Ooooh, it's a collector's item. I am so getting that.

I totally agree. As with any industry, if new customers aren't generated, you just can't survive. In many cases the owners do it to themselves though. I've been in comic shops where the owner & staff were elitist thugs who would berate customers purchases. Stupidest thing I've ever seen from a business perspective. The shop that still exists somewhat close to my home is owned by a degenerate who creepily ogles any female who happens to walk in. I had to leave the first time I went in because he made my girlfriend so uncomfortable. He also runs it with all the business sense of an ape. It is cluttered and disorganized and hasn't changed in almost 20 years. Geeks who want to sell to geeks just won't cut it. Neither will speculators who want to sell to speculators as the 90's showed us. I don't know what the answer is but I hope someone finds it soon. If only 1986-87 had been captured in a bottle.

Of course you can't compete with those prices. You're opertating under a different model and your overhead costs are much different from a business that isn't operating at retail. Things are much harder for you. I understand this, which is why I'm fine with paying cover price when I happen to buy something from a shop. Also why I understand that you (probably) have to charge more than cover the month after a book comes out. It is all about the storage and overhead costs of running a retail operation.

I also understand the benefit of having the books as soon as they come out. Also the socializing. I hung out at the comic shop near my after-school job when in high school and had a blast. I was introduced to film noir, classic television, the old pulps, and various other odds and ends of pop culture there, along with comic books. Eventually though it became an economic reality that I could buy more comics without spending more money if I got mail order discounts. Also, now that I'm older and have a family, I don't have the time to hang out and socialize, at comic shops or anywhere else. And the economics are too substantial to argue for me.

Your's is the kind of enthusiasm that is needed in the comic retail industry. I hope that you have been giving a lot of thought to bringing in new customers. A lot of people have been talking about luring in the movie audiences (from X-Men, Spider-Man, soon Batman Begins, Superman, etc.) Sounds like a good start to me but to really save the industry I think you need the kids. Not the movie crowd kids but the little tots. On the one hand I appreciate that (many) comics have grown up as I grew up but on the other, how do you sell tough and gritty comics to a 5 year old? Captain Marvel (Shazam!), Curt Swan's Superman, Jim Aparo's Batman were some of the comics that hooked me but I don't know what on the stands really appeals to the younger market. Marvel Tales? I don't know, but hopefully there is something out there or on the horizon.

Cheers!

I don't really know what you mean by this. You have to realize that a comic shop's core crowd are geeks & a good store's purpose is exactly what you said, a place to talk about comics, which is as geeky as you get. This is what I really try to do, it's a small store, but we have 3 TVs in it & we really want people to just hang out there & talk all things geeky if they like. Unless the owner of the store is filthy rich, it is very hard to cater to the non-Geek crowd. Other places already do that. If your store is still advertising Pokemon then that is just bad. But one of the only ways we can cater to the "non-geek" crowd is that we do everything we could to capitalize on comic book films & it does work. I have a friend that manages a large movie theater so we have tons of movie-tie in posters & banners that other stores don't have that do get in the non-comic book fan into the store. Before the film hit, I coudn't give away a Sin City trade, even the average comic book fan never read it or cared to, now we can't keep the things in stock, they constatnly sell out.

While great in theory this isn't how it actually works, trust me. Comic book fans do not want to go to a reading group, that is what message boards are for & creator signings are EXTREMELY expensive & anyone with any kind of name is near impossible to get unless you know them or again, have loads of money. Having the store be fun w/ a good stuff is what I we try to do. My friends & I are just college kids, we look normal & I know we have taken subscribers from other stores b/c the guys working at their old store were old tools.

Trust me, FCBD is anything but pointless. I WISH I could do one every day of the year. We did more than 5 times our normal sales total last Saturday b/c of it, you have no idea how huge that is. All of our local papers advertise it & the rest is up to the individual store. We put posters up in movie theaters, libraries, my school newspaper, we had kids that come to our store hit the mall parking lots & put adds in car windshields. Pretty much all local papers I think around the country had some kind of article on it, & if your local store didn't take advantage of that day, it is their loss business wise b/c for 4 years now it has been a phenomenal success for us & stores aroudn the country. Plus there are some tremendous indy comics that you can get through it.

I hope they don't plaster that ugly-assed thing all over my Vertigo books.

Not bad. I agree it will take some getting used too but I'm cool with it.

I don't like it, but it's probably because I grew up with the one they've been using for the past 30-or-so years.

But as Mark Evanier pointed out, he didn't like the one they've been using for the past 30-or-so years because he grew up with the one before that.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter what logo they use, it matters what's inside the book.

Sessa, it sounds like I need to start shopping at your store. You and the other employees sound knowledgable and friendly. What I was trying to get at is that too many comic shops that I've been to seem closed off to anyone who isn't already a comic fan.

Not long ago I went hunting down comic shops in Denver...spent the whole day roaming the streets and found many shops I'd never been in. Sadly, three of them never even acknowledged I was in the store. All were small and cramped.

Part of the joy about reading, for me anyway, is the atmosphere of where I pick up my books. For example, Barnes and Noble is generally clean, open, bright, and has a staff that is willing to help. If comic shops want to stay open, they need to improve their appearance. Sure, I understand they need to cater to their bread and butter customers (the 'geeks') but not to the point that they turn out other would be customers.

