the 1970s of some note, but marking the tags for the two different 2015 series “2nd series” and “3rd series” is just going to confuse and WAAAAAUGH it’s enough to make one lose his tailfeathers.

Plus, do I really want to create a separate title divider for each of the new 2015 Howard the Duck series? Should I just file them in the same slot, so long as I have the price tag clearly marked as to what series it is? Having too many title dividers in your back issue bins, while certainly keeping things organized, can turn some folks off, especially for lots of tiny sections all crammed together. And those plastic title dividers do cost money, but there’s no real alternative…cardboard title dividers can get worn out right quick and start to look really ugly really fast.

To some extent, the back issue problem is sort of becoming a moot point, as the recent spate of relaunches tends toward cutting demand for previous iterations of the said title (a phenomenon I first discussed a while back). The goal now is to have as few left over comics from the new shelf as possible, especially on Big Two titles (and especially-especially on Marvel books), as who knows when the next relaunch will come along and kill demand for that particular back issue?

Don’t get me wrong…I still do some brisk business in back issues, and in recent back issues, not just, say, the old comics people always look for. But there is a definite difference in back issue sales of a book that is currently running and one that is over, even if just recently, unless the word “Batman” or “X-Men” appear in the title somewhere…and maybe not even then.

That’s probably a real “no duh” assumption, as defunct series don’t tend to sell as well as whatever’s new. But, let’s take America’s favorite romance comic book series Unicycle Tragedy Funnies. Now, if this series started in 2010, and continued to this day, I might still be selling copies of the early issues from 2010 to people picking up the new issue off the rack. But, if Volume One of Unicycle Tragedy Funnies ran 13 issues from 2010 to 2011, and then Volume Two ran 10 issues from 2011 to 2012, Volume Three 8 issues in 2013, and Volume Four from 2014 to present…most of those back issue sales are going to just be from the couple dozen issues for the most recent volume, since those stories from waaaaaay back in 2010 don’t have any direct bearing on the stories currently being offered in new issues.

And the frustrating thing about all those relaunches of Unicycle Tragedy Funnies is that there was no real reason to keep restarting it with new first issues. For one thing, that sales bump publishers and retailers hope for on the first issues grows less and less every time, as it becomes obvious that the sales bump is primarily retailer driven and doesn’t actually reflect the customer base for Unicycle Tragedy Funnies, which at best remains steady, or slightly declining. Attempts at tying in Unicycle Tragedy Funnies with line-wide publishing strategies, such as crossing over with the big Secret Velocipede Crisis event series, only serves to alienate the casual reader and drop sales even more, causing yet another relaunch to get sales back up, if only temporarily, again.

And so on.

In reply to Cathy (remember Cathy? It’s a song about Cathy) I suggested that the one way we can get around this is just by doing away with issue numbers altogether, and going to a straight Month/Year on the cover, since first issues are less of a market force now. Okay, I don’t seriously expect that to happen, but Bully, the Little Numbering Bull, suggested the European style of year/issue number (“2015-11”) which I like a lot. I also suggested doing nothing but number ones, a new one-shot for each character/franchise every month because sometimes I delight in being of no help at all.

So anyway, that’s my post on Stocking Back Issues for Constantly Rebooted Series. I hope that helps, or at least amusingly muddied the topic.

Of course the Atom would be in a mini-comic.

filed under Categories batman, pal plugging, retailing 2 Comments

dkiiicvrSay what you will about Dark Knight III, and boy howdy you sure have, but it certainly brought customers into the store specifically for just that book. Now the real trick is “will they come back?” and of course I’ve had a customer or two ask the very astute question of whether or not this series will be released in a timely fashion (if it is, this would be the first Frank Miller-involved Dark Knight series in history to do so). And of course, there’s been some curiosity from parts hither and yon as to how involved Miller actually was in the series.

Having read it, I personally feel that this is definitely an interesting Brian Azzarello-written take on Miller’s Dark Knight-iverse, if not as quirky and strange as the previous installments. It lacks the wild shifts of tone in a lot of Miller’s work, from straight-up satire to dead seriousness, which is probably fine since trying to duplicate that particular balance is a chump’s game. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing more, but I’m not feeling the Dark Knight-ishness of it quite yet. The inserted mini-comic with the Atom comes close.

