retailing

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.

Accidentally demolishing a $250 Spider-Man statue is no way to start off your workday.

filed under Categories retailing, this week's comics 8 Comments

So basically, if someone out there is trying to complete your set of all 5,000 copies of the Marvel Milestones Spider-Man statue from Art Asylum, you’d better cross production number 1213 off the list, because alas, it’s shuffled off this mortal coil. And it didn’t jump…it was pushed. By me. With a bulky ol’ Diamond shipping box I was hauling into the store and, not seeing where I was going, I accidentally knocked the poor statue off the counter upon which it sat and sent it to its doom.

The only somewhat good part of this is the fact that we acquired the statue as part of a collection, and we actually didn’t have that much money into it. But let me tell you, I’d much rather have sold that statue than swept it up.

The worst part: I can’t yell at an employee about it. The only person to yell at is me, and I can’t yell at me, I’m too wonderful.

Anyway, here are a couple of comics that came out this week:


Now I certainly would have preferred it if this issue, wrapping up the “First Lantern” storyline, had actually come out a couple of weeks ago, when the Green Lantern Corps issue containing the first epilogue to said storyline did ship, since that would have saved a whole lot of explaining that, no, I didn’t forget to order Green Lantern #20, it’s late, it’s not my fault, it’s DC’s. Alternatively, I would have been okay with DC simply delaying GLC #20 ’til GL #20 finally was released, since DC obviously wasn’t shy about putting out Red Lanterns #20 and Green Lantern: New Guardians #20, also containing epilogues, this week as well, so what difference would one more GL book have made?

As for the comic itself…it’s a nice send-off to the Geoff Johns era of the franchise, so if you didn’t like any of the GL comics that came before, you’re certainly not going to like this one. I’ve generally enjoyed the GL run over the last few years, myself, and I thought the different colored Lantern Corps was a fun concept. It would be nice to have just a plain ‘ol “Hal versus Goldface” story now, but I don’t know if we can go home again after years of GL Cosmicness.

One interesting bit of business in this comic is an interspersing of full pages of pull-quotes from various comic creators, filmmakers, pals and family members, all congratulating Johns on his GL run. Don’t know if I’ve seen that ever done in a comic before, particularly for someone who’s still alive, but, well, there it is. Looking forward to DC doing the same thing for Grant Morrison when he leaves Batman.

They certainly crammed a whole lot of stuff into this issue, along with a couple of nice surprises, so if you are a fan of the GL books, this actually is a satisfying ending to the last few years’ worth of storylines. But here’s hoping things are a little more…accessible in the GL books that follow.


I don’t read the Dark Horse Presents anthology on a regular basis…I picked up the issues with the new Concrete stories, which were eventually collected into a standalone comic that I could have waited for instead if I’d known that was coming. (I figured they would end up in one of the eventual Concrete trade paperbacks, if anything.) Of late, I’ve been picking it up because of the new Nexus stories, which I suppose may also be collected into their own comics or trades at some point, but I’m not taking the chance, because it’s Nexus and there are few comics I love more than Nexus.

I do read the rest of the comic, too, though like most anthologies, not everything is going to be to everyone’s taste. The other ongoing adventure serials don’t really do anything for me, but the more oddball stuff, like Shannon Wheeler’s “Villain House” and “Hunter Quaid: Armageddon Out of Here,” are a lot of fun. I do wish there was more Geof Darrow in these books aside from the spot drawings, however.


Ah, I see my paperwork requesting a Swamp Thing Versus Frankenstein cover has gone through. Excellent, excellent.

This is kind of what I wanted when I clamored all these years for Swamp Thing’s release from Vertigo’s mighty grip…more “Swampy Versus The DC Universe.” I suppose I should have specified which DC Universe (“not one hastily rebooted with an indeterminate history, please!”) but beggars can’t be choosers. Justice League Dark has, to the surprise of most everyone, turned out to be the best of the new comics with the words “Justice League” in the title, even though most people hate that title while realizing this is probably the only reason it hasn’t been cancelled yet. Well, that, and the fact the series itself is very enjoyable, nicely utilizing DC’s supernatural characters in a more superheroic context.

Believe it or not, I haven’t read this yet, because I’m spending my free time writing this post about it instead. There’s something somewhat self-defeating about that.

