Heads turned last week when it was revealed that webcomics packager Rogue Wolf had purchased Cold Cut Distribution. As the only other distribution option to Diamond for the direct sales market, Cold Cut has a small but potentially important role to play in carrying items that Diamond doesn’t stock or restock. Todd Allen learns a bit more about the new operation from co-owner Lance Stahlberg, VP of Operations.

What made you decide to buy Cold Cut?

LS: It was just too good an opportunity to pass up. Struggling in the self-publisher pool as I was had huge potential of burning me out before I got my break.

I saw that getting involved in the comic distribution business would help me on two fronts. It would give my Rogue Wolf comics a huge boost in exposure and enable me to build a solid network in the marketplace. At the same time, it created potential for a more flexible schedule so that I could more effectively juggle my career aspirations around my financial needs.

As I mentioned, I’ve become a student of the industry. Seeing Cold Cut for sale was a sign from above that it was time to start my graduate studies.

More: Comics Related looks at some message board postings by Stahlberg.

AND, Cody Machler speculates on whether Cold Cut could emerge as a viable alternative to Diamond.

Unfortunately, while I feel most retailers would love an alternative to Diamond, I also feel that most retailers are lazy and do not like change. As such, I doubt those retailers would be willing to buy from multiple distributors; the mainstream books from Diamond and the independent books from Cold Cut. Therefore, the only way Cold Cut can truly lure retailers away from Diamond is to keep the big, mainstream publishers from resigning exclusive contracts with Diamond. And in order to do that, not only will Cold Cut need to make an attractive offer to those publishers, it will have to overcome the “best friends forever” relationships that exist in the direct market.

Our guess? Launching a full-scale alternative to Diamond for the floppies is almost impossible, given their immense existing infrastructure. The reality is that Baker & Taylor, the huge book distributor which offers returnability at a Diamond-like discount for graphic novels, is already the alternative to Diamond for mainstream books that Diamond just doesn’t seem to be able to offer at a competitive level.

Where a Cold Cut could fit in is in offering lower discounts or speedier reorders on selected titles from smaller, specialty publishers. It’s certainly a niche with potential, although whether the Rogue Wolf guys really have what it takes to grow the niche remains to be seen.

While it’s been known for a while that distributor Cold Cut had been sold to a Chicago-based concern, the identity of said concern was not public knowledge until now: it’s Rogue Wolf, hitherto known mostly as a publisher of comics on the web. According to the PR “Rogue Wolf Entertainment, Inc was founded in 2006 with the idea of creating comics for comic fans. They currently produce three web-comic titles. With this new addition to their corporate portfolio, their focus will be on helping their fellow creators and valued supporters succeed and hopefully improve the comics industry as a whole in the process.”
Here’s the rest of the press release:

As you read this, thousands of comics are being packed up and shipped from their old home in Salinas, CA to their new home in Chicago, IL. Cold Cut Distribution, the leading distributor of independent and small to mid-size press comics in the United States, has sold their company assets to Rogue Wolf Entertainment.

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This weekend DC held one of its occasional RRP (Retailer Roundtable Program) meetings, an invite-only forum for retailers to see what’s coming up from DC in the year ahead. The last one was held in 2005 , so this is definitely the first one of the post-52/Dan Didio era. And it couldn’t come at a more interesting time, as the future of DC’s heavily event based publishing program is the subject of much chatter, both public and private. Newsarama has some news points coming out of the meeting, including official announcement of the next weekly series, Trinity, (left) which will feature 12-page front stories focused on the Big Three of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman by Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley, with back up features written by Busiek and Fabian Nicieza:

The series will follow Countdown, but, as with Countdown and 52 which came before it, will be unrelated to the previous weekly series. That said, Trinity will be “apart,” that is, occurring in the DC Universe, but not tied to other events happening in the DCU.

Didio gives notes on the bigger picture:

DD: One of the things that we’re really focusing on this year at DC is how we’re driving the different storylines through 2008. There will be a storyline that features Superman prominently in the Superman titles through 2008, there will be a storyline that features Batman prominently throughout his titles in 2008, and Wonder Woman will have her own strong storyline in her series. Final Crisis will be contained to the primary series and a couple of spin-off series and a couple of one shots, but doesn’t crossover throughout the rest of the line. And Trinity will be its own story amid all of that, because it explores not just the history of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, but their impact on the DCU in the past years and for the future.

