Posted by: Brian Hibbs on December 16, 2011
Categories: Retailing/Industry
It must suck, since no one is commenting over there…. orrrrrrr I’m so insanely reasonable that everyone has been struck dumb! U decide!
-B
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The thing that destroys your argument about the importance of comic book specialists is that in the past two weeks I ordered 20 or so graphic novels through Amazon. And the reason I did this is because none of the half dozen or so comic book shops within a half hour’s drive from my house had any of those 20 or so graphic novels in stock. None.
Comic book specialists didn’t have a single book on my list, but a generalist like Amazon had all of them. Now tell me again why I should be shopping in the direct market?
And this wasn’t an anomaly. 85% to 90% of the time that I visit a local comic book shop I walk out of the store empty handed because they don’t have what I’m looking for. And I’m not even talking about obscure books for the most part. This is pretty mainstream stuff like Chaykin and Geary and Oeming and McKean.
Frankly, I’m tired of going out of my way to try to support a retail segment that won’t even make the effort to try to meet me halfway (much less actually give me what I want in a retail experience).
And your argument that comic book shops as “super hero man caves” not being that big of an issue anymore? It may not be an issue in San Francisco, but in the rest of the country it’s still the norm and it’s a huge turn off to actually wanting to visit these stores.
Just my two cents.
I’m fine with economic Darwinism — if the local stores aren’t satisfying your needs, then by all means go somewhere else.
I don’t know where you are, or what the deal in your area is, and I’m willing to take your description at face value, but I can say that I seldom encounter anything even remotely like that here in SF, or in Northern California… or, hell in Southern Cali, in the stores in LA and San Diego and dozens of other cities I’ve been in, so I have a pretty hard time picturing a half dozen stores in a 30 minute drive that are so distressingly poor — clearly they must be satisfying their clientele, as they are able to pay rent and such?
-B
Brian…love the thought and effort you put into these articles, but I disagree with so many of your basic assumptions.
I’m with Steely Dan and absolutely, 100% believe the *vast* majority of DM stores are “superhero man-caves.” I travel a *lot* and I usually stop in a local comic store because comic stores are calming. I live in Cincinnati…none of the local stores and the closest store selling pretty much anything I want to buy is 5 hours away in Chicago. Most comic stores are just Marvel/DC shops and they are utterly, hopelessly clueless about anything not published by Marvel/DC.
Another assumption I disagree with is specialty stores are better than general bookstores like Barnes & Noble. Of course comic stores sell more comics – that’s their bread and butter! General specialists sell lots of different product to lots of different people.
Trying to lump manga into the serialization vs trade argument is apples and oranges when comparing manga to Western comics. Manga is sold in anthologies on cheap newsprint for cheap prices. The anthology magazines are disposable and that’s why serialization works there. The manga anthologies aren’t high dollar items meant to be put in bags. The manga collections in Japan are where the real money’s at and the manga fans generally expect to buy the collected works.
As far as serialization in the US – eh, it’s kinda hard to cry for DC over Shade because they’re not exactly encouraging readers to buy the serialization when it costs so much. Why would people pay all that money for those 12 comics when they really desire to buy the collection?
I dunno…I just don’t feel any sympathy to the DM as a whole because it seems to me maybe 5% of the DM try being good comic stores, like yours seems to be.
I feel like you guys are trying too hard to discredit what Brian’s basic point is — that specialty shops are better equipped to GUIDE regular readers (and especially aNew Readers) in making purchasing decisions. There’s just no way this can’t be true. Sure there may be an employee at a Barnes and Noble that is a “comics expert” but the vast majority of the employees there won’t be. Sure, Amazon and B&N may have stuff other than superhero but how is a new reader to have any clue what to look for or what similar works may match something they enjoyed? At the very least, a GOOD specialty shop is much more efficient in the process.
It sounds like the shops available to you just aren’t “good” shops inthat they don’t stock the wide range of stuff that interests you. I DO sympathize but the great shops like Brian’s shouldn’t be punished for those shortcomings.
On Shade, I just don’t feel bad for DC or Robinson at all. I addition to training people to buy the trade, they’ve also focused so much effort on tying sales to the series that “matter” to the universe. Then they throw something out there completely on its own in a totally different vein. Not to mention, Robinson has ignored his base for probably close to TEN years now! He’s focused on projects where editorial matters more than the creators; he hasn’t at all done side projects preaching to his core base of readers that want a “James Robinson” work. It truly IS sins of the past catching up to and affecting the present in multiple ways!
Finally, I’ve mentioned it before to you Brian but it just drives me nuts that there is no way for us to subscribe to receive emails if someone adds to this thread. I want to see if somebody responds to what I write – tomorrow or a YEAR from now. I know you aren’t the site programmer but it’s really not hard to include that feature at all and it’s kind of crazy to me that the feature hasn’t been planned to be on the site since the beginning (post new format). It’s important!
Luke H,
I think you make a good point and perhaps I did miss the forest for the trees. Maybe the point Brian was trying to drive home is a good specialty shop can better guide a curious potential customer and yes, I absolutely agree with that.
I feel a need to express my feelings about not having shops that stock the wide range of stuff that interests me…it would be foolish and greedy of me to expect a store in Ohio to carry both Marvel/DC product and everything from Ganges to 20th Century Boys. The audience just isn’t big enough. But many, many, many stores aren’t carrying Avatar or most Image or what have you.
Pittsburg has a wonderful comics scene where someone could go to Phantom Comics and load up on Marvel/DC and then hop over to Copacetic Comics and round out their purchase with Optic Nerve, Ganges, and whatever other indie stuff they liked. But that’s the exception, not the rule. To buy Optic Nerve and Ganges this year, I had to wait for trips to NYC. There were literally no stores within 100 miles that were stocking those books. It’s just disheartening to see something cool come out and think, “Gotta wait for a big city trip for that….”
I’m not really sure who is punishing good stores like the one Brian owns. My point (and I believe the point that Chris was trying to make) is that these good stores are few and far between. I would love nothing more than to shop at a great comic book shop, but the nearest one to me that meets that definition (wide and varied selection, knowledgeable staff, nicely designed space (don’t even get me started on that one)) is over an hour away.
As far as your statement “that specialty shops are better equipped to GUIDE regular readers (and especially New Readers) in making purchasing decisions. There’s just no way this can’t be true,” that’s a fair point in theory, but I’m not sure how realistic it is to expect that to happen in shops that only specialize in DC and Marvel. To use an analogy, you can buy dinner at 7-Eleven (a generalist), or you can buy dinner at a restaurant (a specialist). But what if that “specialist” was McDonalds? Would you go there with a reasonable expectation that they could guide you on proper wine selection for a meal? That, to me, is what it would be like expecting guidance from a specialty shop that only/mostly carries DC and Marvel (which is only a narrow spectrum of what’s available in the comics medium).
Again, I’m not denying that good comic book shops exist. But the one’s that are out there are few and far between. The point of Brian’s essay (if I’m reading it correctly) is that Direct Market shops deserve special consideration as a retail category because of the unique role they play in strengthening the medium/industry. My argument, though, is that certain individual DM shops may meet this criteria, but the vast majority of DM stores don’t.
From my own experience, I stopped reading comics in the early 1990s when I got bored with super heroes, and I got back into them again in the late1990s when I discovered the graphic novel section at Borders (which was predominantly non-super hero). No one needed to guide me. I saw something that looked interesting (“Its a Good Life if You Don’t Weaken” by Seth, and “City of Glass” by David Mazzucchelli), I bought it, and I came back looking for more. Maybe some people think that these two examples are too obscure to expect a typical comic book shop to carry, but again I found them on the shelf at a run of the mill Borders which was by definition a generalist.
I think people underestimate a consumer’s ability to find good material. I’m not dismissing the role of salesmanship, but I also don’t think handholding is as necessary as Brian’s column intimates. No one guided me on what I might like. I saw it, I bought it. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think most consumers are like that.
I’m admittedly basing this on the anecdotal experiences of just one consumer (me), so take them with a grain of salt I suppose. But like Chris I have visited many comic book shops in my travels and at home, and while I have been to some good stores, most of the ones I’ve shopped at don’t even come close to representing the picture that Brian is trying to paint (unless you’re only interested in super heroes, in which case there are innumerable shops that can guide you on which super hero comics you might like).
The following anecdotes represent typical examples of what it’s like for me to shop at a local comic book shop. These happened at three different shops.
Example One. Six months ago. I read a review online of the new Fantagraphics edition of “Arctic Marauders” by Jacques Tardi. I went to the store asking if they had it. The didn’t. They had never heard of it. I asked if it had been released yet (maybe the review was published early) and if not when it was going to be released. They couldn’t tell me. They couldnt look it up. I politely thanked them, drove home, and ordered it from Amazon.
Example Two. From three or four years ago. I went to another comic book shop and asked them if they could pre-order a copy of the Alex Toth “Doodle Book” (I think that’s what it was called). They agreed, they took down my name and contact info. I’m a huge Toth fan so I was anxiously awaiting this book and knew the day it was shipping. That day I go to the shop and ask if hey have my special order. They don’t. The clerk then scratches his head, walks over to the racks and pulls off the one copy of the book they ordered and hands it to me. He told me that he had forgotten that someone had special ordered this book and they actually weren’t sure why they even got it with their shipment, so they just stuck it on the shelf. If I hadn’t gotten there the day the book was released, someone else likely would have bought my “special order” off the racks (which, again, the shop had ordered and agreed to hold for me).
Example Three. Yet another comic book shop. I’m in the mood to try some manga and decide that I want to try “Lone Wolf and Cub.” This is an impulse purchase since I don’t normally like manga. The store has volumes four through ten, but not the first three volumes. So I go home and order volume one from Amazon (this example happens a lot at comic book shops, wherein I see a graphic novel series that looks interesting and decide I want to try it, but the store doesn’t have volumes one and/or volume two).
These are just three examples off the top of my head. I haven’t even brought up the practice of marking up certain popular new comics at ten- to twenty-times cover price on the day the book is released. But this is the norm that I experience on a regular basis when I shop at most comic book shops.
“No one needed to guide me.”
Ah, but someone *did* guide you. You already knew about comics, and you already knew what you liked and disliked, having read superheroes in the 90s. If you had never read a comic book before, would you have picked up “Weaken” or “Glass”? Would you have even been in the Graphic Novel section of Borders if you hadn’t already read comics?
Everyone is so quick to dismiss “man caves” and “floppies”, and the most heinous of genres, the “super hero”. But unless you are over 40 and remember when comics were still sold at the local Circle K, my guess is that nearly everyone reading comics today started with a monthly issue of Spider-Man or Batman, bought at a Direct Market shop. They have their faults – but then, so does Borders, and even Amazon – and they could be better, but comic shops are the gateway to the medium. And rather than tear down that gate in a childish attempt to be seen as “serious” and “literary”, maybe we should concentrate on making them better instead.
(And Brian’s ultimate point still stands: Even if these horrible shops are everything you hate about comics, if they are still here a year from now, they are serving their demographic properly. As painfully lowbrow as it is, it may not be feasible to have a store dedicated to the likes of “Glass”. So we need to find another way to keep it where the consumer can stumble over it. Because Borders is not an option.)
Steely Dan,
Thank you for wording things better than I did.
I don’t think anyone is asking for comic shops to be more “serious” or “literary.” I know no one here thinks superhero comics are lowbrow. I buy some superhero comics every month and even go to comic stores to buy some of them. (Well, some of them. Some I buy on Comixology.) There is nothing wrong with superheroes; there is something wrong with *only* selling superheroes from two companies and providing bad customer service outside of that.
I’ve had similar experiences to Steely Dan. Good specialty stores can guide people, but how many good specialty stores are there? Steely Dan’s 7-Eleven/McDonald’s analogy was perfect.
“MikeCR” said this over on CBR, and I thought it such was a near-perfect distillation, that I should put it here, too:
“A dedicated group of aficionados – at all levels: creators, publishers, retailers AND consumers – have kept alive (and commercially viable) a particular delivery vehicle of a particular genre of American storytelling. Along the way they’ve managed to provide the critical mass to support an entire distribution system that allows an increasingly broad and sophisticated amount of material to piggyback on the core genre/format combination and be championed by a dedicated group of specialists. That’s a great thing and should be promoted to the high heavens rather than just begrudgingly accepting that print periodical superhero comics are no longer a mass cultural item like they were 25 (or 50) years ago”
-B
I think no one is commenting because there were just two really long comment threads (one here, one at the Beat) covering the same topic. Maybe there were more elsewhere too.
Regarding expectations of collections, you’re right that Marvel and DC have trained people that way. I am so thankful that it finally allowed consumers to wake up to the fact that they are not completely at the mercy of the companies, don’t have to take whatever scraps they are thrown, and profess to like it. The companies need consumers’ money more than the consumers need the companies’ comics, and this is a *great* thing. I as the consumer can tell the company through my purchasing decisions that they will produce the work I want in the format that I want or they will get $0 of my money. If they choose not to and think I will bend to the way they want me to buy the material, that’s fine. They run the risk that I won’t and will just take my money elsewhere.
If comics companies want to push single issues because their accounting processes force them to need to make all the money back right away, that’s not the customer’s problem. Then they need to change their expectations and accounting practices to be more realistic and less short-sighted. The sales of Shade in single issues *should* be low. DC should *expect* them to be low. Complaining that they are low makes DC look *stupid*. What did they think the audience for a spinoff of a 10-year old series, by a creator who disappeared from comics for a decade, whose latest comics work has been pretty universally mocked, launched during a gigantic unrelated publishing initiative would be?
Regarding consumers not knowing how many books there are or how many are in print, I don’t think people are that stupid. Of course keeping all work in print in perpetuity and expecting a store to stock it is foolish. No one expects that. No store should attempt that. No store should stock every single issue released either. Books containing material of marginal interest should go out of print. There is no earthly reason why some C-list superhero title from ten years ago should be kept in print today. The ultimate goal for collected editions should be to keep adding to a core of evergreen titles.
That’s actually one of the great advantages (for the publisher) of digital versions, that the cost of keeping something “in print” is so minuscule. With digital the arguments about whether something’s sales justify keeping copies around on a shelf or warehouse somewhere are slashed to ribbons because the computer storage space required is tiny. We live in a world where normal everyday people can go download illegal copies of almost every comic Marvel and DC have ever printed and store them locally. There’s almost no downside to keeping even the most Z-list thing available.
I don’t share your optimism that trying to curate hundreds of individually owned and operated local stores will be able to bolster the market in the way you imagine. Even if things play out in as rosy a manner as your article supposes, I just don’t think single issues are an attractive package to anyone who isn’t buying them out of nostalgia. The hope of finding a new-to-comics person and trying to sell them on the single issue as a package that provides good value for money is not something I understand. In all honesty, I even think collected editions as they exist now are likely to face the same challenges in ten or twenty years.
I don’t really understand why someone would want a retailer to help them find something new to buy. I think it’s a lot more likely that they will want recommendations from people they know, which even now includes people they don’t actually know but only know online. Maybe that’s just a symptom of the increasing numbers of disinterested retailers (not just comics, but especially true of chain stores). People are trained to expect the people working in a store to have no investment in the store or to push you to buy something no matter what.
For the more general point of “there are bad stores”; yes, stipulated.
Are there more “bad” stores than “good” ones? I have a hard time seeing how, because stores that aren’t serving their customers won’t be in business long, but OK, let’s say its so.
That doesn’t mean that it isn’t still a better mechanism for selling a specialty product, because CLEARLY, especially if there are more mancaves than not, that “fringier” material is sold better per-capita in the DM. If Fanta sells half of thier stock into the DM and half into the bookstore market, and our channel (to hear some of you tell it) has maybe 200 “good” venues, and they have 25k, well, do the math.
That’s not “Well, fuck, the system is broken, let’s get rid of it” — that’s “How can we make the system better and stronger”? Marketing and education and structures that encourage the product to get on to the shelf and so on…. that all they’d take is a little will to get to… I mean, I feel like the only “new retailer education” that’s going on is the ComicsPRO Mentoring program, and that’s not like crazy active or heavily promoted or anything.
These things are, I think, fixable.
-B
Steely Dan:
“Example Three. Yet another comic book shop. I’m in the mood to try some manga and decide that I want to try “Lone Wolf and Cub.” This is an impulse purchase since I don’t normally like manga. The store has volumes four through ten, but not the first three volumes. So I go home and order volume one from Amazon.”
