Re: Industry Rant
 

Believe it or not, the appeal of animation is probably how me , you, and many others became comic book fans. If you grew up in the 80's, you would watch the cartoons and afterwards beg your parents to buy toys, comics and cereal.
Anyway, I really would like having something to look forward to watching on Saturday mornings again.

Re: Industry Rant
 

Oh, I completely agree about cartoons. I'm just saying there are cartoons, just not on Saturday morning.

I agree with the toys thing too. There are actually age appropriate, relatively cheap toys for smaller kids, just not for older kids, mainly because that market is mainly collectors and not kids. But I just went to Walmart just this morning and bought a blind-packed Imaginext Dr. Fate (the other characters you can get are the Wonder Twins, Lex in super armor, Catman, and Duke Thomas. I don't even know who Duke Thomas is). I have an Imaginext Super Friends Hall of Justice and Hall of Doom. I have a gigantic bat robot that's modeled after the Jim Gordon Bat suit. Right next to the Imaginext DC stuff was a five pack of Marvel Super Hero Adventures toys featuring Thanos with an Infinity Gauntlet. But like I said they're for little kids.

Re: Industry Rant
 

Besides price and availability, the thing that killed comics for me was the transition from writing episodic issues to writing for the eventual graphic novel. When I was a kid, I would gladly grab random issues if the cover looked cool and never had to worry that I would be dropped into the middle of a story that made no sense to me. You can't do that today at all. You're either all-in with whatever arc is being told (and therefore need to somehow be aware of which issue # the current arc started with), or you're holding out for the graphic novel, or you're out.

Re: Industry Rant
 

That's been brought up before, but it's a great point. Single issue stories need to be the norm and not the exception, at least for the line of comics that they'd hope to sell widely. Lower price, better distribution, and self contained stories in each issue (no more than 2 two parters each year).

The biggest challenge in all that is the distribution.

Re: Industry Rant
 

Re: Industry Rant
 

True, but it also sold mostly to existing comic buyers. It just sold to a lot of them. And the new buyers that it did attract stayed on board.

Right now the problem is attracting new buyers - in large numbers. Standalone stories work best for that (if a kid picks up a comic, and there's a bunch of stuff in the storyline that he or she missed out on they may not enjoy the story as much, and would be less likely to keep buying comics).

There needs to be a line of comics that is cheaper, better/more widely distributed, and has more single issue stories. And simpler stories - less millennial convoluted stuff.

Re: Industry Rant
 

The other thing is that in Claremont's heyday, there was one X-men comic. Not that hard to go look back if you really needed to, and Claremont was wordy enough that he actually did full recaps almost every issue (as was the standard for the day, because as Shooter liked to say, every issue may be someone's first). That becomes super annoying when reading a collection, but that's just an aside. There are clearly rewards for longtime readers but nothing was inaccessible. Things that happened in other books were promoted with little blurbs that made you think "maybe I should check Uncanny X-bugs number 32 to see what happened." I'll have to go back and look, but I'm pretty sure you could pick up an issue of Claremont's X-men and get a full story and not part 1 of 10 where nothing happens. I think that's the complaint we see when we talk about writing for the trade.

Even when they added New Mutants as a spin off and did crossovers, it was relatively easy to follow. I don't see how a new reader comes aboard a comic line today.

Re: Industry Rant
 

If you have to "force" a product like that, it's never going to work.

Yes. Superman is not cool. When I was 5 years old me and my friend thought he was a dork.
Today, I asked my nephews who watch all the Marvel movies, Teen TitansGO!, etc, and ask them about Superman and they don't like him at all. They say he's boring.

Yeah, Superman is damn near all-powerful, but that gives you a whole bunch of possibilities. The problem is that DC has been stuck to tradition for the longest time. One girlfriend for like 50 years, then married to that same girlfriend for like what, 20 years? Then they break it up just so he can tied down into another relationship with Wonder Woman.
He's very old school, and his secret identity disguise is completely stupid, but again, that just offers up more challenges for the writer and artist to get creative.

Well another thing to is that Captain Underpants and Diary of a Wimpy Kid are something new for them. Those stories were only available as a one series of books. So if they want their fix of continuing Wimpy Kid stories they have to get the latest book. There's nothing else. Until the movies came out, but even then, that was only a trilogy at the time.
For superhero comics, shit, there's too many interpretations of Spider-man.
On YouTube kids can search for "Spider-man cartoons" and all kinds of different series's will pop up where they can watch for free.
They can get the many video games available on different platforms, including their phone.
They can just google "Spider-man" and get panels, pages, and pictures of Spider-man.
They go to Target and there's always Spider-man toys there.

