retailing

This is the second week in a row where our weekly funnybook shipment from Diamond is smaller than normal, which means we’re probably due for a week sometime soon where Marvel releases three-quarters of their books. However, even with the smaller shipment, we’re still getting four different Avengers titles, which is, you know, something.

Also something is the release this week of Image United #3, only eight months after #2, and six months after the #0 special. This surprises no one, I’m sure, particularly given the number of different Image founder cats that are needed to be herded into providing art for the project. I have no idea if that actually is the reason for the delay, but I’d imagine that’s a pretty good guess.

Ending this week is Ex Machina with issue #50, which has been an interesting and enjoyable series, and, I don’t know, it sort of seems like after making a big splash when it first appeared (in part because it was one of the earliest examples of comics using the events of 9/11 in a compelling/alternate history/non-exploitative way), it remained flying under the radar ever since. Not a big seller, but a consistent one, and the trade collections go through spurts of movement at the shop. Even so, it’s still one of the few non-Authority Wildstorm properties to have any customer interest at our shop, and I’m sorry to see it go.

Another title ending this week, also at issue #50, is Star Wars: Legacy, the “future history” series taking place a century or so after all that Expanded Universe SW stuff with Old Luke, Old Han, Old Leia, etc. Now, I tried to give this series a chance, but my interest only piqued when references to and/or characters from Episodes IV-VI popped up, like the alleged Force ghost of Luke, or a certain droid of our acquaintance. I just couldn’t get interested in Cade Skywalker and his other space pals. Now, that shouldn’t be taken as a slam on the comic…it’s me, baby, not you, as my continuing interest in Star Wars seems mainly restricted to the ongoing adventures of, well, Old Luke et al. The comic remained a strong seller for us throughout its lifespan, as did the trades when, um, they were in print, and frankly I’m a little surprised it’s going away. Well, not entirely going away, since a new mini-series, with its new order-grabbing “#1,” is coming soon…but I’d have preferred the series continuing instead of giving current readers a convenient stopping point.

Also of note:

• Hellblazer #270 – Nearly 300 issues of this. Hard to believe. At last for us, this is one of DC’s low-range sellers…not quite to the point of the Red Circle material or Magog, but more along the lines of, say, R.E.B.E.L.S. Subsidized by trade paperback sales, I suppose, and the fact that this, and the Fables franchise, are now the flagship periodicals for the Vertigo line.
• Honey West #1 – Gonna be hard to top this cover, but seriously…this seems like an odd license to acquire, even though the team actually producing the book (Trina Robbins and Cynthia Martin) is a good one. Are there enough Honey West fans out there willing to buy the comic to justify the cost of the license, versus just putting Robbins and Martin on their own brand new female private detective series? Then again, “Honey West” is one of the greatest fictional character names of all time, so I can see the appeal.
• S.H.I.E.L.D. Director’s Cut #1 – In case you didn’t get your hands on the first four printings of the first issue.
• Tiny Titans #31 – So this kids’ book gets some grief in that some of the gags require specific continuity knowledge of the regular teen-and-adult-oriented DC Universe. My feeling on the topic, which I’m sure you’re dying to know, is this: 1) the sheer cuteness of the book helps sell the gags, even if the target audience doesn’t “get” the context, and 2) I remember, as a young Mikester, watching WWII-era Warner Brothers cartoons with gags specific to that period (“TURN OUT THAT LIGHT!”) and still thinking it was funny even if I didn’t fully understand why it was so important for that light to be out. Okay, maybe not the best analogy, but it’s fine if there are jokes that go over kids’ heads once in a while. Keeps them wondering. It’s good for ’em.
• Darkwing Duck #3 – Fully approved by fans of Darkwing Duck! Especially those two very excitable gals who come in every time a new issue is released and, prior to purchase, flip through the comic next to the register and loudly read to each other their favorite bits, giggling and laughing and generally carrying on and making a ruckus. THANKS IAN.

  But honestly, congrats to pal Ian for the success he’s had writing Darkwing Duck. I’m teasing a bit above, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen people get quite that excited over a comic. I’m very proud of you, buddy.

