Begin Rant: Gotham Central

This is the kind of thing that I really shouldn't get into but after a conversation with a few customers I couldn't keep my mouth shut.

Those of you who read Rich Johnston's Lying in the Gutters column likely read about the printing error in the latest Gotham Central trade (it's about 3/4 down the page). Basically there's some missing dialogue which is annoying. Unfortunately, there's really no solution other than simply to accept it, yet another unfortunate misstep in DC's handling of what was an excellent series, beginning with the decision to wait several years to collect these stories in the first place. There are pros and cons to both rushing out a trade collection and in waiting months to a year to collect a story originally published in single issues. I tend to find it better to err on the side of sooner rather than later, however, since the only real benefit to waiting is to avoid the "wait for the trade mentality" hurting the sale of the single issues. Two problems there though. First, it's WAY too late in the game to change people's minds on waiting for the trade. There's just too much good material out there for readers to worry that they're going to miss a story if they don't buy it as singles. Something else will fill that void in their life. Second problem is that, once a title settles into a regular sales pattern, not a whole lot of new readers are going to suddenly jump in. While releasing trades quicker might erode a bit of the sales on the single issues, it opens the book up to a whole other category of potential readers.

Still, that decision was made several years ago and is water long since under the bridge. Sales on the trades may not even have warranted continuing to collect them, though the fact that we're no seeing DC go back and do so tends to indicate otherwise to me.

That's all beside the point, though, because DC gave the series much more of a shot than its sales probably deserved and once Brubaker jumped ship to Marvel, Rucka ended it on his own terms. Unfortunately, now he essentially advocates buying the incorrect version now to get the first print run sold through and then returning it for the correct version once DC does a new printing (assuming the book sells well enough to warrant another printing in the first place). Except, if the customer is buying that first printing from a direct market comic shop then returning it to the same shop for the corrected copy at a later date, they're sticking their retailer with a non-returnable defective version of the book, which means the retailer pays for DC's mistake.

End rant.

Buy the Numbers

How important is it to have accurate sales statistics in the comics industry? I've been following the debate over at The Engine wherein the question is really being broken down into two parts.

First, is it more of a benefit or detriment to have sales statistics available to the general public? Second, if some form of sales statistics are going to be available either through leaks or estimates, how important is it for those numbers to be accurate?

It's no secret that popular culture industries use best seller lists to drive sales, whether it is simply a ranking like the New York Times Best Sellers or Variety's detailed weekend box office charts. If something is popular, it must be good or at least interesting enough to get that many people's attention and eventually the herd mentality takes over. To have a more accurate best sellers list for comics and graphic novels could only help drive sales for retailers.

Yet several creators in the Engine thread point out the negative effect that low numbers can have on quality titles. Some who follow the charts will see a book's declining sales and assume it will be cancelled, leading that reader to drop the book or that store to stop pushing it. This is clearly a very real detriment and one that can easily be averted by limiting the number of titles reported to a best seller list. Add to that the fact that the number we have access to (via Diamond's Index, translated by ICV2 and CBG into hard numbers) report only a very specific set of sales data for a given month and the specifics of those parameters aren't even clear. Creators and publishers both indicate that in many cases the numbers are as much as 30% low while others indicate that they are within a few copies. And yet, these number are almost certainly being used by retailers and customers to make decisions if not by publishers as well.

Unfortunately, avoiding such problems by limiting such a list to just the top sellers would eliminate what can be even more of a benefit: helping retailers and publishers diversify and discover those niche books that are profitable as part of The Long Tail that's becoming so popular these days. Not every title needs to sell 100,000 singles every month or 5,000 trades. Accurate sales data can offer insight into reliable sellers like Strangers in Paradise, a title where the number fluctuate very little but, when combined with trade sales, are enough to prove profitable.

