Retailing & Marketing

Diamond has just announced that they'll be holding their retailer's summit this year in conjunction with C2E2 in Chicago, as they did last year. The Midwest location allows for access to a wide swath of retailers. This year's show will focus on the topic of attracting new customers, with a day of workshops and focus groups on Thursday, March 17th, and a retailer breakfast on the 18th. Diamond also announced participation at a variety of shows throughout 2011.

§ In the never-ending discourse over gender and comics, one of those classic anecdotes -- this one told by a man:

Speaking of the party's over, Brian Hibbs looks in the industry mirror and doesn't like what he sees:

Josh Blaylock is back and blogging. The publisher of Devil's Due, which seems to have gone on hiatus after selling many of its characters to Arcana, has moved to a tell-it-like-it-is blog and various ventures like his events company Pop Cultour. Although the most recent years of Devil's Due was filled with charges of non-payment to freelancers, no one can say Blaylock isn't a student of the game. He has some very good advice re S! corporations here, and another blunt post called Will February ’11 Be a Comic Book Direct Market Massacre? Like many industry watchers, he feels the price CUT coming in February is of some concern:

In all the puff pieces and half-baked profiles one comes across in searching the internet, this story on the financial troubles of Berkeley's Comic Relief ranks high on the list for out-and-out weirdness and omissions. What is not in dispute is that since the death of owner Rory Root in 2008, the store has gone into serious decline. The piece reports that since going in arrears to Diamond, the shop has not received new product from them in a month. Understandably, without new comics, customers are not clamoring to shop there. Closing is imminent unless a new buyer for the shop is found.

A Comic Shop down in Orlando is starting, a girls-only comics club -- PR below:

Well, this is a Christmas story with a happy twist: Cosmic Comics is not closing. Owner Mark Friedman wrote in to the Beat yesterday.

After 18 years in business, New York's Cosmic Comics is closing on Dec. 31st. A longtime fixture of the New York comics scene due to its location in the bustling Flatiron district and the former location of Marvel Comics, sales have been going down. The owner blames rising comics prices according to those who have spoken with him:

Over the years we've published links to many an analysis of convention sales -- what works, what doesn't, what is the real economics. But here's an interesting take from Tony DiGerolamo, writer of JERSEY DEVIL and several issues of BART SIMPSON for Bongo, and a webcomic called SUPER FRAT, among other things. His blog runs on The Webcomic Factory, a joint effort by DiGerolamo and Christian Beranek that publishes various webcomics. I couldn't find DiGeralamo's other writing credits easily on the site, but we hope it's fair to say he's one of those small publishers you see in various artist's alley who have small press genre books -- the kind of stuff that doesn't get as much attention as mainstream or art comics -- sometimes justifiably, sometimes not.

A good publicist makes a lot of friends, but it's safe to say that few comics publicists have as many friends as Alex Segura Jr. Last week Segura announced he was leaving DC Comics after four years as Publicity Manager, during which time he oversaw getting the word out about some crises, final and otherwise, and even some blackest nights. On Monday he announced his new position as Executive Director of Publicity and Marketing at Archie Comics, another comics institution which is going through many transitions following the deaths of its long time executive team, and new leadership under co-CEO Jon Goldwater. It seemed like a good time to ask Segura to look back and forward -- when we first met him, we were just starting a daily comics news site and he was a comics-loving copy editor for the Miami Herald. So much has changed with comics, marketing and Archie in that time, and Segura has been at ground zero for much of it, so who better to give us some insights on where things are going:

When the news of the cancellation of the well-liked THOR: THE MIGHTY AVENGER hit, there was the usual wave of hand-wringing and everyone had their own theory as to what killed it, who, and why. Rather than just sit around and make up own own ideas, we decided to go to the source and asked a few prominent retailers three questions:

This profile of the Seattle Fantagraphics store in a college newspaper gives us all a chance to admire their gold leaf signage, but it also presents yet another example of the eternal conflict of art and people with mustard in their goatees as they argue the merits of graphic novels in bookstores and what that means for bathroom privileges.