• • •

If you give a bull a comic, he’s going to post about it on his site, and that’s just what Bully T.L.S. Bull, Esq. did, discussing the comic in question and very kindly thanking me in this blog entry right here. You’re very welcome, Bully!

You have your nostalgia triggers, and I have mine.

filed under Categories collecting, retailing 16 Comments

Yup, a few more of these Whitman funnybook pre-packs made their way into the shop, only a few short months after that Star Wars one popped up. And while none of these were from series I particularly perused at the time (aside from my Battlestar Galactica treasury edition, and a single issue from the monthly series), even just feeling the (still-sealed!) bags in my hand took me back to that time, so long ago, when I was reading comics. …Oh, wait, I’m still reading them now. Well, you know what I mean.


Like I said, I had the treasury edition (adapting the pilot film) and one issue…that one issue being #3, which was part three of the adaptation of the pilot film, so, well, my 1970s comic dollar wasn’t very well spent, there, I guess. I keep meaning to check out the issues of this series illustrated by Walt Simonson.


I don’t know a whole lot about Shogun Warriors. I mean, I remember it being on the stands an’ all, and I may vaguely recall the toys the comics were based on as well. This is one of those series that had a price bump partially because it’s a ’70s Marvel title and those are getting harder to find in top condition, and maybe kinda sorta from riding that ’70s toy nostalgia wave even though nobody’s nostalgic for this. (NOTE: I exaggerate for lightly-humorous effect…do not email me with links to your comprehensive “Shogun Warriors Forever” web shrine.)

I can’t even say for sure I’ve ever even looked inside a copy. I’m pretty certain we have a full run in the back issue bins at the shop…maybe I’ll take a look. Someday.


So I was absolutely fascinated with the Micronauts toys as a kid…I think I had a couple of the figures, and maybe a vehicle, but I think a foot was put down at some point and I had to pick between one or the other parents’-wallet-draining sci-fi franchise toy line, and Star Wars received my young nod. But boy, did I pore over the one or two catalogs I had for the Micronauts toys, imagining how wonderful they must have been. The only person I encountered back then who had any extensive collection of these toys at all was some friend of a friend, so my direct exposure to these items was tantalizingly brief.

I only ever read one issue of the series…guess which one…though I kept meaning to get around to reading a couple of the later issues that tied into John Byrne’s Fantastic Four run. Though, oddly enough, this mini-series, which I inexplicably bought off the rack, still remains a favorite.


Most of the three-packs shown here contain the first three issues of their respective series, but this Buck Rogers pack, featuring comics based on the Gil Gerard TV show, holds issue #2 – #4. According to the interesting publishing notes on this Grand Comics Database entry, the numbering of the series picked up from the previous Buck Rogers series published by Gold Key back in 1964. So, you know, just 15 years between issues. I wonder if any of the kids buying Buck Rogers #2 in 1979 were driven crazy, desperately seeking that first issue, thinking they were missing some exciting four-color adventure starring Gerard and Erin Gray and Twiki. Plus, according to that same entry, #10 of the series also went AWOL, just to pick up a few of the Buck Rogers fanboy stragglers not yet driven to madness by the lack of an obvious #1.

“Oh, the fluids I’ve seen.”

filed under Categories free comic book day, pal plugging, retailing 12 Comments

So there were a couple of questions/comments/whatevers for my last post regarding Free Comic Book Day, and I thought I’d address them here, since I was apparently too lazy to actually respond in the comments section:

  • Snark Shark sez that my new strategy of de-emphasizing pre-bagged distribution of the FCBD books would “save [me] all that needless bagging!” Honestly, I wouldn’t say it was “needless,” as such…there is a measure of convenience to the customer, yes, but there is also the unfortunate fact that…well, how should I put this? You know how cable companies resist the idea of à la carte subscriptions, picking and choosing what channels you’d want and pay for? To steal the explanation from Wikipedia, “when channels are bundled into large subscription tiers, less popular niche channels are more likely to survive because their cost is borne by both viewers and non-viewers, alike.” In other words, if given the opportunity to pick and choose, subscribers would probably overwhelmingly support the Wrestling Bikini Girls Channel, or the Paranormal Horseshit Passed Off As Something Worthwhile Channel, while less popular channels like the Something Actually Educational Channel would wither away and die.

