Much goings on about a recent Marvelinvestor conference in which John Turitzin, Marvel’s general counsel and EVP of the executive office, answers a fan’s question about their recent price rise by saying, more or less, they did it to maximize their profits, not because they HAD to. Robot 6 and Rich Johnston have much fuller accounts of the conference, including reax from fans who are shocked, SHOCKED, that Marvel is admitting they are trying to raise their profits! Especially when folks like Dan Buckley and Joe Quesada usually say things like “rising costs…paper costs…blah blah.”

Admittedly, the timing, what with worldwide economic Chernobyl and all, is a bit dicey. You can fit Marvel and DC’s price increases into the “Twilight of the Pamphlets” scenario — Turitzin says as much by mentioning an “inelastic” fan base, which doesn’t really shrink or grow much — with pamphlet sales stalled or falling, it’s the only way to raise money.

Rather than putting too much weight on an impromptu comment by a seasoned exec, let’s look at the slideshow accompanying the conference call. Frankly, we’ve been listening to these things for YEARS and we’ve never seen so much emphasis put on the publishing arm — which produced 25 percent of Marvels profits, we’re told. This slide explains where the money comes from (click for a larger version.)

Notice how “Digital Comics” are now part of the profit mix? And there is “upside potential.” So, publishing is no longer Marvel’s little division in the corner. It has to pull its weight in the mix, and that means…rising profits.

§ Another big Marvel story going around that’s a bit more complicated than we can really get into in a brief posting is the Captain America #600/Reborn #1 story. This first came to our attention via a column by Brian Hibbs where he was complaining about the solicitation/sales divide. Briefly, Marvel will not reveal anything at all about the contents of REBORN #1 — except that it’s by Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch — and the fact that the Brub is involved makes everyone think it has something to do with Captain America. Plus..REBORN…duh.

When Cap died, it was big, front page news a few years ago, and evidently, Marvel is planning another media storm — however, the story has to be embargoed or there will be no story, so they can’t reveal anything about it before June 15th. Which means retailers must order it blind, which is why Hibbs was complaining — it MAY be a big Obama/Death of Cap-like media storm that drives folks into the stores, but how will anyone know ahead of time? PLUS. on that day the Octomom could run into Kate and Jon in the Pampers aisle while Newt Gingrich looks on, and every other news story would be relegated to page 27.

Marvel listened to the retailer ire over what they considered a gamble, and recognizing that there could be a better way, Marvel made two pretty huge changes. #1, REBORN #1 will have a final order cutoff that is AFTER June 15th, a week later than it normally would have been. This means if the big event doesn’t come off, retailers have some wiggle room.

PLUS, even more amazingly, Marvel is allowing retailers to sell CAPTAIN AMERICA #600 on MONDAY, JUNE 15th just in case that big news story comes off. This isn’t without some problems — as retailer James Sime points out, CAP #600 already HAD its final order cutoff, meaning retailers can’t order more…they can just sell it early. (Apparently there will be a a second printing available, however, so even here Marvel is trying to get more copies into stores.)

On the one hand, Marvel does seem to be trying to help retailers in an awkward situation. We know how these embargoes work, and if some little blog were to announce tomorrow that Cap is coming back as a Marvel Ape, the big media campaign would be scrapped. On the other hand, we can totally see why retailers don’t like relying on a stunt and ordering blind. So it’s just kind of a gamble for everyone.

This leaves two mysteries. #1, What’s the deal with Cap anyway? Will it be the black Captain America, as some speculate? OR a girl? Or Steve Rogers? Or a MONKEY? Who knows.

#2, Where is this story being planted? Cap’s death took off when it appeared in the New York Daily News, a commuter tabloid. Would that be enough to kick off a mass pilgrimage to the comics shop? Guess we’re gonna hafta just wait..and see…

As if psychically answering our call yesterday for solutions instead of salvos, retailer Brian Hibbs confronts the Warlord of Io Situation with a look at every aspect of the comics chain, from publishers on through distributors and why they are unlikely to work.

It’s a sensible, real world-based look at the problem, although Hibbs kinda lost us right at the top with this:

But if you say “I’ll just wait for the trade”, you’re automatically decreasing the size of the audience. Why? Because: x% of you will keep waiting even once the work is out. Another x% of you is going to balk at the prices needed to finance “OGN” work. Another x% of you are going to completely forget that the work is being produced — if LOVE & ROCKETS is produced only once a year, where’s the percentage for the Hernandez Brother’s readership to come in looking for L&R more than once a year? ONCE YOU BREAK THAT PURCHASING HABIT, it is extremely hard to get it going again. If you’re only looking once a year for something, then you’re just as likely to only think of it every 18 months, 24 months, whatever.

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Everyone is justifiably linking to this post at The Comics Reporter as a passionate response to the ongoing winnowing at Diamond that is removing books like James Turner’s WARLORD OF IO from its catalog and why this is bad for EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US.

Unfortunately, what should be the jewel in the crown of multiple comics markets is more like a lump of coal shaped by arbitrarily applied market forces and short-term decision-making into something resembling an armless bust of Black Bolt. The end result is that despite an artistic flowering and sustained high level of craft that might shame any previous era of comics-making, it’s harder than ever to find many comics in the place where for now they should be really easy to find: the shops devoted to them.

While it’s impossible to disagree with Spurge’s basic points — having WARLORD OF IO around is a good thing for comics — every time we read one of these stories, our own problem solving app is involuntarily switched on. The primary point, for us, anyway is this: The comics shop system as serviced by Diamond is no longer (or perhaps never was) an effective way for James Turner to market his books to his readers.

So the question becomes: Can the LCS system be changed to become an effective system to sell WARLORD OF IO? And if they can’t…what can?