The real problem with the entire debate, however, is that we're looking at the wrong numbers. Sell-in numbers tell us how confident retailers are that a title is a sure seller. Outside of that they are almost meaningless, especially for determining customer trends. On top of that, they ignore a huge chunk of sales by a publisher like Drawn & Quarterly, who smart stores are ordering via VHPS, Baker & Taylor or Cold Cut at better prices than via Diamond.

This debate reflects one among retailers about the value of pooling sales data into some form of rudimentary Bookscan system. Sell through data is one of the few areas where retailers have more information than anyone else. This is data that no one else can possibly have access to, yet there is almost no attempt by retailers to leverage that power beyond possibly one or two of the biggest stores. On a personal level, I would love to know the sell through levels of Civil War, 52 and the Walking Dead and I'm sure those numbers would have some sort of value to Marvel, DC and Image (or at least Mr. Kirkman).

Of course, what this all boils down to is that numbers themselves don't really matter, it's the context that they are put in and the means for which they are used that make them valuable.

MacGuffin's Magical Mystery Tour

We've had a link to some photos of the store in the sidebar for months now, but we've had a few requests to post some new pictures, so I've done so here. Step right up and be the first to see how the store has filled out.


Disclaimer:
To be honest, I don't see much of a difference but I'm told there is and I'm here every day so I may not be the best judge (you can compare with these older pictures if you wish).

DC's Under the Radar Marketing

In general I simply don't post when I don't have much to say, which leads to unfortunate instances like the month of July when I averaged about 2 posts a week. I've pretty much had my say about full issue previews as a promotional tool. Still I thought it would be useful to at least point out DC's recent marketing and maybe offer a thought or two along the way.

DC has made several interesting marketing moves recently, making the first issues of five Vertigo series available for free on their website last month and following that up with a free preview of 52. The Vertigo previews are of more help to MacGuffin since we make more in a month off of sales of trade collections of each of those series than a month's worth of 52. Of course, we've been using the First Taste and First Offenses Vertigo samplers to get readers hooked on Vertigo series for quite awhile. Another avenue of exposure is always a positive, though, even if the scans aren't exactly of the best quality.

And then there's word that DC is teaming up with (shockingly enough) Warner Books to cross promote Brad Meltzer's careers as novelist and comic writer beginning with printing the first chapter of The Book of Fate in the first issue of Justice League of America. Apparently Meltzer's future prose work will feature excerpts from his work in comics but I get the feeling that the goal is to expose fans of JLA to his prose novels rather than vice versa.

As I said, though, more exposure is always good.

Cutting in the Middle Man

Cold Cut Distribution has revamped their discount structure so that all orders now fall under a flat discount rate ranging from 40% to 50% off based on publisher. For those who were unfamiliar with Cold Cut's previous discount structure, here's a brief summary:

Discount was based on the amount of product ordered. Up to $500 retail was 40% off, up to $1000 was 45% off, up to $2000 was 50% off and anything over $2000 was 50% plus a 90% shipping rebate.

Within these discounts, however, each title also had a discount structure. All titles were labeled A, B, C, E, F, G or N discount. The 3 primary discounts were A, B and C which corresponded to Base Discount, Base Discount - 5% and Base Discount - 10%. Which meant that, on an order of $400 retail, a C discount book was only 30% off (base discount of 40% - 10%). The theory was obviously to entice shops to order more to reach that next discount plateau, but the overall effect was to limit the number of customers Cold Cut was drawing on. It's simple math to determine that increasing orders for the sole purpose of reaching a new discount plateau is almost never worth it.

The old system was incredibly confusing and difficult to manage for smaller stores and seemed as though Cold Cut was trying to compete with Diamond for orders. In reality, that's no competition because of the convenience offered by Diamond. With this new discount structure, Cold Cut becomes an alternative resource for retailers employing just in time inventory strategies to replenish their stock by offering plenty that of product that Diamond can't but also offering it at as good or better prices.

