retailing

My dream-casting for the part of Cable in an X-Men movie is Rob Liefeld himself, in case anyone’s wondering.

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So Mike L. asked about Uncanny X-Men #201, a comic for which there was a brief flurry of demand during the high-flyin’ Wizard Magazine-fueled comics market times of the early 1990s. For folks who may need a brief reminder…in 1990, New Mutants #87 was released, featuring a new character called Cable, co-created by rising star Rob Liefeld. As both Cable and Liefeld grew in popularity, demand for and prices of New Mutants #87 began to rise.

Now, Cable’s deal was that he was the son of a couple of members of the X-Men, Cyclops and…um, is it still Madelyne Pryor or has that been retconned away? Anyway, he was from the future, and still only a child in present times, and then someone had the evil thought “hey, wait, that means the baby born to Cyclops and Madelyne in Uncanny X-Men #201 back in 1986 is technically Cable’s first appearance!” So, in the rush to create yet another “rare” collectible UX201 was pushed as the New Big Thing, and, like Mike L. said, sold for about $30 (or more!). And it did sell.

Cut to a couple of decades later. The most recent price guide still lists that issue for $30 in near mint condition, but let me tell you, it ain’t selling for that anymore. I can’t remember the last time anyone asked for “that comic with Baby Cable,” and a quick glance at online sources show copies selling as low as 99 cents, and some allegedly high grade copies going for as much as about $15 (not completely unreasonable for an actual mint copy of a 27 year old X-Men book). The $30 guide price may be the result of simple inertia…people pricing their copies at thirty bucks because they’ve always priced their copies at thirty bucks, and hey, it’s a “key issue” even though realistically nobody cares any more. Maybe if Cable pops up in an X-Men movie someday, there will be some demand for it.

I’m still trying to come up with an answer to pal Dave‘s question from the end of yesterday’s post, about which pricy comic took the biggest dive. I’m still thinking about it, though I believe it’s more a matter of “shifting demands” than “huge price drops.” There was certainly many comics that sold well in the ’90s which don’t any more, though few of them really got that expensive in the first place. There are even a few items that retained some value: New Mutants #87 still guides at $45 in high grade, which, if the book actually is in high grade, isn’t too far out there of a price, in my opinion, and in fact still sells for us, when we can get them. However, it’s greatly overshadowed by an issue later in the run, #98, which features the debut of current flavor-of-the-month Deadpool. That guides at $100, but I’ve seen sales well in excess of that price.

One thing I was reminded of, thinking about ’90s back issue sales, was the Punisher. Boy oh boy, was that character popular. Multiple titles, all sold great, and then suddenly the market crashed and / or people burnt out on the character, and the sales on, and titles for, the Punisher dried up. I remember being stuck with a pile, a literal pile, of Amazing Spider-Man #129, featuring the Punisher’s first appearance. We had loads of them, in a variety of conditions, priced at the then-inflated-by-Punisher’s-popularity values we had been selling them fairly regularly for. Once we realized we were in for some rough times after the collapse of the comics market, we slash-priced those books and moved ’em out best we could.

Kinda wished I had them now, as the market has recovered somewhat and people are looking for the book again and the current guide has near mint copies at nearly a grand, even though we could probably sell them in any condition. But if we could see the future, we probably wouldn’t have sold all those New Mutants #98s for about five bucks a pop all those years ago. Or put all those DC Comics 100-Page Giants in the 50-cent bins way back when…I mean, those are mostly just reprints, who’d want those? Anyway, that kind of backwards-glancing and second guessing can drive you crazy, so we just price ’em, file ’em, show ’em to customers, and hope for the best.

There is still a back issue market.

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Well, at least for us. We still sell plenty of back issues at our shop. Lots of them. Across a whole range of prices. Of course, after 30+ years in business, plenty of collectors in our area and environs beyond have learned that we’re a good and well-stocked source of reasonably-priced and accurately-graded old comics. That drives plenty of folks to our shop, turning over our stock and giving us the impetus to continue acquiring even more old comics to offer to our customers.