I think is a majorly shitty example (though the first two are cogent) for a pair of reasons:
a) there’s no way to tell whether this is a sin of stocking, or just a “man, a guy just bought it 3 minutes ago, we’ve got more copies coming in on Monday” situation. Spot shortages happen, and, frankly, for a lot of books that don’t turn but once a year, it would be absurd for stores to have replacement stock on hand all of the time.
b) When exactly was this? LONE WOLF 1-3 have been OOP for a really long time (2-3 years?) Depending when it was, the retailer might not have been ABLE to restock it.
I’m sorry, I really and truly am, that you, and others have had shitty experiences at shitty comic book stores. That doesn’t make the whole system shitty, or the majority shitty, per se.
-B
Ralf:
“I don’t really understand why someone would want a retailer to help them find something new to buy. I think it’s a lot more likely that they will want recommendations from people they know, which even now includes people they don’t actually know but only know online. Maybe that’s just a symptom of the increasing numbers of disinterested retailers (not just comics, but especially true of chain stores). People are trained to expect the people working in a store to have no investment in the store or to push you to buy something no matter what.”
I’ve talked to at least 10 people each day, every day for the last week or two, who have come in and specifically asked for our recommendations.
I mean, yes, it is right before the holidays, and so it’s much crazier heavier this month of all months of the year, but as a person who actually works retail day-to-day, this paragraph is literally laughable.
-B
“Are there more “bad” stores than “good” ones? I have a hard time seeing how, because stores that aren’t serving their customers won’t be in business long”
Just because a store is good at serving their customers and are able to be a profitable venture doesn’t make them a good comic book store if sell primarily or nothing but Marvel and DC superhero titles. There is a vast difference between a good superhero store and a good comic book store. Even if the DM made up of mostly good to great superhero stores or superhero stores that also sell stuff from the front half of Previews, that isn’t really helpful for people looking for good comic book stores, which seems to be the problem a lot of people have with the DM.
The last decade seems to have been a pretty successful one for comics overall, especially in getting comics to new audiences in new markets, even if they weren’t as successful overall as the DM, yet the DM seems to have basically continued to produce the same kind of material it always has and is selling it to basically the same audience it always has. Given those perceptions, it can’t be surprising that people have given up and grown disillusioned with the DM and are overly hopeful and enthusiastic about other markets.
“b) When exactly was this? LONE WOLF 1-3 have been OOP for a really long time (2-3 years?) Depending when it was, the retailer might not have been ABLE to restock it.”
Okay, fair point. I’ll concede that one.
—–
“That’s not ‘Well, fuck, the system is broken, let’s get rid of it” — that’s ‘How can we make the system better and stronger?’”
That just seems like a straw man argument to me. I’m not hearing or reading anywhere that we should scrap the system. I just don’t see it as a zero-sum game.
Even I, who have had so many terrible experiences in so many comic book shops, still like the idea of a specialty comic book shop (and have a ton of really great memories from my weekly visits to comic book shops in the 1980s when they really were the best option for comics). And when I come across a good shop in my travels (in DC, Burlington, and Portland in the past couple of years, and if I’m ever in SF I’d love to stop by your store as well as Isotope) I happily drop a lot of coin (a hundred dollars or more) there.
I have no desire to see stores go out of business, even the bad ones. I would much rather see them become better stores instead. But I’m just not seeing it happen right now. And I think it’s that “club house” mentality that so many shops have that is a huge reason for this. If they’re successfully servicing their existing customer base by operating that way, more power to them. But by operating that way they should know (and publishers should know, and other retailers should know) that these shops are pushing a lot of potential new customers away. And I see nothing wrong with other venues (digital distribution, Amazon, generalist bookstores) stepping in to service these disaffected customers by actually giving them what they want.
Brian, you really think people care about the opinion of a salesperson in a store over a trusted source they know? The only salesperson I would ever look upon favorably is one who would recommend me to his competitor because that’s what was right for me, and there are almost none of those.
“They run the risk that I won’t and will just take my money elsewhere.”
But the thing that Brian and others futilely point out to the Ralf’s of fandom is that they run a risk as well, because there may ultimately be no place for you to take your money. If the Direct Market collapses, the ones hurt most by it won’t be Marvel and DC. They don’t need to publish comics to sustain their intellectual property any more than Disney does. Those hurt most by the collapse of the DM will likely be the very comics and creators of whom the Ralf’s of fandom are most fond because the loss of the DM will take with it most, if not all, of the economic infrastructure that makes it possible for the creation, production and distribution of comics to survive as an industry and not a collection of hobbyists.
Now, if comics are just another entertainment option to you, no different than any other, thinking about them from a purely consumerist viewpoint may be entirely correct. If you claim to care about comics as an artform and would like people to be able to pursue that artform as a profession, there may be other things to consider.
Mike
And by the way, I’ve visited many comic shops in many different cities and never had a bad experience. I have no doubt such things occur, but I sometimes wonder if the people telling comic shop horror stories are always as reasonable, rational and pleasant of consumers as they make out.
Mike
I think some of you guys are missing out – if you go too a ‘good’ comic store, you’d know what Brian is talking about.
Shame people as so skeptical – our hobby would be much better served with less stores like some here think are the norm.
Brian, on CBR’s digital column this week was a link to a study that showed 39% of Amazon buyers have looked at their purchases in a book store first.
The article made the point that for 39% of their customers Amazon’s core concept of buying unseen was a failure.
Eric:
“Just because a store is good at serving their customers and are able to be a profitable venture doesn’t make them a good comic book store if sell primarily or nothing but Marvel and DC superhero titles. ”
Actually, y’know what? I kinda does — if that’s what the majority of the local clientele wants. I’m fairly certain the I’m in the top 5% of “alternative comics sales” (I suspect I’m actually in the top 1%, but let’s be safer about it), and, oddly enough, I still more sell more “superhero” comics than any other genre.
{The ability to build an audience (be it for [series] [Character] or [Creator]) is far more likely to happen for something that comes out monthly (or for some franchises, weekly) than it is for something that comes out annually or less frequently.}
Ralf:
“Brian, you really think people care about the opinion of a salesperson in a store over a trusted source they know? ”
Do YOU really think that everyone HAS a native trusted source they can ask? Or, in the case of gift buying, CAN ask?
Ralf, you’ve literally picked the worst possible week of the year to make the argument you’re making, because I could give you example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example after example where you are incontrovertibly wrong, and that’s just me working my shifts in a single stand alone store.
The average “civilian” who walks in off the street knows NOTHING about nuthin’ about comics, and is EAGER to find someone to take them by the hand and guide them; whether that’s TO the books they’ll enjoy, or PAST the one little bit that they kinda vaguely know about.
-B
This discussion is pretty interesting. Steeley Dan, I guess what I meant by “punishing the good stores” is just that it seemed like you and Chris were using the existence of the “bad” stores as a reason for disqualifying Brian’s point that the DM should be given special treatment like he suggested. I didn’t word it well.
One of Brian’s points that I think is being overlooked is that the direct market allows the very EXISTENCE of the others by amortizing the cost of producing the content for the trades by producing the monthly installments. If the DM fails, well you’d lose that ability altogether as digital isn’t even close to being there yet to pick up that function.
Isn’t that alone reason enough to be lavishing special attention and care on the DM? RIght now and (unless it goes away) likely for a long time, the DM is the engine that powers all the other options.
“The article made the point that for 39% of their customers Amazon’s core concept of buying unseen was a failure.”
Maybe, but the persons in that 39% are still buying at Amazon and not the bookstore.
DanielIT: Sure, for the much cheaper price. But it means their model isn’t replacing book stores for almost half their customers, and that goes with what Brian is saying.
“I’m fine with economic Darwinism”
You’re lobbying for prices on new distribution channels to remain prohibitively high AND for release dates of existing alternative formats to be delayed, all in order to protect a business model that’s progressively failing.
That’s the opposite of economic Darwinism, Brian.
It doesn’t look like you’re as convinced of the potential of comics retail as you say, either, for that matter, if you’re serious about all these funky measures you think publishers should take to protect comics retailers from having to compete.