Business wise, this seems to be an incredibly smart move from the outside looking in. First, it likely has almost no effect on the biggest accounts because the majority of those were on rolling terms wherein they received 50% as a base discount and worked from there. The A, B and C level discounts corresponded almost across the board to the same titles that are now 50%, 45%, 40% discounts respectively. Therefore, unless I'm misunderstanding their new terms, the only thing that Cold Cut is really doing is leveling the playing field in an attempt to get more orders from smaller stores that were reluctant to start with a base discount of 40-45% and work down from there.

Hopefully there will be a concerted effort by Cold Cut to advertise this beyond a news release on one or two comic news websites. The new discounts should appeal to quite a few smaller shops that were unwilling to buy some product non-returnable at a 35% discount yet were unable to get the product anywhere else. Or (as in the case of MacGuffin) if a store orders direct from the publishers Cold Cut can offer similar terms, making it possible for the retailer to combine several orders from different publishers into one order and save on shipping if nothing else.

This move can help smaller stores diversify, hopefully strengthening themselves, Cold Cut and the direct market in the process.

And Now for Something Completely Different

As we get closer to the release date, which as far as I can determine is officially August 30th, the buzz continues to build on Lost Girls. I've now had several customers ask if we're planning to carry it (we are) and what my thoughts are. Not having read it, the only thing I can do is point to Neil Gaiman's review for Publisher's Weekly.

If nothing else, it looks like we're going to get something of a curiosity, something that stretches some boundaries and something more than a little post-modern (and therefore something that appears to have little regard for its source material because of the efforts to deconstruct it). Personally, I've gone from wondering if I'd get around to reading it to hoping I'll enjoy (or at least appreciate) it as much as the advance reviewers seem to.

As for the book's sales, they were supposedly brisk at Comic-Con and the book was up to 130 among all books on Amazon (where even with the discount it comes in at $40+) a few days ago. That puts it as the #2 best selling graphic novel through Amazon at the moment, second only to V for Vendetta (which along with Watchmen, gives Alan Moore 3 of the top 4 spots).

I always struggle with how many copies of these deluxe format books to order, but with the Absolute editions (i.e. Watchmen, Sandman, Dark Knight, etc.) we're dealing with reprints of previously published material (which is technically true of the first section of Lost Girls, but not in the same way). This is a whole different beast with a much more unusual appeal than epic superhero yarn. Maybe it will perform like Absolute Sandman, but seeing as Absolute Sandman is not due for release for another couple months, that's not much help. But I've gone from wondering if it was the smartest thing to order two shelf copies to upping that to three after hearing several customers voice their interest. We'll have to see if I've lost my mind on this one.

Some Civil Thoughts

I really thought I said everything I had to say about this yesterday, but I continue to see rants across the internet about how unprofessional and irresponsible "big name" creators are, as if that is the reason for this delay. The one single, solitary reason for Marvel's need to delay 2/3 of their publishing schedule for the rest of the year is poor planning.

I think Graeme pretty much nails it when he points out what this shows us about Marvel's editorial strategy. Clearly there was a crossover planned for summer 2006 and come hell or high water, something was going in that slot. So, rather than adjusting to a new idea and delaying the start of the crossover (which, incidentally might have allowed titles like Capt. America, New Avengers and Iron Man to finish their pre-Civil War storylines before the mini-series launched).

I am fully in support of allowing creators as much time as possible to create the best work possible. But that means being flexible in scheduling, and more importantly, planning ahead. If comics aren't going to be monthly anymore (and let's be honest, the higher the profile the later the book) that's fine, but let's plan ahead and have some idea of what sort of schedule you're dealing with, rather than waiting until the last minute with fingers crossed (especially when the majority of what you publish revolves around the high profile late comics).

Of course, Marvel probably won't take TOO much of a hit on this because:
a) The creators (specifically McNiven) are taking the blame.
b) 1:75 variants are going to continue to inflate the sell-in numbers.
c) Retailers will have no way of judging how much fan interest will drop off -- and as much of a cowardly and superstitious lot as we are when it comes to our orders, its tough to cut orders on a book that has sold as well as Civil War.
d) This has become standard operating practice. Readers are still going to pick this book up, the trade is still going to sell and Marvel will make only slightly less money in the long run off of the tie-in books. Unfortunately, retailers may not be so lucky.

