Retailing & Marketing

Filmmaker Anthony Desiato became so fascinated by the social scene at the local comic shop that he decided to make a documentary about it. "My Comic Shop DocumentARy" (SIC) explores Alternate Realities Comics in Scarsdale, NY and its owner, Steve Oto.

As we peruse the Google comics scanner, one warhorse is the "local comics shop profile." Here's a puzzling one from Maryland that examines how Gotham Comics in Westminster is hoping this summer's superhero movies boost the bottom line:

If you didn't get enough of '90s style hairdos in yesterday video epic, via Very Fine / Near Mint, another classic '90s video of a retailer roundtable on the cable access show The Chronic Rift. Three NYC-area retailers discuss advance reorders and the impending marriage of Superman. Of the stores mentioned, only Hanley's of Staten Island is still around.

By all accounts, it was one of the biggest Free Comic Book Days yet, with most stores reporting "sell-outs" early on and crowds and -- importantly -- SALES that rivaled their biggest days ever. It was also a media event as over 200 news stories show.

Discount coupon sites are all the rage, with Groupon headed for a $20 billion dollar public offering and Facebook and Google trying to get in on that action. But why should nerds be left out of the fun? The recently-launched Thwipster aims to be the Groupon for nerds, according to founder and CEO Lance Sells, with GNs, action figures, artists sketchbooks, webcomics and more available.

It looks like bookstores are getting so eager for new product categories that they are actually going back to the periodical market. Barnes & Noble, the still-standing book chain, is adding comics racks to its product mix, apparently in advance of this summer's comic book movie heavy slate. Bleeding Cool has an internal memo on the matter:

For a while now Marvel has been hyping a storyline called "The Death of Spider-Man" in Ultimate Spider-Man, with a denoument due in June. Well, this morning the NY Post broke the story and told everyone what was going to happen:

Congrats to Brian Heater of the Daily Cross Hatch on starting his new job as an editor at über-popular tech blog Engadget today. Just to show what adedicated blogger he is, in his week between jobs instead of lying around playing Red Dead Redemption, like we would, he took a few days off to go to Philadelphia and decided to visit a bunch of comics shops and write about them. Although there are a bunch of fine shops, the most intriguing -- to us -- is Locust Moon, which is based on the "New Model" of comics shop:

Over the past few years I've become very skeptical of all the talk about "saving comics" -- and I say that as someone who actually started a non-profit organization whose motto was "Here to save comics!" While this could be chalked up to my own ennui, I prefer to think of it as being practical.

After a year-long stint with Random House as their book distributor, Radical Publishing is back at Diamond, we are told by press release. The announcement is a bit of a no-brainer, considering that Radical was at last month's Diamond Retailer Summit.

Industry veteran Robert V. Conte has long been a behind-the-scenes comics player as owner of Chikara Entertainment, a print broker and book packager who helped with the shift to cheaper Chinese printing, which has allowed many of the lavish but affordable comics reprint series currently available. Conte has announced he's shutting down his business to spend more time with his family. However, he'll stay in the comics world as part owner (with Gary Esposito) of several retail concerns, Brooklyn Comics & More and Manhattan Comics & More, Inc. The latter took over the Cosmic Comics spot on 23rd St.

It's incredible what some Disney marketing dollars will do. Marvel has been running a big promo for their Avengers/Thor/Captain America/Iron Man movie franchise gaggle where you try out to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent -- they were running it in Chicago at C2E2 but it didn't get the attention it has here in San Francisco where we were awoken this morning by someone slipping the above promo piece into our room at the convention hotel, the Marriot Marquis.