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His exact words: “What a fucking tool.”

Can’t you read?

Rakarich

I’m not sure if the better discount is always true. B&T does have a better stock (especially on manga) than Diamond, but they actually order some of their stock *from* Diamond, and as a result, their discounts are usually lower even on indie books when it comes to reorders. Unless you’re a smaller store, you’re likely to take a discount hit on anything you order from B&T. It’s relatively small, but it’s there and it does add up.

Which isn’t to say I don’t order from B&T every week, in fact I do, but it’s not all wine and roses there either. Granted, there is some returnability, but it’s not as easy as “OK, round up whatever we didn’t sell and decide we don’t want and send it back.” It’s another complicated task in an already crowded workday for most retailers.

Let me ask another question… Did Mr. Reynolds have to name 4KrazyKatz by name in his post? Did he have to put a link to the store’s website? Could he not be general and say he went to an LCS in the Washington State University area and still get his point across? Once again, bad form. This LCS owner is now getting slammed and I believe it is unfair to him.

For my part, if Mr. Reynolds had been in my store and had this bad an experience (and I don’t believe he would, but just saying if he did) I think I’d want to be named by name. At worst, it would allow me to know to defend myself and my conduct, at best, it gives me a lesson that allows me to improve my store’s service.

But then, I’ve never been a fan of the “Somebody in this room did something bad, so I’m going to tell you all not to do it” type of thing. It’s OK if everyone has done it at some point, and you’re wanting to make a general point, but if you want to tell one person to stop doing something, tell that person. Otherwise they’re going to assume you’re not talking about them. And worse, folks who didn’t do anything wrong are going to worry and wonder if they screwed up, when in fact they’ve been doing just fine.

I know if I read someone’s blistering account of a bad experience in an “Austin area store” I’d be paranoid that it was mine until I found out otherwise. I’d rather be called out if I did it, and left out of it if I didn’t. Generalizing in order to paint with an even wider brush (as many in the comments do, and Eric Reynolds specifically did not) seems more unfair to me.

“So with your comments, I am to assume you are saying that ‘respected industry member’ Reynolds DOES speak for all of FANTAGRAPHICS with his comments?”

No, I said pretty much the opposite of that.

“Let me ask another question… Did Mr. Reynolds have to name 4KrazyKatz by name in his post? Did he have to put a link to the store’s website? Could he not be general and say he went to an LCS in the Washington State University area and still get his point across? Once again, bad form. This LCS owner is now getting slammed and I believe it is unfair to him.”

Actually, I respect Eric for naming names. More people should. There’s way too much loaded argumentation and dubious example-making in comics discussion for the subject to be taken seriously without specifics. The only thing that would be unfair to the shop owner is if Eric made stuff up, or if he painted all the stores in Spokane for something that struck him about one.

“My I make a suggestion to Mr. Reynolds to pass along to the powers that be. Make your products returnable by LCS owners. I would bet a dollar to a donut that a bunch of LCSs would take more of a gamble on Indy books if they weren’t carrying the load by themselves. FANTAGRAPHICS could forge new ground in the Indy market if the made a bold move like this. WOuldn’t you agree?”

Fantagraphics attempted multiple returnable material efforts while I was there and offers their books on a returnable basis through at least one distributor right now.

It’s more difficult than you might think. Diamond isn’t really conducive to facilitating such efforts, which means a lot of stores can’t/won’t participate. Also, my knowledge of the modern direct market indicates that initiatives such as you describe may not be taken for their face value but are just as frequently strip-mined for advantages specific to that store.

In other words, it’s at least just as much the store culture as it is barriers to selling. You can have the greatest programs in the world, but if a store doesn’t want to sell something, it won’t. As we’ve seen from the years of abuse that Marvel and DC have inflicted on store owners, if a store wants to sell something, they will no matter how high the cost.

I’m all for stores selling whatever the heck they want — I’ve had a statement saying as much up on my site for about three years now — but I agree with Eric’s sentiment that not offering a wider array of comics at this point in the market’s progression could be seen as a sad thing (if someone with Eric’s job didn’t have that view, I’d fire them!) and that shops should be expected to have a rudimentary knowledge about their industry because of the nature of the market. That’s a systemic problem, by the way, not just on the stores.

TJ, I hope you’ll take Eric up on his offer. He’s not offering just to offer.

NO ONE PICK ON ERIC REYNOLDS! Pound for pound this guy has done more for comics in the last decade than almost anyone I could name.