Of course, the situation described here is not new…there are some comics that are just common as dirt, that have a “book” value of some amount, but realistically, will not sell for anything. It wasn’t that long ago that we divested ourselves of 100,000 copies of that very kind of comic, a bulk sale to a wholesaler who paid a nickel each for whatever we wanted to unload, primarily ’90s market-crash comics that nobody will ever love, ever again. After years of nobody caring that Deathmate: Black is the first appearance of Gen 13, years of never once realizing the price guide price of $6 in an in-store sale, I was happy to get that fat nickel for every copy I was able to pass on. And the Team Youngbloods. And the Brigades. And the Valiant Comics that aren’t the first issues, last issues, or “gold” issues. And so on.

As noted in the linked article, the decrease in potential values was in part caused by the democratization of back issue sales via eBay and Amazon and the like, where vast amounts of essentially the same product is available: instead of going to your local comic shop and hoping they finally have that one back issue you’re looking for this time and paying whatever they’re asking for it, now you can search online and potentially find dozens of people competing with each other offering copies of that book in whatever grade or price range you’re looking for.

There are other factors as well, such as extensive reprinting in more convenient formats like trade paperbacks, or digital availability, or certain characters or titles falling out of favor, or the economy being terrible and nobody wanting to spend money on things they can’t eat or wear or live in.

Like I said, we still buy old comics, and we’ll still pay good money for stuff we can turn around relatively quickly. But more and more, people are unloading whole collections on us. We prefer not to take whole collections; the amount of time sorting out the wheat from the chaff usually isn’t economically advantageous. When we do buy collections in bulk, we make it very clear that while we pay real money for what we can use, we can only pay very little for the rest, reducing our costs and making it more likely for us to come out ahead when processing the bulk, even if it only ends up in our bargain boxes. In general, most people are okay with that, since they’re trying to clear room and understand that, for some comics, anything is better than nothing.

The linked article notes that the owner of the collection discussed greatly overestimated its value. Again, that’s something we’ve seen over and over again at the shop over the decades. Someone gets their hands on a price guide, dutifully marks the mint price for each book on a Post-It note and affixes it to the bag or just directly to the cover, and then hauls the lot into the shop expecting to get full retail. They don’t realize that shops can’t pay equal to what they expect to retail the book for, or that just because a book has a certain price in a price guide, that anyone’s actually going to pay that anytime soon. Yes, it’s great that Power Pack #27 is listed as being $3.00, but does anyone care? Is someone going to rush into the shop demanding to buy Power Pack #27 Right! Now! Unless I’m completely out of any copies of Power Pack #27, and if the copy is still in brand-new condition, and if I can get it cheaply enough, I’d buy it. Maybe.

So what back issues are selling for us? A whole lot of stuff! Anything pre-Code! Romance comics! Cheap Silver Age books! High-grade Silver Age books! Batman! Old Archie Comics! Deadpool! War books! Classics Illustrated! That one guy collecting Doctor Doom appearances! The first few issues of most New 52 series! Sonic the Hedgehog! Adventure Time! Avengers! Green Arrow, apparently, judging by the huge pile of them I pulled out of the backroom when restocking on Sunday! Basically, a whole lot of different titles, but those are the ones that stick out.

I’ve seen some pooh-poohing of the back issue marketability of ’70s and ’80s Uncanny X-Men, the once-red hot Byrne issues in particular, but we still get asked for those all the time. High-grade copies blow out the door. A long time ago, we were lucky enough to get a lot of high-grade #141s and #142s (the classic Days of Future Past storyline). We kept pricing them up ‘n’ up, and they kept selling, and now I’m pretty sure we’re completely out of them, or darned close. And keep in mind the bulk of these sales were before anyone even knew those issues were going to be the basis for a movie.

One trend we’ve been noticing lately is the slow upwards creep on prices for a handful of books from the post market-crash era, when sales were down on everything, from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s. Stuff like the 1999 Amazing Spider-Man relaunch, or Simpsons comics, or final issues (read: even lower print runs than the already low numbers most titles were at) of certain series, or other comics published then that folks still have an interest in now, particularly if still in near mint or better condition. When I made a mention of this on Twitter, I wasn’t specific enough about what books were showing such an increase, so everyone was all like “BUY MY SHADOWHAWKS, MIKE,” and I looked down and whispered “no.”