    So what I’m saying is that by slapping together bags of the freebie books, I’m distributing certain comics to people who, possibly, may not have picked the book up on their own. And half the battle to get folks to even look at certain comics is won just by getting them to take the darned thing home with them. Thus, it’s not completely needless…but it is a lot of work, and it does get rid of a lot of comics maybe a little too quickly. I’m interested to see how our new emphasis on “build yer own FCBD bag” distribution will go.

  • Casey notes “Mike, it seems you get quite a kick out of this FCBD business,” and, yeah, I do. It’s a lot of work, a lot of money up front, and a lot of frustration hearing about other retailers totally fouling it up…but the actual day of the event is a blast, always very busy and it’s a lot of fun chatting about comics with excited people all day. Plus, I get to write obsessively long blog posts about the behind-the-scenes planning, and you folks know I always enjoy writing obsessively long blog posts!

  • The amazingly-named ScienceGiant asks “if you did have to make a purchase what would be your age appropriate recommendation for an 8 year old? (Daughter, if relevant).”

    Well, that can be tough, because you never know what kids will want. I think it was on the Twitter where I noted that a while back I had a couple of young girls, probably 8 to 10, come into the shop and buy a bunch of Hulk comics…this was before the Avengers movie, if you wondering. So, you never know.

    If your local shop has ’em, Amelia Rules is a good one to try, or that perennial favorite Bone. Also, Ptor mentions a comment or two later that Owly is a good’un, too. If she’s looking for superhero-y stuff (or if that’s all that’s available locally), point her at the (unfortunately now cancelled) Superman Family Adventures, or back issues of Teen Titans Go. The rereleased Smurfs books are a lot of fun, too. Be sure to tell her those are better than the movie.

    This actually came up on Sunday, when I had a dad looking for comics for his 7-year-old daughter, who wanted Wonder Woman. There aren’t any current Wonder Woman comics that any parent would be comfortable giving his or her child, so I had to dig back into the back issue bins to find some issues of Adventures in the DC Universe, and some 1980s pre-Crisis Wonder Woman. I would have pulled out some of the Justice League comics based on the animated series, too, had it come to that.

    Or you can have her just look at the new comic rack and see what catches her eye. Kids being kids, she’ll probably gravitate to the absolute last thing you’d want her reading, but some trial and error will narrow things down to something she’d like.

  • Snark Shark returns with “what would be appropriate for an obnoxious 40 year old?” and boy, the jokes just log-jammed in my head, there. Everything from “a swift kick in the pants” to “[WRITER’S NAME REDACTED] has a new comic out this Wednesday!” to “just spin around a few times in the middle of the shop with your eyes closed and your arm pointing out, and see what you’re pointing at when you stop.”

  • The previously mentioned Ptor explained “I’m just a customer helping out a fellow while I shop and look for a nice place to pee on your floor (which seems to be a thing).” And yes it was, once, long ago, when a child probably old enough to know better decided to answer the call of nature right on the floor in front of the new comics…this was a couple of shops ago, so there is no Memorial Urine Stain in the current storefront at which anyone may pay homage.

    But anyway, the topic came up on Twitter the other night, as it does, and pal Carla up there at Metro Entertainment topped my story with her tale of woe of an encounter with a young lad in the process of twining the turkey and meeting the press. Frankly, I’ll take pee any day, he said expecting that sentence in no way to be taken out of context.

• • •

In other news…Bully, the Bull That Is Simultaneously Stuffed and Little, did another one of his fantastic Ten of a Kind posts, focusing on those classic Go-Go Checks covers…and I helped a wee bit! Go for the covers, stay for the always-swell commentary!

Insert joke here about Stan Lee being some new guy they’re trying out on a start-up title rather than risking him on any established books.

filed under Categories marvel, retailing 10 Comments

So I came across a copy of the Marvel Comics Previews promo catalog “for new publications scheduled to ship in 1992” –


…and I’d somehow totally blanked on the fact that the Marvel 2099 imprint was going to be called “Marvel 2093” at one point:


In the “marketing” section, it describes this particular marketing initiative thusly:

“These titles literally are ‘Marvel: the Next Generation’ and if you remember the popularity of other popular series with that designation you’ll be able to imagine how well these books will do.”

Well, sure, I loved Match Game: The Next Generation, AKA Match Game ’73, and sure enough, the 2099 line (as it would later be called, when cooler heads prevailed and decided “2099” was exactly six years’ worth of awesome better than that piddling “2093”) did indeed do very well. At least until the entire comics market tanked shortly thereafter, but, you know, whaddaya gonna do?

Anyway, back to the catalog: each title had its own entry, with a logo and a rough sketch of what the character may or may not look like when the comic was finally beaten into shape:


And just look at those creative teams!


Okay, to be fair, at least one writer was on board at print time:


The text pieces for all the books describe them in the most general of terms, usually along the lines of “like the modern day Marvel heroes, only more future-y,” without any specifics like character names, settings, how exactly the characters are going to be different, etc. Well, the entry for Doom 2093 pushes the “is this really the Doom from the present-day Marvel Universe?” angle, so that hook at least was present this early in the development process.

This catalog is an interesting look back at Marvel’s marketing strategies during comics’ last big sales hurrah, and I suspect, as I dig deeper through its pages, I’m going to wax nostalgic over those salad days when you could sell a comic such as Punisher 2093 like this:

“It will also be a natural must buy for all the fans who picked up the Punisher Armory title this year. People have always associated the Punisher with the latest in hi-tech ordnance and this series takes the association to the ultimate degree. Just remember the success of Terminator 2 or Die Hard to envision the vast potential for this series.”

Probably the first and last time the sales success of the amazing Punisher Armory was used as a marketing tool for another book.

“RARE H@T WYOMING VARIANT L@@K”

filed under Categories retailing, this week's comics 12 Comments


So after one day, it’s probably too soon to tell how Justice League of America #1 is selling, though unsurprisingly it’s the California and the American flag covers that are the most in demand at our shop. Mostly I seem to be getting the incredulous “wait, they really did 53 covers on this thing?” response from customers, and who can blame them, really?

I did sell one of those complete factory packs of all 53 variants to a customer, and the retail price on those packs is like a $60 savings over buying each cover individually. In fact, when I was figuring out our wholesale costs on these things, it turns out the per-unit cost difference between buying Justice League of America #1s individually and getting them as part of that complete pack is…52 cents. DC’s really carrying that “New 52” thing to the extreme.

Okay, it’s just a coincidence, based on our particular discount levels, but that was a good way to encourage retailers to carry all the covers by offering them at such a significant discount in that complete package. In fact, it was such a discount that I triple-checked the numbers to make sure I wasn’t making some kind of terrible mistake. (Yeah, yeah, “aside from ordering Justice League of America #1,” I know, wiseguys.)

Well, we’ll see if I have any specific requests or any odd trends of demand in the sale of this comic over the next week or so. Will everyone want that New Jersey variant? Will no one please buy the lonely, lonely Rhode Island variant? …I guess I’ll find out soon enough.


One of the things I’ve been sort of half-following over the years is what kind of language is becoming more acceptable in your more-or-less general audiences comic book. Having a character exclaim “Jesus Christ!” in your Green Lantern comic, as Kyle Rayner does in Green Lantern: New Guardians #17 (explicitly as an expression of shock, and not as someone using that as a proper name specifically to refer to Jesus as He pops up during a battle with, I don’t know, Goldface, though that would be pretty shocking in its own right) is probably not the sort of thing that would have flown under the purview of even the mostly-toothless Comics Code Authority as of a few years back. This isn’t the first example of this sort of religiously-themed exclamation I’ve noticed of late, and I don’t mention it out of some sense of prudery, but rather out of interest in what language is permissible and what companies believe their perceived audiences to be.

I think the first place I noticed language a little stronger beyond the usual “hells” and “damns” in your typical superhero book was during the Giffen/DeMatteis era Justice League, in which Guy Gardner says that he’s “pissed off.” (Clark Kent also dropped a “pissed off” in Action #838 back in 2006, which I’ve noted briefly on the site in the past, and I still don’t buy it as something he’d say.)

And of course, there’s this.

(Before you bring it up…I don’t consider the thing in All-Star Batman — you know what I’m talking about — to be part of the trend, as All-Star Batman was more of a special project than an example of a typical monthly superhero comic. God knows it wasn’t monthly.)