Fans, pros, retailers — feel free to post your experiences and observations.

Preliminary reports are good, with many stores reporting sales UP from last year. Given the economy, this is pretty remarkable, so let’s share the good news!

Matt Price at Speeding Bullet Comics in Norman, OK decided to live blog again:

11:45 a.m.: Response to the “Wolverine” film is mixed among the fans filtering in for FCBD. Most of them are excited about “Star Trek,” which has comic-book tie-ins from IDW but nothing specifically for Free Comic Book Day. Probably the fact that Colin Warde, who worked in Los Angeles on the Star Trek auctions, is appearing here this afternoon, is adding to the Star Trek buzz at this location.

Noon: While there has been rain here and there in the first two hours, so so far it doesn’t look like the rain is keeping anybody away. Still hasn’t been much of a letup of people since the doors opened at 10 a.m.

12:15 p.m.: I know a lot of Nerdage readers are also Sterling Gates fans — he’s signing today with Geoff Johns at Atomic Comics in Arizona. Atomic knows how to put on an event, so those guys should have quite a turnout.

1 p.m.: There hasn’t been much of an opportunity to catch a breath, here, but it’s been great to see so many people coming through and having fun.

Image above from Vinh-Luan Luu at More Fun Comics in Denton.

It’s the annual comic book holiday…and they even give them away for FREE.

It’s a day of signings and sightings and fun and frolic for all. Find the event nearest you here. Get out there, get some comic books, and have some fun!

That app for iPhones for finding the nearest comics shop that we told you about a few days ago is now available on iTunes. Via PR:

In a move promising tremendous benefits for comic book specialty shops, Diamond Comic Distributors and iVerse Media have joined forces to create a special “app” for Apple® iPhone® and iPod Touch® that puts the power of the Comic Shop Locator Service (CSLS) in the hands of consumers – for FREE.

“We’re entering a new phase with the Comic Shop Locator Service and we’re excited to expand its reach to customers using mobile and GPS devices like the iPhone,” said Dan Manser, Diamond’s Director of Marketing. “With the help of iVerse Media, this helps extend Diamond’s position as an e-marketing innovator.”

“At iVerse we’re committed to helping publishers sell more comics to new and existing readers, both digitally and in print.” said iVerse founder Michael Murphey. “By partnering with Diamond on innovative mobile solutions like the CSLS iPhone App, we can do just that. “

An outgrowth of the strategic partnership between Diamond and iVerse, and just the first of many planned initiatives, the new Comic Shop Locator Service application is available for free download from the iTunes store and compatible with iPhones and iPod Touch. Combining the searchability and interactive map features of the web-based ComicShopLocator.com, iVerse Media’s version also offers the ability to pinpoint your exact latitude and longitude via the iPhone’s GPS capabilities, giving you the closest possible participating comic shops, even if you don’t know the ZIP code.

Of course, users can still search for stores by entering a ZIP code, just like the original 888-COMIC-BOOK number or website version. Like those earlier resources, the new iVerse CSLS app draws information from a database of hundreds of comic shops worldwide, expanding the cutting-edge service that has been connecting consumers with comic book retailers since 1996. Since its inception, the CSLS has given out referrals to more than one million consumers, driving thousands of fans into comic book specialty shops.

Once the closest shops are located and beamed to your iPhone or iPod Touch– giving you the store name, street address, city, state, ZIP, phone number and distance – you have the option of calling the store of your choice or viewing the location in Maps, all at the touch of a button. Future plans include an International version of the Comic Shop Locator app, widening the Service’s reach even further.

For more information and to download the free Comic Shop Locator iPhone App, go to  or

Hm. Check out this video we found for what looks like a demo of a Comics Shop Locator app for the iPhone. In the demo, the demonstrator uses both GPS and typing in a zip code to find nearby stores. The poster is listed as Diamond Comics, so you can probably figure out who’s behind it.

Definitely handy.

§ In an interview with Percy Carey, musician/actor/model Tyrese Gibson (above) reveals how he got caught up in the glamorous, exciting world of comics books.

Tyrese Gibson: I have always been open minded to new things, and I’ve said this a few times: I’m no comic book veteran, but when I went to ComiCon to promote Death Race, that energy out there really did something to me. I had no idea…So that’s when I decided I wanted to not only be a part of this world, but I wanna create something that I know the die hard comic book followers out there would appreciate.

Gibson was so starstruck that he is getting on board the comics train with his OWN creation, something called MAYHEM, which doesn’t have hasn’t announced a publisher yet. If you took every interview with a celebrity where they explain how awesome comics are and how much they love them, threw them in a stew pot and made a nice reduction of them, you would get this interview. In fact, we don’t even really need to link to them any more, but then we would have no reason to go searching for pictures of Tyrese Gibson any more. So it’s a real win/lose situation.

§ Director Michel Gondry says that cartoon collaboration with Daniel Clowes is still on:

CS: What about the stuff you were going to do with Daniel Clowes, is that still going to happen sometime?
Gondry: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we (doing) a cartoon, an animated film that I co-directed with my son, called “Megalomania,” and it’s being produced by Curious Pictures in New York. Dan Clowes wrote the screenplay and we have Steve Buscemi doing the voice of the main character. I guess I will do that more efficiently after “The Green Hornet” but they already started to work on it.

§ Alex Ross has been named the first guest at next year’s C2E2, the new Chicago-based comics convention being put together by Reed Exhibitions, the guys who bring you the New York Comic-Con. Reed also threw a big launch party in Chicago last night, and we’re sure someone blogged about it somewhere.

§ According to Mel Caylo’s Twitter, he’s just joined Archaia Studios Press:

Just accepted a marketing position with Archaia Studios Press, publisher of MOUSE GUARD. It’s great to be back!

