Nicely Done, people!

/

Just a quick note, because this one surprised me.

Back on April 1, we had our 20th anniversary, and I decided to run a small sale, with a donation to the San Francisco Food Bank. This was a one day, one shot event, and our means of promotion were pretty much just "word of mouth" (and a post here)

I just received a letter from the Food Bank's events co-coordinator which states we ended up with a donation of 130 pounds of food.

Da-yum. That's WAY more than I would have anticipated, so thanks to each and every one of you that stepped up. GREAT JOB, GANG!

-B

Of Cabbages & Kings

/

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 own fault -- you, collectively, have decided that you aren't as interested in buying serialized comics as you once were. That's fair enough, and I Get It -- there's more being produced than you can possibly keep up with, and the Collected Edition is (nearly) always a better package: no ads, no waiting for the Rest, typically cheaper than its components, and so on. Like I said, I Get It.

But if you say "I'll just wait for the trade", you're automatically decreasing the size of the audience. Why? Because: x% of you will keep waiting even once the work is out. Another x% of you is going to balk at the prices needed to finance "OGN" work. Another x% of you are going to completely forget that the work is being produced -- if LOVE & ROCKETS is produced only once a year, where's the percentage for the Hernandez Brother's readership to come in looking for L&R more than once a year? ONCE YOU BREAK THAT PURCHASING HABIT, it is extremely hard to get it going again. If you're only looking once a year for something, then you're just as likely to only think of it every 18 months, 24 months, whatever.

You CAN change consumer behavior: make it clear that material will NOT be collected until x months, or by providing material in the serialization that will NOT be collected, maybe even ever. But what most needs to be done is to DRIVE CONSUMERS INTO THE STORES ON A REGULAR BASIS. "Alternative" and "art" comics have done a, frankly, shit job of that in the last decade. I suspect that war is already lost.

RETAILERS: Yes, some suck. Maybe even "many". Potentially (though, really, I don't think so, but let's grant the possibility) "Most".

Also: there aren't enough retailers, not by half. Tom's got to drive two hours to find one that may or may not have the item he wants in stock. The guy he links to on DC's "Wednesday Comics" project can't even get a good answer on whether or not his order will get filled -- that's mediocre (at best) customer service.

But retailers in hard goods are, by their very nature, conservative creatures. It is much more difficult to go out of business by selling out of something than it is from having far too much stock. This is just the reality of how things work. Even IF the store is dedicated to having the widest, most diverse stock, and is aggressive about tracking down as many things they can and making it trivial for the customer to find or reserve the item they want is going to have holes. I know I sure do. I can't stock EVERY comic. I don't have the physical room to do so.

There are ways around retailer's natural conservatism: free copies, returnable copies, extra discounts, well-orchestrated promotional plans designed to drive consumer interest and drive consumers into stores (be they DM or not), but all of those things cost money, time, and effort; things that, generally, are out of the range of some/many/most publishers to do.

But, seriously, look at the titles that have been impacted by the Diamond policy -- how many of them have had any particular lever designed to drive consumer and retailer interest?

PUBLISHERS: "I published it" is not a marketing plan.

I have all of the love and respect in the world for an outfit like Slave Labor -- they've been in the game long enough, and Vado's got reasonably good aesthetic instincts. And if someone wanted to advance the argument that, say, "if you've been a profitable publisher for [10, 15, 20] years, then Diamond should automatically distribute anything you care to print", I'd probably be willing to fight for that POV.

But "I published it" is not a marketing plan.

Heidi has a thread on this topic, too, and there's a comment over there from a consumer who talks about how he dutifully reads PREVIEWS every month, and fills out preorders, and he's a motivated and interested purchaser of James Turner and he still missed the "special" (sorta-#0) version of the book.

The orders on that version were low enough that Diamond decided not to stock the mini-series.

Cause, meet effect?

DISTRIBUTORS: Look, the central problem is Diamond has a semi-monopoly lock on Direct Market sales on four of the top five producers of comics (IDW, who was #3 for at least one month, is not a brokered publisher through Diamond, though I believe they ARE "exclusive" through Diamond within the DM). Or to put it another way: they control well over 80% of the volume that DM stores order through Diamond.

This really doesn't give any other DM distribution choice anything to work from except for "the crumbs"

[I added the "DM" qualifiers above because you can certainly order Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image, IDW, FBI, etc etc from someone OTHER than Diamond, but you'd have to be fairly mental to do so, given the differences in discount between Diamond and other "ID" distributors (B&T, Ingram, whoever)]

Distribution is a hard game in the best of times -- its a really thin margin you're working on -- but I'd call it nigh impossible when you can't even access 80%+ of the potential sales.

Diamond believes that they need to cut unprofitable items from distribution. THIS IS SOMETHING VERY HARD TO ARGUE WITH. I sure can't suggest that one of my partners do something that doesn't make them enough money to continue operations. The only real argument is that they're cutting their nose to spite their faces -- that by knocking down books without giving them a viable and honest chance they're running a real risk of losing out on million copy sellers eventually down the line (otherwise known as the BONE argument), but I certainly can get why a distributor might not be interested in, y'know, playing the lottery. It seems to me that just a single BONE-level success MORE THAN outweighs the nickle-and-dime losses of a hundred other books, but the wrinkle is that by being contractually obligated to distribute whatever the fuck the "Big Four" decide to crap out means they're almost certainly losing money on a huge swath of THAT material.

(Like, say, most 1:10 variants -- those almost certainly are money losers for Diamond in most cases)

In other words, The Big Four are probably eating up most of Diamond's "mercy fuck" budget by overproducing a bunch of marginal shit that no one really wants. In a way, I feel like Diamond's policies are nearly aimed at Marvel and DC, but they contractually CAN'T dictate shit to Marvel and DC, so they have to do it where they're contractually able to do so.

This is changeable. Not easily so, but it is theoretically possible.

Possible scenario #1: The REASON the "Big Four" have brokered exclusive deals with Diamond, and the "next big ten" have non-brokered exclusive deals is because Diamond is basically the only viable choice. One publisher confided in me that virtually every non-Diamond attempt to distribute in the DM ended up going out of business owing that publisher huge sums of money.

So, possibility #1 is someone with stupidly big piles of money, and a WHOLE lot of patience sets up with the goal of directly competing, head-to-head, with Diamond. This person would be GUARANTEED to lose money (big huge scary towering piles of money) for AT LEAST three years. It is my understanding that Diamond brokerage deals are on something like 3-year revolving contracts. IF there was someone with equivalent infrastructure and staffing and knowledge and ability they'd at least have the possibility of luring Marvel away, and possibly several of the others, but, yeah, you could maybe get Marvel at contract renewal time, IF you could convince Perlmutter that they could save a few thousand dollars a quarter.

I don't see this scenario playing out because there probably isn't anyone rich enough who is also STUPID enough to try and take Diamond on head-to-head, on the POSSIBILITY that some pubs might switch... especially since they'd almost certainly have to UNDERCUT Diamond, and my understanding has been that Diamond wrote themselves a really stupid deal where they really don't make THAT much from distributing The Big Four. But it COULD happen, I guess.

***

Possible Scenario #2a: Geppi's non-Diamond empire continues to do what it appears to be doing right now: collapse. The Pop Culture Museum, Gemstone, whatever else, and they collapse hard enough to "Take Diamond With Them", and DC *has* to play its "too big to fail" clause that is reportedly in their contract, buying Diamond outright.

In this scenario, Marvel pulls out as soon as they POSSIBLY can, because they don't want their fortunes tied to their #1 competitor (especially when said competitor has become just a fraction of their new comics sales). Marvel finds someone else to distribute their comics, and, assuming said company doesn't completely fuck everything up, sending hundreds or thousands of comics retailers directly out of business (Cf: Heroes World) -- and that's a REALLY BAD ASSUMPTION -- then maybe just maybe you can start a viable second national distribution option.

Maybe.

***

Possible Scenario #2b: With no external prompting, Marvel decides to try the HWD option again. It could happen. Some of the people in charge are just nuts enough to try.

There would be a REALLY ugly couple of months though, but it, conceptually could lead to a second viable national distributor.

The real problem with either 2a or 2b is that you'd still be looking at NON-INDEPENDENT distribution -- both Marvel and DC, from good intentions or poor ones, are likely to make a lot of moves that would benefit themselves, but no one else. History, I think, is on my side on that one!

***

Possible Scenario #3: The Justice Department investigation of Diamond that Chuck Rosanski instigated was never CLOSED (to my understanding), but rather, put into abeyance. There's probably a much better legal term, but I don't know it.