Hmmm…I’ve worded my thoughts poorly. I *love* good comic stores! If I could, I would move to Pittsburgh *just* for the awesome comic stores. But most of them suck if you want anything other than Marvel or DC. And maybe “suck” is too harsh a word. Maybe it’s just I want something they don’t have, don’t know about, and aren’t interested in selling…and that’s fair, it’s their store. It’s just exhausting when this example happens:
My example: A few years ago, I went into a comic store in New Jersey and the clerk offers to help. That’s a good start, so thumbs up. I ask if he has “Strange Tales,” the Marvel indie anthology. “The what?” he asks. He tries to be helpful and goes on the Internet and does a Google search. Once again, awesome customer service. He finds it, tells me they don’t carry it (fair enough), then tries to sell me on Blackest Night. Honestly, I don’t fault him…he was trying to turn a sale and was using his most popular book. But, for me, that’s disheartening.
I don’t believe guys like Dash Shaw and Kevin Huizenga are paying the light bills based on DM sales. I don’t believe they are because I’ve asked them directly. One of them told me his comic store sales were laughable. These guys are the art house movies of comics. And cool, but don’t tell me the DM is allowing them to make a living because it’s not. And don’t tell me I should be cheering on any economic model that favors the DM as it currently stands.
I don’t want *good* stores to go away. But I don’t see the benefit in supporting an economic model that’s bad for comic readers’ wallets just so good comic store owners can get the warm fuzzies. (But truthfully, I don’t see how selling digital comics at 99 cents would impact a store like Copacetic Comics. They’re fishing in different lakes.)
It’s hilarious watching Hibbs dance to defend his crappy brethren.
that the industry persists in spite of terrible retailing is a tribute to the FANS, not the RETAILERS, brian…
“You’re lobbying for prices on new distribution channels to remain prohibitively high AND for release dates of existing alternative formats to be delayed, all in order to protect a business model that’s progressively failing.”
Maybe I’m being overly kind to Hibbs’ POV, but most of his comments along those lines seem to be more like “don’t burn the house you’re in just because there’s this other house down the street that may be better; it may not be as great as you think and you could end up with no house at all.”
And if the model is “progressively failing,” I’d put that on the content providers (i.e., Big Two) over “bad stores” anyday.
The Mikes of this world want you to think the existing DM is a fragile flower. The Mikes of this world want to scare the crap out of customers so they don’t realize they have the power to demand a better product. The Mikes of this world want to blame the customers because they aren’t just shutting up and shelling out for an unattractive product in an unattractive package. The Mikes of this world like refering to other people in the plural.
Brian: “Do YOU really think that everyone HAS a native trusted source they can ask? Or, in the case of gift buying, CAN ask?”
In the world of the internet, yes. It’s why Google and Facebook are in a mad dash to intelligently incorporate social search into their results and regularly talk about it being the model for searching for at least the next decade. They want to give higher importance to results from the people you know, the people they know, a writer you follow a lot, etc. because they know you will care more about those results than the opinion of some random person. A salesperson is just some random person. They don’t know me, I don’t know them, and they have one job only, to sell. The ones who actually want to help you even if it means no money for the store are the rarest breed.
Luke H: “If the DM fails, well you’d lose that ability altogether as digital isn’t even close to being there yet to pick up that function.”
Yes, exactly. Folks like Brian want to strangle it in its crib so that it can never even hope to achieve that function. He’s always extremely clear that there is one primary method comics should be sold – comics stores selling single issues – and that any other channels and formats must never ever challenge that.
To Brian’s point about “serving the customers”… there’s a cool, newish store in my neighborhood run by guys who clearly love comix-as-an-artform, support indie & offbeat books, stock really off-the-wall stuff and even do art shows. But clearly, their bread-and-butter is the weekly superhero stuff.
The side of the store that does the most traffic is a stylish and well-appointed “mancave” while the attractive displays of crazy independent stuff mostly sits untouched on the sidelines. I don’t know the details of their finances and sales, but it’s obvious (to some extent) that the weekly superhero fix is subsidizing their ability to even THINK about serving this more specialized market, which they clearly love.
In that sense, they seem to be a microcosm of the industry as a whole — where the long tail in the Diamond PREVIEWS catalog exists AT ALL because of the Marvel / DC section in the front.
Why does it have to be superhero comics versus indie comics all the time? That argument is flawed from the beginning. Indie comics don’t owe their existence to superhero comics and superhero comics aren’t by their nature lowbrow versus indie art comics. (Some superhero comics are awful but so are some art comics.)
I don’t agree with the argument the entire DM deserves an economic advantage verus digital. If lower priced Marvel/DC digital comics causes the “superhero mancaves” to disappear, isn’t that better for everyone? All the bad stores Brian doesn’t believe exist will vanish and we’ll be left with good stores. And if the good stores can’t survive that, well, times change.
The indie comics aren’t surviving due to Diamond…and Marvel/DC don’t seem to need Diamond…so how do we, the consumer, lose?
Chris:
It isn’t about “versus” — it’s about an economy that needs both (all) segments to be working, for the economy to work itself in the first place.
I’ve had this conversation (well, not THIS one, but something very very close) with many “alt” publishers, where the question is: “Could you survive without…” and whether that question is “…the DM?” or “…the bookstore market?” the answer is a flat “no” — no hesitation, no pause, no nothing.
And, when you’re talking about “not mainstream, not ‘alt’” publishers (the Boom!s, the Dynamites, the IDWs, etc), the math is even more crazy lopsided.
Also: the notion that Marvel and DC don’t need Diamond is…. well, it’s crazy wrong. The brokerage deals that Marvel and DC (and, to a *slightly* lesser extent, Dark Horse and Image), where Diamond is making ROUGHLY HALF on those vendors as to what they make on “buy/sell” ones is really why those publishers are able to do a number of the things that they’re able to do. Cancellation point would probably be (back of the envelope guess) at least 10k higher without those EXTREMELY favorable deals, and you’d probably never see, in the first place, TP collections of c-list projects without those deals.
Finally, I’m intrigued by this statement: “I don’t agree with the argument the entire DM deserves an economic advantage verus digital.”, because what *I* think is really happening is that people are arguing that somehow digital is what needs the “economic advantage”, and this is where my concerns lie.
What “digital needs” is a “DAZZLER #1″ — DAZZLER, a DM-only book, bypassed the newstand, and sold 500k copies (…I think? Busiek, you out there?), showing that the DM could absolutely cover the cost of production of work all by itself, and really ushering in the DM era because of it. If the digital boosters can show the same thing — that the ongoing production of a regular monthly series can be entirely underwritten at the same level of profitability as the print-driven model, well, boom, there you’ve got something.
-B
And, as for Ralf….
My question is this: You don’t work retail, I am inferring. I do. I am assuring you, 100%, that people need and want recommendations from retailers, not from some sort of anecdotal intellectual abstract belief, but from specific actionable in-person transactions. This is actually happening.
Seriously, I’ve lost count how many times JUST THIS WEEK, I’ve been asked “Hey, I know nothing about comics, can you help recommend something to me?”
Hopefully, I’ve been doing this enough that I’ve earned a little trust, and I’m pretty sure that either Tucker or Jeff Lester could also come along (if they’re reading this), and back me up on this particular contention.
So, the question is: Why? Why don’t you believe me? Do you think that San Franciscans are some sort of weird statistical anomaly (and they need MORE help…. which is usually the opposite of “SF is weird” complaints, I gotta tell you)? Or maybe it’s voices in my head asking me these questions?
Hell, we haven’t even talked this week about the three different occasions where regular every-Wednesday we-already-buy-plenty-of-comics people specifically asked me to recommend something new to them.
Seriously, you can think I’m completely full of it on every other aspect of this topic, but I’m begging you, man-to-man, trust me on this one single aspect of it: people really really DO need and want recommendations for comics to buy.
YOU may not, and that’s cool. You may not have any FRIENDS who do, and that too is cool — but a significant percentage of the customer interactions that I have every day are in matching readers to works.
-B
Brian,
My stance is no one needs an unfair economic advantage…not digital, not the DM. The economic advantage to digital is cheaper prices with the trade-off being no physical good. The DM can offer…well, the DM needs to figure that out for itself. I get the impression *good* stores, like yours, are working towards that now and I honestly want your store, and similar stores, to succeed.
The superhero versus alt comics battle seems to be present in the comments. I don’t understand thinking one is better than the other. Both offer something to the market.