Thanks to everyone for the congratulatory wishes. I’m excited to work for Archaia! Best part? I get to stay in LA!

Caylo was formerly with Wizard and Top Cow.

§ Jud Meyers of the comic shop Each-2 writes a customer’s turn to the dark side:

Tom and Sheila began to change. She became more vocal about what he purchased and his irritation with her grew.

“Do you really need two of those?” Sheila would say.

He’d reply, “Do you ever not get the things you want?”

She’d roll her eyes and scoff, holding her tongue in public.

Eventually, as is usually the case with these types of scenarios, they would stand at my register and hear the words I’ve so often spoken in my time in retail.

“I’m afraid your card’s been declined.”

They would whisper to one another, shrug it off and hand me a different piece of plastic that would work. Or not.

§ Following up on a story we linked to the other day, in his regular Q&A session at Newsarama, Dan DiDio clarifies Mike Kunkel is stil on BILLY BATSON:

19. Finally – can you clarify what’s going on with Mike Kunkel and Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam?

DD: Sure – he’s not leaving it. That all was started with me trying to make an announcement from a panel audience because Art and Franco were there. What happened was that we wanted to get Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam back on a monthly schedule. Because of that, we’re very well aware that Mike could not deliver on a monthly schedule, but we wanted to make sure that the book kept coming out, so we lifted Art and Franco to be writing team on the issues that Mike can’t be there for. We’ve got two more issues by Mike that he’s working on now, and once they’re ready to go, we’ll be soliciting those as well. So Mike is by no means away from Billy Batson right now – we just wanted to get our kids books on a monthly schedule, so we had to use two different teams on this.

§ In other retail news, A new version of MOBY, the POS software, has just been released.

Now that the New York Times‘ online-only Graphic Books Chart has been around for a month or so, people are beginning to wonder just how the heck it works. It’s almost like one of those steampunk automatons — shiny and mysterious at the same time, and no one quite knows where it came from.

Kevin Melrose kicked things off by wondering how come a TWO YEAR OLD book (DARK TOWER) could suddenly unseat WATCHMEN and then slink back into obscurity the very next week. Chris Butcher jumped in and declared the list broken, and suspected that the NYT was using Diamond sell-in numbers. To back that up, he had pretty powerful evidence:

So how did we end up with Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born on the list? That’s tricky. Marvel is a very litigious company, and has all sorts of warnings about reproducing their private personal information in public. Blah blah blah. So, let’s talk about me instead, because I doubt even Marvel would be able to argue that retailers aren’t allowed to talk about their own businesses. So: There was a time period last month where I ordered Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born and received a higher-than-average discount on that book, and for every copy I ordered, I got another copy of the book for free. I did this, it happened, and I am talking about my actions as a retailer (litigious!). So the week that all of those discounted copies and free copies of Dark Tower that I ordered shipped to me, the book ALSO appeared on The New York Times Graphic Novel Bestseller list. Do you see the correlation there?

A lively comment section ensued, and Tommy Raiko chimed in with a kind of Occam’s Razor observation:
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While offline (randomly) for two days, we missed the biggest story ever on Twitter, #amazonfail, which is, depending on who you listen to, a technical “glitch” or a incredibly clumsy attempt on Amazon’s part to remove potentially “offensive” material, which ended up being mostly gay-themed literature.

As covered by every media outlet in existence, the problems began Sunday when people noticed that Amazon had removed the sales rankings from gay- and lesbian-themed books. Since the sales rankings are the method by which books go into the search function, this meant that tons of books — from prize-winning classics by James Baldwin, to Heather has Two Mommies — were suddenly unavailable on Amazon. The NY Times has a detailed report on the whole story, and Amazon’s new explanation that it was “an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error” that had caused 50,00 books — not just GLBT books, to be removed.
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As planned for over a year, Dark Horse and Image are joining the ranks of “FOC” publishers at Diamond. Already used by Marvel and DC, “Final Order Cut-Off” allows retailer to raise or lower orders right up until print time in accordance with changing factors, such as increased publicity, or negative reaction to previous issues. Diamond’s PR below:

Dark Horse Comics and Image Comics — including Image Central and Top Cow Productions — have announced that they will implement new Final Order Cut-Off (FOC) programs, effective with products carrying an FOC Date of Thursday, April 23.

“We’re very pleased that two more of our Premier Suppliers have joined the FOC system” said Diamond VP-Marketing & Sales Roger Fletcher. “The change is a welcome one for retailers who rely on FOC to adjust their orders and manage their purchasing and buying decisions in a timely manner.”

The new system allows retailers greater flexibility to increase, decrease and even cancel orders up to the FOC date, which will be Thursdays at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. (The same date/time as other participating publishers.) Product will generally reflect FOC Dates with a 20-day adjustment window, meaning that an item carrying the April 23 FOC Date is scheduled to be on sale Wednesday, May 13.

“We are pleased to announce this move to the FOC,” said Dark Horse Comics President Mike Richardson. “As every comics retailer knows, times are tough. It is important that Dark Horse not only support them with great product, but with our best efforts to make their ordering decisions as easy as possible. This system will help every retailer who orders Dark Horse product and should lead to better business for all of us.”

“We’ve been enthusiastic about implementing FOC for quite some time now,” Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson said. “FOC allows retailers to test the waters with our all of our new projects, whether they’re by seasoned veterans or comics’ newest names with limited risk while still getting all the benefits of supporting a series from the floorboards up.”