I may have more meanderings about back issue stuff later in the week, but let me stop for today after dealing with one more bit of business:

Pal Dave asked me on the Twitterers about which once-valuable comic took the biggest dive in price and is now basically worthless. Now, I thought about that for a long time. In the subsequent discussion on Twitter right after Dave asked, Superman #75, the Death of Superman issue (I’m sure I don’t need to remind you), was mentioned. At the time, I recall hearing stories about people selling copies for $100+ the weekend after its release, though I never saw it with my own eyes. At our shop, when we finally started dealing with it as a back issue item (after sorta avoiding it for a while, waiting for the market to settle) we were charging $15 for the still-sealed-in-the-black-baggie edition, and that’s where the price stayed for years. I think now we have it at $25, and yes, they’re still selling. So, at least for us, this comic didn’t dive in price.

One that comes to mind is Harbinger #1 (1992) from Valiant Comics. I seem to recall that selling for about $100 at one point at the height of Valiant-mania. I remember having a bunch of them on the rack when it was new and thinking “we’re never going to sell these stupid things.” Well, sell they did, and I still get requests for it. There is still a market, as I implied earlier in this post, for early Valiant comics, and even before this most recent relaunch of the Valiant brand there was demand for Harbinger and early X-O Manowar and whatnot. A quick glance at the eBay revealed a couple of sales in the $30 range, only half that of the $60 price in the most recent Overstreet. While there was a drop in price, I wouldn’t say it’s worthless, and people are still looking for it.

I don’t know if this counts, the WildC.A.T.s #1 Gold Foil edition, which we sold in an in-store auction for over $100…and now we have a copy, signed by Jim Lee himself, in the shop for $15.00. I don’t know if that $100 price tag was typical for the time, or just a fluke at our shop, but that’s a big drop for us, at any rate, added to the fact that nobody’s looking for WildC.A.T.s back issues.

So I still don’t really have an answer for Dave. There were a number of titles that were briefly hot that you can’t even give away today…New Warriors #1, for example, though never worth a lot of money it did sell regularly, unlike now. If you folks have any suggestions, you know where to lay ’em on me.

And then there was the time the Mike of 1993 already priced a comic for the Mike of 2013.

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This showed up in a collection on Friday…a copy of the Venom: Deathtrap The Vault one-shot, complete with our store’s old pricetag with the price in my handwriting. And now, according to the most recent Overstreet price guide, a copy of this comic is today worth a whole $7.00!

Surprisingly, I don’t often see old comics (and I hate calling this particular comic “old,” but it is from twenty years ago) come back into the shop with our original price tags still on them, but I have been to other shops out of town and seen my writing on price stickers that the other shop just left on there (with the “store name” bit of the sticker removed at the perforation). “Well, whoever priced this comic is clearly wise and all-knowing in the ways of comics retail. We shall honor his magnificence by leaving his price tag as is!”

Frankly, I’m not sure that’s even entirely true about Adam Sandler movies.

filed under Categories collecting, dc comics, retailing, superman 4 Comments

So I was asked, in response to my post on Monday in regards to DC’s 3D cover allocations, which title was the one I’m getting more copies than what I originally ordered. I probably should have noted it at the time, but, you know, how do you keep a blog reader in suspense? I’ll tell you Thursday: it was the Darkseid issue of Justice League, and I don’t entirely understand DC’s mix of numerology and voodoo in determining how many copies of each comic that each retailer gets in relation to the actual number of copies DC ordered, but apparently they thought Darkseid was going to be A Big One and set print runs accordingly.

I mean, I have no idea how true that is. DC’s allocation formula is apparently based on each retailer’s ordering history for the titles, or something like that, so maybe the comic publishing stars aligned in just the right way for my Darkseid orders to be increased rather than decreased. The mileage of other retailers may, as they say, vary. At least I’m getting all the copies I ordered of that Joker issue, which apparently means DC also anticipated demand and ordered a forest-leveling amount of them. Anyway, in conclusion: 3D covers! I’m looking forward to never talking about them again!

In other news, comic collections, like buses and taxis and Adam Sandler movies, seem to come all at once, and in the last week or three we ended up with about three collections of ’80s and ’90s indie comics, resulting in yet another copy of Yummy Fur #9 in our possession. As you may remember, that was one of the big missing links in my collection that, after a decades-long search, finally was acquired a few months ago. So now here’s another one, mocking me with its availability so soon after I finally found a copy. Sigh…it’s MacKenzie Queen #5 all over again. Please note my accurate prediction regarding current events in that post.

And in variant cover news: why, hello there awesome Jim Starlin variant for Superman Unchained #3:


I enjoy Superman Unchained well enough as is, but baby, like I wrote about at the end of this post, I would much rather read the comic this cover is selling me. (Take a look at this oddly creepy yet amazing Brian Bolland variant, too!)