Like I said, I’ve spoken to Dash Shaw and Kevin Huizenga directly about how much they benefit from Diamond and neither seems to think they need Diamond to survive. I like Fantagraphics and D&Q, but as a consumer, I don’t really care if they survive or not. I mean, I hope they do, but if guys like Shaw and Huizenga say they can continue working without them, it doesn’t matter to me if those publishers keep their doors open.
I don’t think Marvel or DC need Diamond because I don’t believe comic books make up that much of their bottom line anymore. I think both make more from licensing, but I could be totally wrong.
Brian is absolutely correct on customers looking for or wanting to be pointed in the right direction.
30+ years in comic retailing and this may be the most common daily question. And from comic buyers 1st time and regular.
Hell even at conventions were you would think people would know what they want. I get people looking to be nudged in the right direction , and they could be buying new current titles or trades ( or even people buying $100 – $500 back issues ). People like the personal specific recommendation , and even more so once you earn their trust.
Followups in the store are the best feeling sometimes as a retailer , nothing feels better then “hey i loved that book from the last time, what should i try next”
“Maybe I’m being overly kind to Hibbs’ POV, but most of his comments along those lines seem to be more like “don’t burn the house you’re in just because there’s this other house down the street that may be better; it may not be as great as you think and you could end up with no house at all.””
If giving people the opportunity to buy digital comics at reasonable prices equals “burning the house,” then that’s as harsh an indictment of the direct market as any I’ve heard.
When even the merest hint of competition is enough to not just threaten but outright question the existing system, then that system is broken, and it would behoove us to foster alternatives, rather than to strangle them in the crib.
I’m a huge film buff but I hardly ever go to the movie theatres anymore. This is because:
1) They are way too expensive
2) The experience itself is unpleasant because theatre management refuses to stop people from talking and texting during the movie
3) I hate the incessant commercials they play before the films, and
4) I just have very little interest in the mainstream films that most theatres show these days
Maybe it’s just me, but these complaints, although not exactly the same, are in the same ballpark as those that some of us have about DM shops. Just like the DM, the ratio of bad to good movie theatres is very much weighted toward bad theatres (I’d probably say it’s at least 10 to 1).
On top of all this, movie theatres are complaining that they are under assault because of DVDs, on-demand video, shorter timeframes before theatrical films are released on home video, and the fact that many people now have home theatres that rival the experience of a traditional movie theatre (sound familiar?).
Is there anyone on this thread that can say with a straight face that people who are unhappy with the movie theatre experience (for the reasons I listed above, although there may be others) should continue to go to the movies anyway just to continue to subsidize the movie theatre industry so that it doesn’t fail?
The theatre industry knows what the problem are. People write about them all the time. But they never do anything about it, even as their attendance goes down.
Based on my earlier criticisms of the DM, I’m guessing that I’ll be labeled a chronic complainer and told that I’m never happy with anything. But the thing is, I am happy. I’m still a film buff. I still watch movies, albeit now I watch them almost exclusively at home on DVD and on-demand.
Similarly, I’m very happy with the way that I purchase comics now (either through Amazon or purchasing digital downloads). I, as a consumer, have simply gone to the distribution channel that understands the retail experience that I want and gives it to me.
If the older, traditional distribution channels (the DM for comics, movie theatres for films) don’t understand this (or worse, refuse to do anything about it), there’s nothing I can do.
To tie up the point of my previous posting: New distribution channels should be encouraged (not discouraged) and allowed to grow. They should not have barriers be put in their way (i.e., artificially high prices for digital comics) just to appease older, existing distribution channels. If a broad base of consumers is not being satisfied by the existing distribution channels, let newer more innovative ones come along that will satisfy them. If this cuts into the bottom line of the older distribution channels, they should evolve and innovate themselves so as to better compete.
For those who continue to doubt the significance of the clerk-as-tastemaker, Salon.com just published a long piece on exactly this subject, and bemoaning the demise of the knowledgable, taste-making bookstore / record store / video-store clerk as one of the grimmer casualties of ecommercing of art.
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/18/the_clerk_rip/
Sidebar: Some voices in the article assert that even recommendations have been replaced by the automatic “if you like this…” functions on Amazon, Netflix, etc. One guy says, “I’m blown away by the power of some of these algorithms. We now have digital alternatives to store clerks.” Except we don’t. I’m constantly amazed how badly amazon.com misreads my tastes — I’ve extensively messed with its recommend feature, trying to massage it to make it actually “predict” something I ordered. But in terms of comics, it generally can’t even figure out that I have a predilection for certain writers & artists, and instead tends to recommend whatever new GN / TPB is out, even if I’ve passed on other volumes in the same series.
@Chris Hero: “Why does it have to be superhero comics versus indie comics all the time?… Indie comics don’t owe their existence to superhero comics and superhero comics aren’t by their nature lowbrow versus indie art comics.”
Except, historically, I’m pretty sure Indie comics actually DO owe their existence to the DM, which was founded squarely on the offerings of DC, Marvel, etc. There had been an indie comics scene previously — the undergrounds, largely marketed through “head shops” in the ’70s — but what initially even gave indie publishers a market to sell their wares was the DM explosion in the 80s & 90s. (Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t HAVE a Fantagraphics, or an Oni, or a D&Q or whatever without the extant history of the DM which clearly has, since its beginnings, depended on “mainstream” DC / Marvel (mostly superhero) titles for its main revenue stream.
Also, it’s a little disingenuous to bemoan the resurgence of the old “superheroes vs. indies” meme in a thread that has repeatedly beat the dead horse of the “bad / man-cave store” that sells ONLY DC & Marvel. If the “bad” store sells only supertitles, and your own standard of quality is Huizenga or Shaw, how can this subject NOT come up?
“Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t HAVE a Fantagraphics, or an Oni, or a D&Q or whatever without the extant history of the DM”
Lessee…
FBI started from “The Nostalgia Journal”, and FBI was a pretty superhero-involved company in the early days.
Oni wouldn’t, IMO, have existed if the early days were post-Dark Horse Bob Shreck, so, yeah, DM all the way.
D&Q is probably more borderline, though — Chris O might have formed it with or without the DM (though WHO he would have sold those comics to might be a different matter altogether)
So, yeah, sounds right.
-B
“Also, it’s a little disingenuous to bemoan the resurgence of the old “superheroes vs. indies” meme in a thread that has repeatedly beat the dead horse of the “bad / man-cave store” that sells ONLY DC & Marvel. If the “bad” store sells only supertitles, and your own standard of quality is Huizenga or Shaw, how can this subject NOT come up?”
That’s taking my comments out of context. I’ve talked to Huizenga and Shaw about this very topic over the years, which is why I named them. Their work is not my bar for a “good” comic shop. My bar is a comic shop that doesn’t stock only Marvel/DC and doesn’t try talking me into a Green Lantern pull-list when I ask about Tales Designed to Thizzle. (Midtown Comics) I mean, stock what sells, but there’s a difference between stocking what sells and being snobbish about it.
Let’s take a company everyone knows…Image. It’s nigh impossible to find most Image comics in a DM store. I even tried opening a pull-account for Jack Staff a few years ago that required the store to order Jack Staff for me since they didn’t carry it. They successfully ordered it once. Every other time, it was “Oh, geez, sorry….we forgot to order it…we must have put it on the shelf…you’re the only one that wants that book, so you can’t expect us to order it every month, want us to order the trade for you instead….etc” I had an experience where I tried opening up a pull-account for Madman years ago and was told, “We don’t carry that weird indie shit.” Madman and Jack Staff aren’t quite as art-house as Shaw and Huizenga, but I haven’t spoken to Allred or Grist, so I don’t know their thoughts on the DM.
And I know what Steely Dan means…bring up an example of bad service at a DM and the assumption is the fault *must* be with those of us who experienced bad service.
If the DM can’t compete against a new supply chain, then like Marc-Oliver says, that speaks pretty poorly of the DM. An advantage of digital is lower prices…that’s just fact. The DM is going to have to change to offer a better service to justify the higher price, and if it can’t, it doesn’t deserve to stick around just out of nostalgia.
“It’s nigh impossible to find most Image comics in a DM store.”
I’ve never had that problem at any store where I’ve gotten comics.
Mike
Chris:
I haven’t engaged on the Shaw/Kevin anecdote because I’m not really sure how to — largely I wonder how with much clarity a once-removed artist really knows where the dollars are flowing, because I’m not even 100% certain that the publishers really do.