Speaking of hells and damns:


Well, this comic straight up gives you “fucking” on page one, a word you likely won’t be seeing in the ongoing DC Universe “New 52” Constantine series that will be attempting to fill that Hellblazer-shaped hole on the stands.

It’s been a good run, Hellblazer, and I’m sorry to see you go. I bought your first issue off the rack back in the late ’80s, and I stayed with you all the way to the end. I’m still not sure how I feel about the wrap-up to your Vertigo run…I may need to go back and reread your last year or so and see how it all holds together…but I think it holds true to the character we’ve all known and followed for all these years.

Okay, enough talking directly to the comic book. It’s somewhat satisfying to have a complete set of Hellblazer, terrifying as it is to realize I read each issue, month by month, for its entire run. And I really don’t mind the existence of the DC Universe Constantine series…I’ve been enjoying the character’s involvement in the surprisingly entertaining Justice League Dark, and the announcement of Jeff Lemire joining Constantine as writer has only increased my interest. And after 300 issues of the Vertigo run and all that entails, I don’t mind a different direction for a while. It seems unlikely we’ll get 300 issues of Constantine, but I suspect I’ll enjoy it while it exists.

Also this week, we had Classic Popeye #7:


I’m sorry for all the swearing in this post, Popeye. I know you swore in your comics, too, but at least you had the class to use &@$*%! unlike poor ol’ classless me.

The stick and the beehive.

filed under Categories retailing 9 Comments

So the next trick here in ordering from Previews this month is DC’s “WTF Certified” books, which, as previously noted in my last End of Civilization, and as more accurately explained here, involves fold-out covers on each of their superhero books that reveal some kind of shocking event.

Will this bump up sales across the board? Maybe slightly…every time there’s some kind of event or gimmick like this, there are always a few customers who decide they need one of each. During the last “Zero Month” thing, I had a few folks picking up one of each, so it’s likely it’ll happen again. It’s not enough to drastically change sales on anything…it’s not suddenly going to make, say, Sword of Sorcery our #1 book, but it’s usually good for moving a few extra numbers on some of the titles.

The actual gimmick in this case is the “shocking” event revealed by the fold-out cover, and as a marketing tool goes…well, it’s not as if anyone has to buy the comic, take it home, and then discover the startling secret that waits within. People can just zip along the racks, peeking inside each comic and seeing what’s going on, which will probably annoy me come April when the books are out, but it’s not really the kind of thing where I feel comfortable saying “hey, stop looking at those covers,” because frankly that just sounds ridiculous. (Now, if they just park there and read the comics cover to cover, then the kickin’ boots come out, because that’s just not cool.)

The real problem is which “shocking event” is going to be the one that’s going to be the real game-changer for the title involved (or, rather, apparent game-changer, because you’ve read superhero comics before, you know how this works) and will get all the attention and rack up lots of extra sales. Or lots of theoretical extra sales, because there’s no way to predict which one will be the one and everyone will be caught by surprise and not have enough and will have to wait for the eventual second and third printings which won’t sell to expectations because the speculators who were driving the initial demand wanted the first printings to sell on the eBay even though technically the later printings will likely be more “scarce” than the first and thus seemingly should be more collectible and oh hey a run-on sentence how ’bout that.

That’s the Previews conundrum of the month. Well, that, and wondering if the fact that I’m not ordering any of the Hello Kitty KISS vinyl toys for the shop makes me a fascist censor oppressing both Gene Simmons and the creators of Hello Kitty. I’m sure those sharp legal minds and political analysts on comic book message boards will let me know.

Speaking of which, going back to that Superman comic…I like that one comic shop’s idea of donating its profits from the comic to the appropriate charities. (I also like their response to people criticizing their decision.) I think we may do the same…since, like I said, we will still get a very small handful of copies for folks who have it on preorder, that will be a nice way to balance things out. People who have to have the comic will get it, and the money goes to a good cause. Not a lot of money, because I’m still not going to put that issue on the shelf, but it’s better than nothing.