Johanna and her commenters have some fun with this quote, but we’ll circle back to this in a bit.
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Is at PANEL AND PIXEL:

Shared Risk, Shared Responsibility and Shared Rewards. If you are entering the comic book field on the creative end, you have to realize that what you are doing is participating in the day-to-day business of roughly 3,000 other businesses — that’s how many comic book stores there are. With a handful of exceptions, these guys are all incredibly reliable: that’s why they’re still in business after four years, eight years, ten years, twenty years. A big part of any success story is just showing up for work in the morning and then giving it your level best from the moment the door opens to the moment the door closes.

Put as plainly and as simply as possible: if we had even half the work ethic on the creator side that we see on the retailer side, this business would be functioning at a much higher level of success.

When you solicit a book in PREVIEWS, you are asking 3,100 retailers to Share the Risk with you that there’s an audience out there for what you do. You’re asking them to bet $5 or $10 or $15 on what you do, usually based on a cover reproduction the size of a postage stamp and two lines of copy.

§ Mike Lynch reminds everyone that submissions are open for the 2007 National Cartoonists Society Division Awards.

§Tom Spurgeon asks:

If, as nearly two-decade old conventional wisdom would have us believe, the vast majority of art comics that move through the Direct Market are sold through a small percentage of diverse, elite stores (such as Comic Relief, The Beguiling, Chicago Comics), and if, as a general look at the retailing landscape suggests, there are more of these kind of diverse, elite stores than ever before (such Comix Revolution, Secret Headquarters, Rocketship), why do art comics sales suck worse than they used to?

We’re not sure we entirely agree with that — art comics periodical sales are way down but more than offset by the rise in book sales through both channels — but a variety of people answer it from all walks of comics.

§ Jeff Vandermeer at Bookslut presents his Best Graphic Novels of 2007, and it’s sort of an alternative list that includes books with “a significant fantastical or surreal element.”:

This really isn’t an arbitrary decision, though — it’s a reflection of the fact that 2007 was a very strong year for fantasy in graphic novels. Much of the autobiographical or more realistic material I read seemed to rehash themes and approaches I’d seen done better before.

The list includes THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY gn that we worked on so we can only say, thanks!

§ Joel Meadows posted his photos of the Alan Moore signing at GOSH!

§ ICv2 interviews Lance Fensterman the show runner for New York Comic-Con, who seems to be a very, very enthusiastic guy.

Right now we’re talking about floor space. It’s pretty early to be looking at the attendee numbers, because we’re just starting to register. In terms of fans, we’re at triple the number we had at the same point last year (in reference to the show). If we’re roughly 12 weeks out from the Con, at the same point last year, we’ve got triple the number of fans registered to come to the show, which is great. I couldn’t ask for more. And we’re really just starting to ramp up our marketing efforts, and talk about all the guests and artists we have coming.

Chris Butcher finally weighs in on the hot topic of the last few weeks :

Much to the detriment of my making friends at retailer get-togethers, I think this is more of a non-issue than anyone would care to admit, a matter of principle that doesn’t even come close to playing out in the real world. I’m actually a lot more concerned, on the release-date front, about Diamond’s continuing inability to process books that they receive as a distributor as fast as the bookstore chains. Most bookstores are receiving manga, “mainstream” book publishers graphic novel releases, and magazines like Giant Robot, between a day and a month before Diamond gets them into my store. This week Diamond shipped Negima Volume 16, and I’ve had that direct from Del Rey since before Christmas! Maybe it’s easier to issue veiled threats against independent publishers than it is against Diamond? There are serious distribution inequities within the direct market, but I don’t think this position paper begins to addresses them… they certainly aren’t coming from 100 copies of Kramers Ergot at the San Diego Comic-Con.

Fantagraphics’ Eric Reynolds weighs in on the pre-sell controversy, and manages to see both sides. Ultimately, however, the benefits far outweigh the costs.