As a retailer, I gotta complain about that cover, though. I’m trying to convince people they’re getting unique “FINGERPRINT SMUDGE” variants, but I think they’re beginning to catch on.

In other news:

  • Speaking of Miller’s Dark Knight, Alan over at Trouble with Comics has a somewhat more critical look at the Dark Knight Saga than I tend towards, but still an entertaining read nonetheless. All Star Batman is a saint, I tell you…a saint!

  • A wee bit of Star Wars comics history for you…here’s an old SW toy ad drawn by Rick Veitch.

  • Can you believe that I’ve had to explain to people just who the Star Wars rabbit is? Oh, how very soon they forget that minor character from a handful of Star Wars comics published nearly four decades ago.

  • First, read this Nobody’s Favorites post by pal Andrew about a certain superhero named Static…no, not the Static people like, the other one. Pay close attention to the lettering in those panels, and then look at this Twitter post I made a while back and tell me I’m wrong.

Puma, man.

filed under Categories collecting, retailing 9 Comments

So early on in my store’s history, I made a crack or two on the Twitters about now being able to get all the comics I want for freeeeee, about loading up on DC Archives, etc. which alarmed a couple of retailer pals. I promised them I was only joking, that I’d be a responsible consumer. In fact, if anything, I’m probably getting fewer comics now…I’d rather leave ’em on the shelf for customers. (For example, see my answer to the first question here.)

That goes for graphic novels/trade and hardcover collections as well. My plan was to replace some of the comics I gave up to the shop (like Preacher and Invisibles) with the reprint collections eventually, but I’m in no great rush. Those particular titles aren’t in any danger of going out of print anytime soon, and even if they do, they should be in enough supply that copies will probably be available on Amazon forever.

As for new collections, I’m trying to restrict myself to items I’d already been acquiring, like the Complete Peanuts books. Only one volume to go in the series, kinda dumb to stop now. There are collections I’d love to own, like the Eightball slipcase, but I already have all the comics (which I didn’t give up to the shop!) so I’ll just leave that on the shelf for someone else.

But once in a while, I gotta splurge, as I did for the complete Puma Blues hardcover this week:

pumab1
Look at the size of that thing. Here’s a better look at the cover, from Diamond’s site:

pumabluescvr
This is an beautifully-illustrated ecological sci-fi adventure/treatise/poem-kinda-sorta by Stephen Murphy and Michael Zulli (and a small bit of material by Alan Moore) published in the mid-to-late 1980s. Some folks may remember the comic as being a bit of a pawn in a battle between its publisher, Dave Sim, and Diamond Comics.

It had been a while since I read it…in fact, I’m not sure I sat down and read it as a whole since it was originally released. I bought each issue as it came out, and, as I recall, I found it to be a challenging and enjoyable work. It’s one of those things that had always been in the back of my mind to revisit someday, as it’s still sitting there in one of my remaining back issue boxes at the house. When the solicitation for this hardcover popped up in Previews, noting that it included the previously-unpublished 40-page conclusion to the series…well, Fan Mike outvoted Retailer Mike on this one and made sure I ordered a copy for myself. (And one for the shelf, too…I don’t know if any customers will go for it, but I like having it there, so that’s good enough reason.)

And, well, here it is, in my hot little hands, waiting for me to peruse it. Also included is the Puma Blues #24 1/2 mini-comic, which I seem to recall having some copies floating around my old place of employment, though for the life of me I can’t remember how we got ’em. I have a vague memory that they were distributed with one of the original Puma Blues trade paperbacks. At any rate, I never got one, so that’s a little more added value to the book.

Just briefly glancing through it, the reproduction seems nice and clear…no idea if it was shot from the original art, or scanned from printed pages, but it looks nice, especially now that it’s on white paper instead of newsprint (not that the newsprint was all that egregious). The original color covers are not reproduced…in fact, I’m not sure if the covers are in there at all, which is a shame as they were quite lovely. But overall, this is quite the tome and I’m glad to have it.