I can’t wait to explain to my customers why they can’t see the special 4D covers all at once.

filed under Categories batman, dc comics, green arrow, pal plugging, retailing 9 Comments

So following up on my brief grumbling about DC Comics and their handing of the 3D covers for Villains Month….

To recap briefly: DC Comics is replacing their regular superhero series for the month of September with what is essentially 52 supervillain “one-shots” as part of their line-wide “Forever Evil” crossover event, though they are all branded and numbered as part of particular series. For example, what would have been one issue of Action Comics for that month is now Action Comics #23.1 through #23.4, four weekly issues of Action each featuring a different villain. And on top of that, DC is using advanced lenticular imagery to give each cover a 3D effect.

In ordering these special issues, I had to take into effect the following considerations:

1. I needed enough copies to cover in-store sales, both for customer pull boxes and for sales off the rack (based on sales histories for each title over previous months).

2. I needed to gauge how many extra copies I’d need to cover extra interest caused by being a crossover tie-in.

3. I also had to estimate interest based on the specific villain being featured in each issue. (A Joker comic will sell forever…a Count Vertigo comic I’d probably have to staple dollar bills to the cover to get people to take it home.)

4. And then, of course, I had to use the immense precognitive powers all comic retailers must develop to foresee how many extra copies I’m going to sell because AWESOME 3D COVERS, DUDE!

After too many weeks of agonizing over these things (particular over Justice League: Dial E, tying together one of DC’s highest selling titles with one of their lowest, and wondering how stuck I’m going to be with copies), I finally settled on numbers I could live with for each title. I had enough to cover regular monthly sales, I believed I had enough to handle any additional interest each individual title might bring in, and I thought I had enough of a buffer to accommodate folks attracted by the 3D novelty.

And then this happened. DC wasn’t able to produce enough copies of the 3D versions of these titles to meet demand, resulting in allocation of retailer orders and the announcement of alternative editions of these comics with regular 2D covers.

In my case, it’s not as bad as it could have been, but Good Lord it ain’t good. Out of 52 titles, my orders on eight remain unchanged. On eleven books (including some particularly significant ones, like some Justice League titles), my orders were cut in half. Even more than half, in a couple of cases. Some orders were only dropped by about 1/3, but that’s enough of a cut to be problematic. In a number of cases, I only lost a few copies, sometimes as little as two. And, oddly enough, in the case of at least one title, I was allocated more than I ordered (which has me wondering if DC way overestimated the popularity of that one issue when originally setting their print runs).

For a couple of the drastically reduced titles, I am going to be stuck with not enough of the 3D covers to even cover pull lists, though discussion with some customers has shown that they’re sympathetic to the situation we find ourselves in, that it’s not our fault and they’re okay with receiving 2D covers if necessary.

Plus, there’s another potential hiccup, even with the titles for which I’m receiving my full orders (or close to full orders). The news regarding the allocation of the 3D covers has been widely disseminated, which means it’s widely known (or at least perceived that) these books are in short supply, which will jump up demand beyond that which I anticipated. As I noted, I based my orders on particular factors, but not one of them was “DC won’t be able to print enough of them, ensuring I don’t get even the numbers I ordered.” I was doing my level best to estimate sales levels on previous histories, demand for specific characters, and general interest in the 3D effect. Now that we’ll likely have “speculation” and “other stores trying to buy copies for their shelves” and “I hear these are rare, we better buy ’em” goosing sales, rack copies are going to dry up immediately, even with one-per-customer limits that we’re almost certainly going to have to impose. Even on that one Joker issue, for which I am getting my full order, but will now surely blow off the shelves.

Ordering the 2D cover alternatives to make up the 3D cover shortages was bit of a bear as well, though, as I said, some of my customers are cool with having 2D replacements. But now, I have to reconsider what my potential racks sales are going to be, as my estimates were at least partially based on the 3D covers attracting attention. Point 4 is now no longer a consideration in my numbered list above, which would have been the dealmaker in at least a few of the more borderline titles being offered. No offense to the World’s Biggest Count Vertigo Fan, who is very likely reading my website right now and is about to shoot off an angry email to me, but a Count Vertigo comic with a cool 3D cover might have sold to someone with no prior interest in Count Vertigo out of the novelty of it all. A plain ol’ Count Vertigo cover may not have grabbed that same customer.