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A few ruminations on the Fate of the Pamphlet:

• Chris Butcher catches the same Chris Oliveros quote that we did and has some thoughts on it:

I’m just like ranting here, but yeah. It’s really, really hard for a graphic novelist to lock themselves up for a year or two, with little-to-no feedback and an ever-dwindling advance, and crank out a book. Back in the old days, the serialization of Louis Riel or Berlin or Optic Nerve provided feedback, interaction, and occasionally periodic injections of cash, all of which made it just a little bit easier to be a graphic novelist. Er, comic book artist. Cartoonist? Illustrator? What did people call themselves in 1996? I was still in highschool.

• At Rocket Bomber, Matt Blind has a long essay examining why the business model has to change:

Times were different then. Not Simpler, not Better, just Different. And while I went through puberty and slowly figured out first that girls were different, and then that girls were fantastic, and then that girls just don’t like me much, the Direct Market for Comic Books was also maturing and comic shops as an entity came into their own, crashed, came back — and even today soldier on.

The ‘drugstores’ of American legend are gone — subsummed into a morass of embedded pharmacies in supermarkets (and Wal-Marts) and 24-hour convenience stores that just happen to also employ pharmacists. Unless you live on Manhattan or within cell-phone-tower range of the exact center of your local Metropolitan Statistical Area you likely have no idea what a ‘newsstand’ even is (or was). Today, if not found on the checkout aisle at the grocer, magazines are bought at the local big box bookstore (as a concept, themselves not even two decades old yet) and comics are bought at a Local Comic Shop, if you bother, or collected into graphic novels which are readily available online and occasionally found on a front-of-store display at BigBoxBooks for an impulse buy. The landscape has changed.

While the idea that “comics do well in a recession” is being sorely tested by the ongoing global economic meltdown, the comics industry really does seems to be riding out the storm better than most sectors. The boisterous moods at New York Comic-Con and WonderCon and the faster-than-ever sellout of this year’s San Diego Comic-Con have created the idea of a “fantasy economy” that is very much a standout in gloomy times.

For comparison, check out this report from PW on a DIFFERENT kind of recent book fair:

Stacks of unsold books and glum publishers stood for three days inside the cavernous Dallas Convention Center this past weekend at the Christian Book Expo, a first-of-its-kind event designed to connect publishers and authors directly with readers in the evangelical Christian market. Only problem was there were few readers to connect with, despite the show’s location in Dallas, the buckle of the Bible Belt and a top market for Christian publishers. The show, sponsored by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, attracted 1,500 consumer attendees; it had hoped for 15,000-20,000.

Off the record, exhibitor publishers rolled their eyes heavenward, but spoke with circumspection on the record. “Every new experience has a few nicks and bruises, but things can be worked out,” said Greg Petree, v-p of marketing at Howard Books. A few were more blunt. “We can’t afford these kinds of risks,” said Dennis R. Hillman, publisher at Kregel Publications. “In a year like this the last thing we want to do is something that has no payoff.”

The Christian book market has been one of the fastest growing and stable over the last decade or so; bestseller sales dwarf those of comics bestsellers. Yet people will flood out to see the authors of periodicals that sell barely 10,000 copies a month. Interesting.

By a strange quirk, two big meetings are taking place today that reflect the two branches of the comics industry as it’s evolving.

Up in Easthampton, MA, the New England Webcomics Weekend is taking place, a Woodstock like gathering of webcomickers from around the nation that we’re sure will plot a course to take comics to the 22nd century and beyond in no time flat. If we didn’t have all this other crap going on, we’d be up there for sure, plotting away with everyone else, but in the meantime, we welcome all reports. The Boston Phoenix had a nice preview:

Fans will gather at the New England Webcomics Weekend on March 20 through 22. Originally planned as a small, informal gathering, the event has snowballed into a sort of Web-comics Woodstock — but in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

“We wanted to have a few of our friends who did Web comics come out for the weekend, show them the area, and tell them how we organize our business,” says Meredith Gran, one of the show’s instigators. “But . . . the response was massive.”

In fact, registration has been officially closed because of parking restrictions, so chances of getting in at this point are dicey. (Gran promises, though: “This will definitely be a yearly thing.”) At press time, more than 700 artists and fans are scheduled to descend on the Eastworks Building, a converted factory at 116 Pleasant Street in Easthampton, where they’ll buy and sell merchandise and attend panels and a Web comics award show.

MEANWHILE, down in Memphis, the annual ComicsPRO meeting is winding up, as DC makes lots of announcements (see separate post) and forward thinking comics retailers plan THEIR 22nd Century futures. Matt Price is regularly reporting on the goings on:

Not all was rosy, however. The overall economic slump had affected some locations. Furthermore, logistic problems with a large supplier have become more pronounced in recent weeks. And, something on many stores’ minds is the question of how digital content will impact the comic book industry.

More as it develops.

In today’s PW Daily, Calvin Reid write that DC will expand its After Watchmen promotion with even more titles (including collections), co-op advertising and social networking:

The After Watchmen program will initially focus on a list of about 20 book collections—from other works by Alan Moore to such works as Bill Willingham’s Fables to Brian K. Vaughan’s Y The Last Man—likely to appeal to new fans as well as to established comics fans looking for something new. The program will include the launch of, AfterWatchmen.com, a new Web site set to launch on March 11 (the site will feature an expanded list of 50 titles) and a 32-page After Watchmen, Whats Next? booklet which will highlight the list of After Watchmen titles. Among the 20 titles on the initial After Watchmen list are Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis, Garth Ennis’s Preacher, Brian Azzarello’s Joker; Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. The program will also include co-op advertising programs, e-mail newsletters, new groups on Facebook and MySpace and national consumer advertising.

As we mentioned when the program was first announced, this is a smart move to take advantage of Google if nothing else, and a nice, reality-based program to rope in a few of the newly baptized WATCHMEN fans into becoming more serious comics readers.