• …But the best thing coming out this week:
  
  
  YES.

Once again I was was one of the…objectives, I suppose, for the annual scavenger hunt held by local art studio Eighty Six.

In the packet each team of scavenging hunters received, along with, of course, the list of items they needed to seek out, or shenanigans they needed to record themselves doing, they received a copy of this grade school activity sheet:

And they needed to obtain a packet of precut photos, taken mostly from old metal magazines, to glue into the bus’s windows. A typical selection looked like this:

Okay, there was the occasional “ringer” in there, but frankly, Betty White is pretty metal in her own way.

Where I come in is how the hunters were supposed to obtain the pack. They were to come to our store, approach me, say “the secret password is ‘King Neil Diamond Dave Mustaine,'” and then wink at me. At that point I’d hand them the packet of pics.

Now, this sounds like it’d be a day full of interruptions and distractions, but it all went fairly smoothly, and frankly it was such a laugh that I didn’t mind losing a wee bit o’worktime over it. And one reason it was funny was that about half of the hunters who came into the store forgot the winking part, and I wasn’t going to give up the picture pack until they made with the winking. They’d say the password, and I’d just kinda stand there, looking at them expectantly, as the realization would dawn upon them that they did something wrong. They’d eventually figure it out, usually by immediately sticking their nose into their list and rereading the instructions to see what they missed, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t gain some amusement from their brief confusion and discomfort.

I’m a horrible human being, I realize.

The people have spoken! You voted nearly 2 to 1 in favor of my dropping the new Flash series from my regular reading list. Now, don’t take this the wrong way…if you’re enjoying the new Flash series, good for you! I’m glad you like it. But this new series just didn’t do anything for me, and frankly, the Flash franchise had (har har) lost some momentum after this debacle which, I think, created the seeming necessity for this extensive reboot.

And like reader Jeff says:

“Save your money for something you’re excited about, not something you’re waffling on.”

Good advice.

And what’s up with this?

“NO! Save your money for breath mints…. hooo boy!”

Well, I never! I’ll have you know, Mr. “Sniffer,” that my breath is like a fresh spring breeze! So there. (And, by the way, have you met…the Sneezler?)

• • •
Say, have you heard that Wonder Woman has a new costume? No, really, it’s true! I wouldn’t lie about this! It really happ…

…Okay, I’ll stop. Yes, it seems like everyone is discussing it, way out of proportion to the actual importance and likely impermanence of the change, mostly in the context of “boy, everybody is talking about this” and “this costume change won’t last.” So sure, I’ll pile on, too.

Well, “pile on” is a bit more negative than I intended, as I actually don’t mind the outfit. I mean, it’ll only be around for the duration of this storyline, or, at the absolutely most extreme possibility, until a Wonder Woman movie eventually comes out, so if you really do hate it, it’ll be gone soon enough. But as a temporary change, I think it’s fine, and not terrible-looking. And plus it inspired fellow Bureau Chief Matt Wilson to cook up the Superheroes Wearing Jackets Tumbler site, so how bad can it be?

My primary concern, at first, is that I do get kids coming into the shop who, having seen Wonder Woman on TV, now want Wonder Woman comics. And here we are with the one Wonder Woman series where Wonder Woman herself is no longer in her recognizable, iconic costume. Of course, I then realized it’s not that big of a deal, since the actual monthly WW title hasn’t been very attractive to child readers for about twenty years, and changing the costume won’t make any difference to that segment of the market. I’ve plenty of back issues from the ’70s and ’80s, and there are the character’s appearances in the comics based on the cartoons, so I’ve got a good selection to offer our younger Wonder Woman fans. (Any older Wonder Woman fans who aren’t already funnybook fans invariably want merchandise…they couldn’t care less about the comics.)

The costume change is, naturally, aimed at the people already dropping their cash on new comics every week, to convince them to perhaps redistribute or expand their budgeted finances to take in this latest Exciting New Direction for Wonder Woman. And of these two new assignments being written by J. Michael Straczynski, the Wonder Woman one at least seems to be getting a tentative “well, let’s see where it goes from here” from the nerdinet, as opposed to JMS’s Superman storyline which appears to be receiving almost universal derision. (Though I do like this comment on Dr. Polite Scott’s site, which gives a possible psychological underpinning for this coming Superman series).