Justice COULD reopen that investigation, and with a new administration in charge that is potentially much less pro-Big Business Monopoly, they could decide to split Diamond up.

I'm not so sure that this idea doesn't scare me more than 2a and 2b combined, in terms of short term fallout, but I guess it could lead to 2 viable national distribution organizations that would actually be open to potential competition. Probably not, but maybe.

***

Possible Scenario #4:

Someone like an Ingram or a B&T decide to try and court the DM, and to add periodicals and DM-like terms to their portfolio of services.

I think this is unlikely because there aren't enough viable free-agents amongst publishers to make enough of a profit from, but I suppose it COULD happen. Again, you'd be losing money for a good long while in getting this established, but, if you already have "a" distribution infrastructure in place (though one VERY DIFFERENT than what DM retailers would require!), you'd probably be losing a lot less money.

***

Possible Scenario #5:

Something Happens to make Diamond Realize the risk they're taking with Our Future. Like if, somehow, WARLORD OF IO becomes some sort of major international hit, on the level of TWILIGHT or something, and everyone could point at Diamond and say "See...?"

50/50 odds that would cause them to turtle even more, but, hey, you never know!

***

Possible Scenario #6:

Publishers of all shapes and sizes actively promote what they publish, creating consumer pre-order demand for all manner of "non-traditional" works, which spurs retailers to take more chances, and makes it so that Diamond's benchmarks never even come into play in the first place.

At the same time, publishers take a serious look at their offerings, and knock off all of the crap there really isn't any audience for (and yes, I'm including shit like DC doing a TP of the most recent EL DIABLO mini-series, which sold all of 4k copies of its last issue, sheesh!)

See, I sorta think that if you can't generate at least $30k retail in sales on your initial offering, then you probably shouldn't be publishing nationally anyway. That's like $10 per store! That's also WAY above Diamond's benchmarks, but what I'm advocating is publishers taking this kind of tack themselves, not having it imposed from the outside. AND I WOULD EQUALLY SUPPORT THIS THINKING FOR MARVEL & DC!

While this will never happen, this is the one genuinely plausible scenario which would basically guarantee material making it to market -- if you create a real and significant interest in and for your work, then it is likely to work for ALL participants.

***

Potential Scenario #7: the retailers all lose their minds tomorrow, and we mercy fuck the hell out of everything -- we order every single thing offered to us, in strong quantities, just because we want to see books survive. This is about as likely as a gigantic rainbow meteorite striking the earth, transforming us into a race of prancing unicorns who crap chocolate ice cream, but lets keep it on the table anyway. If I, and every other retailer who ordered rack copies of the WARLORD OF IO special, simply doubled our orders, we could have kept the mini-series alive. [Put aside that I still haven't SOLD all of the rack copies of WoIO that I bought!]

I actually DO have a Mercy Fuck budget... well, not "budget" per se, but I am willing to MF some books some times, if they're the kinds of things that I want to encourage my industry to become... but I don't think anyone is well-capitalized enough to sustainably do that over the long haul we'd be talking about, and it would only encourage more people with LESS talent to try to hop on our sweet sweet MF train.

***

Possible Scenario #8: People say "Aw fuck it", and just skip the DM altogether.

I wish these people luck.

Obviously it IS doable, because there ARE a tiny handful of people able to earn out and cash in whether that's through a mainstream book publisher or through the internet in some fashion, but I truly think that for every success that way there are going to be twenty crash-and-burn failures.

At the end of the day, I kinda don't think that if you can't get x thousand people to buy your physical, tangible $x comic book, that you're probably not going to be able to get enough sales from your digital version that only costs a fraction of $x to make up the same kind of revenue stream.

***

I really didn't structure this right -- I should have #6 be the concluding thought, because that's the only actually VIABLE plan in the bunch. AND, more importantly, it is the only one that doesn't rely on SOMEONE ELSE COMING TO SAVE YOU.

I might have missed one though, it's possible. Do YOU have any better ideas?

-B

 

All Hail Saint Joe!

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Today is, of course, Free Comic Book Day, which is, despite what any Decemberist might say, The Most Wonderful Day Of The Year!

I was at the store for about 2 hours this morning (hey, I like having my weekends off, thenkyewveddymuch), and I'm always impressed by doing like 60% of a normal Saturday in the first 90 minutes of the day. That is, as the kidz say, "Teh aw3s0m3"

I really really love FCBD -- sure *I* have to pay for the comics to give away, but for the amount of business it drives, it is more than worth it; and the best thing is that, really, that's all I *have* to do. I know some people go nuts and put up tents and have massive signings and door prizes and events and whatever. I just open the door. I don't advertise it, or promote it, or really do anything other than open the door (with a smile), and it's always one of our best days of the year and that's just wonderfully awesome.

The overwhelming majority of people are awesome about it -- not being greedy, not trying to grab everything that isn't nailed down, not "misunderstanding" the intent or the realities. The best people are the families who bring in packs of little kids -- man those kids look... well, like kids in a comic book store!

Anyway, it is always worth thanking our partners for helping us pull off this event, and, especially, to face South (well, or West or North, depending where you are), and thanking Joltin' Joe Field, of Flying Colors Comics and Other Cool Stuff in Concord, California, for coming up with this idea in the first place. I really think this event, alone, has done more for comics and comic book stores than all of the Batman, Spider-Man, Wolverine, or Watchmen movies throughout time, put together.

Thanks, Joe -- you rock!

-B

What I'm Buying

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Getting to know you, getting to know all about you! My "Favorites" post series will mostly be focusing on stand-alone book-format titles from throughout the years, and that's a big part of how I experience comics. But I also look forward to Wednesdays for my front-of-Previews fix as much as the next nerd (even if I end up doing things a bit differently once we get there). So I thought it might be fun to take a look at the mostly superhero/"mainstream" titles I'm digging these days. Come flip through my pull list after the jump.

I've got pretty odd and unrepresentative reading habits, I think. I switched to buying only trade paperbacks back in 2004 or so, doing so online for the most part. Working at Wizard, where we got copies of virtually everything for our library, made that pretty easy: I could still read series in their monthly installments and evaluate whether or not it was worth plunking down the money and preordering the tpb. After the Wiz gave me the boot it got a little harder, but I still have enough access to review copies and the like that I'm able to keep up with most series on a monthly basis.

So when I say I buy a book, it's the collections I'm referring to. Virtually always this means softcover--I don't like hardcovers. And that means I can often have a long time to wait before getting a copy of a series I like in my hot little hands, particularly for DC. I'm also particular about exactly what I'll pay for, and even what I'll grab for free. There are series I enjoy fine enough when reading them courtesy of a friendly PR person or a friend or by skimming a copy in the shop that I'd probably only collect if I could snag free trades, and there are also a few series I follow for some reason or other but don't care to own.

Below you'll find lists of all these kinds of books--my whole "mainstream" reading list. "The Buy Pile" is what I'm definitely buying. "On the Bubble" are books I'd happily stick on my shelves if I could grab free or super-cheap copies somehow, but I'm just not sure if I can commit the cash to buying them outright. "Following" means I stay on top of it as best I can, but I'm not interested in hanging on to it for posterity. (Notes in parentheses where warranted.)

So here's how it breaks down...

Marvel: The Buy Pile Agents of Atlas (I assume--I really liked the miniseries and so far so good for the ongoing) Captain America Criminal Daredevil The Immortal Iron Fist (Brubaker/Fraction/Aja era) Incognito Incredible Hercules Invincible Iron Man Omega the Unknown (completed) Powers Ultimate Spider-Man

Lots of Brubaker, a pair of old-school Bendis books, Fraction's Iron Man, and a smattering of titles on the fringes of the modern Marvel Universe, which is where the action tends to be for me these days.

DC: The Buy Pile Action Comics (Geoff Johns era) All Star Superman All Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder (on hiatus or something) Astro City Batman Batman & Robin (when it starts) Ex Machina The Exterminators (canceled/completed) Final Crisis (completed) Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds The Flash: Rebirth (when it starts) Green Lantern Superman: New Krypton (crossover event - completed) Superman: Secret Origin (when it starts)

I'm pretty much a Morrison/Johns man. If they gave up writing comics for Lent or something, that would pretty much mean 40 days of no DC books for me at this point. I thought The Exterminators was entertaining and intriguing; haven't finished it yet. Ex Machina I'm hopelessly behind on in the monthlies, but I think I'm all caught up in trade. Astro City is maddeningly infrequent, but when it's there, so am I. Frank Miller has a lifetime pass from me, but I'd think All Star Batman was hilarious even if he didn't.

Image: The Buy Pile Invincible Jack Staff The Walking Dead

Robert Kirkman's two improbable success stories, plus Paul Grist's superhero thing, the second book to earn the "maddeningly infrequent" label on this list.

Dark Horse: The Buy Pile B.P.R.D. Hellboy

I'll buy any and all Mignola-verse titles, including the solo spinoffs like Abe Sapien or Lobster Johnson.

Marvel: On the Bubble Immortal Iron Fist (Swierczynski era) Captain Britain & MI-13 The Stand Thor (Matt Fraction one-shots) Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk

I'm putting The Stand here simply because I feel weird putting a book containing a bunch of stuff I wrote on the Buy Pile (I'm Marvel.com's Stand correspondent and a lot of the little features I do on the book end up in the book itself). With post-Aja IIF, I'm a little iffy on the art, though Swierczynski's ideas and tone have been right in line with the Frubaker material everyone loved. With Captain Britain and Fraction's Thor, I can't decide if I like the execution as much as I like the ideas. With Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk, Damon Lindelof has earned a lot of credit with me, but I sort of want to see where it goes before deciding whether to pick it up for good.

DC: On the Bubble Action Comics (Rucka era) Green Lantern Corps Superman Superman: World of New Krypton Supergirl

The "New Krypton" crossover hooked me and I'll be buying those trades, which I assume will be collecting the comics involved by triangle number rather than by series. But now that Johns isn't involved directly in them anymore, I'm not sure if I'll be keeping that up. Similarly, I don't think I've ever actually read an issue of Green Lantern Corps that wasn't part of the Sinestro Corps War, but I enjoy the concepts Johns has introduced so much that I'm trying to track down the trades so that eventually I can read them in rapid succession and see what's what.

Marvel: Following Dark Avengers New Avengers Mighty Avengers (Bendis era) Secret Invasion (completed)

I like to keep abreast of what's going on in the Marvel U., and I like a lot of the surface qualities of Bendis's writing even when the ultimate execution is lackluster, so I've been trying to stay on top of these series even though what's actually going on in them holds little interest for me.

DC: Following Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge (completed) Justice Society of America Secret Six

Rogues' Revenge was kind of like Geoff clearing his throat of the Flash runs that took place between his own once and future tenures on the title, so it's interesting in that regard but not something I feel the need to have on my bookshelf. JSoA is kinda like the Bendis Avengers books in that I'm fond of the writer but not too fond of what he's writing in this particular series. Secret Six features solid writing from Gail Simone and solid art from Nicola Scott, but while I find it fun, it doesn't quite click with me on an emotional level.

So there you have it. As the fella says, what looks good to you?

 

20 Years of Experience!

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First off, the new TILTING AT WINDMILLS is up at Comic Book Resources -- it is all about the ComicsPRO meeting from last week, and also has a look inside Diamond's new warehouse.

But this week's bigger news is that on Wednesday, April 1st, it is the 20th anniversary of Comix Experience.

Whoa. Man, it sure don't feel like 20 years.

On 4/1, we're going to hold a food drive for the San Francisco Food Bank. If you bring a can of food in as a donation, then you will get 20% off absolutely anything in the store.

And, yes, Wednesday is New Comics Day; and, yes, that discount will apply to that week's new comics as well, so, y'know, it is kind of a good deal.

The discount will ONLY be given with a food donation, so do make sure you bring one, otherwise you'll have to run next door to the market and have to buy one, and you'll probably feel a little silly.

Anyway, I do hope to see you there, and I would certainly appreciate it if you can help spread the word. I'd very much like to have the big food barrel all filled up when they come to take it back the next day!

Finally, speaking personally, I know that I will be happy to take any and all donations of 20 year old scotch whiskey, and I'll be just as happy to share it with people who show up as well, so we can drink and have a good time too, as well as helping out a great charity.

Hope to see you there on Wednesday, April 1st, at Comix Experience!

-B

February 2009 sales

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ICv2 has the latest sales figures up; and they're reporting that GN sales are down by 9%.

Well, OK, but I'm reasonably certain that isn't a function of actual sales in the DM. Actually, it is almost certain that's really a function of Diamond moving their Memphis warehouse in February.

Starting February 4th, Diamond stopped ALL reorders so they could do the move. This was supposed to last for something like 10 days. But, even the "top sellers" didn't start flowing again until the end of the month. As of today, 3/17, they STILL haven't completed the move 100%. According to today's Diamond Daily (Gated, sorry) they've managed to move 17,800 of 20k SKUs -- there's still more than 2000 SKUs they haven't yet reactivated. *sigh*

February was the best of bad choices to move the warehouse -- Feb is usually a "dead" month, by and large -- but we had an unusual number of VERY strong books this February, including, yeah, WATCHMEN as well as things like BATMAN RIP and the 5th SCOTT PILGRIM book.

You wonder why your LCS didn't have SCOTT PILGRIM for most of February? It sure wasn't their fault (well, at least for the stores that know how to order) -- Diamond didn't fill a SINGLE reorder for it for 3-ish weeks!

ICv2 didn't bother to note this, but I'd sure hope that in the official record books Feb '09 gets an asterisk next to it because of the warehouse move (Are you listening John Mayo and John Jackson Miller?) -- given that reorders were effectively nil for 3-ish weeks in February, I think that ONLY a 9% drop should be looked at as a HUGE gain for the month; given the lack of reorders anything less than double digits is probably a positive.

(At Comix Experience, we had our best February in nineteen of them, despite being reorder-less)

There's probably going to be a certain amount of yelling this week in Memphis...

-B

Vaporware: Douglas exhumes the absent past

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I picked up a bunch of old Amazing Heroes Preview Specials a few months back. They were published twice a year in the mid-to-late '80s--fat saddle-stitched things, with more or less extensive writeups of nearly every comic book series that was supposed to be published over the next few seasons. Jog's mention a little while ago of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's perpetually in-the-works City Lights reminded me of my perverse fascination with comics projects that are officially announced and maybe even produced but never actually published at all. (I also recently ran across a French site with fairly extensive lists of aborted Marvel and DC projects--mostly pitched or planned, rather than formally announced, although I would still love to read Peter Bagge's Incorrigible Hulk.) Anyway, the Preview Specials include a bunch of them, as well as some other gems, like Kim Thompson's absolutely correct declaration that "I don't think any one of our 20,000 plus readers gives a flying damn who is doing Sectaurs, what's coming up in it--or anything else to do with it, for that matter," and Denny O'Neil noting that "if there is ever a backup character in Detective, it will be a new female Bat-character, but she won't even be created until maybe next winter"--this was 1986 or so. The preview for the last few issues of Watchmen begins with Alan Moore apologizing that it had shifted from monthly to every five weeks (!), and ends "Current plans call for the entire Watchmen saga to be reprinted in both hardcover and softcover book formats for release through bookstores once the story is completed, and Moore is optimistic about the eventuality of a Watchmen film."

A few highlights from the Imaginary Library, under the cut:

"Alan Moore's Comic," a.k.a. Dodgem Logic, a Fantagraphics-published series with rotating artists; the first issue was going to be a comedy set at a comics convention, and the second a biography of Aubrey Beardsley.

A Thriller Summer Special, to be written by Robert Loren Fleming and drawn by Keith Giffen, along with a Superman/Thriller issue of DC Comics Presents. (Thriller, initially written by Fleming and drawn by Trevor Von Eeden, was a very unusual, very promising series that flew totally off the rails partway through its first year--it seemed particularly creator-driven for its time, which was why it seemed doubly weird that first Von Eeden and then Fleming were replaced by creators who seemed to not get it at all. But these were announced after the original series was gone.)

Speaking of Giffen: Keith Giffen's Tattered Banners, a monthly series from Lodestone that was supposed to be whatever Giffen felt like doing that month (it appears to be completely different from the Alan Grant/Giffen miniseries of the same title from 1999).

Brainstorm, an Eclipse flood-benefit anthology series, assembled by Mark Evanier, in which every story was supposed to be "a possible springboard for a series"; there was work completed for it by John Bolton, Sergio Aragones, Alex Toth, Howard Chaykin, Chris Claremont, Mike Mignola, P. Craig Russell, etc.

A second issue of Cerebus Jam, featuring stories by Dave Sim in collaboration with Colleen Doran ("The Applicant," which finally appeared in Cerebus #91), Dick Giordano, Mike Grell and Barry Windsor-Smith (those never came out, as far as I know). By Amazing Heroes Preview Special #4, Sim's comment on the nonappearance of the second issue was "I don't push creative people for the sake of reviewers."

