Some small notes RE: DC (& Digital) from this year’s ComicsPRO meeting

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 12, 2012

Categories: Retailing/Industry

I’m just back from Dallas and the 2012 ComicsPRO meeting. I forgot that the laptop didn’t have any of the log-in info for the Savage Critic site, and I forgot to write it all down, so, gr to that! I have an entire Tilting column that I’m going to write which is sort of kind of “about” the meeting (but not really, since that won’t be for three more weeks, and then we’re talking about the past, which no one ever likes!), but I don’t think I’ll have any room there for any of this stuff. I wrote these all down on scraps of paper, but I did ask that I can report them… but I might have made a…  Read More…

ComicsPRO ’11: Hibbs’ Last Year

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 17, 2011

Categories: Retailing/Industry

There have, over the years, been several attempts to build a comics retailer organization. There was PACER, there was the DLG, there was one more back in the day whose acronym I’m blanking on. The main reason we’ve succeeded, I think, is because of the astonishingly hard work of Amanda Emmert, who does so much insanely detailed and strong work behind the scenes, and without whom this would have been another one of those Noble Failures. I also think that ComicsPRO had a certain amount of cachet coming from that the original founders included <<booming voice>> BRIAN HIBBS, and also <<booming voice>> JOE FIELD. Joe’s the other guy who might run neck in neck with me on the “celebrity retailer”…  Read More…

ComicsPRO ’11: Bonfire

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 16, 2011

Categories: Retailing/Industry

One of the last bigger observations I want to make is that, regardless of whether or not you think that the Direct Market, as currently constituted, is doing a good job or a lousy job at being the stewards, “geek culture” really is the Ground Zero for culture-at-large. And the DM environment is the incubator of that “geek culture”. For decades, really, we’ve begged and pleaded to be taken seriously by the world at large. One of my go-to stories has always been that, 10-ish years ago, the quickest visual short-hand to show emotional or intellectual retardation in an adult was to show them with a rolled up comic in their backpocket. “Please please love us!” we geeks and nerds…  Read More…

ComicsPRO ’11: Speed Dating

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 15, 2011

Categories: Retailing/Industry

I don’t know how many of you have been to a trade show/Diamond Summit, that kind of thing? Generally speaking they’re run a lot like comic cons — there’s usually a trade show floor, with normal booth setups, handing out shwag to try and get attendees’ attention. There’s often also a number of panels, which too often become bitchfests… especially when you get some peeps wasting the global retailer time with “last week my shipment had a 15% damage rate, what are you going to do to make me whole?!?!?!”, rather than being more universal like “can you discuss overall national damage rates, and what steps you’re taking to lower them?” ComicsPRO doesn’t have a “dealer’s room” set up, we’re…  Read More…

ComicsPRO ’11: CP’s Bus Ride of Doom!

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 14, 2011

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Y’know, given that my next TILTING is like 3 weeks away (well, I *could* do something and Jonah, I’m sure would print it, but I like to keep my schedule for sanity), I’m thinking now that maybe I’ll just write a series of smaller posts about the ComicsPRO ’11 meeting as we go along. We’ll see how this goes. Spurgeon characterized from the last post that the meeting was “good”, and let me tell you that this is wrong.  The meeting was GREAT. Superlative. Splendiferious. Astounding. Amazing. Spectacular. Web Of. Honestly, and this is my really-I’m-not-lying-to-you voice, there’s not a single more productive weekend of the entire calendar year. I can’t tell you a lot of what made it so…  Read More…

Jim Lee’s Digital visual analogy

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 13, 2011

Categories: Retailing/Industry

I’m just back from Dallas, and the 2011 ComicsPRO meeting. It was a very very very good meeting — there is literally not a more productive weekend in comics on the calendar, though a lot of what happened and was discussed won’t, necessarily, interest you the consumer. I will, I think, have a much fuller report in a few weeks in  the next TILTING, but in the meantime I want to share one bit while its still fresh in my mind. A lot of time was spent on discussing Digital, as you might expect, but early on on the first day, DC co-Publisher Jim Lee made a visual analogy that sort of guided my thinking for the rest of the…  Read More…

Superman: Earth One

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on October 27, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry , Reviews