And in conclusion, this whole situation sucks, and I’m just trying to deal with it the best way I can, in a way I can live with. Those of you who have given me your support, including many of our customers, I appreciate it. Even the one fellow who wrote in and told me why he wasn’t going to read my site any more, because of my particular stance…he was polite about it, and, despite disagreeing with his viewpoint, I appreciated that as well, even if it’s too bad that I’m going to lose him as a reader. The drive-by sniping in the comments, I’m less thrilled with, but that tends to say more about the sniper than the snipee, and, well, That’s The Internet.

If nothing else, hopefully the message has been sent to DC why folks may object to having that certain writer on that specific character. Not that it seems to matter, but at least we said something.

That Superman comic.

filed under Categories retailing

In response to some inquiries I’ve had on the matter, and inspired by our friends over at Zeus Comics, after talking it over with the owner we have decided that we will not be stocking the print edition of that Orson Scott Card Superman comic at the shop (beyond the couple of copies for customers who have preexisting, ongoing comic savers for Superman items).

A few years ago I had the privilege of being part of pal Dorian‘s groom’s party, during that brief period of time marriages for gay couples were permitted in California. I stood up with him at the front of church, stood by as he and Peter read their vows, and it was as beautiful and fine a wedding as I’d ever been in. And those two guys are as devoted a couple as I’ve ever seen. They are my friends, and I am not going to support someone like Card, who is directly trying to take away marriage rights from my friends or anyone else.

I know, I know…we carried the Ender’s Game comics. We’ve carried other comics by creators with reprehensible positions (though mostly expressed via Internet hot air, rather than being on a board, like Card, to try to enforce those positions on people). But this particular Superman comic is the one where the line is being drawn, where a message is hopefully being sent that we don’t want to support someone who is on the wrong side of history, on the wrong side of progress, and, when you get right down to it, on the wrong side of basic human decency.

I don’t know if it will do any good. DC’s already released a statement backing Card, and I’m sure some beancounters over there are breathlessly anticipating big controversy-fueled sales. But they won’t get them from us.

Pal Dave pretty much sums it up.

Also, comments are off on this post. Apologies to my regular readers and commenters, whose welcome participation on my site I have always appreciated, but I’ve seen some of the troglodytes who’ve been leaving comments elsewhere on this topic…the kind of comments that try to argue “wanting to take away rights” and “wanting to gain and keep rights” are somehow morally equivalent…and I don’t need any drive-by jerks landing here to put in their two cents, or, rather, their nonsense.

Don’t worry, there’s more retailin’ talk after the pog talk.

filed under Categories blogging about blogging is a sin, pogs, retailing 5 Comments

A small reminder: I’m about to wind down the daily posting over at pogressiveruin.com, the Internet’s #1 source for watching a middle-aged man slowly drive himself crazy wallowing in some fad from a couple decades ago. I don’t know if we’ve learned anything, but one thing’s for sure: we certainly got to see a lot of large scans of pogs.

Anyway, I originally intended to go into that site with a finish line in mind, and that finish line was always meant to be six months after I started. I figure that’s probably enough. It’s not grinding to a complete halt…I’d like to keep the option open for featuring any more future oddball cap discoveries from this collection, so there will probably still be a new entry every now and again. But, as of February 15th, the daily posts there are done.

If you followed that site, I appreciate it! Also…why? Are you nuts?

In other news: it’s time for me to start going through Previews for actual business-related reasons instead of End of Civilization reasons, and put together the monthly comics order. So basically, take this post and multiply it by several thousand items. Not every comic requires that much hemming and / or hawing over the numbers, of course. I have sales histories for many titles, and I can easily base orders on those, noting any increases or decreases and adjusting accordingly

And then of course there are the comics that never change sales levels, ever, no matter what the publisher does, what gimmicks they try, etc. For example, sales on one particular long-running-through-a-variety-of-publishers property have been pretty much unchanged for some time now. Don’t go up, don’t go down, don’t do nothin’ but sell the same number of copies every month. But when a second series featuring this same property was solicited, I thought the variety of different covers, plus the fact that it’s a new first issue of this once very popular character, might encourage additional pick-ups. And, when the comic came out…hey, we sold more copies of a comic based on this specific property than we normally have of late! …Then I realized that one of our regular customers who usually bought the other series bought one copy each of most of the variants of this new #1, so while we technically did increase sales of individual copies, we didn’t increase the number of actual customers for it. So while it was a good thing for me to bump up orders like I did, it didn’t actually bump up readership, but that’s okay. Not everything works like I planned…and I did sell more comics, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.