Cheap Shoddy Robot Toys, initially announced as a one-shot written by (my old boss) Beppe Sabatini and drawn by Fred Hembeck, to be published by Eclipse. That was later revised to "illustrator undecided," and Sabatini mentioning that "we do have future issues planned. Issue #2 will cross over with Joe Kubert's Redeemer series, while issue #3 will guest star Ms. Mystic in a story that ties in to her sixth issue..."

A four-issue miniseries by John Byrne, adapting Edmond Hamilton's City at World's End.

A two-part Frank Miller/Walt Simonson Daredevil story.

William Messner-Loebs' "Journey: Wardrums," of which two issues came out, was to be followed by a miniseries called "Western Follies." (Speaking of which: I really need to reread Journey now that it's in those two fat IDW books. I saw a review of it recently by somebody who didn't seem to realize that Jemmy Acorn was a goof on Johnny Appleseed. Do kids today still learn about Johnny Appleseed? I AM OLD.)

A six-issue series of The Liberators by Grant Morrison and John Ridgway, to be published by Quality for 75 cents an issue (a few episodes of this saw print in Warrior #26 and Comics International #76).

A Mr. Monster/Swamp Thing one-shot by Alan Moore, Michael T. Gilbert, Steve Bissette and John Totleben. (A preview image was the cover of Amazing Heroes #77.)

If anybody happens to know what happened to any of these, I'd love to hear it.

 

Flying Thompson's Gazelle of The Yard

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A final word on my 2008 report on BookScan. Under the jump for everyone who is tired of this topic (which is probably most sane and rational people)

As a prominent retailer in a prominent market, who has a long-running soapbox on the retailing of comics, I do a fairly large number (3-6-ish) of interviews any given year, whether it be for various podcasts or newspaper features or whatever about the comics industry. Pretty uniformly, “what’s the size of the market?” is one of the primary questions that rises.

We have a paucity of real, viable data in this business. Other industries appear to have whole sub-industries designed just to analyze sales data. I guess the need to categorize, to define, to find out our parameters is one of the things that make us human.

In comics, we have exactly one public source of information: Diamond’s charts. They present data in a somewhat broken fashion. eg: they don’t include Diamond UK, until recently it topped out at 100 books (and not all that long ago, it topped at 100 comics, as well), and it also favors items that arrive at the beginning of the month’s cycle over those that arrive at the end of the month. There’s probably two or three more ways they aren’t properly reflecting the real market activity as well.

We understand these limitations, and, hopefully most people when they construct premises of market activity bear those limitations in mind.

We have no public data about any other sales in comics with the last remaining exceptions of those publishers (Just Marvel and Archie, I think at this point? John Jackson Miller, correct me if I am wrong here?) who still ship via a certain US Postal Service regulation and have to provide some sketchy (and, I've been told, often made up my some intern) sales information. We will, very occasionally, get some sort of vague public statement, usually rendered anecdotaly -- most recently probably Paul Levitz's comment that WATCHMEN was in the 1 million copies sold range in 2008 -- but certainly nothing that one can construct any kind of real understanding of anything at all, based upon just that.

Seven years ago I was told about BookScan, and that there WAS data being gathered on sales outside the DM. It wasn't public though, so I pushed and I pushed and I pushed at several dozen people, and I found a few sources that were willing to leak it to me once a year. And I thought if I was interested in this, other people probably were too. Given that it generally gets more commentary than anything I write the whole rest of the year, combined, I think this is justified.

Like any information stream, it is only useful to the extent that you look at it for what it is. As I understand it, BookScan is an accurate report of what sold through at the venues which report to BookScan. Those venues are, for the most part, the large chains, the major websites, the largest of the independent bookstores (Powell's, etc.) This isn't, by any means, any place that books can be or are sold, and it doesn't include libraries, schools, book clubs, strip clubs, gas stations, residences, warehouses, farmhouses, henhouses, outhouses or doghouses.

But, within the venues that it DOES represent, it represents 100% of the sales during the year-to-date.

I believe that I have been scrupulous about stating and restating this, and I even think that I've done some damage to the readability of the article by bending over backwards to say "of those reporting to BookScan" or some variant of that over and over again.

What I believe is that if the charts say that "Love & Rockets: New Stories #1" sold 719 copies, then, yeah it is a factual statement that from the day of its release to 12/31/2008 that Borders, B&N, Amazon, et al. sold under 800 copies in those venues, during that date range. (I put it that way because, of course, as a guy who runs a POS system, mistakes get made by clerks all of the time, so there's always going to be SOME kind of unavoidable "fudge factor"; but that factor is probably under 10% of the total)

That doesn't mean that xxxx copies were not placed into the distribution channel. That does not mean that xxxx copies won't eventually sell. That does not mean that xxxx copies didn't go into non-retail channels. That does not mean any of a whole host of things. It just means that from date of release to 12/21/2008, Borders, B&N, Amazon, et al sold under 800 copies of that item. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now if you (generically "you", not specifically so) want to believe that this datum holds no/limited value, I won't try to stop you. But I will choose to disagree.

WHY do I think it has some value? Because of pundits like (as Dirk says) Balan Bavid Boane, or one-name internet trolls who lurk in threads everywhere who like to insist things similar to "The Direct Market is a dying and useless system that is no better than a cancer upon the heart of all comics everywhere"

Tom has an excellent point that "no one in a position of any importance at any company has to my knowledge ever seriously dismissed the still-crucial Direct Market as a place to sell comics." So this much, at least, is down to my failure to differentiate between the light and the heat, as it were -- but I want these memes to die the dog's death that they deserve (and lets add "If only comics were anthologies printed on cheap newsprint, the audience would come flocking back" too, please)

But, yes, I'm guilty of falling prey to the heat. C'est la guerre.

And so for that, please let me apologize.

I do think there's some conflation going to among "legitimate" pundits -- I don't buy the argument that because [whatever] is still on sale in specific channels that it moots the snapshot nature of a BookScan list; those items are also still on sale in the DM as well after all, and we'll never know the final long-term sales of any book ever until after that book is no longer in print. I don't buy the argument that we should count library sales (or whatever) on [whatever] if we're not counting the same channels for [something else] -- and since we're unlikely to ever have that kind of clarity within our lifetimes, we work with what we DO have.

But, at the end of the day, BookScan is what it is, and, as far as I can tell there's no legitimate disagreement that BookScan is what it is: "100%" of the sales, within the date range presented, to the specific venues that report to BookScan.

Each year I try to remove more of my biases, and more of my silly shit from the analysis -- no one seemed to notice that this year I didn't have the last 4-5k words be about a comparison to the DM, like the previous five years! I don't think I'll ever be able to 100% remove those biases 100% of the time, because I'm human (and I think comparisons are largely inevitable). But I'm working on it, really I am!

Whether I succeed or not, I do firmly and fundamentally agree with this statement of Tom's: "Right here, right now, additional markets aren't just desirable, they're necessary. For many people the ability to operate in multiple markets is the difference between publishing and not publishing, and has been for several years now. For some folks, every single market of any value is the difference between making a modest living and making no living at all. For certain companies and titles it's the difference between existence and extinction."

In some ways, it is like what I say about Periodicals versus Perennials in the DM -- the periodical comic books provide the cash flow; the book format perennials provide the long term profit. DM orders tend to be of great significance as an upfront thing, and they're not returnable, and they tend to pay within 30 days from the Bank of Diamond -- basically No Risk/Quick Pay. Other markets are riskier, returnable, and generally slower to pay -- but as a long term investment may be very profitable if you get that big hit.

Either way, that's where I won't quibble with Tom even a little: all markets are needed, all venues are valid, all sales are good.

Anyway, just because I'm feeling silly, here's how I felt a little earlier in the week when reading Dirk's comments:

 

If you're going to WonderCon on Friday...

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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

Your QuickLink for the Day: Trailer to Spiegelman's Be A Nose.

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Speaking of symbolists, I got an email just this morning from the McSweeney's people talking about their next book, Art Spiegelman's Be A Nose, "a triple dose of unexpurgated Spiegelman sketchbooks from years past—you get 1979, 1983, and 2007, all in actual-size hardbound editions and wrapped in a really neat ski-gogglelike strap."

They include a link to the trailer they've created to the book which you can see here. (I'd embed the sonuvabitch, but I'm afraid I'd break the formatting since we've got a width limit here on the blog). I thought you might like to check it out...

Working on a review or two, although they're staggering a bit much more than I'd like. They'll be up here sooner or later, I'd like to think.

 

The New Tilting is up: BookScan 2008

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You can find my look at BookScan 2008 right here.

I'd strongly suggest grabbing the chart and saving it off before Jonah gets a C&D. Tomorrow will likely be too late!

Interested in your thoughts, as always!

Edit: Tom Spurgeon has some good comments here. For the record, Tom is 100% right: look at these with a grain of salt, then a chunk of salt, then an entire salt mine, because, at best, these numbers are just the visible tip of the iceberg.

I really really tried to make this clear throughout the piece: go and count how many times I say something like "to the stores that report to BookScan" or words to that effect. I keep being afraid that I'm hurting the readability with all of the ass-covering I do!

-B

With all respect to Chris Butcher...

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This is about retailing and distribution and all that stuff, so I'm hiding it under the jump...

Right, so Chris Butcher has written a widely linked panic attack about Diamond "de-listing" over 1000 Viz backlist items.

As near as I can tell, however, he's concerned about a bunch of material that, well, doesn't sell. YES, some of the titles on the list are REALLY FUCKING GOOD COMICS, no doubt about it... but do they SELL is the question?

I also use Baker & Taylor as a source for books, an unlike Diamond's site, B&T has some neat tools on their pages, including real time inventory for not only what is in stock, and what is expected to show, but also for REAL THIRTY DAY DEMAND for those products.

I think that most of us can agree that DRIFTING CLASSROOM was the big "wait, what?!?" on the Diamond de-listing list -- thems some fine comics.

But when I search for DRIFTING CLASSROOM on B&T's inventory, for their west Coast warehouse (they have four: East, West, Midwest, and South) this BOOKSTORE FOCUSED distributor only has inventory on hand for two volumes, and their thirty day demand for ANY of the eleven volumes is... wait for it! ZERO COPIES.

Same thing for GOLGO 13.

Same thing for Tezuka's PHOENIX, pretty much -- 2 of the volumes have single copy demand, wow, big seller.

The secret reality of things is that a huge chunk of things that YOU like, or maybe even things that Butcher or me could sell a bit... don't sell at all well out in "the real world"

Like... you basically can't get ANY Drawn & Quarterly published titles from B&T. WHAT IT IS, and SHORTCOMINGS and maybe 3-4 others, but that's IT. BECAUSE THEY DON'T SELL FOR MOST STORES.

INCLUDING "not comics" stores, guys.

My new TILTING is on Friday, with a look at the 2008 BookScan numbers. While you're waiting for that, take a guess at what the BookScan reported sales for LOVE & ROCKETS NEW STORIES #1 was (remember, they changed TO an annual, spine-d format FOR the putative bookstore market). Write your guess on a piece of paper, and see on Friday how close you were.

-B

 

To Spite One's Face

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I don't really have time to do this (I should be working on the BookScan stuff... next column is due in like a week, ugh!), but Lester bugged me about it, and I am also spurred by Chris Butcher's excellent post on the subject.

This is a little "insider baseball" so I am going to hide most of it behind the jump...

Some of this appeared in a post on the CBIA forum, but that's gated and most of you can't see that, so with a little editing, let me start...

One thing that I've always believed is that one of the mighty mighty strengths of the Direct Market was that anyone with a Pen and Paper, and a little talent, could get national distribution and Make a Name for themselves. That's (historically) very different than almost any other media where the barriers to entry are ginormous, and that the majority of both wholesale and retail clients are simply not interested in dealing with anyone who isn't already established. What we in the DM call "the small press" is usually referred to "vanity press" in other media.

I *liked* that the barriers to entry were generally low, because it brought us a regular influx of new talent producing exciting work on a regular basis. Much of that potential is now going to disappear with Diamond's new minimums and reorder rules (Periodical comics WILL NOT be available after 60 days, yikes!)

Part of the problem is probably that post-DC-exclusive Diamond was really really freaked out about being seen as "fair" to everyone (Understandable!), so they accepted a lot of items that were probably not the most rational to accept in the first place, things that WEREN'T ready for Prime Time, or brought nothing new to the market -- that, as much as anything else, has led to the catalog bloat.

PREVIEWS *is* a bloated, horrible beast. Despite Chris' assertion that, for The Beguiling, orders from the "back" of the catalog were higher than Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and Image combined, that's nowhere near the case for me -- most of the "back of the bus" items suck. No, not D&Q or Top Shelf or Fantagraphics or Viz or whomever you want to say... but all of those shitty shitty micro-press books that are NOT marketed or promoted, or anything other than weaker less interesting poorly created knockoffs of things that Front of the Catalog publishers are already doing. No, really, we don't need your shitty zombie comic book. We don't need your adaptation of some William Shatner novel, and we sure as fuck don't need your half-baked superhero universe.

What we DO need is "the next BONE", the "next" STRANGERS IN PARADISE, or CEREBUS or EIGHTBALL or GRENDEL or whatever title you want to fill-in-the-blanks with as a paradigm of slow-build-to-significance item.

Here's the real problem: Diamond's purchasing department. There are some really great guys working there, but they don't really have a great aesthetic judgment. That's not a knock, necessarily, but in 20 years of buying from Diamond I don't believe that they've EVER had a year where they had the entirety of, say, the Eisner nominees in stock at or around the time of the nominations.

I don't believe that Diamond would recognize the "next BONE". Not from hatred or anything, but because they have policies in place to be "fair", that for a decade or more essentially treats all projects as interchangeable widgets.

Those of you who have been doing this for a long time will recall that the late Capital City Distribution used to have actual opinion in their catalogs -- it was common to see "Looks amateurish, be careful", or the opposite in the listings, because THEIR purchasing department was encouraged to share their opinions to help sell more comics (or steer people from lesser work).

That's a GOOD thing. Distributors SHOULD be trying to sell the things they believe in, trying to take books up to their proper next level of sales. Keeping everything carefully neutral is likely to make you less enemies, maybe, but does both your client retailers and your listed publishers a pretty big disservice.

Diamond does have a few "spotlight" indications in the catalog -- "Spotlight" "certified cool", whatever... but they're not applied in what appears to be a rigorous manner, and there's no editorializing whatsoever.

Here's what I might do if I were Diamond: I'd try to hire Bob Shreck to be Czar of the Catalog. Not setting the orders or doing any of that, but going through the submissions to see what has promise and what doesn't. If there was someone there whose aesthetic judgment I implicitly trusted to be the advocate for stocking innovative work, with an eye towards finding and selling the "next BONE", I'd be a lot more enthusiastic towards this new policy.

I don't have any PROBLEM with Diamond wanting to get rid of unprofitable items, any more than I'd have a problem with a retailer deciding not to rack anything that he doesn't think he can sell 3 or more copies of, but I do think that Diamond's historical aesthetic judgment, and stocking support of that judgment, is clearly on the poor side. Diamond is TOO bottom line oriented when it comes to what they sell and support.

What I think is that if you are a guardian at the gate of a medium, there are things that you need to do to help support that medium. Maybe that's Pollyanna-ish, I don't know. But there are things that I carry that don't actually make me any PROFIT, but I carry them because it is what expected in a comic book store (or, at least, a good one in San Francisco).

Let me try this from another angle: Diamond, for maybe a decade there, didn't carry ASTERIX or TINTIN. I believe them when they said that they don't sell very well nationally for Diamond, but I don't think you can actually be a specialty comics distributor and not carry TINTIN and ASTERIX! Even if you only sell 10 copies a year.

I'm virtually certain we're going to lose the "next BONE", the "next SiP"; I'm afraid we won't have a place any longer for the next Dan Clowes of the world.

Heh, I was chatting with someone last week about the real unfairness (TO THE CREATOR!) if this business totally shifted to an OGN model -- how many 22-23 year old kids have the patience and discipline to get through the production of 100+ pages of comics content without reader and market feedback?

I flashed to LIKE A VELVET GLOVE CAST IN IRON, with was originally serialized in EIGHTBALL. This is a DEEPLY FLAWED work -- Clowes just didn't know how to end it, and it shows -- but I've still sold HUNDREDS of copies of this over the years. Knowing Clowes from that time, I suspect that had it been a GN-only work, he would have gotten to the point where it stopped working... and just stopped working on it.

And, flaws and all, I think we'd be poorer for it.

It's all supposition, I know, and I totally hope I am wrong, but I think lack of easy I-can-do-this-out-of-my-kitchen access to the marketplace is really going to come back and kick us in the nuts in ten years.

Some say "Well, BONE would still have happened because it had two things going for it: Jeff & Vijaya!" Yeah, maybe.

Other say, "Aw nertz to you, BONE would just be on the web." Mm, maybe, and maybe it would have continued enough to do the collections, and maybe, maaaaaaybe they still would have gotten the Scholastic deal.

But I'm just not sure about that, I really am not.

And even if they did, I, personally, don't just want to cede all of the sweet long green that we made from BOTH the serialization and collection of BONE. BONE used to sell 50-60 copies an issue for us. That's serious money, even compared to the overwhelming majority of Marvel and DC titles.