Over at Robot 6, writer Ken Marcus (SUPER HUMAN RESOURCES) has a long list of marketing tips that, in the Post-Benchmark era, will need to be heeded more than ever, as he faces harsh facts:

People do not care about you. Not readers, not retailers, not the press and maybe not even your publisher. No one gives two turds about your book except for you. (The publisher thing isn’t really true, but regardless, this NEEDS to be your working mindset.) So making other people give two turds about your idea rests solely on your shoulders. That’s another way to say “marketing.”

If you build it, they will ignore it. Look, there are too many baseball diamonds in too many fields in that Previews catalog. And most of them look better than yours. Too many people think they can send their files off to the printer and book their table in San Diego. Nope. You’ve created your book. Now comes the hard part.

You’re getting great press when your comic comes out. AKA, you’re ‘effed. This is the No. 1 thing I don’t get. Creators doing all their interviews and previews the month their comic is out. Indy comics are all about pre-ordering. Getting people to ask their LCS for your comic the month it’s in Previews. This is the already-on-life-support lifeblood of indy comics. You have a few weeks before your issue #1 hits Previews and through the rest of that month. That is your sweet spot for pushing all your press and PR.

There much more, equally common sense advice, but the last bit we quoted is both accurate and frustrating. The disconnect between marketing to the comics shop retailers who are the customers for Diamond and most comics publishers, and marketing to the people who are the customers of the comics shops is still a wide one. In a world of tiny margins, it’s a hard one to negotiate.

Or as someone very smart about comics we were talking to the other day told us, in complaining about the ideas of some publishers, “They think an interview in Newsarama is all they need.”

As the swallows return to Capistrano, as the bats return to Colossal Caves, as the wildebeest migrate across the Serengeti, and the alewives return to Lake Damariscotta, so we celebrate the season with the annual Hibbs/MacDonald/Deppey BookScan debate. Here’s last year’s bout from The Beat, with many of the same competitors taking part in this Soap Box Derby of sales figures. TRADITION!

Today, over at Journalista, Dirk offers his annual disclaimer and you can tell he’s serious because he uses words like “proffered.” He also tweaks Hibbs a bit by quoting very, very similar passages by Hibbs vis-à-vis indie/art comic sales from every year since 2003. Dirk finds the smoking gun of Hibbs’s ulterior motives right here in the Beat comment section:

Actually, I’d characterize my argument as “the argument that ‘oh but if only we could get “lit comics” out of the stinky dirty backwards Direct Market, then everything would be light and honey forever and ever, amen!’ is pretty demonstrably wrong”

and then spends a good few paragraphs circling, stabbing, stamping, yelling “Ugga! Bugga” and while still failing to refute anything.

Look, I don’t want to live in a world where L&R #1 sells only 719 copies in bookstores. But before anyone goes any further with all this “It’s a guess, it’s wrong, it doesn’t add up” stuff, let’s look at one fact about the BookScan numbers. While they DO NOT measure all book sales across all channels, they do measure 100% of sales in approximately 70 percent of bookstore channels. So by any standard, it is a metric for comparison, analysis and debate.

In order to prove that BookScan is wrong, Dirk dons his sleuth hat:

Hibbs’ claim that Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 sold just 719 copies, however, motivated me to e-mail Fantagraphics’ Gary Groth, Kim Thompson and Eric Reynolds to find out if they could add some light to all the heat. While I suppose it’s possible that Hibbs’ BookScan reportage might turn out to be true, it struck me as being unlikely. Still, one must investigate, and the resulting email exchanges seemed to produce light and heat in equal amounts: Not because the Fanta staffers were dissembling or in any way less than forthcoming, but because the nature of the mass market essentially makes even the vague sort of instant tallying one expects from the Direct Market to be impossible in the short term. Short of absolute disaster, any attempt to figure out how a given title has done in the returnable booksellers’ market within its first year of release inevitably turns out to be little more than guesswork.

So is that dissembling or not? Sounds like it to me. Dirk goes on to present the Internet version of a school film on the publishing business, explaining how mighty catalogs roll out and orders are placed, and books are sold and returns are made, and it’s all a great unknowable system of terror and awe, but just to reiterate, BookScan sales are via UPC scans, so they are not guesswork at all They are sell through in a certain percentage of the retail market.

That said, of course there are other channels and other markets. It would be interesting to see what Reynolds, Groth, and Thompson all had to say on the topic in a neutral ground, but unfortunately Dirk just quotes them in random bits so it’s hard to see context.

And in the end, what’s sauce for the autobio cartoonist is sauce for the spandex superhero. Groth suggests that

It doesn’t make any sense to differentiate libraries from bookstores; they both buy books from the same wholesaler(s) at the same price. It’s like differentiating chain stores, indies, PXes, big box stores or any other particularized sales destination.

That’s certainly true, but that means you also have to count SUPERHERO and MANGA sales to libraries, and no one wants to do THAT do they?

Another place where I think Dirk gets fuzzy is here:

According to Groth, there are currently over 10,000 copies of Willie & Joe in play outside the Direct Market, while the figure that Hibbs quotes BookScan as giving for it is just 5485 copies. While more returns are likely, we’re nonetheless talking about a title that’s been in the marketplace for nine months and counting. At this point, one could be justified in assuming that it’s a good way over the hump. And if that number winds up holding steady, we’re talking about not a 10% difference, not a 30% difference, but somewhere near a 100% difference between BookScan and the real world. What will the end figure wind up being, do you think? 90% off the mark? 80%? 70%?