I guess for me, I'm just looking for a place other than online forums to enjoy comics and meet other people who like the things I do. I'm just not sure where that'd be other than a comic shop.

To name a few......

The comic shop I frequent the most is in Lewisville, NC - great shop - well lit, enough space to roam, a few arcade machines in the back with a table & chairs, and the guy that owns it is really a great guy. He's very approachable and I can email him to hold particular books and send him want lists via email attachments. Unforuately, I now live like an hour away, but I still go about twice a month to pick up the books that I didn't get online.

World tour my ass. If you only tour one country it does not count as being a world tour.

I'll check them out...

dcbservice.com has prices just as good as mailordercomics.com (the same on everything listed, except New Avengers HC, which they charge $9.99 for) in case anyone wants another choice.

They're also starting a new website 06/01 that should be a great place to go for cheap trades: http://www.instocktrades.com/

dcbservice is new to me and, always looking for a bargain, I compared my current order from mail order comics to dcb and came out:

MOC = $221.79
DCB = $221.94

both have some really nice prices.

Current order?

I'd hate to see what the newstand price with tax would be on that!

So would I! That's why I go mailorder!

Really though, by "current" I meant for the current month. Is $222 a lot? It's mostly trades and hard cover collections every month for me, rather than individual comics. And my monthly orders over the past year averaged out to $172 each month.

I guess if you have to ask if it's a lot, it clearly isn't something you can't afford. So, who am I to say?

Yeah, my montly comics bill is around there too... although, it seemed much more palatable when split up into weeks. Also, I'm getting a ton of manga and import toys, which always drive my orders up in price.

On a side note: just browsed through this month's Previews. I swear, Marvel doesn't want people to buy the monthlies at all anymore. They already solicited the Age of Apocalypse and Exiles: Age of Apocalypse collections, which just came out last month. Since all these issues came out in the span of a month anyway (which means they were all done when they released them), why'd they release the individual issues at all? Last time I buy a miniseries from Marvel (not to mention, the story wasn't all that great, certainly no reason to revisit that universe). They also seem to be making these small collections (3-5 issues only) and then coming out with a bigger hardcover later down the line.

I just bought:

Marvel Knights Spider-Man Vol. 3: The Last Stand
and
Spectacular Spider-Man Vol. 5: Sins Remembered

=)

x

You should read the most recent TILTING AT WINDMILLS column over at newsarama.com. It's got a retailers view point on quick turnaround trades. It's a good read.

I've got the first review anywhere for Superman #217 up at Broken Frontier. It's the debut of the new creative team plus an Omac Project Tie-in.

Read my review here:

http://brokenfrontier.com/reviews/details.php?id=299

My new graphic novel site is up and running: Bookshelf Comics.

It's a little short on content right now, but I'll be adding to it as often as possible. But if anyone has comments, suggestions, or whatever, please let me know. I think the conversations here at the talk are some of the best, so I truly do value your input.

Thanks.

BTW, thanks for the suggestion, just read all of the articles on that site. At times, it makes me want to be a comic book retailer, and at others, it makes me wonder why people do it at all.

It certainly gives me more sympathy for the local comic book store, and a longing to go visit one soon.

While it is an absolute BLAST being a retailer, I would not recommend it to anyone. I was lucky to be in a great situation, where running a comic book store is not my means of an income, it is just a fun investment on the side.


Personally I think the retailer that writes that TILTING AT WINDMILLS column is a total moron & I would not want to shop in his store. He just sounds like a whining baby & I think his policy of demanding that customers can only by 2 of any given comic is total bullshit & contradictory to everything he is complaining about. I hate retailers that do that.

While trades sell like crazy at my store, I do everything I can to push single issues on my customers. What comic book fans don't realize is that trades VERY rarely help a comic book out, if you like a book, & don't want it to get cancelled you NEED to support it in it's monthly format.

And JP congrats on getting your site up, I truly wish you the best of luck with it.

Interesting...

I guess the Tilting at Windmill guy is limiting multiples because he wants books to be able to go to people who are going to read them, and he wants to make sure he can accurately order the next issue. It is an odd policy, but I don't see many people buying multiple copies of many issues any more, except for issues that would sell out anyway, and then it's better for him and his store if a different reader got that third or fourth copy. I'm sure if you're buying for a friend or something, he'd make an exception (or hey, just come back the next day...) Do you have an issue with his policy because it restricts the buyer, or because of something else?

while I agree that waiting for trades is detrimental to the comic book industry as a whole, I do find that it is much harder to find back issues these days... and if not for the trade, how would anyone catch up? There is a time lapse that needs to exist to ensure people will buy the individual issues, and Marvel seems to be shooting themselves in the foot by failing to realize this. Not only that, but man are individual comics hard to read month by month nowadays... because a lot of them are designed to be read in a trade. That having been said, it has made me realize that I do need to start buying more individual issues of the books that I love, even if I know they're going to be collected anyway. Invicible, I will do this for.

What's funny is that there's still a stigma on original Graphic Novels... basically, things will sell better if it was first serialized, even if people are waiting for the trade, but if it's an OGN, watch out! So eventually moving solely to graphic novels would not only be a huge risk for the creators (in that they're income and their visibility would be bound up in one volume), but the general public won't even look at them anyway.