I did find it curious that, despite the real world news coverage, I didn’t receive too much of an influx of the type of folks who only drop into comic shops to get the new hot thing they saw in the news. Well, then again, it’s only been a day, and plus it’s not like anyone absolutely died for sure, no, honest this time. Maybe we’ll get ’em over the weekend.

As for the comic, Wonder Woman #600, itself…doesn’t look too bad, actually. And I’m a sucker for anniversary issues…for those of you who have been keeping track with me, perhaps this will be the fifth comic I pick up this week.

• • •
I came across this link the other day, and reader Frippe dropped me a line about it as well, and it’s a look at panels where the action and the result of the action coexist in the same image. And the first thing I thought of when I first saw the link was my jokey overanalysis of a Richie Rich cover that would fit right into this theme. So read that first link, because it’s interesting, and read my self-link, because that’s one of my favorite posts on this site.

A couple of conversations with customers:

• Customer 1: “I’m looking for a certain comic. It’s a really dark comic so I’m pretty sure you don’t have it….”

  Me (thinking to myself): “‘Yes, we have Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.'”

  Customer 1: “…But do you carry Johnny the Homicidal Maniac?”

  Come to think of it, sales on Johnny and Lenore and related titles have dipped a bit in recent months, and some attempting to follow the same darkity-dark path, like Emily the Strange, have been non-starters. A saturation of the local market, perhaps, or the fact that new material in these, or related, lines comes out so infrequently that some of the clientele looking specifically for this stuff have given up waiting for it. Or they just get it at Hot Topic.

• Customer 2: “Hey, you want to buy this comic?”

  Me (sees it’s a common issue of Wolverine, in so-so condition): “No, I’m sorry, we can’t use that particular issue right now. We’ve got plenty in stock.”

  Customer 2: “You can’t give me anything for it?”

  Me: “No, sorry.”

  Customer 2: “What do you sell this comic for?”

  Me: “Mint condition copies go for about three or four dollars.”

  Customer 2: “Well, I paid two dollars for this at the swap meet. Could you give me two dollars for it?”

  Me: “I’m sorry, but we really don’t need it.”

  Customer 2: “Okay. Any other stores I can take this to?”

  Me: “Well, there’s a store over in the next town, but I don’t know if they’d buy it, and I don’t think it’d be worth the drive for the money you’d get even if they did buy it.”

  Customer 2: [pauses for a moment] “Okay, fine.” [throws comic on counter] “You can have it.” [walks out door]

  Me: [sighs] “Hey, [employee] Timmy, throw that in the bargain box up front, would you?”

  Okay, I wasn’t deliberately trying to talk him into giving us the comic for free. Believe me, the last thing I want in the shop is yet another collection we don’t need dumped on us, even if it is just one comic book. As it is, we’ve got too many collections we’re processing at the moment, and those are books we can actually use, without having to absorb the castoffs, too.

  Ah, well…those castoffs help us feed the bargain boxes, anyway.

---

I received an e-mail the other day from someone whose local shop ran into a bit of an inconvenience: turned out that the shop’s copies of Blackest Night #2, which came out last Wednesday, had been shorted from their New Comics Day shipment. One of the hottest comics in recent memory — one that, if that shop’s experience was anything like ours, was generating an enormous amount of interest among the customers — and they didn’t get it for what is presumably the busiest day of the week for sellers of the funnybooks.

As you might imagine, they had some disappointing, if not outright irritated, customers that day, who had been looking forward to the new installment of this series. The distributor had shipped out replacement copies via next day air, so the store would have Blackest Night #2 the next day, but that likely didn’t mollify everyone who was hoping for the book right then. Sure, most folks would be understanding, but some, especially those for whom the trip to the shop was out-of-the-way or some other kind of inconvenience, might be a bit miffed.

Now, that by itself is a pain in the ass for everyone, sure. But adding to the problem was the fact that there were two other comic shops in close proximity, and they got their copies of Blackest Night #2.