So the market is oversaturated with that stuff, to the point that it's too conventional. And movies, cartoons and video games are always going to win out over comics when it comes to kids.


I grew up in the era of Transformers and GI Joe and never saw any Marvel or DC cartoons. I wasn't even really aware of Secret Wars or Super Powers at the time. By the time I got into comics around 1988 there were no Marvel/DC cartoons on TV. I tried checking out Batman and Spider-man cartoons at the video rental store and they only had the really old 60s Spider-man with the bad animation, and some awful Batman cartoons that used the voices from the equally awful Batman 60s live-action show.
So the comic rack was the only fix for the further adventures of Spider-man and Batman. Buying comics back then was like entering a whole new world, especially the Marvel Universe.

It turned out that there WAS some Marvel and DC cartoons in the 80s. For some reason they never really took off like He-Man, Transformers or GI Joe.

People trying to get kids into superhero comics, is almost like trying to get kids into reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. They want the latest, newest thing. Which is probably why manga took off in the 2000s.

I don't know how true that is.
I mean, I felt the same way as you.
I tried getting into Morrison's Batman RIP, reading it off the rack, and feeling that way. I grabbed an issue that was like part 11 of 27. I didn't give it a chance, because hey, I can always find a better Batman comic, either in the back issue bin at my local comic shop, or one the many other Batman titles out there, All-Star Batman, Batman: Confidential, Batman: Samurai, Batman: Supernatural, etc.
Had there been no other competing Batman titles at the time, and no easily available back issues of 70s, 80s, and 90s Batman comics, I probably would have ended up buying more issues of Morrison's RIP story.

Re: Industry Rant
 

You know how I got into comic books?

The Electric Company - the TV show.

They had a cross promotional deal with Marvel, and Spider-Man (live action and still frame animation) appeared on the show. I learned how to read at 3 years old by watching that show, and started collecting Spidey Super Stories at 5. At 6 I graduated to The Amazing Spider-Man and the floodgates opened.

Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, the occasional Batman title (I got into Batman because of the Adam West show) - then X-Men, Iron Man, Avengers, etc.

But it was the live action Spider-Man stuff on The Electric Company that got me interested in the first place. And then John Romita's covers on Spidey Super Stories really caught my eye and confirmed in my head that I HAD TO HAVE those comics!

And comics were EASY to find. Every 7-11 had a ton of them. And newsstands. And bookstores that carried a lot of magazines. It was easy to become a comic book fan.

It hasn't been easy to become a comic book fan in over 30 years. That's a HUGE problem. You have to work to find them. In a world based on convenience that just kills your ability to sell your product.

Re: Industry Rant
 

I mean, comic book CHARACTERS are more accessible than ever. Chances are, most kids know who the Avengers, the Justice League, heck, even the Guardians of the Galaxy are. My kids know like the most obscure DC characters because of shows like Brave and the Bold. They air all kinds of cartoons at all hours of the day. The issue is how do you translate that to collecting comics, and that's where I agree with the availability/price issue. I really wonder how well the Walmart deal did for DC if you subtract all the hardcore fans trying to buy up the issues. Like how many kids got their hands on them.

Re: Industry Rant
 

Re: Industry Rant
 

I’ll never give up my DC and Marvel, but am at the point where I acknowledge they pretty much suck compared to stuff from Image and Fantagraphics and Dark Horse. Maybe the industry will change and superhero books will fade away, replaced by the less disposable stories being done outside the big two.

Re: Industry Rant
 

In all my experiences picking up the Walmart line, I've never once come across kids looking at them or even looking near the area. To be fair, I've never come across any adults looking at them as well. One cashier did make a passing mention on them in the checkout line when she saw them.

Now I have seen tons of kids looking at the comic books/graphic novels when I visit Ollie's.

Re: Industry Rant
 

Another big place that recently stopped selling floppies, eliminated their variants and downsized their tpb section is Books-A-Million. This happened at the end of 2018, taking another big customer from Diamond and affecting the industry overall.

Re: Industry Rant
 

The first few months, I saw kids crawling all over the books. It was great. Since the #5s tho, not so much.

I have noticed that the books are selling. The Flash usually goes fast. So does Superman and Batman. Re-visiting stores, Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing and Titans are always the bulk left over.

Re: Industry Rant
 

Batman, Superman and Justice League seem to sell pretty well. I always see leftover Titans inventory wherever I go.