Diamond shouldn't be pushing away people from comics -- they should be trying, actively, passionately, enthusiastically trying to find that "next BONE". Because even if you make 100 mistakes trying to get there, it MORE THAN pays off once you find it.

Anyway, yeah, they need to hire Shreck!

-B

The New TILTING is up!

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Personally, I think I did a really good job this month. You can judge for yourself, by going here.

Dirk Deppey calls the beginning A "feelgood throat-clearing", and I know why he does, but, honestly, a lot of that is the great feelings that Ben's school instills in me for the Future and America.

Like I JUST got back this morning from the school, and Jazz musician Marcus Shelby (who is one of the "Artists in Residence" there) just performed a concert for the kids. In between songs he talked about Obama's presidency, and MLK and Rosa Parks, and all of the first graders and Kinders got up to sing "We Shall Overcome", and I had a genuine lump in my throat.

It is easy to be cynical; but I'm trying to live for Hope these days...

Anyway, go read the column, lemme know what you think!!

-B

A preview of 2009

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I've put together a list of some interesting-looking comics-related books that are scheduled to come out this year, and figured other people might find it useful too. DISCLAIMER: This list is mostly ganked from Amazon listings, which is why it's heavy on a few publishers--notably Fantagraphics, DC and Top Shelf, which list things way, way in advance. It is not anywhere close to comprehensive. It is not anywhere close to reliable. The entire publishing industry could crumble in the next week, in which case none of this stuff might come out at all. JANUARY:

Lewis Trondheim: Little Nothings: The Prisoner Syndrome (NBM) William Messner-Loebs: Journey vol. 2 (IDM)

FEBRUARY:

Boulet/Joann Sfar/Lewis Trondheim: Dungeon Zenith vol. 3: Back in Style (NBM) Greg Sadowski/Jonathan Lethem: Supermen! (Fantagraphics) VA: Korea As Viewed By 17 Creators (Ponent Mon) Gilbert Hernandez: Luba (Fantagraphics) Miss Lasko-Gross: A Mess of Everything (Fantagraphics) Koren Shadmi: In the Flesh (Villard) Grant Morrison/Tony Daniel: Batman R.I.P. (DC) Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely: All Star Superman vol. 2 (DC) Larry Marder: Beanworld vol. 1: Wahoolazuma! (Dark Horse) John Wagner et al.: Judge Dredd: Complete Case Files vol. 12 (Rebellion) Bryan Lee O'Malley: Scott Pilgrim Vs. the Universe (Oni) Nicholas Gurewitch: The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack (Dark Horse) Harvey Kurtzman et al.: Humbug (Fantagraphics) Pascal Blanchet: Baloney (Drawn & Quarterly)

MARCH:

Ronnie Del Carmen: And There You Are (AdHouse) Gabrielle Bell: Cecil and Jordan in New York (Drawn & Quarterly) Lynda Barry: Nearsighted Monkey (Drawn & Quarterly) John Stanley: Melvin Monster vol. 1 (Drawn & Quarterly) G. Willow Wilson/M.K. Perker: Air vol. 1 (Vertigo) Showcase Presents: Ambush Bug (DC) Larry Gonick: Cartoon History of the Modern World Pt. 2: From the Bastille to Baghdad (Collins)

APRIL:

Captain Britain by Alan Moore & Alan Davis Omnibus HC (Marvel) Jim McCarthy/Steve Parkhouse: Sex Pistols: The Graphic Novel (Omnibus Press) Gilbert Hernandez: The Troublemakers (Fantagraphics) Yoshihiro Tatsumi: A Drifting Life (Drawn & Quarterly) Jeffrey Brown: Funny Misshapen Body: A Memoir (Touchstone) Ariel Schrag: Likewise (Touchstone) Paul Hornschemeier: Life with Mr. Dangerous (Villard) Showcase Presents Doom Patrol vol. 1 (DC) Tony Millionaire: Billy Hazelnuts & the Crazy Bird (Fantagraphics) Tom Spurgeon/Jacob Covey: Comics As Art: We Told You So (Fantagraphics) Alan Moore/Kevin O'Neill: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910 (Top Shelf) Gene Luen Yang/Derek Kirk Kim: The Eternal Smile: Three Stories (:01) C. Tyler: You'll Never Know, Book 1: "A Good and Decent Man" (Fantagraphics)

MAY:

Len Wein/Berni Wrightson: Swamp Thing: Dark Genesis HC (DC) The Best of Simon & Kirby (Titan) Brendan Burford: Syncopated: An Anthology of Nonfiction Picto-Essays (Villard) Doug Wright: The Collected Doug Wright Vol. 1 (Drawn & Quarterly) Seth: George Sprott 1894-1975 (Drawn & Quarterly) Kevin Cannon: Far Arden (Top Shelf) Andre Molotiu, ed.: Abstract Comics: The Anthology (Fantagraphics) Jaime Hernandez: Locas II: Maggie, Hopey, & Ray (Fantagraphics) Jason: Low Moon (Fantagraphics) Fletcher Hanks/Paul Karasik: You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation! (Fantagraphics) Ben Schwartz, ed.: Best American Comics Criticism (Fantagraphics) George Herriman: Herriman's Humans (Stumble Inn/Us Husbands) (Fantagraphics)

JUNE:

David Mazzucchelli: Asterios Polyp (Pantheon) John Stanley: Nancy vol. 1 (Drawn & Quarterly) Tove Jansson: Moomin vol. 4 (Drawn & Quarterly) Ben Jones/Frank Santoro/T. Hodler: Cold Heat (PictureBox) Kurt Busiek/Mark Bagley: Trinity vol. 1 (DC) Grant Morrison et al.: Final Crisis (DC) Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon: Preacher vol. 1 HC (DC) Showcase Presents: The Creeper (DC) VA: Final Crisis Companion TPB (DC) Marguerite Abouet/Clement Oubrerie: Aya vol. 3: The Secrets Come Out (D&Q) Peter Bagge: Everyone Is Stupid Except for Me (Fantagraphics)

JULY:

James Jean: Process Recess 3 (AdHouse) Eddie Campbell: Alec: The Years Have Pants (Top Shelf) Neil Gaiman/Andy Kubert: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? (DC) Alan Moore/Curt Swan: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? Deluxe Edition (DC) Warren Ellis et al.: Planetary vol. 4 (WildStorm/DC) Showcase Presents: Bat Lash (DC) Jeff Lemire: The Nobody (Vertigo) Sandman by Kirby & Simon HC (DC) Charles Burns: Skin Deep (Fantagraphics) Michael Kupperman: Tales Designed to Thrizzle (Fantagraphics) Zak Sally: Like a Dog (Fantagraphics)

AUGUST:

Pat Mills/Kevin O'Neill: Marshal Law Omnibus (Top Shelf) Matt Kindt: Super Spy: The Lost Dossiers (Top Shelf) Alan Moore/David Lloyd: Absolute V for Vendetta (DC) Showcase Presents Eclipso (DC) Los Bros Hernandez: Love & Rockets: New Stories #2 (Fantagraphics) Willy Linthout: Years of the Elephant (Ponent Mon)

SEPTEMBER:

Alan Moore/Kevin O'Neill: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century #2 (Top Shelf) Kathryn & Stuart Immonen: Moving Pictures (Top Shelf) Joshua Cotter: Driven By Lemons (AdHouse)

OCTOBER:

Jooste Swarte: Modern Swarte (Fantagraphics) Gary Panter: Dal Tokyo (Fantagraphics) Mats Jonsson: Hey Princess (Top Shelf) Simon Gärdenfors: The 120 Days of Simon (Top Shelf)

NOVEMBER:

Walt Kelly: Pogo: The Complete Daily & Sunday Strips, vol. 1 (Fantagraphics)

DECEMBER:

The Don Rosa Library Vol. 1: 1987-1988 (Gemstone) VA: AX Vol. 1 (Top Shelf)

SOMETIME IN 2009, MAYBE:

R. Crumb: R. Crumb's Book of Genesis (Norton) Paul Pope: Battling Boy (:01) Paul Pope: Total THB (:01) Lawrence Klavan & Susan Kim: Germantown (:01) Lawrence Klavan & Susan Kim: The Fielding Course (:01) Farel Dalrymple: The Wrenchies (:01) Paul Guinan & Anina Bennett: Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel (Abrams Image) Glenn Eichler/Nick Bertozzi: Stuffed (:01) Will Eisner: The Spirit Archives vol. 26 (DC)

Corrections are welcome in the comments; so is accurate information on other books you, as readers, are looking forward to.