As I’ve noted a few times, I’ve bought vanishingly small of my D&Q or Pantheon purchases from “The direct market” (Diamond) over the last half decade — only buying from DCD when I *had* to because B&T (or even Random House in the latter case) was out of stock.
This is for financial reasons — DCD is really THE most expensive source for those publishers — and I’m assume that most retailers who do any kind of significant volume in those publisher’s works are, likewise, searching out the cheapest source, which is “the book market” sources.
-B
Fantagraphics wouldn’t exist without the direct market. They also would have ceased to exist at various times without their subscription list, Bud Plant, their mail-order department, the 1980s Los Angeles real estate market, Eros Comics, Charles Schulz and bookstores.
Similarly, one can argue that Marvel Comics was kept in existence at various times by Stan Lee’s family tree, Martin Goodman’s ability to offer casual assurances, George Lucas and pogs.
Also, for what it’s worth, at one point I was four and a half hours driving distance not just from Paul Grist’s comics but away from actual Marvel Comics with superheroes that I needed to do an interview. Four different shops. I would have downloaded them had that been an option.
Just saying it happens.
No one is suggesting there shouldn’t be downloadable comics, Tom — all I want to see at this point is price parity for what has become a laughably small window.
(I originally wanted a year; I’ve settled for a month)
-B
Also, Brian, unless I’m misunderstanding the example, Dash and Kevin weren’t offering an analysis of the money that flows into the company, they were suggesting how money flows from those companies to them and this is being used to press a point to suggest that these companies may not be inherently crucial to their existence as artists. I would imagine they’re pretty good witnesses as to how much money they get from their publishers. Hell, Kevin told the world how much money he made in a recent year in TCJ #300.
Fair enough Tom, but I don’t think we should second hand speculate what was meant or not, in any case.
(I’d welcome either of them them saying something in the thread, of course)
-B
Did I say you’re suggesting there should be no downloadable comics? I have some memory loss issues now, but I can’t find where I said that. I’m talking about specific examples in evidence. I don’t think I’ve come within a country mile of talking about windows and price parity.
In the attempt to post one final thought, and then be done with this thread, allow me to say this: I think that anyone who claims things like digital MUST be (significantly) inherently cheaper probably doesn’t know all that much about how DC and Marvel comics actually work.
I know a *tiny* bit more, and I don’t think it’s nearly as cut and dried as you imagine.
DC & Marvel (and to a lesser extent Dark Horse and Image), have pretty much crazy-good deals through Diamond, where their costs of distribution are really about as low as they can be. It is my understanding that on the smallest accounts, the figure involved is probably less than half of cover price.
Apple takes 30% (with fees, too? I get mixed information), comiXology takes about the same, and in the cases where retail branded storefronts are making the sale, there’s another cut there, too — it is ENTIRELY possible, for the four brokered publishers, that they’re making more money, from a distribution POV, from print sales than from digital, and conversations that I have had with people who Would Actually Know, would seem to back that up.
“But they don’t have to print them!” you cry. And the physical cost of creating the physical objects is NOT as much as you think it is for Marvel and DC. They’re not pricing out their print runs one book at a time — they’re buying massive runs of time in bulk, at bulk pricing. It’s like all of the people who cry and moan for newsprint comics, and how invariably the price would drop. Yeah…. not that much. We’d go from a $2.99 cover price to a $2.75 one, and the comics would look incredibly shitty.
As near as I can tell, in no way will “digital-only” comics (from Marvel and DC) priced at 1/3 less or 2/3 less of today’s prices generate the same profit as a 1:1 print sale of the same material, from a cost-of-Printing POV.
You probably don’t know this (because I didn’t until last week), but Apple has FORBIDDEN any price on books that does not end in a “99″. That is to say, that while it might be feasible for Marvel and DC to offer you a print comics that sells for $2.99 for, say, $2.50… they can’t, because Apple will not let them do that.
At the end of the day, content needs to have its creation paid for (and generate a profit, since that’s, y’know, Marvel and DC’s business and all) — the current size of the digital market can in no way pay for the production costs of ongoing titles by themselves.
I’m all for cheaper comics, but as far as I am able to tell Marvel and DC’s business model will not allow the pricing you would seem to want, on an economic basis.
Feel free to argue that they should do it out of the goodness of their hearts, but $1.99 digital pricing (let alone $0.99 pricing!) on brand new material does not appear to be something that is doable to maintain the same profit margins.
With all of that in mind, it makes no sense to undercut your primary sales source, especially when it is growing in a down economy. Until digital is able to, by itself, cover the production costs of new material, husbanding the existing print market (and investing in it to grow it more for that matter) would very much seem like the rational course to take for the publishers who represent something like 75% of the dollars in the DM.
-B
Brian,
That might be where my example breaks. I’ve only spoken to both informally about “comic stores” in the abstract and I think it’s safe to say the underlying subtext was Diamond. Huizenga was saying he doesn’t have many fans or dedicated sales and was pretty sure he’d starve if he had to live on sales from “comic stores,” but I think he was having some fun and was trying to make the point he makes a living elsewhere. I’ve only spoken to him once, though, and it was more a casual conversation. I wasn’t putting the screws to him to scrutinize his sales.
Shaw I’ve spoken to several times and he seemed to think his career was going to have to grow outside of comics both as a necessity and because he wants to artistically spread his wings.
Both are very much the comic book equivalent of art house movies and I don’t think it’s fair to say either is representative of non-mainstream comic publishing, it’s just those are literally the only two “recognizable” names I’ve spoken to about it.
So, I concede to you on that point. It’s fair to say neither knows or cares too much about which distributor or which stores the sales come from.
I don’t expect to find Ganges or Bottomless Belly Button to be on the shelves of every comic shop in the country. But I have had a very hard time buying Madman over the years. Luckily, a few stores came to my rescue and did order it for me, but there’s still the issue of rolling the dice before going into a store and wondering, “Will this be a helpful store or a Marvel/DC only store?”
I used to buy a ton of vinyl and I don’t really miss record stores. Their time was up. It became easier and more rewarding to buy music directly from the artists I like. I hope there is always a place for good comic stores, but trying to strangle competition in the crib won’t help. That just keeps the bad stores alive and I won’t miss then any more than I miss bad record stores.
Chris Hero – Your stories don’t reflect any comic store I’ve ever been to.
Even the worst run one in Sydney, which feels like Androids Dungeon, orders Image books and can handle customer orders.
About Dash and Kevin…I don’t know either and only used them as examples because they’re artists I’ve spoken to about how they, as artists, perceive their sales. I asked in the context of a fan who was worried if they didn’t sell enough, they’d have to quit. I’m absolutely not speaking for either man in any way, shape, or form and I would hate to see my words come to represent either.
Hmm. Well, if I can’t talk to people and characterize what I learn, I’m shit out of a job, so I will extend that courtesy to others. Sorry, Brian.
And Chris, I wouldn’t worry about it. I think anyone rational without an Internet argument to win understands what someone means when they say, “I talked to these dudes and they said this, which I took to mean this.” Casting someone as presumptuous for merely conversing like a normal person is Internet Strategy #148, and has been around since Usenet.
Folks, it’s hard to get some comics in a lot of stores. It really is. Nobody’s lying to you. I could not get certain Marvel superhero comic books in my state in Fall 2009.
Ben,
Sorry, I don’t know what to tell you. The store that told me they wouldn’t order Madman because it was “weird, indie shit” was Rainbow Comics in Boardman, Ohio. The store that repeatedly screwed up my Jack Staff request was Queen City Comics on Montgomery Ave in Cincinnati, Ohio. The store that tried talking me into a Green Lantern subscription to supplement a Tales Designed to Thrizzle sub was Midtown Comics in Manhattan. The store that scratched their heads on Strange Tales was some store in New Jersey I went to once.
My experience is Marvel/DC readers don’t believe these stories. They seem to believe I’m either making them up or I’m some fire breathing monster of a customer. And therein lies the problem. If every time someone like Steely Dan or me says, “hey, there are bad shops out there,” everyone else doesn’t believe us, it makes us feel more ostracized and less concerned about the health of the DM.
Wait, do people really doubt that $.99 or even $1.99 comics are largely undoable at the mainstream houses based on how those companies are set up and how much money they need to keep the wheels turning? Mainstream comics industry people have said as much in public.
If all you’re arguing is that, Brian, I think everyone in the world except dudes whinging on the Internet agree with you.
I think they’re going to play with price points a lot, though, and already do; you’re not going to get a unilateral policy there, either.
“If every time someone like Steely Dan or me says, “hey, there are bad shops out there,” everyone else doesn’t believe us”
I don’t think there’s a single person who doesn’t know there are some bad comic shops out there. But as someone who’s bought comics in quite a few shops in quite a few different states and never had a problem with any of them, it gets a little old to hear people going on and on about how this or that comic shop sucked, as though their experience is somehow more representative of comic retailers than mine.
Mike
Clearly Chris Hero was arguing that his experiences are the only ones that matter, and that anyone who has had good experiences in a comic shop has bad breath and a small dick.
…and what Hibbs has repeatedly said is that stores that survive are serving their customers’ needs.
Above, I cited a new local store where the owners have subtly shifted focus to mainstream super-stuff while continuing to carry & promote offbeat / indie stuff.
Their equal and opposite was the OLD store in our neighborhood that closed down a few years ago. It was a glaring white hellhole, stocked with Marvel, DC and Image’s crappiest. IIRC, they stopped carrying Dark Horse and Vertigo, supposedly for lack of interest. Probably because they forced out anyone else who would have bothered with that “weird stuff,” anyone who didn’t fit in with the place’s vibe as an extended gaming club for the owner’s friends. They forced me out, even though it was the most convenient shop for me to stop at — a place in the same plex as a grocery store and laundromat, perfect for a weekend multitasking shopping stop. When this joint closed, I was most un-sorry to see it go.
But maybe they would have stayed open if they’d appealed to more customers with broader tastes like me.
Just like the other, newer store has seemed to recognize that they have to chase that superdollar because the cool, indie stuff alone ain’t gonna pay the bills.
Yes, there are crappy man-cavish stores. They are still open because they are appealing to enough of a base of customers that they aren’t bleeding debt. Maybe if they hear from enough POTENTIAL customers about the money they’re missing out on, they might broaden their wares.
I had a friend whose dad ran a comic shop back in the early / mid-90s and I was ASTOUNDED that he didn’t even carry Vertigo titles. The only comic store in a COLLEGE TOWN wasn’t carrying SANDMAN??? WTF? I did everything I could to encourage his kid to pass on the word that he missing out on potential $$$, and they eventually DID start broadening their offerings.
As Hero cites above, some clerks & retailers will always be too lazy to become aware of or educate themselves about things beyond their base of knowledge.
But this goes both ways. I’m sure we’ve all encountered some variant of the record store or bookstore with the sneering, snotty clerk who can’t believe a customer would ask about something that lowbrow. There was an archly cool indie record store where I got that attitude because I asked about titles that weren’t currently hip. After the 2nd time, I didn’t go back. They are just as closed as the man-cave store above, and I was just as un-sorry to see them go.
Wow, Steve D *really* captured what I was going to say.
But I do want to say I know operating a comic store is hard…there’s not much money in it, dealing with the public is not without its challenges, and I’m sure there have been stores that have ordered whatever weird indie comic for someone who didn’t pick it up and unfortunately had to eat that purchase. And really, it’s not like my examples are unforgivable sins and those stores should be burned down. We all have bad days, make mistakes, etc….
My only horse in the race is I want to be heard because I want a better retail experience for all of us. That’s really all it comes down to. Phantom Comics in Pittsburgh is a wonderful example of a store that stocks both Marvel/DC and everything else and they’re *extremely* helpful. There are a lot of good stores out there….
I just don’t think arguing digital should cost $x.99 *just* because brick & mortar stores are afraid of the potential damage is right. Esp if you’re going to tell me every DM is wonderful…because no, I don’t agree with that assumption.
“And the physical cost of creating the physical objects is NOT as much as you think it is for Marvel and DC.”
Maybe not on its own, but the cost of shipping and distributing those physical copies isn’t inconsiderable. And that’s where the real savings lie, or at least where they should.
What does comiXology do with each individual comic, after all? As far as I can tell, they just take the image files supplied by the publishers, upload them, and program in the Guided View panel-to-panel flow based on said images. There is no conceivable way – none – that the cost of doing that is equivalent to the combined costs inherent to physical media, namely printing and distribution. If comiXology actually is getting a 30% cut from each comic sold (which may or may not be the case – I’ve seen a couple conflicting sources), that’s far too much and would indeed be a barrier to pricing new digital comics more reasonably, but it’s a consequence of the specific arrangements that DC and Marvel currently have, and not an insurmountable obstacle stemming from fundamental characteristics of the digital medium, as you seem to be suggesting.
(And Dark Horse seemed to think that they could make enough revenue on new $1.99 comics, despite the subsequent retailer outcry and backtracking.)
“What ‘digital needs’ is a ‘DAZZLER #1′ — DAZZLER, a DM-only book, bypassed the newstand, and sold 500k copies (…I think? Busiek, you out there?), showing that the DM could absolutely cover the cost of production of work all by itself, and really ushering in the DM era because of it. If the digital boosters can show the same thing — that the ongoing production of a regular monthly series can be entirely underwritten at the same level of profitability as the print-driven model, well, boom, there you’ve got something.”
Now this is completely reasonable logic on the face of it, but it overlooks the straightforward reality: both DC and Marvel have made quite clear through their words and actions that they don’t WANT to see the digital market grow to the point where it can singlehandedly support a steady flow of original content. I presume that this is because they (correctly, I suspect) believe that most of the developments* that might allow the digital market to expand significantly would also run considerable risk of cannibalizing the DM.
*Of which abandoning print/digital price parity is just one, I hasten to add.
Tom,
Thanks for understanding what I was trying to say. I’m not much of a writer, so I know I mangle my thoughts.
I feel bad now using a half-hour conversation with Kevin Huizenga as an example because someone later told me he’s not usually as chatty as he was that day. I’d feel awful if he was misrepresented by my interpretation of a light chat and would feel like he couldn’t give an opinion to anyone anymore. Huizenga was in no way trying to bad mouth the DM.
“As near as I can tell, in no way will “digital-only” comics (from Marvel and DC) priced at 1/3 less or 2/3 less of today’s prices generate the same profit as a 1:1 print sale of the same material, from a cost-of-Printing POV.”
It amazes me that you keep coming back to this point like anyone was arguing against it.
Back in the days of multi-distributors, Marvel & DC sold their comics to Diamond, Capitol and the others at roughly 60% off. Might have been 65% but it’s been awhile and my memory of things isn’t great, but it was at least 60%. That means, out of a $3.00 comic, Marvel received $1.20. My guess is this hasn’t changed much even though distribution has. Out of that $1.20 they pay for printing costs and cost of moving the books to the distributor’s warehouse. This is where the guessing game comes in. How much does a comic cost to print and ship to a distributor? 20 cents or more and we are already below the 99 cent price point but at any rate, it’s got to be more than 10 cents per comic. So in the current system Marvel and DC are getting around 99 cents to $1.10 per book after printing and shipping. They are currently able to pay creators and turn a profit.
Looking at going digital, you eliminate much of these costs. No printing fee. No shipping fee. Personnel needs drop. No people needed to deal with the printer, distributor or retailers. You would save a ton. The only added cost would be development of your own app (a moderate outlay of cash at first but then, just maintenance and upgrades) and server storage for your files which gets cheaper by the day.
Why any of these companies are giving some delivery device (Comixology, iTunes or the countless others) 30% of their sales is a complete mystery to me. It’s stupid. Do it yourself. Just the money you save from eliminating current logistics costs would probably cover it and the programming isn’t that complicated. Heck, do cbr, cbz or pdf downloads from your current website for 99 cents and sell them for $1.99 through the worthless apps to the masses unable to figure out how to download from a website.
Do you think 15-20% of current comic readers would switch to digital if the price were 99 cents per comic? I think it would be much more but all it’s going to take is about 15-20% of comic buyers to switch to digital and the direct market will collapse. No store will be around after 15-20% of its clientele vanish and it will probably be a bigger percentage than that. It will be a slow bleed but over the next few years it’s going to happen as pads and slates become more common and much cheaper. A year ago a friend told me there would never be a sub $200 color reader. Friend, meet the Kindle Fire. Only 7 inches but 10.1 inch pads are dropping in price quickly.