Re: Industry Rant
 

The 90s Spider-Man cartoon is what did it for me. My uncle was a Marvel reader when I was little, so I already had exposure to whatever comics he had, but what really got me interested was that Spider-Man cartoon.

​​​
I think that’s the main problem with these multi-part stories, not that they exist but that they may crossover into six other books that might not be on your radar. I pay attention to this stuff and that even happened to me in the last couple years with a couple Spider-Man and X-Men stories. I’ve been reading some old Web of Spider-Man issues and when a multi-part story pops up, it’s usually contained to that book and doesn’t branch out into the other books. There is occasional branching, but it’s usually not too bad, no where near as bad as it gets in the mid 90s. The little recap blurbs were great, but the issues were also written in a way so that you weren’t left in the dark and knew what was going on, if you hadn’t read the prior 2 or 3 issues. Although, that may just mean we had better writers back then than we do now.

Re: Industry Rant
 

And the floppies were always destroyed, bent up, hanging over the racks, and not appealing at all.

Re: Industry Rant
 

And they were pushing their Fried Pie variants for ridiculous prices.

Re: Industry Rant
 

Right, and most of them were terrible covers :lol:

Re: Industry Rant
 

They've started a new subsidiary called 2nd & Charles that specializes in used media/books and has a comic book section.

Re: Industry Rant
 

2nd and Charles has existed for a while, almost as long as Books a Million. Their comic book section consist of mostly back issues with some new releases and the Fried Pie Variants (until the stopped the agreement last year). My understanding is that 2nd and Charles and Books a Million (both under the same company) stopped getting new issues from Diamond late last year as corporate decided to cut on buying new floppies and collectibles from Diamond. So now, in the past 5 years, Diamond has lost Hastings (their biggest account), BAM/2nd and Charles and about 100 comic book stores.

Re: Industry Rant
 

I still see new issues at 2nd and Charles. I got Detective Comics #1000 from there and a couple of other issues just a couple weeks ago.

Re: Industry Rant
 

Two people from a FB group I'm in relayed some horror stories while shopping today at their LCS. The first one was in Florida and the guy(a regular) went to his LCS as soon as their doors open to get a copy of Batman 77. Well, before he went in to the store, another regular beat him to the wall of new books, grabbed every single copy of Batman 77 (around 50 copies) and proceeded to buy them and the store owner didn't do shit to stop him. Everyone else that went at that time to pick that particular book was extremely pissed that the owner allowed that guy to buy all the copies.

The second story is from a guy in the who went to his LCS first thing in the morning to pick up Power of X #3 that was released today. Well, all the regular copies of that book were marked at $15.99 (retail price is $4.99) and all the variants were priced between $25-$250. I understand pricing the 1:10, 1:25, etc, variants at a higher price, but why fuck with your customers by pricing the regular copies on released day for $16? And this is one of the reasons why LCS are dying.

Re: Industry Rant
 

^ Totally sucks. I stopped going to one store (Comic Madness in Chino, CA) because they jacked up the prices for all the New52 #1s as soon as they opened the doors. They said it was because of demand. I even complained about it here on the forum back in 2011 and a few weeks later, someone from Comic Madness responded! Fucking creepy!

Had no problem getting a copy today for my usual discounted price ($3.00). 1 per customer tho. And only for regulars.

Re: Industry Rant
 

I remember stuff like that pissing me off as a kid during the '90s. But wouldn't the newsstand solve this problem? At least when it comes to selling new issues at cover price? And yet, I think the newsstand for comics is completely gone now.

It takes out the fun out of buying comic books when shops are pulling shenanigans like this. I just want to read the damn book and the store owners are acting like some crooked 3-card monty dealer.

Re: Industry Rant
 

Shops doing that shit will go out of business. Fuck em.

My LCS had enough for all subs, and some left over for regulars who called ahead. And they never mark up books, they truly want their customers to get books. I am blessed to have 2 good shops in town, and the one that is my main one is amazing.

Re: Industry Rant
 

Newsstand wouldn't solve this problem. First guy in there would do the same as that one LCS and buy up all the copies of whatever hot book there was. Newsstand would solve the problem of getting non comic book fans to buy comics, but not this problem. You really need a good LCS owner who keeps an eye out for his regular customers.

I mean, I feel for the comic store owner. More often than not these events (and I have no idea what's the deal with that x-men comic) are kept secret until right before release, while he has to order comics like two months in advance. But they should at the very least know of and take care of their regular customers and limit the number one person can buy if there's scarcity. After a week, besides the ones who have a pull list go ahead and scalp the remainder for whatever you want.