That is categoricaly not true. Once again, Bookscan measures sell-through, the number of books that have been purchased by consumers, whether via a bookstore or an online retailer. 10,000 is the sell-in number. It’s the reason why you will walk into a bookstore and SEE a copy of Willie and Joe on the shelf while browsing. That sell-in has not yet been converted to sell-through. Later in the piece, Groth mentions that publishers can expect a third of books sold-in to be returned, which is indeed about industry average. (20 percent returns is considered a very good number.) It is quite likely that many of the FBI books that are on shelves but not sold to consumers are at indie bookstores where the publisher is a favorite and the individual owners believe in the titles. Heroes and visionaries, you might say.

Where I do agree with Dirk is that if selling graphic novels into bookstores wasn’t profitable for Fantagraphics and D&Q, they probably would have gone out of business some time ago. Or as I wrote the other day, 

I can also attest that sometimes selling only 2000 copies on BookScan is perfectly okay. Anything in five figures is probably very profitable, and numbers far lower than that could also make money or break even. I have no idea what the golden number is — it undoubtedly varies from book to book and publisher to publisher.

To me the question is still how to get sell copies of the good stuff to people who would enjoy it? L&R #1 may have sold-in 4000 copies, but can it sell-through more? Can Bill Mauldin sell more copies? Can Tatsumi?  Can Tezuka?

Every year when these numbers come out, there is some bristling from the indie community (probably partially brought on by Hibbs’ taunting on the subject) on the fact that superhero comics appear to sell more in the stores measured by BookScan than indie/art comix do. On the surface it seems bad, but I assure you, there are lots and lots of books from Marvel, DC and book publishers that sell in numbers just as “bad” or worse. As mentioned above, everyone’s magic number of profitability is different. I’m not going to embarrass anyone, but you know who you are.

What needs to be understood by a lot of people (and this is something I myself have only begrudgingly accepted) is that not every comics “classic” is really a timeless classic that speaks to generation after generation. All of the reissues that come out in 2008 really proved that, but this is a subject I hope to return to shortly in a more focused manner.

And this hopefully concludes this year’s installment of The BookScan Debates. Until next time!

Let’s take a closer look at the five books, shall we? And, by “take a closer look” I mean, of course, “second-guess” and “nitpick.”
— J. Caleb Mozzocco on the “After Watchmen” promotion from DC.

§ At PW Comics Week, Ada Price surveys s bunch of comics retailers o see how they’re doing and the old “cautious optimism” line is used again. But “selectivity” may be the word we all deal with the most in these trying times.

Much like their customers, retailers are being very careful with ordering inventory. Thornton said that in the past he would order a book, “if it looked cool, I’d try it out. Now if I’m not 100% sure [I can sell it], I don’t order it.” Meltdown Comics’ Rosa said that rather than order 100 titles, now he only orders seventy to seventy-five. Furthermore he said he is “cautious of taking chances on new things,” so instead of ten copies of a small press book, Rosa said he will cut down and take five or six.

Forbidden Planet’s Ayers echoed the others. “I’ve tempered newer stuff and take less chances, stick to the stalwarts. I’m doing my job wrong if the store is left with lots of [unsold] stuff.” Rosa concurred. “I’d rather deal with a sell out than be stuck with an expensive product that I can’t sell.”

The entire article is really must reading, as it covers what is selling in a variety of locales.

§ And David Welsh has a tidbit about Diamond’s delisting a bunch of Viz manga. It appears this was not Viz’s idea, however:

The same source also stressed “these manga titles are still being published, and will still available through other substantial channels such as Simon & Schuster, Baker & Taylor, Ingram, AAA Anime and others.”

UPDATE: Brigid Alverson goes straight to the source:

MangaBlog: Are these volumes going out of print?
Evelyn Dubocq: No.
MB: What other retail channels will carry them?
ED: Simon & Schuster, AAA Anime, Baker & Taylor, Ingram among others MB: Some of these series, such as Bastard and Prince of Tennis, are still ongoing.
Do you plan to continue releasing new volumes of these?
ED: There are no plans at this time for discontinuing these series

Fantagraphics’ Jason Miles visits Un Regard Moderne, a comics shop in France.

Retailer Brian Hibbs comments on Diamond’s recent decision to impose a higher benchmark for products they carry — following fears that great comics will be strangled in their cradle. His viewpoint is somewhere in the middle of those commenting, and pretty much backs up our own feelings:

No, really, we don’t need your shitty zombie comic book. We don’t need your adaptation of some William Shatner novel, and we sure as fuck don’t need your half-baked superhero universe.

What we DO need is “the next BONE”, the “next” STRANGERS IN PARADISE, or CEREBUS or EIGHTBALL or GRENDEL or whatever title you want to fill-in-the-blanks with as a paradigm of slow-build-to-significance item.

Here’s the real problem: Diamond’s purchasing department. There are some really great guys working there, but they don’t really have a great aesthetic judgment. That’s not a knock, necessarily, but in 20 years of buying from Diamond I don’t believe that they’ve EVER had a year where they had the entirety of, say, the Eisner nominees in stock at or around the time of the nominations.

I don’t believe that Diamond would recognize the “next BONE”. Not from hatred or anything, but because they have policies in place to be “fair”, that for a decade or more essentially treats all projects as interchangeable widgets.

Diamond does have a bunch of procedures in place to screen material but some things do fall between the cracks. As we’ve stated here before, Diamond is a monopoly, no question, but it’s also a benevolent one — they could have done all the things that people say they are doing years ago but didn’t. Why?

But Diamond is also the gas that makes the direct market go. They’ve developed a system of such tremendous efficiency that a slight breakdown - the non-delivery of back-up copies of SCOTT PILGRIM #5 this week for instance — are a blow.