The Direct Market is important to us and there’s no reason it won’t remain so. So I hope we all remain interested in working with each other to grow. I believe that our con sales serve to promote our artists and books more than those sales have an adverse effect on the industry’s bottom line. I can’t prove this, but no one can supply any hard evidence to the contrary, either. I really need to see some harder figures before I can really believe otherwise and start considering doing fewer shows or considering giving up much-needed revenue at those that we do attend. We debuted 50 copies of I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets at Comicon last year (to 100,000+ people!) because we thought it would be worthwhile beyond just the cash value (after factoring in airfreight from asia and other comicon overhead, it’s not all that) — there was an unquantifiable promotional value. Paul Karasik was there and did a hugely popular presentation. We sold out and everyone wanted a copy and blogs were writing about the book and creating demand. When the book hit stores a few weeks later, we had an immediate sellout of the 1st printing and have had two subsequent printings in the seven months since. How can you tell me everyone would have been better off if that book had not hit cold there and knocked people out the way it did?

Gary Groth chimes in at the end and makes a very persuasive case for the benefits of preselling a few copies at conventions far outweighs to costs:

This may be a case where we have to continue promoting our books in this fashion for the good of retailers despite their wishes that we stop the practice. Which is pretty damned weird, but there you have it.

When all is said and done, the retailers who vocally oppose the practice  — led by Robert Scott — have been asked again and again what would be the absolute, provable benefits of stopping the practice of pre-selling at conventions for the publishers. The answer almost always comes down to “Retailers will like you more.” We’re sorry, but given the very strong case that Reynolds and Groth make in the above linked post about the benefits for the entire medium, that just doesn’t wash.

Sometimes we forget that comics isn’t just an industry of self-publishers, it’s an industry of SELF-RETAILERS. Thus, everyone is still chiming in on the whole pre-selling at cons thing. Colleen gives a little historical perspective on how folks in artists alley used to be FORBIDDEN to sell their comics . She also explains how that had to change. Johanna has a big wrap-up post that includes the Boom! North Wind matter.

In a follow-up to his many posts on the topic, Brian Hibbs explains why returnability isn’t really an option.

You know, on the face of it, we’d agree whole heartedly, but we were reminded of something interesting the other day. Remember that “Think Future” panel we co-moderated back in November? On it, Diamond’s Bill Schanes said that publishers might want to start thinking about returnability. We don’t remember the context — it was surely no more than a passing comment — but our pal who recalled it said it made more of an impression on him than anything else said on the panel. So…who knows, maybe it’s not as impossible as it seems.

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Brian Hibbs responds to my post yesterday and everything is quite civil and everyone seems to understand where everyone is coming from, and they lived happily ever after. In response to my “Would Brian Hibbs donate $1 to keep Top Shelf, Cartoon Books or Fantagraphics alive?” query Brian responds:

Not that that is actually the point, but, yeah, when FBI and Top Shelf came to us with “please please buy stuff from us, we’re on the brink of going out of business” we OF COURSE stepped up and bought a bunch of stuff that we didn’t actually need in order to try and help keep them solvent.

There’s much more in Brian’s post (he also responds to Tom) and further along says something I agreed with:

Further, I don’t think “buzz” comes from being-on-sale-first *in and of itself*. I think Top Shelf would have sold exactly the same # of LOST GIRLS as they did, and had exactly and precisely the same amount of “buzz” and being “the book of the show” and everything else, had LOST GIRLS been in stores that same Wednesday. I’ll go so far as to say I’m absolutely positive that LOST GIRLS would have had the same national buzz, and sold the same # of copies at the con even had the book debuted a week before in the stores.

It’s hard to argue that, but as I posted elsewhere, publishers have a lot of “last minute-itis” with shows like San Diego and MoCCA — as long as it gets to the show — even if it’s Saturday instead of Thursday or Friday — YIPPEE WE MADE IT! I think THAT is a simplistic idea on publishers’ parts, and part of the cause for the problem.

All that said, retailers seem to want more information to stay informed; I suspect that some kind of system of notification when possible and limited returns when not possible (sometimes books just SHIP LATE for other reasons) may be the solution to this problem. The original paper might have been better served by suggesting this, but hey, at least every one talked about it and, in the blogosphere at least, common ground was found by some!