DC and Marvel won’t sell same day digital release comics at 99 cents yet. They still need the direct market for now.
“It amazes me that you keep coming back to this point like anyone was arguing against it.”
The fact that no one argues against it is sort of the point.
Mike
Marc-Oliver, you might wish to talk to George there directly below you…
-B
Why, congratulations on winning all the arguments, Brian.
Comics are saved.
“As near as I can tell, in no way will “digital-only” comics (from Marvel and DC) priced at 1/3 less or 2/3 less of today’s prices generate the same profit as a 1:1 print sale of the same material, from a cost-of-Printing POV.”
Why do you ignore people’s explanations of how it is possible?
I’ve always said that if anyone named George is arguing a possibility in a Savage Critics comments thread — and clearly by firing scores of people and going full in on radical policy changed based on super-broad guestimates, George isn’t playing around — then surely this is a wave of passionate punditry and high-level decision-making that needs to be resisted before it takes over the entire industry.
Not really too super-broad. I did work for a distributor doing some of the ordering and I knew what the DC/Marvel discounts to a distributor were at the time. I doubt too much has changed over the years as the largest retailer’s maximum discount is still about the same (around 56-58% for the biggest accounts on Marvel & DC). My guess is Geppi actually makes a little more percentage per book now than he did then. I know it’s much easier to dismiss me as a quack but after my years in distribution then transitioning to the retail side before getting out of comics altogether to get into computer programming, I do know a little about what I’m talking about.
So here’s this thread, translated into the metaphor of the video-rental industry. Yes, this is an utterly unfair depiction and hopelessly skewed — much like this fairly absurd argument so far.
EXT. INTERNET — LIKE 24 MONTHS AGO
A HIBBS-LIKE VIDEOSTORE OWNER: Hey, I know a lot of you out there are super-excited about the ways streaming video could change your viewing experiences, but you know what? Maybe we shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater and figure out transitions to digital that don’t knee-cap local mom-and-pop videostores, which have historically been the foundation of the home-entertainment market, and which do a lot to support smaller indie / boutique labels.
THE INTERNET: What evs, Hibbs-like commentator! Maybe YOUR store is great, but too many of those stores are lowest-common-denominator slums run by tasteless mouthbreathing hacks. Why, I went in one to rent (to toss in an utterly random indie cult film) David Lynch’s WILD AT HEART. The clerk hadn’t even HEARD of it and tried to get me to rent the DIE HARD QUADROLOGY instead.
HIBBS-LIKE VIDEO STORE OWNER: Um, well, I’m sure many of those stores, if they’re still in business, are serving their local customer bases quite well. (And, um, I’m not going to say it out loud — but maybe WILD AT HEART isn’t something EVERY store needs to carry. If it’s even still in print. At a lot of stores, the clientele wouldn’t know or care about it, and the cost of researching, buying the title, etc. might not pay off in the long run.)
INTERNET: FUCK THAT NOISE. These crummy stores DESERVE to be run out of business. Netflix was streaming WILD AT HEART. I’m glad to give them my money instead of that shithole. With Netflix, I have access to ALL these amazing indie movies, as well as mainstream hits.
HIBBS-LIKE COMMENTATOR: Well, they don’t exactly have ALL the titles… what they carry is actually kind of spotty, and they don’t have the best history of maintaining stock of lesser known titles. And as far as streaming goes –
THE INTERNET: STREAMING IS THE FUTURE. Pretty soon everything will be streamed. And with Netflix’s pricing, it’s BASICALLY FREE. Which makes sense. Because we all know, without DVD packaging, shipping, etc. to worry about, streaming is practically TOO CHEAP TO METER.
HIBBS-LIKE VIDEO STORE OWNER: Um, well, that pricing may not stay that way forever. And if it ever looked like the old DVD model was going down the tubes, the studios, etc. are gonna rethink their deals on all this stuff and the pricing’s gonna go up.
THE INTERNET: There’s NO REASON for the price to go up. Think about all the money spent manufacturing that stupid plastic. And the mark-up for the storefront — the lights, the rent, the personnel, etc. OBVIOUSLY it’s gonna be cheaper. And EVERYTHING will be available ALL THE TIME. And the indie stuff will finally reach the market it deserves!
HIBBS-LIKE VIDEO STORE OWNER: Um. Yeah. It’s nice to think about it that way, but — y’know, the market we have with all its flaws is doing an okay job over all. Not just servicing the mainstream tastes, but creating niche markets for smaller labels and offbeat films. I’m just saying, before everybody abandons ship, assuming streaming’s going to be perfect and wonderful — let’s just assess the situation more fully and make this transition slowly.
THE INTERNET: Oh, go suck an egg… all of your arguments are just protecting your extant little fiefdom. You’re just trying to put the brakes on change. I’m cancelling my local video store card TOMORROW.
**** INSERT MONTAGE ****
EVERY INDIE VIDEO STORE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD SHUTS DOWN. NETFLIX RAISES PRICES, EFFECTIVELY DOUBLING THEM FOR MOST CUSTOMERS. CEO REED HASTINGS INSERTS FOOT IN ASS, THEN ASS IN MOUTH. CONTENT PROVIDERS STRONG-ARM NETFLIX, HULU AND OTHER STREAMING SERVICES RESULTING IN CONTENT NOT BEING READILY AVAILABLE & PRESENTING THE LINGERING SPECTER OF RISING PRICES…
THE INTERNET: Ugh, Reed Hastings is an ass-hat.
HIBBS-LIKE COMMENTATOR: No doubt.
THE INTERNET: I mean, after they jack around the prices and make all these idiotic announcements? Their streaming content is for crap. Why, I tried to watch WILD AT HEART the other night…
HIBBS-LIKE COMMENTATOR: Yeah. They don’t carry it anymore.
THE INTERNET: And I can’t even get the DVD sent –
HIBBS-LIKE COMMENTATOR: Yep. Out of print.
THE INTERNET: Maybe I can rent it from a local store –
HIBBS-LIKE COMMENTATOR: Nope. Everything’s out of business except your local Blockbuster. They don’t carry it.
THE INTERNET: Oh. There’s a Red Box by the grocery store…
HIBBS-LIKE COMMENTATOR: Is this movie less than three months old?
THE INTERNET: …no….
HIBBS-LIKE COMMENTATOR: Then good luck with that.
THE INTERNET: …you don’t happen to carry it?
HIBBS-LIKE COMMENTATOR: Well we DID. In our David Lynch section. Because we were one of the GOOD stores that made an effort to appeal to cineastes as well as the mainstream public. So I tracked down an out of print copy because I thought it was important to have that movie on the shelf, being the kind of store we are. Buuuut…. we had to shut down.
THE INTERNET: Oh.
Maybe if there’s enough pressure for them to re-release the film…
HIBBS-LIKE COMMENTATOR: Well, that used to work sometime. In the old days. But, frankly, with all the power in the hands of the content-providers and one or two gateways with which the studios have contentious relationships — it’s probably not worth the hassle of sorting out the legal complications some of these Indie movies tend to have.
THE INTERNET: Maybe I can just go check the bit-torrents and pirate it instead.
HIBBS-LIKE COMMENTATOR: (sighs) Everybody else is.
CUT TO DAVID LYNCH PANHANDLING FOR FINANCING FOR HIS NEXT FILM ON THE CRUMBLING, POTHOLE-LADEN RUINS OF MULHOLLAND DRIVE.
Wow, Steve D…you totally missed the point there while railing against your strawman there named “The Internet.” No one argued for free comics, no one argued every store should carry every indie title. I believe the two arguments were
1: The DM doesn’t serve the indie market and the indie market doesn’t look to the DM anymore. Ironically enough, you know who does serve the indie market well? The bigger box Barnes & Noble. Whether they have your Wild At Heart analog on the shelves or not is irrelevant…they’ll order it for you without giving you a hard time.
2: No one is arguing digital comics should be sold at a loss or that a Netflix intermediary is going to always supply a great service at a great price. The argument seems to be there’s no reason for digital comics to cost the same as physical comics especially if the reason is the intermediary is taking a 30% cut. The companies can just sell the product directly and there’s no rational reason to assume doing so would cost as much as delivery physical comics through the current supply chain.
But hey, strawmen are fun to tear down when you’re not interested in change.
I love this thread.