Like Brian, we don’t mind seeing less crappy zombie comics and William Shatner novel adaptations (have those EVER worked? They’ve been tried many times before!) But is anyone even interested in creating the next BONE? We’d argue that SCOTT PILGRIM is the newest comics sensation, and that succeeded in tankoubon format.

Continuing to develop.

We’re hearing that due to various factors, including Diamond’s warehouse move, many re-orders for SCOTT PILGRIM #5 — at least in New York — have been delayed. Tuesday’s midnight signing at Jim Hanley’s Universe was a complete sell-out and last night’s Rocketship signing was as well, with people lined up out the door in the cold night air to get an autographed copy.

How popular is SCOTT PILGRIM?

It’s currently at #356 on Amazon, but rising daily.

Tomorrow, as is customary, the NYCC pre-game kicks off with the expanded ICv2 Graphic Novel conference. The schedule is below, and the Beat will be bringing you all the notable quotables. All events take place at the Javits Center.

Morning Sessions (10 a.m. to noon) — Graphic Novels and the Web

Comics on the Web — Marketing Tool or Revenue Stream?
Are comics on the Web a way to build audiences for properties that can then be monetized by sales of collections and licensing, or a critical source of advertising, DTO, or subscription revenue on their own? Join our panelists as they discuss what’s working and what’s not in this potentially transformative arena.

* Eric Beaulieu—General Manager, Transcontinental Transmedia
* Stu Levy—Chief Executive, TokyoPop
* Dave Roman—Associate Editor, Nickelodeon Magazine
* Ira Rubenstein—Executive VP Global Digital Media Group, Marvel Comics

Comics and Social Networks
Publishers and creators are increasingly using social networks to nurture communities of readers. Hear from the most advanced practitioners of this new technique on how it’s helping them connect with their audiences in a deeper way than ever before.

* Scott Allie—Senior Managing Editor, Dark Horse Comics
* Joe Keatinge—PR & Marketing Coordinator, Image Comics
* Joe Quesada—Editor-In-Chief, Marvel Comics
* Filip Sablik—Publisher, Top Cow Productions, Inc.

Afternoon Sessions (1 p.m. to 5 p.m.)

Keynote Address: Art Spiegelman — “What the !@##*! happened to comics?!”
The only graphic novelist ever to win a Pulitzer Prize, Art Spiegelman has been a leader and innovator in comics and graphic novels for four decades, both creatively and in how his work reaches the market. Hear his thoughts on the changes in the medium, plus a Q&A session.
Art Spiegelman—Writer, Artist, Pulitzer Prize Winner

Literary Adaptations — Building on Success
Adapting prose novels into graphic novels has been one of the most successful areas of graphic novel publishing in the last couple of years. Publishers Weekly’s Calvin Reid moderates a discussion of what’s working, why it’s working, and where the opportunities are for the future.

* Jennifer Besse—Editor, Disney Book Group
* Les Dabel—V.P. Business Operations, Dabel Brothers Productions
* Sherrilyn Kenyon—Bestselling Author
* Betsy Mitchell—V.P./Editor-in-Chief, Del Rey Books

ICv2 Graphic Novel Survey Report and White Paper
This year, the ICv2 White Paper presentation will be expanded to include an exclusive look at the results of a major survey of graphic novel buyers from comic stores, bookstores, and libraries conducted by ICv2 with the support and help of Reed Exhibitions. The survey will give a look at the reasons for the trends reported in the numbers, making this session even more invaluable.

Graphic Novel Industry Summit
Executives from the largest comic and manga publishers, the largest book chain, the largest comic distributor, one of the largest direct market retailers and a representative of ComicsPro, the comic retailer association, and an important librarian gather to discuss the future of the graphic novel industry.

* Robin Brenner—Teen Librarian, Brookline Public Library
* Dan Buckley—President and Publisher, Marvel Enterprises, Inc.
* Liza Coppola—Sr. V.P., Corporate Relations & Partnerships, VIZ Media
* James Killen—Buyer, Barnes and Noble
* Chris Powell—General Manager, Lone Star Comics / mycomicshop.com
* Bill Schanes—V.P. Purchasing, Diamond Comic Distributors
* Moderator: Milton Griepp–President, ICv2

For more information on the ICv2 Graphic Novel Conference, click here. For more information on the panelists for the ICv2 Graphic Novel Conference, click here.

Transcontinental Printing Cocktail Reception (5 p.m.-6 p.m.)!
After the final session of the day, enjoy a chance to meet and mingle with fellow attendees, speakers, and guests, courtesy of event sponsor and major graphic novel printer Transcontinental Printing.

§ Chris Butcher finally weighs in with his thoughts on the Diamond changes and it seems we’ve reached the end of an era:

I have always argued this, and while my arguments haven’t fallen on deaf ears, exactly, many companies have made decisions that embrace a “streamlined” DM, to what I feel will be their eventual detriment… Once you eliminate the bottom, the middle becomes the new bottom. I’m having a hard time seeing how anyone is going to be renegotiating their exclusivity deal with Diamond from a position of anything approaching “strength” in the next few years. Diamond has just told you that they want the low-hanging fruit, and that fruit’s just gonna get lower and lower.

But even more importantly than that: Diamond is pushing content out of the Direct Market.

Let me say that again:

Diamond Is Pushing Content Out Of The Direct Market

We established this way up at the top there, “Diamond’s job is to serve the direct market.” So you tell me, by denying entry to creative people, by setting the minimums above what _all comics_ not in the top 300 can accomplish, and only ‘working’ with their core publishers, how are they serving the direct market?

For historical counterpoint, John Jackson Miller looks at the just-pre-Diamond era, and finds that about 2/3rd of the publishers of that era released four or fewer issues a year.