Oh boy! Finally! After a few weeks off to relax and get acclimated, 2008 has its own brouhaha! And it’s a good one, exposing lingering animosities, nagging weaknesses in the retails system, personal sniping and the very core of where the business is now.

It all kicked off with the latest ComicsPRO position paper, whch you can read in its entirety in the jump. The jist of it is that ComicsPRO doesn’t want publishers selling comics at conventions before they are available to direct sales retailers since this practice costs retailers sales.

This issue has been around for a while. Selling at conventions has been a standard practice for all publishers except DC and Marvel — genie is way out of the bottle, but this strain of ire is aimed at the practice of selling books before they are available to the direct market. Notorious examples include Jeff Smith selling (and selling out of) his one volume Bone at San Diego; Top Shelf specifically ordering a skid or two of Lost Girls to sell with Melinda Gebbie on hand to sign it, and an earlier instance where Blankets was sold at MoCCA.

Of course, people go to cons to get books signed, but you’d think it was only a locally based problem. Nope. The ComicsPRO paper specifically states that not only is Melinda Gebbie at San Diego a problem for say, Robert Scott’s store in San Diego, but Rory Root’s store in Berkeley and Jim Hanley’s in New York because some of their customers may have travelled to San Diego to buy Lost Girls.

The oppositre argument is that most comics shops don’t support indie publishers to begin with, small publisher depend on convention sales to cover their bottom line — and generate tons of media buzz–and while ComicsPRO claims they will be stronger sales and marketing partners for publishers who don’t do this, no one seems to be able to figure out exactly what this means.

This is a battle many indy pundits have been having with retailers for a ong time now, and not surprisingly this prompted many pro-indy pundits to come out with their OWN position papers. Tom jumped out pretty fast, calling the paper “terrible”, for several reasons, one of which was that the paper doesn’t give any real evidence of the harm.

Johanna came out with more strong objections:

Asserts is the right word. Publishers tend to say, when I’ve seen this discussion before, “no it doesn’t, because we’re selling to people without stores” and “we have to, to make our budgets”. Retailers say “I’m not stocking your books, then” (if they even were in the first place) and we have a standstill, because then the publisher has even more incentive to go around the direct market. No one can conclusively prove their position, and with just-in-time ordering, retailers rarely stock ANY publication in depth at initial order. If the impact is that noticeable, I wish someone would post some figures.

Alan David Doane, himself a rather opinionated writer who once said “Die Direct Market Die!”also chided retailers for failing to acknowledge the reality of the multi-channel comics market. Dick Hyacinth and Frank Santoro also weigh in. (Doane follows up with a MUST READ on publishers response to the controvery.) And now I’m doing it too! Whoo, where to begin.

One of the problems here is that the opposing sides seem to take one example of less-than-perfect behavior on either side as a synecdoche for a lifetime of abuse. For instance, retailers will never forget that Jeff Smith sold out of the single volume Bone; likewise David Welsh’s special trip to a comic shop only to find it closed when it should have been open is a blaring symbol of everything wrong and stinky about every comic shop ever under the sun.

People in comics never forget anything, do they? I guess that’s why everyone loves continuity.,

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Dan Rafter at Firefox News reports on the refreshing phenomenon of a child enjoying a comic made for children, in this case Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet.

I purchased the book, published by Scholastic, for my 9-year-old son. He, as expected, gobbled the story up, laughing out loud at some scenes, falling into engrossed silence at others.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Sun Times thinks kids will love MOUSE GUARD, but frustratingly, lacks testing in the field.

In Japan, literacy and platforms for literacy are changing radically, as novels written for cell phones dominate the charts:

Of last year’s 10 best-selling novels, five were originally cell phone novels, mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but containing little of the plotting or character development found in traditional novels. What is more, the top three spots were occupied by first-time cell phone novelists, touching off debates in the news media and blogosphere.

“Will cell phone novels kill ‘the author?’ ” a famous literary journal, Bungaku-kai, asked on the cover of its January issue.

Boom has just released another press release regarding NORTH WIND #1, their controversial new book that debuted simultaneously on shelves and MySpace. This time they are announcing a second printing following the announcement of the sell-out of the first issues.