For much less Civil but no less accurate comments, check out Hibbs thoughts at Savage Critic(s).

Civil War: Cease Fire

I've made way too many comments about Marvel and DC recently but I can't really ignore this bit of info. Civil War #4, initially solicited for release tomorrow, then pushed back to 8/30, then 9/6 has now been rescheduled for 9/20, over a month after it's initial release date. Unlike DC, who had similar scheduling issues with Infinite Crisis, 2/3 of Marvel's titles tie in directly with the events of Civil War, meaning a slew of books (most notably Frontline, Amazing Spider-man and Fantastic Four) will be delayed as well. Most interesting is that Marvel clearly sees they have a situation on their hands because Civil War #5 is now not scheduled to ship until 8 weeks after issue #4, in November.

So much for sales momentum, but fear not, because Marvel will still be able to inflate their sell-in numbers by offering 1:75 variants on every single issue of Civil War (in addition to the already announced 1:25 variants). Now that's going to the well about 7 times too many.

This is going to be a fun one to explain to customers, especially those who first visit to the store was specifically to find out about Civil War. But then, why shouldn't they be exposed to the ridiculous publishing schedules created by "monthly" comics.

Yet one more reason I love graphic novels.


UPDATE: Newsarama now has the full announcement from Marvel, including a list of titles currently affected and projected release dates into January. We'll see how well those hold up.

As an aside, I've already seen some discussion about ways to avoid this sort of situation, but realistically the only way to do so is to wait until the entire story is completed, which is not something that Marvel or DC will ever consider an option so long as "monthly" comics are their primary format.

Variant Discourse Should Be Good

Based on some early estimates and the claims of Mr. Millar, it seems that Marvel sold close to (if nor more than) 300,000 copies of Civil War #3 in the month of July and that number will almost certainly go several thousand more copies north once reorders are taken into account. I've offered my own cynical thoughts about these numbers in the past (here and here) but a couple weeks ago Brian Cronin laid it all out in much clearer terms over at Comics Should Be Good. I've seen quite a few retailers discuss the boon that these variant covers present, specifically the Civil War variants. I've also seen the speculator mentality take hold in a few of our customers when they discover how much some of these variants are going for online.

Thankfully, there's quite a bit of rational discussion in the comments of the CSBG post that points of the danger of chasing variants like this for both collectors and retailers. As I've said many times, our industry must be focused on growing sales and readership through slow, healthy improvement rather than chasing easy money that leads straight to a boom (and the resulting bust). The Civil War sales figures are significantly inflated and I would love to see ever an estimate of sell through numbers on these. I'm of the opinion that the actual effect of Civil War can be a great step in the right direction, bringing in new readers and bringing back lapsed ones and think we would see exactly that if sell through figures were available. The danger, though, is to use the sell in numbers of Civil War as a new benchmark of success, rather than seeing through the fog generated by the inflated egos of Mr. Millar and company to the much smaller (and healthier) gains that the series actually provides.

The last thing we need is a market that uses the less than stable profits from variants (and the inflated sales numbers they finance) as a model moving forward.

Free Oddly Normal

As local creator Otis Frampton was nice enough to point out, Viper Comics offers previews of several of their books, ranging from great All Ages material like his own Oddly Normal and Emily Edison by David Hopkins and Brock Rizy to the slightly more grown up Dead@17 by Josh Howard. If you like what you see there, we have all of those in stock so stop and pick them up. And if you're lucky you may run into Otis and get him to sign it.

UPDATE: Oddly Normal just got a nice write-up over at Newsarama (along with the equally entertainming Polly & the Pirates). It's nice to see books like these getting some attention, since their perfect examples of All Ages material -- fun for kids and adults.