Of course, Harley Quinn and Joker and Lobo and the like will sell comics regardless of how many dimensions their covers have…I plan on getting plenty of the 2D versions of those titles. Regardless, this whole hoohar DC caused by their overreach and inability to provide the product they promised is going to make a very nervous September for us, as I hope the orders I did my best to estimate will actually reflect reality. Otherwise, you may see me in front of the shop, rattling a tin can and asking for spare change.

Sigh. I hear if you look closely, you can actually see the grey hair shooting out of my scalp.

• • •

In other more amusing news: where I lead, Grant Morrison follows! Big news over the last couple of days, as Morrison revealed his interpretation of the end of Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke. Basically, Morrison thinks at the end of the story, based on particular storytelling clues, Batman kills the Joker.

Why yes, that is an interesting interpretation, and old news to longtime readers of this site, who may remember I came to the same conclusion nearly a decade ago. …Of course, I’m sure I wasn’t the first, and in the end it’s just an interpretation of the ending, and not necessarily reflective of any direct intention of the authors. Not that I got anywhere near the blowback on this at the time that Morrison’s receiving now, since Morrison seems to attract his share of folks getting the vapors whenever he says anything. But anyway, I was a bit bemused by this turn of events, and my thanks to folks on the Twitterers who did their best to point out my original post.

• • •

One last item: Bully, the Bull Who Walks Like A Little Stuffed Bull, was responsible for my corner box image last week, in case you wanted to know what that was all about.

I’m trying not to be too angry about this.

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So due to DC’s recent announcement that they’re allocating the 3D Villains Month covers, my position on my orders for the books has gone from “I’ve ordered way too many, I’m probably going to take a bath on some of these” to “oh Lordy I’ve ordered not nearly enough.” As I write this (late Sunday evening) the page on the distributor website that will tell me the exact numbers I’m being allocated only results in an error page, so I have no idea how badly my orders are being curtailed. DC is offering 2D versions of the books to make up any shortfall, but the primary selling point on these were the 3D covers, so I suspect the 2D covers will be the disappointing consolation prize.

Since the allocation has been widely publicized, I may have to go the “one per customer” route on many of the books to avoid rampant hording and speculation from those folks who only show up at the store when the faint whiff of a buck to be made wafts gently through the breeze. We’ll see what happens, but let me tell you, it’s a lot of fun to agonize over orders, finally get some numbers down that you can live with, and then have to address the same problem all over again just a few weeks later. Ah, well…I figured there likely wouldn’t be any reorders to be had, but I had hoped at least our full initial orders would ship.

And in conclusion: I’d better get my 3D Swamp Thing covers.

…Anyway, I apologize for the shortness of this post. I try to have longer posts for Mondays, but I’m actually frustrated enough with this situation that I really don’t want to think about comics right now, beyond getting this hoohar straightened out about as much as I can manage. Not knowing how my orders are being cut is probably the worst part at the moment. I’ll let you know how things work out.

Let me save you the trouble: “no, Mike, it’s just you.”

filed under Categories retailing, superman 5 Comments

So pulled off the shelf from our stack of Superman Unchained #1 was a copy that had a translucent blue strip of tape that stretched around from the front of the cover, across the spine, and across the back:


…but still cut off at the edges so the book could be opened and read normally. The tape is applied straight and evenly, so it’s not like it was just dropped on there by accident. My guess, knowing nothing about the actual details of comic printing and production, is that a pile of unstapled covers was taped together for storage/shipping and that the cover with the tape stuck to it at the top of the pile wasn’t removed prior to assembling the whole package.

Or someone at the distributor is exacting revenge upon me for some long-ago slight, randomly affixing pieces of tape neatly to comic covers prior to packing them into shipping boxes destined for our store. I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE, PHANTOM COVER-TAPER!

In somewhat related news…I had told myself I was going to drop all the Superman titles following the end of Grant Morrison’s entertaining run on Action, making that my first break from regularly reading those titles in over 30 years. But, well, you know how funnybook fans are, and I kept going despite myself…only to find that Superman has been improving, and Action managed to keep my interest after Morrison’s departure. Overall, I feel like the storytelling on the titles have been…loosening up, I guess? Less concerned with trying to establish the New 52 status quo for Superman, and more focused on having a little fun, I’d think. Yes, there’s the stuff with Superman’s relationship with Wonder Woman that nobody’s particularly happy about (and to be fair, they did provide some in-story evidence for this particular turn of events being a bad thing, forthcoming Superman/Wonder Woman ongoing series notwithstanding). And that new costume is still terrible.