Par for the course for small publishers trying to prove their viability. Not so standard is the ongoing sniping between Boom and retailers on the private CBIA forum. Feelings were apparently hurt a bit by this quote from the sell-out PR:

“I only wish more companies had the inspired media moxy and sales savvy as displayed by BOOM! — whether it’s their online promotions that pull and create new readers or their simple but very effective shelftalkers. In this day of dinosaur brick & mortar stores, BOOM! is always finding new ways to help us sell, sell, sell. Kudos to you BOOM! We at Meltdown, Inc. look forward to working with all your titles to BOOST! our bottom line. Please continue to keep it innovative and keep sending us new and receptive costumers to sell all types of comics to!” Gaston Dominguez-Letelier proprietor of Meltdown, Inc. said.

In other words: Get away, you stegosaurus!

Reaction at CBIA was predictably acerbic, with many retailers reporting they had not sold out and offering their remaining copies to the stores that had with promises never to order Boom comics again.

Boom head Ross Richie points out that the CBIA is the only place there have been any complaints. “We’ve gotten a wide-range of support from just as many influential and high profile retailers nationally,” he says. Online support has been strong elsewhere. “Boing Boing picked it up, and lots of other exciting sites (some that just catalog available free digital media — for film, TV, and comics, etc) are running the story.”

You can read the press release for the second printing in the jump. Will the retailer comments cited cause as many hurt feelings as Obama’s “You’re likable enough” to Hillary? Read them yourself.

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That’s the title of a feature from Wired.com which gleefully states:

I’m a huge fan of free things, especially free entertainment — really, who isn’t? Daily Bits has combed through the web, turning up a treasure trove of 17 graphic novels, all available for download.

We’re sure every comic book retailer reading these words is going kerplotz right about now — that is after the tempest that erupted after Boom Studios announced they were giving away the entire first issue of their new book NORTH WIND on MySpace.

Now first issue sampling online is pretty much accepted fare these days; even DC does it. So why the hue and cry that erupted on the private CBIA retailer’s forum, with store owners vowing to stop buying Boom books and all support of the company? Well, a couple of things. The online freebie was available at the exact same time as the first issue went on sale, and Boom had neglected to warn retailers about it.
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The Comics Reporter’s series of “Holiday Interviews” continues with JHU Events coordinator and writer Vito Delsante:

Everyone always wonders about the rivalry between Midtown Comics and us, or Forbidden Planet and us. We three are the only ones that I know of in the city that do events other than Barnes & Noble or the Virgin mega-store. We’re the only three comics retailers that really do events. It’s one of those things where’s it’s not so cutthroat sometimes. But we’ve gotten wind of Midtown getting somebody and saying, “Hey, how come we aren’t getting this guy?” We’ll call up Marvel and go, “You have this guy going around and he’s been there four or five times, when are we going to get someone to do that?” I find myself utilizing MySpace a lot more often in that respect. Saying, “You haven’t been to Hanley’s in five years. We’d love to have you.” Put out open invitations to people. It’s starting to heat up a little bit in that now that New York’s got its convention. I think the clientele and fans and customer base are expecting to meet people a little more often than not.

Vertigo Editor Karen Berger:

Obviously with Minx we’re going after the teenaged girl who is not historically a comic book reader. We were looking at success that manga has had with attracting young women. We said, “Hey, we know there are teenaged girls reading manga. We also know there are teenaged girls that are reading books like Persepolis. We know that there are teenaged girls that read books like Sandman and some of Slave Labor’s stuff.” We also know that teenaged girls are adventurous readers, and read more than boys. So why don’t we come out with a line, really an alternate to manga, that deals with real girls in the real world, real stories, real situations. Give it that human touch with very strong protagonists and independent thinkers.

Francoise Mouly, of RAW, the New Yorker and now, Toon Books:

They all said “It’s a really wonderful idea. It’s beautifully executed.” Every single one of them was really impressed. “Oh, of course. It’s obvious. Comics for young kids. It’s really well done. [pause] We wish we could do it, but we can’t.” That was a surprise to me. I went to see every publisher in town at one point or another, kids book publishers, and consistently what they ended up saying was that they don’t have the means to start something new. So over and over again it was, “This isn’t what we do, and there’s no place for it in the bookstore.” Which is exactly where we were at 30 years ago when Art was submitting Maus to publishers. It wasn’t anything they were doing, and there wasn’t any place for it in the bookstore. One of the publishers I talked to felt they didn’t have the means to start a new category. Then they would start looking at my books and then they would say, “Maybe we can take this one and change it a bit and reincorporate it into a format that exists.” It wasn’t always the same one that they would pick. They didn’t want to start a new line of books.

Brian Hibbs talks about discoveries made due to the accuracy of his POS system, and discovered in four months, lots of graphic novels didn’t sell a single copy:

What kind of flat-out shocked me is that something approaching half of the trade paperbacks we carry have not sold a single copy since we’ve installed the system. Now, admittedly, I’ve been telling myself that my goal was “two turns a year” as a minimum for anything to stay on my rack, and we’ve only got four months of solid hard data (so, two months to go!), but I’m really starting to see just how big the anchor is that’s slowing us down. Come February, I’m probably going to get extremely ruthless about what to start cutting away before we drown in the sea of SKUs being unleashed upon us.

The main categories?

1) “indy” books that have neither any significant word-of-mouth, known or established creator, or clear and specific concept which “sells itself” to the customers.

and

2) Mainstream Superhero B-list-or-less material.

Hibbs has much more in the link about both these categories. See also: Johanna discusses Hibbs’ column and another store which gave up selling back issue comics.

Over at Newsarama, Vaneta Rogers talks to retailers about POS systems:

“Making the transition from cigar box to cash register was not only expensive, but actually took longer to ring up customers. Yet, it was essential,” said John Robinson, co-owner of Graham Crackers Comics Ltd. in Naperville, Ill. “It’s ridiculous and laughable when you come across comic stores that don’t have cash registers to ring up their customers. The same is going to be true for the frightened few that don’t make the transition to POS system in the next few years.”

It’s not just Diamond’s POS system that is being adapted, but other systems such as Moby. We suspect this will continue to be a huge story in 2008, although not in a way that is obvious. It will be more evolutionary and slow as retailers discover the difference between what they think they sell and what they actually sell.

Variety reports that several Virgin Megastores will be closing — the chain was an early adapter of manga and graphic novels and continue to have wide ranging sections:

The Virgin Megastore in West Hollywood will be closing early next year and its highly likely the Gotham outlet will follow.

Rent increases are being given as the key reason the CD-DVD-book outlets are about to pack it in. The L.A. store is likely to shutter at the end of January; New York’s Union Square Megastore will follow a year later.

The chain was recently sold to a real estate conglomerate. The Hollywood and Times Ssquare outlets will remain open for the time being — both locations have a “theme store”-like vibe, meaning that you can go in and remember what it was like to go into a store to buy music.

Newsarama holds its annual powwow with DC publisher Paul Levitz. The whole thing is worth reading, especially for its status report on DC’s sales in various channels, but here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite:

NRAMA: As you said, DC is seeing good penetration into the bookstore market, but obviously, there’s still room for growth, which you said in regards to the distribution deal DC has signed with Random House. So what’s the next outlet? What’s the next frontier to move into? Is it a big push for mass merchandise retail, or other ways to get them in front of more eyes?

PL: Let’s be serious about what we’ve accomplished and what we haven’t accomplished. Nobody knows exactly the size of the present audience for graphic novels as a category. My suspicion is that there are probably more people reading graphic novels today than there are reading periodical comics. I think that has probably crossed in the last year or two years. That still means that maybe we’re reaching, as an industry, half a percent or one percent of the American population. I think we’ve got a pretty good challenge just increasing that.

When you look at the demographics, behavioral information of the people that are reading comics on a regular basis, comic shops are a good place to sell them, bookstores are a good place to sell them, online is a good place to sell them. I’m not sure that we match that wonderfully to the mass merchandiser. I think you can create comics that can do very well in a mass merchant’s environment, but I’m not sure that the bulk of what we publish as an industry fits that definition.

We mentioned this in a comment, but thought it was worth a more prominent item — it’s pretty much a banner week for American comics on Bookscan, as American GNs take 3 of the top 10 spots, including Dark Tower at #1. And Buffy is “bubbling under” as they say, at #11. Here’s the entire top ten:

1. Dark Tower The Gunslinger Born (Marvel Comics)
2. Fruits Basket: Volume 18 (Tokyopop)
3. Heroes Volume 1 (Wildstorm)
4. Naruto: Volume 24 With Sticker (Viz Media)
5. Naruto: Volume 27 With Sticker (Viz Media)
6. The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier (America’s Best Comics)
7. Naruto: Volume 23 (Viz Media)
8. Naruto: Volume 25 Viz Media)
9. Naruto: Volume 26 (Viz Media)
10. Naruto: Volume 22 (Viz Media)

Of course, don’t get us wrong, it’s a spectacular showing for perennial champ Naruto, and Viz absolutely dominates the chart, as usual. However this strong showing (and ongoing strong sales for all four books we just mentioned) are a definite sign that America’s top three publishers are finally figuring out this bookstore thing, and getting the distribution and visibility that they need to make these books sell up to their potential. And remember — all but Buffy are $20+ hardcovers not $9.99 (or $7,95 in the case of Naruto) paperbacks — Dark Tower beats Fruits Basket in dollars 4 to 1.

Also in the top 50: the Don Martin collection, 52: Volumes 4 and Marvel Zombies vs Army of Darkness.

And now cue Dirk to complain in five, four, three………..

Buzz, Balls & Hype is a book marketing blog aimed at booksellers and librarians. It’s just added Diamond Books sales manager John Shableski as a blogger every other Tuesday, and in his first outing he delivers what could be called the basic stump speech for comics advocacy:

Graphic Novels are “The New Rock and Roll.” That’s a pretty audacious line to brand onto this new entertainment format but calling graphic novels “the new rock and roll” is probably the most accurate description I can think of.

For those of you who have just begun hear or read about graphic novels, here’s some history. The term graphic novel is something that the late, great Will Eisner gets credit for and, as the legend has it, he used the term as a pitch to get his book A Contract With God published. It was a long-form comic book that he knew wouldn’t get a second thought if he told the publisher that it was indeed a comic book.

It’s sort of GNs 101, but if you have a call to go out on the road and preach it, brother, you may pick up some talking points.

Comics Worth Reading and ICv2 report that Comics and Games Retailer , the magazine for…well, retailers published by F+W/Krause (which also publishes CBG) will cease publication with the February issue. Over the last 15 years, the magazine hosted columns by people like Joe Field, Brian Hibbs and Mimi Cruz, and informed generations of retailers of ways to improve their businesses. It was an important tool for a while, but with the internet and message boards and ComicsPRO, it’s time probably was up a while ago.

C&GR always had a lot of good info in it, but it was presented in a fairly arcane way. We remember asking John Jackson Miller to explain what all the little triangles on his sales charts meant once — it was like getting a personal lesson in physics from Einstein, and we understand it about as much. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the mag was the monthly comments from retailers about what was selling. When we worked at DC, Tony Bedard and The Beat would go through all the comments and pick out how many times Knights of the Dinner Table was mentioned — no one had ever heard of this comic, but according to retailers it sold all the time. Who knew? Someone should try to resurrect this feature for a wider audience — we’d find it much more informative than endless message board complaining by people who buy books they don’t like month after month.

UPDATE: We’re informed by someone in the know that some of the C&GR info — including the parts we like — will be integrated to various publications and websites. We’ll let you know when we do.

Over the last few days, quite a few stories have been making the rounds that seemed to foretell the death of the pamphlet as a viable form of storytelling. First there was SLG’s Jennifer De Guzman’s blunt declaration that they are not looking to publish new series:

Another tip, but it’s not on the list since it’s not a particular prejudice of mine, just a reflection of the current state of the market: Don’t tell us about “issues.” We’re just not very interested in series right now. If you take a look at what we are currently publishing, there are only two creator-owned comics still being published as a series–Nightmares and Fairy Tales (which is ending at issue #23) and Rex Libris.

Next came the stunning news that Love and Rockets would no longer be published as a comics periodical, but was becoming a big thick annual for Volume 3.

“This new format will allow the Bros. to present longer stories without having to chop them down into bite-size pieces,” said Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth. “In today’s graphic novel-oriented world, readers (and cartoonists) are increasingly impatient with this sort of serialization, especially in the case of L&R where, because of the split nature of the book, each artist has only 15 pages.”

Throw in retailer carping about delays in Marvel’s new Spider-man story, general bitching about DC’s Countdown-centric offerings, and you have a picture of the pamphlet in decline, right?

Well, not so fast. This month’s sales numbers from ICv2 showed that pamphlet sales were up 20% from last year at this time.

Based on sales of the Top 300 comics, comic sales by Diamond to comic stores in October were up 20% over October 2006. Graphic novels (based on sales of the Top 100) were up a more modest 6%, bringing the total growth rate for the month to 17% vs. October 2006.

The first link attributed this not to a couple of blockbusters at the top of the chart, but core strength in the middle:

For example, Kong, King of Skull Island #0, the #300 title in October 2007, sold more than twice as many copies as the second month sales of Civil War: X-Men #3, the #300 title in October, 2006. In fact, you had to go up 64 ranks, to the #236 title in 2006, to match the sales of the 2007 title. The growth rate halfway up the list, at #150, was not as rapid, but was still a whopping 63%. The effect did not disappear until around the 25th title, where the 2006 title was above the 2007 title.

What the fuck! Comics have been doing Pilates!

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Nerdlebrity news! SYSTEM OF A DOWN drummer and big time comics fan John Dolmayan has launched — no, not a line of comic books. That is so 2006! Instead, he’s started Torpedo Comics, an Internet-based retail store which carries some 15-million items — comic books, toys, graphic novels, trade paperbacks, superhero action figures and other comic book-related memorabilia. Sounds ambitious and the picture gallery has that Raiders of the Lost ArK vibe,

If you’re a collector, a comics voyeur, or just looking for a unique holiday gift, be sure and peruse the virtual pages of Torpedo Comics, as Dolmayan has something up there for everyone in every price range.

* If you’re a vampire buff or a fan of the new smash hit film “30 Days of Night” starring Josh Hartnett, Torpedo Comics offers the original graphic novel that the film is based on. Sold elsewhere for about $75, Torpedo is discounting the full-color, hardcover book for $55.
* “Star Wars” toy collectors - you can own the FAO Schwartz Exclusive Imperial Shuttle Tyderium for only $149 - it’s selling on eBay for $225.00.
* Currently, the priciest item available at Torpedo Comics is the Young Allies, Issue #1 comic book. This particular item is acknowledged as the one in the best condition on the planet, and can be yours for only $75,000.

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ComicsPRO, the comics retailer lobbying group, has instituted an antitrust compliance policy to ensure there will be no collusion:

In a move to allay concerns over any potential retailer collusion, Comics Professional Retail Organization (ComicsPRO), the trade organization for comic book retailers, with the help of legal counsel, has incorporated an antitrust compliance policy into its by-laws outlining the parameters within which independent retailers can confidently deal with each other.

ComicsPRO board member Ben Trujillo of Star Clipper Comics in St Louis went on to explain, “We have adopted a clear policy for managing the relationship between a group of competitors in a way that conforms with the highest legal standards in the areas of antitrust and non-competitive behavior.”

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Last week’s Tilting at Windmills by Brian Hibbs was a particularly meaty one as he delved once more into the periodical vs trade debate currently going on, and even questioned if TOO MUCH product was going out:

One of the tests that I think should be put into place is “When volume 1 (or 2 or 3) goes out of stock, will it be reprinted?” If not, then, most likely, the work shouldn’t be collected in the first place, other wise we’re just creating more “orphans” clogging up the system and the shelves – and we have far too many of those as it already is.

But let’s say that you’re a publisher and you’re willing to make a serious commitment to keeping a work in print and available, what then? How do you handle both the serialization and the eventual collection?

Hibbs also discusses why Vertigo’s sales are going steadily down for quite some time. I talked a little bit last week on the difficulty of launching new characters, but the figures from this month’s sales charts state the case even more starkly. (Those who point out that these figures are low — add +/- 15% and you have more accurate final sell-in, and just as dismal a picture.)

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