Using the shipping lists and cancellation lists from every week in 1997, the staff of Comics Buyer’s Guide and I calculated that Diamond had shipped 5,695 different comic books (not trades, but comic books); we also counted 391 different trade paperbacks. These are not Top 300 entries; this is everything.

Now, one of the interesting things about that calculation was the representation of publishers, and the number of issues they shipped. Those 5,695 comic books, we counted, came from exactly 500 different publishers, from A & T to Zub.

More than two-thirds, or 340 publishers, released fewer than four issues — not titles, but issues — in the year, meaning they weren’t even releasing a quarterly series. And more than one-third — 169 — of the publishers only put out exactly one issue in the entire year. More than 10% of the issues Diamond released represented publishers releasing three issues or less; single-issue publishers accounted for about 2% of all items.

We weren’t able to run market shares based on the whole 5,695-issue list, because we only had estimated sales for the Top 3,600 issues or so. We did find that the 32 publishers that only placed one comic book in the Top 300 all year accounted for 0.16% of Top 300 units and 0.23% of Top 300 dollars for the year. Some of those publishers probably also had issues under 300th place, but we can kind of see the numbers we’re dealing with; it’s possible that a third of the publishers Diamond was dealing with were producing less than 1% of its combined sales.

I’m torn. On the one hand, it’s easy to see that Diamond’s cost cutting in the present era is based on a similar principle — a disproportionate amount of manpower was directed at selling one percent of their product line.

On the other hand, there’s no saying that that one percent doesn’t contain the greatest comic of the year.

It seems to me that the more profound problem is that we, at present, have a system set up where it’s very feasible that the best comic of the year couldn’t be published in such a way that it would make $2500 at wholesale.

Thank about that one for a while.

There’s been a lot going on since Diamond’s new benchmark bombshell, with several alternative distribution sources cropping up, notably Ka-Blam and their Print-on-Demand ComicsMonkey. However, a much lower discount than retailers are used to might make this a less popular option.

A few more industry figures have commented, as well. Harris Comics’ Bon Alimagno writes about it on his LJ and Blog@ — it’s an interesting viewpoint from an established publisher which makes most of its money outside the direct market, but still has enough of a stake in that channel to be affected:

I’m not sure if it has sunk into the mind of the average comic shop goer what setting these rules mean. The new rules place a huge emphasis on initial sales, in a direct market largely resistant to anything different and new. A year from now it’s very likely what few non-superhero comic books you are used to seeing at your local comic book shop may disappear unless you frequent one that already features a wide ranging selection. The direct market is a vicious cycle: comic book shops are widely considered the best place to buy superhero comics, so most of the people who frequent these shops are people who read superhero comic books. Retailers who order comic books do so on a non-returnable basis. They have to place their bet on what comic will and won’t sell. If they bet wrong they are stuck with extra inventory that may never move. More often than not they’ll place their bet with a sure thing, something with a consistent track record or built-in fan base. Retailers then order mostly superhero books. Anyone looking for anything else will more often than not find a very limited selection appealing to their tastes, so they stop coming, leaving the store increasingly in the hands of superhero comic book readers.

Non-Big Four publishers will often find their books under ordered. In cases like that, they’ll hope that word of mouth and positive reviews stir interest in their titles and lead to reorders. Except now reorders are limited to sixty days, not that much time to grow an audience.

Creator James Owen also has some thoughts, which reflect his long time in the industry and shifting role:

I’ve had more than my fair share of disputes with Diamond over the years. Some were private, some were public, some were epic-level public - as I was one of the few publishers, along with Viz and Kitchen Sink, to sign exclusives with ‘the other side’, Capital City, during the Distribution Wars. But I want to point out - and I cannot stress this too strongly - the only times I had a conflict with Diamond was when they had dropped the ball on something they were actually obligated to do, and then tried to sweep it under the rug, or when the reps we were dealing with treated I or my colleagues in an unprofessional manner. Never because they weren’t doing something I simply wanted them to do, that they had no obligation to do. What this usually meant - and why I have a LOT of sympathy for all of the smaller publishers right now - was that one Diamond rep or another was sloppy and/or arrogantly dismissive of whatever issue I or my other small press friends were having. Books would be listed incorrectly - and options to remedy this were limited to a low-priority correction (read as: retailer packing papers), or a re-listing for the next month - which would devastate our projections and cash flow. Shipments would go astray, which might hold up payment - which could break a small press if it happened at the wrong time. Situations like those were anger-inducing because they were errors in the actual business Diamond was engaged in: solicitation and distribution of product.

Nothing about this is cut and dried — the other day, we mourned the loss of Kevin Huizenga’s OR ELSE, but Huizenga himself seems to be going towards the notion that little comics aren’t a viable option for cartoonists any more — and by modern alt-cartoonist standards, Huizenga is incredibly prolific. Sammy Harkham managed a slim 32 pages of material since 2006 in CRICKETS, and while excellence in any dose is always welcome, that definitely stretches the idea of “periodical.”

As readers, we’re more fond of the MOME model — a regular anthology of dependable quality that allows folks to stockpile material for eventual spine-out presentation. Is MOME a sales blockbuster? Probably not, although it doubtless sustains. The regular comics anthology has become an economic dead zone in the current superhero/Vertigo/WildStorm/Marvel marketplace and unless the Japanese model somehow catches on here, it seems likely to stay that way.

As Owen alludes, this isn’t a Diamond BAD/creator GOOD thing, or the reverse. The comics distribution system is much healthier than it has been, due to a steady supply of good product. We’re currently undergoing the worst worldwide economic crisis since the Great Depression — Diamond is just another leaf in the storm and we’re all going to have to find new ways of doing business.

Bonus: Owen draws a parrot!