Retailing & Marketing

A piece at business site Fast Company has unveiled the new DC logo — and yeah, it's been chosen because it can be animated and — probably — make a sound. John Rood and Amit Desai, senior vice president of franchise management, roll out the new malleable, adaptable, interactive logo:

A snapshot of graphic novels bestsellers from BarnesAndNoble.com, taken at 3 PM, Monday, January 15, 2012.

Diamond has just hired Chris Powell to the slot of Executive Director of Business Development for the comic book specialty market (CBSM). Powell is a familiar industry figure due to his many years at Lone Star Comics and as the head of ComicsPRO, and as a CBLDF board member. This new position was advertised by Diamond last year, and Powell will work with Chuck Parker and Roger Fletcher to create new programs for comics retailers, with a stated goal of creating more brick-and-mortar stores.

Over at Publisher's Weekly, I was writing about how Marvel has trouble keeping their books in print and had some retailers tell me how Marvel's sales suffer for it. Now with Diamond's 2011 year-end sales charts coming out, WOW, do things look odd.

ICV2 has their December 2011 Diamond sales estimates up and the downward correction would appear to be continuing. The big debating point here would be DC returnability. IIRC, Diamond's been adjusting the numbers to allow for returns (10%?), but relatively few people believe that retailers are returning that much, when taken across the industry. So anything returnable is probably a little under-reported.

ComicsPRO, the retailer advocacy group, has announced the 2012 nominees for their third annual Appreciation Awards, which honors pioneers in the direct market:

It's been abut a year since we covered the launch of The Bonfire Agency, an ad agency devoted to respectful and appropriate branding to the geek market, as well as market research and consulting on industry mainstays including the CBLDF and New York Comic Con. In talking to founders Steve Rotterdam and Ed Catto a year ago it was evident that they not only had advertising matters on their mind, but also blank spots in the industry, such as getting more demographic information and helping publishers monetize via an ad network. As 2012 dawns, Bonfire has just made a new hire, Kris Longo who joins the firm as Vice-President, Advertising Sales & Business Development following a stint at DC Comics as Manager of Advertising and Custom Publishing. At Bonfire Longo will be majorly involved with ComicsUnited, an ad network for non Big-Two comics publishers that will sell ads across books from a number of publishers.

If you've watched any male-targeted TV programming in the last five years you know that it only takes one squirt of Axe body spray to turn the pudgiest sportsbar refugee into a rampaging sex god with the ladies. And now the cologne company has decided to turn to the comics audience with an interactive graphic novel. YOU can view the idea for Axe Anarchy in the above video -- basically normal looking schlubs and super hot women in the Brokeback pose. But all can contribute!

Today, we keep seeing attempts to bring back limited versions of the newsstand comics rack.  2011's Barnes & Noble program being the most prominent to get a little press.  Interestingly, in recent weeks, both Jim Shooter and Chris Clarement have made comments about the demise of the newsstand system.  Coming from these two, the opinions are a bit more interesting as both were on the top of industry when things shifted over from the newsstand to Direct Market in the early-to-mid-80s.

Sometimes it feels like people forget that different comic shops have different sales patterns, what with all the comments on the various industry websites. Challengers Comics + Conversation, a shop in Chicago with one of the higher profiles in that area, has released the top 200 sellers for 2011 in the both the monthly issues and graphic novel categories.

If you have $679,000.00 sitting around, you can buy Los Angeles's The Golden Apple, one of America's best known and longest running comics specialty stores. It's for sale on eBay right this minute. The sale price includes $300,000 in inventory in comics, games, toys and so on. You can make an offer. Founded back in 1979 by Bill Liebowitz, one of the leading retailers in the rise of the direct market of the '80s, The Golden Apple was a forward-facing store with a wide range of merchandise and a steady stream of events and signings - some of them historic. LA celebrity comics readers were regular customers over the years, and the store was frequently used as a film location when a comics shop was called for.

We've been running several e-tail items here on The Beat over the last few weeks but as the precious hours until Christmas morning tick away, there's no time to trust to the Post Office, so may we suggest a trip down to the local comics shop for some great gifts? Here are some stores with gift suggestions of their own: