Retailing & Marketing

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:

Now THIS is interesting. The other day we were talking about how the lack of strong demographic readership info is definitely felt in the comics space. It's not a scientific survey, but Kelly Thompson at She Has No Head has started something called the Ladies Comics Project where she asks her female friends -- some comics readers some not -- to pick and read a comic previously unknown to them and give their thoughts.

Or at least so says Flavorwire. Above, the great Quimby's in Chicago. Who would you nominate for best comic store?

We've often commented that a scientifically conducted reader survey of comics readership -- age, sex, race, income -- would be a very useful thing, especially now that there are more comics than ever, all with smaller readerships. Maybe it would show how that whole forty-year-old-virgin thing is going. Well according to this press release, maybe they are now 65 year old virgins. Simba Information has released the second edition of its ”Overview of the U.S. Comic Book and Graphic Novel Market” report and used the finding that 1 in 4 comics reader is over the age of 65 as their attention-grabbing headline.

Wow, New York is getting even crappier. News had been floating around for a bit, but a trip to their website confirmed that Giant Robot NY is closing next week. An offshoot of Giant Robot stores in LA and San Francisco, the East Village shop served as a gallery space for artists and cartoonists, as well as a place to snag books, toys, and wondrous gizmos. It was also the herald of the wave of Asian cultural influence that swept over the US in the last decade.

The business news website ICv2 isn't known for being hyperbolic. So when Milton Griepp said that this month's comics sales had "plummeted" everyone leaped up, screaming, knocking over chairs and spilling drinks everywhere.

Sales of comics and graphic novels through Diamond Comic Distributors dropped substantially in August with periodical comics falling 17% and graphic novels down 21%.  There wasn’t a single comic title even close to the 100,000 in August. 

If it weren't for the continued strength of SCOTT PILGRIM trades, the GN drop would have been even more grisly. On the periodical side, there was no big book, but, said ICv2, Certainly "the lack of one big title can’t account for everything." The grim details immediately set the punditocracy to arms, perhaps sniffing the hint of burning smoke in Tom Spurgeon's Doomapocalyptigeddon which he descried from his aerie high in the Misty Mountains, the same distant smell of charring paper and brimstone that we've been picking up for the last few weeks.