In general, though…I’ve been liking the Superman books lately. The first issue of Batman/Superman wasn’t bad, and the first issue of Superman Unchained, taped cover or not, was definitely a Big, Fun and Loud Superman Adventure…your big-budget Superman movie on paper. I don’t really want a half-dozen ongoing Superman books…Scott Snyder and Jim Lee taking over Action Comics would have been just as good, but of course wouldn’t have received the attention and sales the Brand! New! First! Issue! did. But there are all those comics anyway, and at least they’ve been mostly readable, he damned with faint praise.

So anyway, have any of you folks noticed an upswing in the Superman titles lately? Not saying they’re perfect, or outstanding examples of the medium…they just seem…a bit improved. Is it just me?

In which Mike makes a brief post to let folks know he’s not dead.

filed under Categories retailing, swamp thing 6 Comments

Sorry for the extended outage…I’ve been ill, and have been trying to stay away from Internetting for a few days while I recovered. I even skipped out of most of a Saturday at the shop, which I never do, and apparently that was good planning on my part as a Cardfight Vanguard event we were apparently expecting a couple dozen people for ended up attracting, like, a hundred people, and as I was at home in bed that ended up having to be Someone Else’s Problem, for which I apologize.

A portion of the crown outside our shop – photo by long-suffering Employee Timmy

Anyway, since we last spoke, while flopped on my bed like a big ol’ lump of nothin’, I watched, via Netflix streaming, the entirety of the BBC sitcom Hyperdrive, a very funny spoof on Star Trek-ian type programming.

I also read all about the new Swamp Thing action figure due at the end of the year, or rather watched all about it since I’ve only really looked at the video at that link. I think everyone I know sent me some link or another about this figure…a figure which, by the way, is going to cost about fifty bones. Good gravy, thank goodness for buying things at wholesale. I remember saying something a while back that, on one hand, not having Swamp Thing around meant less tie-in merchandise I’d have to track down and buy (yes, “have to”), while on the other hand, having Swamp Thing comics around means more merchandise, which is great but, you know, I still have to pay for it. There’s been in the last couple of years, what, three t-shirts, a statue, a Squinkie, I don’t even remember what else. Oh, yeah, and a comic book series. Man, comics, did you know they still make those?

In addition, I read more about DC Comics’ latest plan to kill me. My guess is that throwing a Justice League logo onto a Shadow Thief comic isn’t going to increase sales that much, but I have, oh, another month and half to think about that before I send in my orders. I am totally down with a Mongul comic written by Jim Starlin, however.

Oh, and this week, Superman Unchained #1 is out, so I’ll be unboxing loads of those Tuesday afternoon at the shop and sorting out the dozen or so different variant covers. I’ll probably have something to say about that comic later in the week.

So…um…how are you?

I probably haven’t even read this comic since 1992.

filed under Categories collecting, dc comics, retailing 12 Comments

So in response to the recent news about DC’s lenticular covers for their Villains Month special event, Twitter pal Joe and I had the following back ‘n’ forth:


This is the Eclipso: The Darkness Within cover in question, by the way, straight outta my collection:


And here’s a close-up of the gem:


Geez, I should have looked a little more closely, and picked one that didn’t still have that bit of flash by the top corner, there. Ah, well. Way to go, younger me.

Now it’s been a while…like “over twenty years” a while, so my memory was that there were two versions of the Eclipso comic, one with a plastic gem and without sans gem…well, that bit is right, anyway, but I thought that you paid a little extra for the privilege of having a big lump on the front of your comic that would dent the comic ahead of it in the box. Turns out I was wrong, thankfully, because I didn’t want to think I dished out an extra fifty cents for that. I do notice that the drawing of the gem is actually removed from the cover that had the plastic gem glued to it, which is nice attention to detail, I think.

Anyway, after a close investigation of the comics surrounding that issue of Eclipso in my storage box, I can determine no damage caused by said gem to any of the comics in front of it. The box was not tightly packed, however, whether by accident or by subconscious desire to avoid pressing anything too heavily against that Eclipso, because like I said in that Twitter post up there, it did occasionally cross my mind that storing that comic was going to terrible, terrible things to other innocent comics. I didn’t worry enough about it to put a backing board or something in front of it as other Twitter pal Christopher suggested, but it was just one of those comic related things floating around in my head, like “which issue of X-Men did snowy Iceman become icy Iceman” and “hold on, I didn’t actually buy X-Force #1, did I?”