Re: Industry Rant
 

That was the conversation today in my LCS. Sales are down on King Batman, so they had adjusted accordingly. Then DC (knowingly) pulls this stunt, leaving the store with nothing.

Re: Industry Rant
 

No, I meant the problem of of some comic shops selling the latest issue at something higher than the cover price.

As a rule, I wouldn't think they should. If they tell the shops in advance, plot details will get leaked out ahead of time and ruin the surprise for readers.
But DC and Marvel don't seem to do it for those reasons, as certain "ground breaking" developments in Batman, Superman, etc end up getting leaked to major news publications, which potentially spoils the surprise for readers anyways.

But this way of doing things is done because of the current market. Print media sales are going down, and comics sales have been declining before that. This is a niche hobby now. And who's paying for these marked up new issues? Isn't everything immediately collected in trade or available digitally?

Re: Industry Rant
 

But someone would go buy up all the newsstand issues and comic shops would still scalp them (or at least these would). Heck, some of these comic shops would probably go to the newsstands and buy them up. When I was in college, the closest comic shop near me would basically make daily runs to TRU to pick up all the hot comic related toys to sell.

If they're going to try to keep things a surprise, you're right, they shouldn't leak them to the press AND they should allow people to reorder easily. Like have it ready to go.

As far as who's still buying them, well, that's kind of the point. The LCS should be catering to their fanbase and making them feel at least somewhat special and taken care of. Those are the bread and butter, not speculators coming in to buy up hot issues. The only way for an LCS to compete with InStockTrades and Amazon, or heck, DCBS is to offer some kind of service to their customers and not treat them like crap. Because I can attest, once you're off the monthly drip it's easy to just drop it all.

Re: Industry Rant
 

Hmm, good point.
However, from what I remember of buying comics at Borders is that the newsstand received the latest issue much later than the comic shops. That would allow for the initial craze to die down somewhat, while giving regular readers a decent a chance to beat these scalpers to the punch. But apparently there people are not flocking to newsstands to buy comics. When DC did the New52, Barnes had an entire new section carved out for new comics...now nothing. It seems like there's only a modest spike in sales and interest when there's stunts like this to bring old readers/collectors out the woodwork.
I remember going to 7-11 to buy and read Whedon's Astonishing X-Men #1, then finding out the series had already been out for a year in the comic shops.

Why don't they allow people to reorder easily? I remember Marvel and DC would occasionally do the 2nd and 3rd printing for sold out issues. Did they stop that practice?
At one point Joe Quesada back in the day limited the print runs and didn't allow for reprints but that was back in the early 2000s I think.

I agree, but the comic shop model was just a bandaid for problem the comic industry was facing in the 70s. Comic sales were down, newsstand presence was diminishing, and comic shops and the direct market was the remedy for the time. But American comics have never had the sort of mainstream appeal that manga in Japan has had. If they did, we wouldn't have to rely on shady comic shops. Comic shops are like antique stores and second hand shops. They're dependent on nostalgia and used/"collectable" items: old toys, old video games, old comic books, old cards...with new merchandise comic issues on the wall. Then months later those unsold issues are piled into the dollar bins. The clerks and store owners are more like dealers.

That happened to me. Not so much with the comic shops, as the ones in my area were pretty good. But the publishers themselves don't seem to treat their business as something mainstream and professional. Various writers and artists take anywhere from 6 months to multiple years in between issues. Editors and writers in forums being rude and condescending to even polite fans who were critical of storylines or practices. Rising prices, decreased page counts, and decompressed stories.
Not to mention Marvel and DC, the only two publishers with some decent presence, operate on a "work-for-hire" model. Writers and artists don't get to own their creations, so instead we get the same stories with the same characters every month, every year, every decade.

Re: Industry Rant
 

I understand not preparing for Batman #77 or Walking Dead #193 as there was no way of knowing but there's no reason for an LCS to not adjust numbers for the Power of X or House of X or Absolute Carnage books. The X books have been selling out everywhere and the have a final order cutoff date of 2 weeks in advance to make adjustments for issues #3 and forward. IF they didn't order to supply the demand by now is the LCS fault.