Free 52

If I was feeling particularly cynical and angry today, I could make the case that DC and UGO posting the first five issues of 52 online for free is horrible for retailers. Of course, those of you who read the blog regularly could probably guess that I don't begin to believe that's the case. The reality is, there's no collection of 52 coming for at least 9 months and we haven't sold a copy of issue #1 in nearly two months. Those who are willing to try it out have pretty much done so.

This is a smart attempt on DC's part to go back to that age old give 'em a bit for free approach, and considering retailers have had 3 months to sell these issues, I don't know that there's really any downside. To be honest, I doubt it will affect our business one way or the other, but it's certainly a intelligent approach to increase interest in the book. To top it off, the scans are quality and it reads suprisingly well onscreen.

One Run at Halo: Update

A little over a week ago I mentioned that the Halo GN was going to be a one and done printing in hardcover. I wasn't sure this would be much of an issue since Marvel would likely go to a quick paperback version and copies of the hardcover should still be available for a few weeks. Well, I just tried to place a reorder and there are zero in stock at Diamond, Ingram or Baker & Taylor, the last two indicating that they are waiting on a publisher reprint. Of course, unless Marvel reverses itself, there won't be a publisher reprint. How silly of the two biggest book wholesalers in the US to assume that Marvel would do what any rational book publisher would do and go to a second printing to meet demand for this book. One could make the case that demand has been met, but that seems a pretty silly argument to make less than 3 weeks after release and with B&T and Ingram indicating they've ordered several thousand more copies each. Others may argue that retailers should have been able to predict outstanding demand for a book like this, but we ordered well above what our budget and sales history would indicate is reasonable and are now down to just a few copies, to my eyes both a positive and negative development.

For the moment it seems that's it, no mas, another opportunity wasted. We'll have to wait and see what happens but I for one am blown away that Marvel would consider not going back to press on a book like this, especially with an ongoing series in the works. All I know is that I hope there's about 8,000 more copies sitting around somewhere because B&T and Ingram seem to think they can sell at least that many more and I know that about 1500 copies have been sold to the direct market since my last Halo post. Maybe Marvel disagrees, but to me that seems to indicate quite a bit more demand is out there for this particular version of Halo and I'd be surprised if Bungie didn't agree.

A Lost Generation of Graphic Novelists

Every once is a rare while a book, movie, play or comic comes along that seems to have been written specifically with you in mind. For me, the most recent example of this phenomenon is Jason's The Left Bank Gang.

Since I first encountered mention of the Lost Generation in my early teens I was intrigued. How amazing would it have been to read about, much less see all of these phenomenal writers interacting in Paris? Of course, the reality of the situation was that half of them couldn't stand each other and the other half were unwilling to admit how jealous they were of so and so's critical or financial success. Still, the idea of it is intriguing and it is this premise (along with what appears to be a deep appreciation for the work of these authors) in which the story is grounded. Jason adds several unusual twists to his narrative, however, the most interesting being the conversion of these authors from prose novelists and poets into graphic novelists. There's an additional layer of subtext as a result that makes some of the character's choices in the second half of the book even more disturbing.

The second half of the story is where everything takes a left turn and ends up mining Stanley Kubrick's The Killing in much the same way that Why Are You Doing This used Hitchcock, specifically Rear Window, as inspiration. The combination of these incredibly interesting characters with one of Kubrick's most underrated films results in one of my favorite books this year and my favorite of Jason's books to date.

In fact, the only complaint I have is that it comes in at just under 50 pages. I would have loved to read a more in depth version of this story, particularly one that addressed the relationship between reality and fiction that all four of the main players so often dealt with (or pretended to ignore while stealing shamelessly from their own autobiographies). Instead, Jason takes a minimalist approach, presenting what is essentially an alternate version of Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, mimicking that book's insider view of the Parisian literati while incorporating a much more sensational story. While I would enjoy a comparison between the reality of the situation versus the perception of the participants, Jason has created a book that successfully blends both approaches.