A Few Good Links

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on December 22, 2011

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Since it was so deep in a grown-tiresome thread, you probably missed this, but I loved loved loved Steve D’s post here.   Tom Spurgeon is back with another fabulous round of Holiday interviews, and while I don’t know how many people go here without going thee every day, I wanted to really point out the interview with The Beguiling’s Peter Birkemoe. It’s super rare to see in depth interviews with retailers, and I wish we had more such interviews and profiles. I used to (when it was still a monthly magazine) beg The Comics Journal to do a few interviews with pioneering retailers before it was too late and we lost that history to second hand stories. There are…  Read More…

New TILTING up

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on September 10, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Good morning, internet! You know, I think Spurgeon just did a big disservice to Tucker by reducing 10k words (!) to “Tucker Stone: Various”! Foo! On the other hand, his defense of Alan Moore was the most right on commentary I’ve read this morning, so I guess it balances out… (Has anyone noticed that Spurge actually sorts his links by character count? Sure, it makes it look a lot more readable, but mein gott that’s some OCD-ish-ness right there!) Anyway, the newest TILTING AT WINDMILLS is up at CBR, go read it. I think I might have touched a nerve this time, because it already has 20 replies on CBR (that’s rare, even after a week), and most of them…  Read More…

Tom’s fault

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on September 1, 2010

Categories: Reviews

I haven’t been writing lately for maybe a million reasons: been lazy; Ben’s started school again, throwing my schedule back into adjustment; Mercury is in retrograde; I fucked up in posting something, and have been gunshy since; trying to focus on my actual business (the one that makes me money); I’m just not feeling oh so much of the current output of my biggest partners; I’m just a very very bad man — take your pick, they’re all part of it. I’ve actually mused on “shutting down” this site — well, I wouldn’t get rid of it altogether, but maybe it’s time to admit that hoping that people will write for free (since advertising pays about $20/year to each contributor)…  Read More…

Spurgeon interviews Hibbs

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on May 7, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Over at The Comics Reporter. Tom pitched it to me as “Stump the Hibbs”, though he veered away from that pretty fast once we were talking. I wish the first question hadn’t been The First question, because, upon reflection, I would have questioned the very basis of a Vertigo/Art comics split — selling comics to adults is selling comics to adults, and there’s a point where you have to Let The Market Decide. Still, it was The First question, and you’re still feeling each other out at that point… I truly don’t understand why one would want to categorize things that tightly — and I don’t think those kinds of divisions make a lick of sense in 2010 (if they…  Read More…

Am I weird for…

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on April 3, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry

… having the two people I most wanted to have a long conversation with at WonderCon by Heidi MacDonald and Tom Spurgeon? Mission accomplished, too. Fun time tonight at the Cartoon Art Museum’s party — thanks to SF’s own Comic Outpost for stepping up and paying for the refreshments. Less than 24 hours to our own bacchanalia — I think it is going to be epic! -B

Favorites: Blankets, plus a Tori Amos video

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Posted by: Sean T. Collins on March 2, 2010

Categories: Uncategorized

[This is a reconstructed post from Google Cache; originally posted by Sean!] Greetings, fans of savagery! Been a long time since I posted here, and I’m barely doing so now, even. I just wanted to direct your attention to an interview I did with Tom Spurgeon as part of The Comics Reporter’s holiday interview series on the Books of the ’00s. Mine was about Craig Thompson’s Blankets, a book I’d eventually have gotten around to writing about for my Favorites series here at SC. So if that’s the sort of thing you’re interested in, check it out. On a semi-related note, here’s Tori Amos performing her song “Bells for Her” in 1994 — it’s both my favorite Tori Amos song…  Read More…

Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 15, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry

I mean, if I had just waited 20 minutes to post, I could have done this in the first post, but then Tom has to go and post something from Eric Reynolds… First off, seriously, “Bookscan Analysis as Direct Market Public Service Announcement”? Really? I feel like I’ve been told to get off Tom’s lawn for playing too much… Eric’s comments are wonderful, but I don’t really see that they have much (if anything) to do with anything that I actually WROTE, as opposed, possibly, what people might want to think that I wrote. If someone can point me to anyplace where I’ve represented the BookScan numbers to be anything other than what I say they are — that they…  Read More…

Only Nixon Can Go To China?

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Tom Spurgeon has some excellent comments up about my BookScan Analysis, and I feel compelled to engage his commentary. This is not a Blog War, but I’m hiding most of this behind the jump for those of you who Don’t Like To See The Parents Fight… Let’s start with motivations, which works nicely as a “response” to numbered point #1 (“I know I’m grateful…It’s fun to see how certain books did on the chart“). First and foremost, I’m getting the Top 750 out there, and if you don’t like my analysis, in the words of the great “Scoop” Nisker, “If You Don’t Like The News, Go Out And Make Some of Your Own” The entire reason I bother to write…  Read More…

Of Cabbages & Kings

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on May 5, 2009

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Tom Spurgeon has Yet Another Excellent Essay on Diamond’s new benchmarks. You should go read it. Here’s the thing though: let’s assume that every rational human in the world agrees with the central premises of the argument — every work deserves a chance on the market. I’ll stipulate that; I certainly believe it personally. Now how does that happen? This isn’t just an idle question — the answer to that is, possibly, the most important question you might answer all day. Tom, God love him, doesn’t have any answers. Saying “it shouldn’t be this way” really isn’t enough. Let’s look at the components of the Direct Market, after the jump. CONSUMERS: Honestly, a fair chunk of the issue is your…  Read More…

Spy vs. Spy, Spy vs. Nature, Spy vs. Himself: Douglas on Kindt and Bendis/Mack

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Posted by: Douglas Wolk on March 26, 2008

Categories: Reviews

SUPER SPY and NEW AVENGERS #39. Below the cut lurk spoilers (well, a plot summary, really) for the latter. Hence, the cut. For those who care about such things. Tom Spurgon wrote the other day in his you-must-go-read-it best-of-2007 roundup that ” I have a selfish reason for wanting to bring more people to the conversation on [Matt Kindt's] Super Spy: I think the book is good, but I can’t figure out how good, and I’d love to see a range of writers and thinkers muse on it in public to help me along. It’s the most confusing book of 2007 to me, and for that one of the most compelling.” I read it at last yesterday, after it had…  Read More…

Two Sunday links

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Posted by: Douglas Wolk on February 17, 2008

Categories: Site News

Go read: Tom Spurgeon’s interview with Douglas Wolk. Go look: the new Indiana Jones Trailer! Looks better than I would have hoped! (lets try the embed thing, to see if it works) -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…