The person who wrote the e-mail asked what could be done in this situation, and, unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot you can do. It’s not as if the distributor can magically redo the day and have those books in the retailer’s hands for Wednesday sales this time. Even the most loyal clientele will have a percentage of folks who’ll stop by the other shops on the way home to get, you know, just the one comic, what harm will it do to my regular store?

The end result is, of course, that first shop selling fewer copies than expected, since those sales have been lost to other shops. Maybe only a small number, but still, especially in this marketplace and in this economy, every little bit hurts or helps accordingly. My suggestion to the writer was that his shop somehow get the distributor to accept returns on this issue, due to losing its main sale day. Also, that the shop maintain a high level of customer service to encourage customer loyalty, to make your clientele not want to shop at other stores, even if the current “hot” comic is a day late. Or (and this just occurred to me now), maybe offer some kind of “paid up in advance” raincheck. That’s extra paperwork, sure, but you’d have the money for certain instead of hoping everyone would come back for that one comic.

Luckily for us we’ve not had this problem, at least not with a title that was the big “gotta have it NOW” flavor of the moment. Closest I can think of in recent memory was an issue of Civil War that was initially only available in short supply, but everyone else, at least in our area, was hit with the same shortage. We’ve had other smaller titles get missed in our shipment, but those usually aren’t a big deal: even if sales dip a copy or two on those, it can’t easily be determined if that’s just normal issue to issue variance or if it’s due to a customer getting a copy of that book elsewhere.

But I just picture myself in that store’s situation, having to tell the dozens and dozens of people who came in expecting Blackest Night #2 that I’m terribly sorry, it’ll be here tomorrow, no, honestly. Not something I’d enjoy dealing with, that’s for sure.

Light-up base, removable rings, extremely nerdy…it’s a wonderful thing. The description says the rings aren’t meant to be worn, but you know anyone who gets their hands on this are going to try. I wonder if we’ll hear about any incidents about someone who misjudged the size and ends up getting a Blue Lantern ring cut off their finger?

But at $250 I don’t see myself picking up one of these just because it looks neat. Not that I’m going to be down on anyone who does — I have two Swamp Thing statues, need I remind you — but someone for whom Green Lantern is his or her favorite character, I can see where this might be tempting.

I believe it was Tom Spurgeon who wondered in an entry linking to an End of Civilization post of mine about the sales feasibility for high end, limited-use novelty items like this in our currently suffering economy. And that’s certainly something worth considering…we’ve never done a whole lot of business in statues and props, but I know stores that do, and I’m wondering how their sales are on them. I wonder how orders on items like this are in general. At a time when comic readers are looking for reasons to cut their funnybook expenses, you would think that high end merchandise would take a hit, too, but I still see them on Diamond’s sales charts, and they’re still showing up in the catalogs.

‘Course, it’s not as if these were ever enormous sellers, and it’s not like there are a large number of consumers buying every prop that turns up in the catalog. (I do have a fellow who orders a Marvel bust or two out of every catalog, but that’s probably more the exception than the rule.) An economic downturn would cause anyone buying lots of these to cut back a bit, I imagine, but probably wouldn’t affect the guy who’s been saving up for that one high-end goodie he has to have.

I do know merchandise in general has slowed down some. We’ve cut orders on DC Direct and Marvel Select figures, and cut McFarlane Toys entirely (selling the shortpacked female figure, and that’s it, time and time again was bit of a discouragement). In this case, it may be more due to overproduction (“oh, look, another Superman figure”) and disinterest (“hey, look at all these Spawn characters I’ve never heard of”) than anything relating to current economic issues.

You know, my intention for this post was just to say “look at this, I think it’s neat,” but I ended up running off at the mouth anyway. Sorry about that. But so long as I have your attention…how have your comics merchandise-buying habits been lately? Have you bought any real high-end statues or props recently? Have you cut down your action figure habit? Is it the economy encouraging your decisions, or have you simply had enough? Please let me know in the comments section.

(You know, doing a post on New Comics Day asking people to think about the amount of money they’re spending on comics stuff isn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done…!)