Lots of diversity of titles and genres (I even carry some Fantagraphics and D&Q along with Top Shelf, Markosia, Avatar, IDW, Oni, Archaia, Antarctic, and many more. That’s just the publishers I can see from where I’m sitting), clean, neat, well-organized, well-lit, and I am a special order whore. (I’ve placed several while reading this blog)

I’ll bet there are many stores like mine all over the country, but no one hears about them. It makes for better reading when some store is raked over the coals for some (actual or imagined) slight, and it’s not something that is unique to our hobby/ business.

Thanks for the info. I didn’t know that

Dirk Deppey:
I know Diamond calls the shots in regards to their catalogue. I assume your point is Diamond holds all the cards in regards to how this industry prospers more so than any one LCS. To that point, I am in 100% agreement.

* I’m not including Marvel or DC in this, by the way — Diamond has no say in how they structure their deals with retailers, since the deals they have with Steve Geppi are brokerage deals, not distribution deals. Marvel and DC can do almost whatever they want, and Diamond is basically obligated to go along with it. Non-brokered publishers don’t have this luxury.

Which many store do.

So with your comments, I am to assume you are saying that “respected industry member” Reynolds DOES speak for all of FANTAGRAPHICS with his comments?

Let me ask another question… Did Mr. Reynolds have to name 4KrazyKatz by name in his post? Did he have to put a link to the store’s website? Could he not be general and say he went to an LCS in the Washington State University area and still get his point across? Once again, bad form. This LCS owner is now getting slammed and I believe it is unfair to him.

My I make a suggestion to Mr. Reynolds to pass along to the powers that be. Make your products returnable by LCS owners. I would bet a dollar to a donut that a bunch of LCSs would take more of a gamble on Indy books if they weren’t carrying the load by themselves. FANTAGRAPHICS could forge new ground in the Indy market if the made a bold move like this. WOuldn’t you agree?

My little “light a candle’ homily was directed at the doom-and-gloom commenters, who seem to pop up in every discussion about comic shops and wax righteous about the failures and the horrors of all comic shops everywhere, often using scurrilous “facts” and anecdotes to support their dire premonitions.

Eric Reynolds is one of the best friends a comic shop can have.

I’m not sure what the quotation marks around “personal opinions” in the 8:29 comment are supposed to mean. That’s not a direct quote from any of the comments posted here, and to suggest the other use of quotations, which is that somehow what Eric wrote aren’t personal opinions, but something else that are not personal opinions, is just weird.

For those of you who are tut-tutting Eric about his business conduct, first of all, most of you need to learn to read more effectively, particularly when it comes to discerning the difference between offering up a opinion in plain English, like Eric did, and suggesting a prescriptive according to comic book message board leaps of logic, as has been done for him.

Second of all, please note that Eric is as respected an industry member in American comic books as exists at any company, period. PERIOD. The most respected person you’re aware of that works in comics? As respected, but not more respected, than Eric Reynolds.

Eric was sad a comic shop owner with access to college students didn’t have a diverse store, and miffed that he was under-educated as to not know a same-state, perennial top 10 publisher that publishes comics featuring the character named after his store.

That’s all!

He’s not predicting failure for the store. He’s not suggesting stores blindly devote themselves to Indy-Alt content. He’s not suggesting this guy be tried in Nerd Court and be convicted of Not Supporting the Cause. He hasn’t suggested anyone is a tool.

That’s been done for him.

Eric had a disappointing experience at a store and talked about it on his blog. He works for an employer that allows employees to freely express their opinions on things, and he’s earned the right to say any damn thing he wants and to be heard, when he has time between kicking ass at his job and being offered positions at other companies.

Other than maybe the fact that it’s Eric saying so, which is worth noting, what he’s said is not that big a deal, even if there’s a long comment thread of people suggesting meanings that didn’t exist, or offering correctives to his behavior that fail to grasp that Eric’s been doing all those things for 14 years.

A guy who likes alternative comics had a crummy experience in a comics shop. I’m pretty sure this happened three times somewhere in the world during the time it took me to type this response.

In fact, and I am not in any way or shape linked to them and don’t even live in that city anymore, but the way a good comic book store should look like, with lots of teens, both boys and girls coming in, was COM-X in Nuremberg, Germany. Bright. With books of all genres, from the German albums to the US floppies to big walls filled entirely with Manga. And not only that, you could ask the people behind the counter almost anything, and believe you me, I was (and am) a difficult customer. But they knew what to recommend, they had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of pretty much all genres and they could recommend things based on their entertainment potential and not based on “but this is where the Hulk battles everybody, mmmkay?” notion.

Posting his experience on a business webpage will be interpreted by the masses as FANTAGRAPHICS opinion, not an individuals voice.

Who’s the tool?

Diamond is no longer the only game in town for these books and with an alternate source of stock like B&T or even setting up a separate account with the publisher itself, you no longer are hampered by the fear of taking complete risks on non-returnable books.