Comix Experience Top Sellers 2008: Comics

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Here is the same exercise, but this time with periodical comics. It, too, is under the cut.

Comics were slightly over 41% of my gross sales.

This is a list of SALES, not of orders -- though there are a few places where those numbers were exactly the same (there's one little really obvious clump of that in the 50s)

In reality, my #1 best selling "comic" was "Quarter Book - 10 for a buck", while #2 was "dollar book", and #3 was "Quarter book - single". That looked really weird and awful on the resulting chart, however.

You can see that, especially in the first half of the chart the watchwords are "Whedon, Morrison, Bendis"

1 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #13 2 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #11 3 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #12 4 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #14 5 DC UNIVERSE ZERO 6 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #16 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #15 8 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #10 9 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #17 10 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #18 11 SECRET INVASION #1 12 FINAL CRISIS #1 13 GIANT SIZE ASTONISHING X-MEN #1 14 SECRET INVASION #2 ALL STAR SUPERMAN #10 16 SERENITY BETTER DAYS #1 17 ALL STAR SUPERMAN #11 18 ASTONISHING X-MEN #25 19 ASTONISHING X-MEN #24 20 ALL STAR SUPERMAN #12 21 FINAL CRISIS #2 22 FINAL CRISIS #3 (OF 7) 23 SERENITY BETTER DAYS #2 24 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #19 25 ASTONISHING X-MEN #26 26 SECRET INVASION #4 SI 27 SECRET INVASION #7 (OF 8) 28 SECRET INVASION #3 SERENITY BETTER DAYS #3 30 SECRET INVASION #6 (OF 8) SECRET INVASION #5 (OF 8) 32 UNCANNY X-MEN #500 33 ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #7 34 DARK TOWER LONG ROAD HOME #1 35 FINAL CRISIS #4 (OF 7) 36 ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #3 37 ASTONISHING X-MEN #27 BATMAN #677 39 SECRET INVASION #8 (OF 8) BATMAN #679 41 BATMAN #676 42 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #20 CHEN CVR HELLBOY THE CROOKED MAN #1 (OF 3) ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #5 45 FANTASTIC FOUR #554 46 ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #6 47 FINAL CRISIS #5 (OF 7) NEW AVENGERS #38 49 HELLBOY THE CROOKED MAN #2 (OF 3) NEW AVENGERS #43 SI ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #10 52 NEW AVENGERS #44 FINAL CRISIS LEGION OF THREE WORLDS #1 (OF 5) NEW AVENGERS #42 NEW AVENGERS #41 NEW AVENGERS #40 NEW AVENGERS #39 FANTASTIC FOUR #555 JUSTICE LEAGUE THE NEW FRONTIER SPECIAL ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #4 ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #9 62 ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #8 BATMAN #678 64 ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #9 65 JSA KINGDOM COME SPECIAL SUPERMAN #1 FINAL CRISIS LEGION OF THREE WORLDS #2 (OF 5) WOLVERINE #68 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #17 69 SANDMAN DREAM HUNTERS #1 (OF 4) (MR) ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #10 ULTIMATES 3 #2 72 UNCANNY X-MEN #501 KICK ASS #4 MIGHTY AVENGERS #14 THOR #7 NEW AVENGERS ANNUAL #2 77 UNCANNY X-MEN #504 UNCANNY X-MEN #503 ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #11 WOLVERINE #67 81 HELLBOY IN THE CHAPEL OF MOLOCH ONE SHOT NEW AVENGERS #45 BATMAN #680 RIP FINAL CRISIS SUPERMAN BEYOND #1 (OF 2) TRINITY #1 86 NEW AVENGERS #46 HELLBOY THE CROOKED MAN #3 (OF 3) RASL #1 89 WOLVERINE #66 UNCANNY X-MEN #499 DARK TOWER LONG ROAD HOME #2 UNCANNY X-MEN #494 FELL #9 94 BATMAN #682 BATMAN #681 RIP (NOTE PRICE) UNCANNY X-MEN #502 MIGHTY AVENGERS #16 MIGHTY AVENGERS #13 CAPTAIN AMERICA #36 100 FINAL CRISIS RAGE OF THE RED LANTERNS #1 MIGHTY AVENGERS #17 MIGHTY AVENGERS #15 AVENGERS INVADERS #1 UNCANNY X-MEN #495 CAPTAIN AMERICA #35 CAPTAIN AMERICA #34 THOR #66

-B

 

Comix Experience Top Sellers 2008: Books

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I still need to get a little more caught up with End of Year stuff before I start writing reviews again (it's really insane how Thanksgiving to Christmas kills me to do anything else whatsoever), but here's some data stuff to look at, if you're interested. You'll find it after the jump!

We ended the year up by 6% compared to 2007. That's pretty damn good for a nineteen year old business in a down economy, I think!

Here is a list of the Top 100 best selling "Book" items for 2008. "Book" is sometimes oddly categorized, but this is how Diamond uses the term -- which is why, say, NEW LOVE & ROCKETS #1 is on this list, and not on the "comics" side.

"Books" were just over 51.5% of my gross sales

Item #1 is more than 300% of item #2.

Item #2 is more than 200% of item #25. Item #25 is just under 200% of item #100.

A list that was JUST "released for the first time in 2008" would look VERY different than this one, of course -- this shows you the power of backlist!

There are also more than a few books on this list which could have risen dramatically if only there was ANY source for them (DM or Bookstore market) for all 12 months of 2008.

1 WATCHMEN TP 2 Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 10 WHYS AND WHEREFORES 3 Y THE LAST MAN VOL 1 UNMANNED TP 4 Y THE LAST MAN VOL 2 CYCLES TP 5 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 08 MADE TO SUFFER 6 BUFFY SEASON 8 TP VOL 02 NO FUTURE FOR YOU 7 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER LONG WAY HOME TP 8 FABLES TP VOL 10 THE GOOD PRINCE 9 THE FART PARTY TP 10 Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 03 ONE SMALL STEP 11 LOVE & ROCKETS NEW STORIES #1 Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 05 RING OF TRUTH Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 09 MOTHERLAND 14 BOYS TP VOL 02 GET SOME Y THE LAST MAN VOL 4 SAFEWORD TP 16 FABLES TP VOL 11 WAR AND PIECES (MR) LOEG VOL ONE TP 18 BATMAN THE KILLING JOKE SPECIAL ED HC 19 JUDENHASS GN Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 07 PAPER DOLLS 21 DMZ TP VOL 04 FRIENDLY FIRE Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 06 GIRL ON GIRL Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 08 KIMONO DRAGONS 24 BATMAN DARK KNIGHT RETURNS TP BLACK HOLE COLLECTED SC COMPLETE PERSEPOLIS TP DMZ TP VOL 05 THE HIDDEN WAR WARREN ELLIS AETHERIC MECHANICS GN (MR) 29 UMBRELLA ACADEMY APOCALYPSE SUITE TP 30 HELLBOY TP VOL 08 DARKNESS CALLS HELLBOY VOL 01 SEED OF DESTRUCTION TP POWERS VOL 11 SECRET IDENTITY TP SAM & MAX SURFIN HIGHWAY TP SANDMAN TP VOL 01 PRELUDES & NOCTURNES 35 ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY VOL 18 HC ASTONISHING X-MEN TP VOL 4 UNSTOPPABLE CRIMINAL TP VOL 03 DEAD AND DYING (MR) EX MACHINA TP VOL 07 EX CATHEDRA (MR) FABLES TP VOL 01 LEGENDS IN EXILE LOEG VOL TWO TP V FOR VENDETTA TP 42 ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY HC #19 (MR) BOYS TP VOL 01 CRIMINAL TP VOL 02 LAWLESS EX MACHINA VOL 6 POWER DOWN TP SHORTCOMINGS HC WALKING DEAD VOL 1 DAYS GONE BYE TP 48 SANDMAN TP VOL 02 THE DOLLS HOUSE 49 100 BULLETS TP VOL 12 DIRTY (MR) LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN THE BLACK DOSSIER HC SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN TP VOL 02 52 BATMAN YEAR ONE DELUXE SC BOYS TP VOL 03 GOOD FOR THE SOUL DC UNIVERSE THE STORIES OF ALAN MOORE DMZ TP VOL 03 PUBLIC WORKS PREACHER TP VOL 01 GONE TO TEXAS NEW EDITION 57 ALL STAR SUPERMAN TP VOL 01 BUFFY SEASON 8 TP VOL 03 WOLVES AT THE GATE FABLES TP VOL 02 ANIMAL FARM HELLBOY VOL 07 THE TROLL WITCH & OTHERS TP LAST MUSKETEER SC PREACHER TP VOL 02 UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD NEW EDITION WANTED GN (NEW PTG) WE 3 TP 65 ARKHAM ASYLUM ANNIVERSARY ED SC CASANOVA TP VOL 01 LUXURIA EX MACHINA TP VOL 01 THE FIRST HUNDRED DAYS EX MACHINA TP VOL 02 TAG FABLES 1001 NIGHTS OF SNOWFALL SC FILTH TP PREACHER TP VOL 04 ANCIENT HISTORY NEW EDITION SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN VOL 1 TP SCOTT PILGRIM VOL 04 SCOTT PILGRIM GETS IT TOGETHER GN TOP 10 BOOK ONE TP 01 ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE TP 76 ALL STAR SUPERMAN HC VOL 01 CRIMINAL VOL 1 COWARD TP EX MACHINA TP VOL 03 FACT V FICTION FABLES VOL 9 SONS OF EMPIRE TP INVISIBLES TP #1 SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION VOL 01 (OF 7) PREACHER TP VOL 03 PROUD AMERICANS NEW EDITION 82 BATMAN AND SON TP BATMAN GRENDEL NEW PTG TP BERLIN TP BOOK 02 CITY OF SMOKE (MR) BPRD TP VOL 08 KILLING GROUND BPRD VOL 07 GARDEN OF SOULS TP FREAKANGELS TP VOL 01 (MR) HELLBOY VOL 02 WAKE THE DEVIL TP JOSS WHEDONS FRAY FUTURE SLAYER TP LOBSTER JOHNSON TP VOL 01 IRON PROMETHEUS NEW YORK FOUR PROMETHEA BOOK ONE TP VOL 01 WORLD WAR Z ORAL HISTORY OF ZOMBIE WAR SC 94 DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER BORN PREM HC DMZ TP VOL 02 BODY OF A JOURNALIST EX MACHINA TP VOL 04 MARCH TO WAR FABLES TP VOL 04 MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS HELLBOY VOL 04 RIGHT HAND OF DOOM TP JACK OF FABLES TP VOL 03 THE BAD PRINCE JEFFREY BROWN LITTLE THINGS SC MEMOIR IN SLICES PREACHER TP VOL 05 DIXIE FRIED NEW EDITION PRIDE OF BAGHDAD SC THE ARRIVAL GN WALKING DEAD VOL 07 THE CALM BEFORE TP

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Now, here's the same calculation sorted by dollars, instead, which changes some of the complexion of the list in fairly substantial ways. Suddenly you can see why $50+ HCs are being published!

1 WATCHMEN TP 2 Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 10 WHYS AND WHEREFORES 3 ABSOLUTE SANDMAN HC VOL 03 4 ABSOLUTE SANDMAN HC VOL 01 5 Y THE LAST MAN VOL 1 UNMANNED TP 6 FABLES TP VOL 10 THE GOOD PRINCE 7 COMPLETE PERSEPOLIS TP 8 BUFFY SEASON 8 TP VOL 02 NO FUTURE FOR YOU 9 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER LONG WAY HOME TP 10 BOYS TP VOL 02 GET SOME 11 WALKING DEAD TP VOL 08 MADE TO SUFFER 12 LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN THE BLACK DOSSIER HC 13 Y THE LAST MAN VOL 2 CYCLES TP 14 FABLES TP VOL 11 WAR AND PIECES (MR) 15 BATMAN THE KILLING JOKE SPECIAL ED HC 16 JACK KIRBYS FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS HC VOL 04 17 ABSOLUTE SANDMAN HC VOL 04 (MR) 18 THE FART PARTY TP 19 LOVE & ROCKETS NEW STORIES #1 Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 05 RING OF TRUTH Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 09 MOTHERLAND 22 SAM & MAX SURFIN HIGHWAY TP SANDMAN TP VOL 01 PRELUDES & NOCTURNES 24 HELLBOY TP VOL 08 DARKNESS CALLS POWERS VOL 11 SECRET IDENTITY TP 26 BLACK HOLE COLLECTED SC 27 ASTONISHING X-MEN TP VOL 4 UNSTOPPABLE V FOR VENDETTA TP 29 LOEG VOL ONE TP 30 UMBRELLA ACADEMY APOCALYPSE SUITE TP 31 Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 03 ONE SMALL STEP 32 SHORTCOMINGS HC 33 HELLBOY VOL 01 SEED OF DESTRUCTION TP 34 ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY VOL 18 HC 35 Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 07 PAPER DOLLS 36 ABSOLUTE DARK KNIGHT HC 37 STARMAN OMNIBUS HC VOL 01 38 SANDMAN TP VOL 02 THE DOLLS HOUSE 39 ABSOLUTE LOEG THE BLACK DOSSIER HC ABSOLUTE SANDMAN HC VOL 02 (JUN070259) (MR) 41 Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 08 KIMONO DRAGONS 42 Y THE LAST MAN VOL 4 SAFEWORD TP 43 BATMAN DARK KNIGHT RETURNS TP 44 BOYS TP VOL 03 GOOD FOR THE SOUL DC UNIVERSE THE STORIES OF ALAN MOORE 46 SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN TP VOL 02 47 BOYS TP VOL 01 48 WANTED GN (NEW PTG) 49 DMZ TP VOL 04 FRIENDLY FIRE Y THE LAST MAN TP VOL 06 GIRL ON GIRL 51 ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY HC #19 (MR) 52 COMIC BOOK TATTOO SC (C: 0-1-2) 53 LOEG VOL TWO TP 54 DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER BORN PREM HC 55 DMZ TP VOL 05 THE HIDDEN WAR 56 FILTH TP 57 ACME NOVELTY DATEBOOK VOL 2 HC 58 CRIMINAL TP VOL 02 LAWLESS 59 HELLBOY VOL 07 THE TROLL WITCH & OTHERS TP 60 LOST GIRLS DLX SLIPCASED ED CURR PTG WATCHMEN THE ABSOLUTE EDITION HC 62 HOWARD THE DUCK OMNIBUS 63 OMEGA THE UNKNOWN PREM HC 64 ALL STAR SUPERMAN HC VOL 01 INVISIBLES TP #1 SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION VOL 01 (OF 7) 66 GRENDEL GOD & THE DEVIL TP 67 ARKHAM ASYLUM ANNIVERSARY ED SC TOP 10 BOOK ONE TP 01 69 SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN VOL 1 TP 70 EX MACHINA TP VOL 07 EX CATHEDRA (MR) 71 KIRBY KING OF THE COMICS HC 72 FREAKANGELS TP VOL 01 (MR) 73 BONE ONE VOL ED SC 74 BATMAN GRENDEL NEW PTG TP BERLIN TP BOOK 02 CITY OF SMOKE (MR) JOSS WHEDONS FRAY FUTURE SLAYER TP 77 ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER HC VOL 01 CIVIL WAR TP 79 EX MACHINA VOL 6 POWER DOWN TP 80 BUFFY SEASON 8 TP VOL 03 WOLVES AT THE GATE 81 FABLES VOL 9 SONS OF EMPIRE TP 82 BATMAN YEAR ONE DELUXE SC PREACHER TP VOL 01 GONE TO TEXAS NEW EDITION 84 POWERS VOL 1 WHO KILLED RETRO GIRL TP (NEW PTG) 85 CRIMINAL TP VOL 03 DEAD AND DYING (MR) 86 THE ARRIVAL GN 87 PREACHER TP VOL 02 UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD NEW EDITION 88 MAKING COMICS STORYTELLING SECRETS OF COMICS MANGA & GN SC 89 BPRD TP VOL 08 KILLING GROUND BPRD VOL 07 GARDEN OF SOULS TP HELLBOY VOL 02 WAKE THE DEVIL TP LOBSTER JOHNSON TP VOL 01 IRON PROMETHEUS 93 BLACK SUMMER TP (MR) ANGEL AFTER THE FALL HC 95 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER OMNIBUS TP VOL 01 96 100 BULLETS TP VOL 12 DIRTY (MR) 97 JOKER HC 98 FABLES 1001 NIGHTS OF SNOWFALL SC PREACHER TP VOL 04 ANCIENT HISTORY NEW EDITION 100 BLANKETS GN (NEW PTG)

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Always willing to listen, if you have any thoughts on any of this!

-B

 

Tilting v3 #8 is up

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You can find it over on Comic Book Resources!

As noted in the article, you can also pre-order Tilting at Windmills v2 TP, with the end of my tenure at Comics & Games Retailer, as well as my entire run at Newsarama, from any store with a Diamond account by using the order code of DEC084122, thanks to the loverly folks over at IDW, hooray!

Go ahead and preorder that copy and put some pennies into my pocket!

Feel free to drop any comments here, as well...

-B