Still, I know of too many store owners who are just fucking morons that don't look at their emails, don't look at social media and don't have their finger on the pulse of the industry. And I know this from experience. I was the guy who stayed informed about these type of things at my own store. When I had a fallout with my business partners and left the store while my lawyer sort things out, the other bumbling idiots who ran the store were simply clueless and willfully ignorant. This happened around the time that the orders for DC's Dark Metal series and spin-off were about to happen. I had been in conference calls and the retailers social media groups and everytime I told my partners to join those meetings, they blew them off. Since I wasn't there anymore, these idiots only ordered 5 copies of Dark Metal #1, 3 copies of Teen Titans #12 (first appearance of the Batman Who Laughs, the main villain for the Dark Metal series) and less than 5 copies of each spinoff. The orders came in and they sold out as soon as they opened the doors and had no way of getting more issues as they were sold out completely at Diamond. These idiots left a lot of money on the table because of their willful ignorance and this happens too often with these LCS people. I've noticed that for some weird reason, many if not most LCS owners and employees are lazy as fuck. They think the product will sell itself and don't do the work to make things successful. Many of them don't have a business background or business acumen in general, so that's why they don't last long.

Sales are down for Batman after issue #50 and then the whole Nightmares storyline brought sales down even further, and after issue #75 didn't do much at stores, many LCS have adjusted to only ordering for pull list customers and having enough extras to last them a week at most. DC had no issue spoiling issue #50, so I don't understand why they didn't say something to LCS about issue #77. I mean, they don't have to spoil the content or the big surprise at the end, but sending a mass email to LCS telling them that something big is happening in that issue would have been enough for everyone to adjust their orders and have enough issues to sell.

Re: Industry Rant
 

I think many readers tired of King's take on Batman and the aftermath of the wedding has gone nowhere. I'm surprised DC didn't pull him earlier from the book.

Re: Industry Rant
 

Fuck Local Comic stores. I was going to one for years, and they would forget to hold the books on my list & wouldn't give me that much of a discount - even though I spent a shit-load of money there.

I haven't collected floppies (individual comics) for 5 years, so have no use for these places anymore & haven't stepped into one since then - good riddance. I buy everything online, and get better deals than I ever did buying at LCS's. Plus, it's a lot more convenient to get these items delivered to my door than to drive half-way across town to pick this shit up once every several weeks (or more often, depending on how much I ordered).

Also, when I went to these places years ago, I remember how they would charge an exorbitant amount for old floppies that were in crummy shape. One time back in the 200X's, I went over to the LCS owner, pointed to an old floppy (in shitty shape) that he was charging $100 for - and said something like, "Why would I pay $100 for this piece of shit, when I can get this same issue in a Marvel Masterwork (and pointed to that) with 9 other issues, the color remastered, better quality paper, in a HC volume - for half the price? (This is when they were charging $50 for MMW's with 10 issues). That fucker didn't say anything, but he became enraged - his face turned beet red & I thought he was going to blow a gasket. I just walked out of the store, laughing :D Asshole. He can take all of his overpriced, old floppies and stick them where the sun don't shine.

Going along with this, I also have bad memories of these pricks charging exorbitant prices for newer comics that were considered "rare". The most blatant example I can think of were the variant covers (hologram, cardboard, etc.) from Marvel's re-booted X-men & Spider-man titles back in the '90's - utter garbage. Glad I never got on board that band-wagon, since these are borderline-worthless today - and are only good for use as toilet paper or to line the bottom of a bird-cage/kitty litter box.

Fuck those assholes that do that too. These days, all floppies are almost always collected in a Trade, so if all you want is to read the comic - just Trade wait.

Re: Industry Rant
 

Re: Industry Rant
 

:lol:

Re: Industry Rant
 

You sound like a shill for Local Comic stores. Keep up the good work! I'm sure you'll be able to bring back all of the customers that these stores have lost due to their poor customer service - LMFAO!!! :lol:

Glad that these stores are having problems. Years of gouging & ripping off customers with inflated prices (especially for newer issues), buying up all copies and selling them for a huge profit, etc. are finally biting these LCS's in the ass. I also remember back in the '90's & 200X's, some of the stores would go to local toy stores & buy HTF toys, then turn around & sell them for twice the retail cost. Pricks. What goes around comes around, motherfuckers :D

Agreed.

Re: Industry Rant
 

I usually get my trades from the library for free. I also use Comixology if I need to get something quick. Hoopla also has comics. Fuck the stores.

Re: Industry Rant
 

I have a number of comic shops in my area. Most, if not all of them are great. I love being able to flip through different issues on the shelf and seeing what's new. I like the atmosphere and how the shops still have trading cards available, posters, toys, etc.

Most of my bad experiences with comic shops was back in the 90s.