About 2 months ago I received an advance copy of  the SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE original Graphic Novel. This was an uncorrected proof, and was a bit rougher than other galleys I get — there’s only about a dozen pages in color, other pages were inked, but not toned, while there’s even a few pencil-only pages. I get a lot of galleys from many different publishers, but this one came under the auspices of a ComicsPRO program, and I made a fatal error of thinking of it while wearing my “Critic” hat, rather than my ‘retailer” hat (I wear far too many hats) DC was (and, let’s underline this very strongly) justifiably upset that I screwed up my hats, and as…  Read More…

Tilting #191 is up

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on April 1, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry

You can find it at Comic Book Resources — I discuss this year’s ComicsPRO Annual meeting. -B

If you’re going to WonderCon on Friday…

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 25, 2009

Categories: Retailing/Industry

2:00-3:00 Everything You Wanted to Know About Comics Retailing—But Weren’t Afraid to Ask!— Join ComicsPRO board members Joe Field (Flying Colors Comics, Concord) and Brian Hibbs (Comix Experience, San Francisco) for a free-wheeling exploration of the world of comics specialty retailing. Field and Hibbs are two of the industry’s most vocal leaders dedicated to improving the profession of comics retailing. Get the inside scoop on ComicsPRO, Free Comic Book Day, the new edition of Tilting at Windmills and the proverbial more! Room 232/234 Hope to see you there! -B

Retail Weekend Fun II: Electric Boogaloo!

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on January 20, 2008

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Right, now for a response to Tom. Again, his original commentary is here, and my response and his as well is here. Normally, I wouldn’t turn something into a BLOGWAR! but Tom doesn’t have messaging on The Comics Reporter, and I find his “letter column” kinda problematic (I actually hadn’t even noticed the post and response until early today, to be honest), so I thought putting it somewhere when there’s relatively open comments might be a good idea. (Sorry if you feel end-runned, Tom?) I’m going to try to do as little of quoting and counter-quoting that I can, just because it is messy and too internetty for me, but I might have to resort to it at some point….  Read More…

Retail Weekend Fun

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Lots of retailer-driven conversation this weekend, and we’ll get to the main show in a second, but I realized I forgot to post a link to the newest TILTING AT WINDMILLS on Newsarama. This month I dissect a Dan DiDio quote about branding and COUNTDOWN, as well as talk about the move to an “annual” format for LOVE & ROCKETS. If you have anything you want to chat about that piece, but don’t want to dive into the morass that is Newsarama’s Board feel free to use the commenting section below! On Friday, ComicsPRO released the newest Position Paper on Pre-sales at Conventions. Oddly, you wouldn’t know from the actual news sites, I’ve yet to see anything turn up on…  Read More…

From the A Jpeg is Worth A Thousand Blog Posts Dept.

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on November 4, 2007

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Still catching up

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on April 20, 2007

Categories: Retailing/Industry , Site News

I actually thought about changing the name of the blog to Graeme McMillan’s Savage Critic for the week, since he’s been carrying all of our asses this week… Anyway, about 60% of my ComicsPRO emails and calls have been made, I completed ONOMATOPOEIA this morning (gonna be amusing to photocopy it “while” we have a major signing going on), and the new TILTING AT WINDMILLS is up at Newsarama, wherein I talking about the ComicsPRO meeting. Reviewish stuff…soon. BUt probably not before Sunday, honestly. Also, one thing I didn’t get into my column (it didn’t seem to fit the tone), but I pasted it off into Notepad so I wouldn’t lose it: Let’s end this with the third weirdest thing…  Read More…

Hibbs says "Bye-eee!"

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on April 11, 2007

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Off to Vegas, be back on… well from your POV, probably Sunday. (Maybe MOnday, when I think of it) Sorry I’ve been slack the last few days — lots on my mind! One other thing I forgot to mention: in addition to the shipping-from-Diamond list I posted, we ALSO got these items in this week, via Baker & Taylor: ALIAS THE CAT HC (Kim Deitch) BLINDSPOT GN (Kevin Pyle — I really really liked this one, though it’s a smidge expensive for how long it takes to read) FLIGHT v1 & v2 — the new “Ballentine” editions PROFESSOR’S DAUGHTER TINY TYRANT — both from FirstSecond, and, I think, the strongest two books in this “wave” of releases. As far as…  Read More…