The Direct Market: Anecdotes From The Field
I ventured out into the realm of brick-and-mortar comic book shops
again today. I was tracking down some comics for a friend and
thought I'd use the opportunity to pick up the latest issue of
The
Comics Journal, if only to read fellow comics blogger
J.W. Hastings'
review of the first
Y: The Last Man trade. The search for
my friend's comics took me to two shops, neither of which had a copy of
TCJ #255. At the first shop, the worker didn't seem to know what
I was looking for when I asked if they carried
The Comics Journal,
so I began describing it ("You know, it's the comics magazine put out
by Fantagraphics, the company that hates all superhero
comics...") The clerk still didn't seem to follow me, but he
explained that they didn't really carry much in the way of magazines
(other than stacks of
Wizard, of course). At the second
shop, the staff there knew what I was talking about, but they were
already sold out of all their copies. "Shoot, and I didn't even
get a chance to read it yet," lamented one employee.
Speaking of sell-outs, I had to go to the second store because the
first shop was missing one of the books I was hunting down for my
friend, NEGATION #21. When I asked the clerk if they might have
any extra copies hiding elsewhere, he explained that everything they
had was out on the shelves. "Besides," he added, "CrossGen
doesn't really sell for us. Especially now with all the problems
they're having." While I can understand this—even CrossGen
loyalists are beginning to
question
their purchases or drop books in light of the company's uncertain
future—it also seemed to be a strange statement given that NEGATION
was sold out back to issue #16, and that I snatched up the last copy of
SOJOURN #27.
I can certainly sympathize with retailers: It can't be easy to
gauge how many copies you should order for each of the hundreds
(thousands?) of comics listed each month in
Previews. And as
someone who buys his comics through an online shop, I certainly don't
think I should expect to be able to waltz into a random comic shop at
sporadic intervals and demand specific issues of particular
titles. But I do wonder how comic shops are able to serve casual
shoppers (if there are such beasts in comic shops) if they don't have
enough stock to satisfy intermittent buys like mine. Then again,
since retailers can't return unsold books, shops probably can't afford
to have extra shelf copies of every series. Which is probably why
many shops encourage regulars to preorder their comics. Which can
be problematic on the customer's end, since you're ordering things
sight unseen and may end up with some real stinkers in your pull
box. Which leads to many fans giving up on the monthlies and
instead "waiting for the trade" since they can browse through the
floppies at the shop and find out what others thought about a series
before ponying up their own money for the full story in one package. But if too many
people do this, low preorders may cause a series to be canceled before
it ever sees print. "Not enough orders to justify
publication. Sorry."
The more I think about it, the more fucked up the comics industry
seems. Or perhaps I'm not thinking things through enough.
Maybe
Dirk Deppey can
explain it all to me. I know he's given a lot more thought to
these issues than I have.