History (well, really recent history, as the story in the previous paragraph wasn’t from that long ago) is sort of repeating itself this week, with the release of this new Ghostbusters comic from IDW. IDW’s previous Ghostbusters comics started off…okay, saleswise, but have slowed down a bit for us. I’m taking a bit of a chance on this new series, having bumped orders up a wee bit over what I normally sell on Ghostbusters, since I think the comic looks like fun, the covers stand out, and my plan was (which I in fact implemented last night as I was setting up the racks) to display each cover separately, rather than shoving them all together into a single shelf space, which should garner a little extra attention. I may just sell more of the first issue, and maybe we’ll be back to regular Ghostbusters sales levels with the second, but there would be no chance of increasing sales on #2 if I don’t have the #1s for people to try out right now.

Maybe it’s good money after bad, I don’t know, but it doesn’t hurt to give it a try. Ghostbusters is a known property that people generally like, and with a bit of sales strategy combined with a comic that looks a little more appealing than the previous GB attempts from IDW, maybe I’ll sell a few more copies. Worth a shot.

Now if they could somehow bring back the Slimer solo title, then IDW would be cookin’ with gas!

That Neil Diamond / Swamp Thing duet is my favorite.

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So the worst thing about that $7.99 Young Romance one-shot DC put out last week was trying to decide, back in November or December or whenever, how many I wanted to order for the shop. As most of you know, comic shops have to place their comic orders about two months or so ahead of time, and for some publishers (particularly the “big” publishers, like DC, Marvel, Image, etc.) we get to do final tweaking on those orders three weeks or so before they actually ship, just in case there are any last minute reasons to change ’em, like any sort of sudden decline/increase in interest in the title at the shop that wasn’t evident when the original orders were placed.

Now, this Young Romance thing. It costs $7.99, which is a lot to ask of a comic fan, frankly. That pushed my order estimates down. The cover features Superman and Wonder Woman in midst of a super-smooch: given recent interest in the Supes/Wondy romance (and people are interested and talking about it, at least at the shop, which is in contrast, I realize, to the online rending of garments over this development), that pushed numbers up. It’s an anthology: numbers down. Batman/Catwoman story and a Nightwing story: numbers up. Apollo/Midnighter story: sadly, while I’m glad this particular relationship wasn’t forgotten for this book, it was no influence on orders – the Authority ship has sailed, it seems*, and overall the novelty of mixing former Wildstorm characters into what remains of the DC Universe no longer appears to be a sales factor of any sort.

In short, trying to order stuff like this is annoying. On a lot of titles, I have sales histories to help me judge. Even on holiday specials, I have reports, but sales on these can vary very widely, and for no real good reason. And so, I placed my order, basing my best guess on “how many expensive anthology comics can I usually sell” and “will the Superman/Wonder Woman cover sell the book?” and “let me roll some of these D&D dice and see what numbers come up.” And when it came time for the final order adjustments a few weeks later, I saw no reason to fiddle with my ordering decision on this book.

END RESULT: I sold nearly all the copies I ordered, save for two or three, by Sunday. And since the majority of a new comic’s sales are generally in the first week they’re on the rack, I am going to toot my own horn and consider that a success. At least more of a success than a first-day sell-out followed by a string of phone calls inquiring after it, or having every copy I ordered still on the shelf right now.

Please note: I said “generally,” which now gives me pause to wonder “am I going to have to place an immediate reorder” and “how many more copies can I reasonably expect to sell over the next few weeks?” and “boy, people are sure complaining about this comic online…should I order extra copies to meet the demand that will generate?**”

And of course, most importantly, “how many copies will I blow off the shelves once people find out this is one of the Valentine’s Day cards included in this comic?”


“Hello, Diamond Comics! Please send me 5,000 more copies of Young Romance, please! Thank you very much!”
 
 

* Though I wonder if a New 52 relaunch of Authority would do well…but I fear it would probably be Justice League: Authority which would sort of desperately miss the point.

** See also Injustice: Gods Among Us #1, which is suddenly receiving a lot of demand two weeks after its release.