Retailing & Marketing

Folks around the net are linking to the webcomic OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS by Mr. Tim.

This site depicts REAL things said to me (or at least near me) by customers in the comic book shop that I work in. These are real people. This is what they look like and this is something that they actually said.

Obviously, Mr. Tim is made of stern stuff.

Several readers were offended by this post, in which I snarked a bit on my old friend Kyle Baker for letting his name domain lapse. Although I know Kyle well enough to know he wouldn't have been bothered, I took down the post and contacted Kyle on Facebook (since his kyle@kylebaker.com email no longer worked) and we had a brief correspondence. And then he posted Whatever Happened To Kylebaker.com? which is a total history of the portfolio website and the internet in one. Basically he felt the website was out of date and supplanted by social media, and newer ventures were more business targeted:

Marvel held a press conference today with Senior Vice-President of Sales & Circulation David Gabriel, and VP-Executive Editors Axel Alonso and Tom Brevoort to talk about their newly announced "Point 1" initiative. Starting in February, 11 titles will have special ".1" issues that will serve as jumping on points for new readers. (See the end of the story for the complete list.) These issues will all feature standalone stories that will still lay the groundwork for the next year's plotlines. The initiative is definitely aimed at getting new readers on board, with a $2.99 cover price -– but subsequent issues, which will all ship the same month, will go back to the $3.99 price point.

Over at iFanboy, Josh Flanagan continues this week's succession of toilet metaphors for the monthly sales figures with "Q3 Comic Book Sales Are in the Crapper". We don't agree with Flanagan's overall distress -- there is no need to "cross fingers" that comics will get through this rough patch. Let's get one things straight in all this mishegoss: comics will continue on in some format either like or unlike the one we have today. Period. People have been proclaiming the death of comics for over 50 years and something new always comes along. The particular aspect of the present day comics industry that you or I are involved with may not make the jump but something else will. Them's the breaks.

That aside, the article is interesting for the comments section, which doesn't go for the knee-jerk complaint that big events are killing comics.

It's fitting that September's top selling comic features an image of Wolverine crouching atop a giant turd, because overall, sales were in the crapper, and the whole quarter was in the dumpster, ICv2 tells us. If you think we're exaggerating, the normally understated ICv2's use of the word "Sucked" is a strong indicator.

Marvel's solicitations came out today* and indsuytry watcher were standing by with microscopes to scrutinize a proposed 1) drop in the number of $2.99 books and 2) decrease in the number of books altogether. On #2, there seems to be some corroboration with what was said at the NYCC retail breakfast, according to Bleeding Cool, which does a big count of all titles in all families. Compared to December there is a 17 percent drop in the number of titles, and a 20 percent decrease in total cover price.

This piece byNathalie Atkinson on proper PR behavior has been widely quoted. Working for a widely read consumer publication -- The National Post of...

Over at She Has No Head, Kelly Thompson's market research project The Ladies Comics Projects reaches its third and final part with another selection of women of varying ages and comics-reading backgrounds who give detailed thoughts about comics they have selected to read. Some express enthusiasm in continued comics exploration but others are just not that into it -- but the percentage of each goes against the common wisdom, as Thompson sums up her findings:

The price rollbacks at Marvel and DC represent, as far as we can tell -- paging John Jackson Miller! -- the first time prices on comics have been significantly cut. iFanboy has a solid analysis of the page count and format issues but the log line is that:

Kelly Thompson has part 2 of her Ladies Comics Project up and we repeat THIS SHOULD BE MANDATORY READING for comics publishers and creators. The idea of giving comics-friendly but not necessarily conversant readers various comics is a bracing alternative to the endless nitpicking of constant readers who sleep on mattresses stuffed with shredded copies of DEATHMATE. For instance, 37-year-old event planner DeAnne was disappointed the cool pop art cover looked nothing like the insides:

As reported by Laura Hudson, at today's ICv2 conference, people were moaning about prices. :

The complaint of high prices was discussed as well, along with the statistics that the average cover price of a comic book in the second quarter of 2010 is now $3.53, up from $3.38 in 2009. "Overall, [fans] are paying more for the same type of content than they were two years ago," said Griepp.

Via Diamond Daily, (registered users only, alas) details of Diamond's day-early delivery plan which will see comics shipped to shops on Tuesday for Wednesday on sale. Key points: