Retailing & Marketing

Marvel promises to reveal something "explosive" on The View tomorrow. Is it Mark Millar's chili recipe? Is it who killed the Watcher? Is it...

It hasn't been the best couple of years for the last surviving book super-chain Barnes & Noble, but they are still in it to win it, and to tap into the big month of nerd-esque excitement surrounding San Diego, they've just announced "Get Pop Cultured" a month of events celebrating popular books, comics TV shows and movies. Events include Frozen sing-a-long, Matman Day, Marvel Day, and Comic Convention Collectibles weekend.

by Brandon Schatz There was a piece hovering around the comics internet this weekend about the industry’s supposed need of more shit-talkers. It was an...

by Brandon Schatz -- When you spend your days breaking open comic solicitations and marketing for a living, you begin to pick out patterns. A new...

by Brandon Schatz When Marvel first announced the Rocket Raccoon book, I was fairly excited. Pairing the character with Skottie Young just as interest would...

Comics design is something everybody appreciates whenever they walk into a store - in many cases, it's one of the central reasons why they...

by Brandon Schatz A few weeks ago, Marvel’s August solicitations revealed some alarming news: Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey would be leaving Moon Knight after...

I'm not exactly certain how many US comics shops can celebrate a 38th anniversary, but it isn't a whole lot. Fat Jack's Comicrypt is...

By Brandon Schatz Normally I abhor rumours, especially when I know my Wednesday will be nothing but addressing half-truths and lies that some over-glorified click...

Legendary Comics, the comics division of Legendary Entertainment, the movie studio owned by comics-loving Thomas Tull, has had an up and down history since...

by Brandon Schatz As the whispers from last week’s Diamond Retailer Summit turned into audible noise, it quickly became apparent that the rumours were true:...

There’s very little chance you’re at this site, reading this article about comic book retail, and do not have a working knowledge of recent comic book history. That said, it never hurts to add a little context to current events. So. In September of 2011, DC Comics relaunched their entire superhero universe with fifty-two brand new ongoing series functioning in a bright new continuity. Since then, the company has used September as a large-scale event month, using 2012 to flashback to the unexplored “early days” of the new continuity, and 2013 to unleash their villains across each and every one of their titles. Conceptually, there’s nothing wrong with this. The comic book industry thrives off of the occasional event as the eyeballs gained from the news of a line-wide disruption usually translates into higher profits. It was the reason why DC’s line-wide relaunch in 2011 was shatteringly successful for that month (and several after), and why their flashback month in 2012 garnered a slight bump in sales, despite a comparatively lower profile concept and easier execution.