Of course, writing about this has me wondering about how our backstock of this Eclipso comic is being stored at the shop. I sure hope we packed the box properly way back when.

Anyway, back to that DC Villains event…I don’t know about the rest of those comics, but we’re gonna sell a billion of those Jokers.

In which Mike rambles on about comic sales, and also simultaneously laments and looks forward to new Superman comics.

filed under Categories dc comics, retailing, superman 10 Comments

So I noticed that All Star Western received a slight bump in sales over the last couple of issues, thanks to Booster Gold’s guest-appearances. I suppose this currently storyline may put out a Jonah Hex purist or two, but let’s face it, Jonah Hex is part of the DC Universe, and if the occasional crossover from that universe helps to keep a DC title on the stands that isn’t yet another variation of a Batman, Superman or Green Lantern title, then crossover-away, sez I. Plus, if you’re a fan of a certain age, the certainly deliberate evocation of the mid-1980s Hex series may inspire a nostalgic twinge or two…assuming you were a fan of that Hex series in the first place, but of course, why wouldn’t you be?

An interesting note about my old post that I linked there…I make a brief aside that we never learn how Jonah Hex returned to his own time from that future, that maybe it’ll be a plot point in some future Booster Gold story or something. Well, given that Gold is in the current Jonah Hex comics now, and that we know that Hex ends up in the present day DC Universe at least briefly…so maybe I kinda sorta foretold the future there. Well, not that it’s the same continuity or anything, but that’s close enough for me to toot my own horn for a few dozen words in a blog post.

Speaking of Green Lantern, in that I wrote the words “Green Lantern” in the first paragraph, I’ve noted that the special extra-sized “so long to Geoff Johns”/”so long to Geoff Johns’ storylines” Green Lantern #20 is being taken as a good jumping-off point for a few of our customers, which has me wondering about future sales on the franchise. DC did it to itself, really…it was able to grow its Green Lantern line into four heavily-linked core titles so long as interest in the ongoing storyline in those titles was strong. It was a rare case of reader reluctance to pick up yet another related series being overwhelmed by desire to keep up with the franchise. Not that there was a one-to-one correlation in sales…the main GL book usually outsold the others by about 2 to 1, but there were still some customers buying all the titles. However, now that the story, or at least Geoff Johns’ iteration of the story, is “done,” as much as an ongoing superhero comic can be done, the impetus to follow all the GL franchise books is diminished, particularly with the turnover of creative teams on all the books occurring simultaneously.

Okay, it’s not like Green Lantern sales are going to dry up overnight, but I am expecting some dropoff as folks reconsider whether they need to follow four ongoing GL titles a month.

On the topic of franchise books, there’s that Superman Unchained comic that’s headed our way soon…a comic being ordered in such hideously large numbers I actually had one of our distributor reps ask me “why are people getting so many of these?” The answer is…well, a bazillion variants based on sales plateaus (a Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez one for me, thank you!), plus the fact it’s written by Scott Snyder, who’s had some success with that Batman series, and illustrated by Jim Lee, which is kind of a big deal, but yeah, there’s going to be a lot of copies out there in the marketplace, making this the 1991 X-Men #1 of the 21st century (or the Shazam! #1 of the 21st century, for those of you old enough to get that implication).

I am looking forward to the book, and I do suspect it will sell well, though probably not at the numbers everyone is ordering. I have enough interest locally in the variant covers to help subsidize the order I placed, but still…sheesh. DC cast out the line, they successfully reeled me in. But Scott Snyder and Jim Lee on a Superman book…I think this will be the series that gives us a New 52 Superman that actually feels like a big ol’ Superman comic, unlike most of the attempts at trying (with varying success) to reestablish Superman since the whole New 52 relaunch was dropped on us. And that Greg Pak/Jae Lee Batman/Superman series feels promising, too. We’ll see soon enough.

Anyway, what your pal Mike is saying is that he wants to enjoy good, new Superman comics. Like that Adventures of Superman…it’s not New 52 Superman, which I imagine is a selling point for a lot of you, but it’s swell to boot, so thankfully the hoohar around that title all worked out for the best.