People are congratulating me over the press release about TMNT #1 selling out.
Except I’m not happy about it. Once again, it’s the Santayana quote: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
When I first started writing “Captain Marvel,” what did I hear from fans? “I can’t find it in my store!” “It’s sold out!” Fans seemed to think this was a good thing. Month after month this continued, and then Marvel suddenly announced that the book was in trouble.
Supergirl #75 sold out. Supergirl #76 sold out. “Great!” quoth the fans. “Cancelled!” quoth DC.
Does everybody get it yet? When retailers don’t support my books (because I’m not, y’know, the New Hot Thing), they don’t order enough. When they don’t order enough, the books sell out. When the books sell out and the early issues are unobtainable, people won’t buy the subsequent issues, which causes orders to drop even more.
When you see future sellout announcements on–for example–“Fallen Angel”…don’t say “Hurrah!” Don’t say “Congrats!” Say “Uh oh.”
PAD
• 
KET, Kara may have proven never much of a sales factor in the past but she WAS with MHR (PAD and Benes helped too). I had dropped SG even before #50 and only started picking it up again when Mary Marvel appeared and then when I heard Kara was coming back I stayed with the book. Before MHR I never even liked Linda but by #80 I was bitterly angry she was replaced right away with Cir-El…and I do agree with you that DC wanted the book cancelled no matter what. I don’t think anything PAD could have done would have helped, it was probably decided before #75 hit the stands.
As for the retailers I agree with PAD. My comic retailer is a very nice lady who orders everything I ask BUT if I don’t ask she won’t carry it just in case. She had to re-order every single issue of SG:MHR because she underestimated fan response and if I hadn’t put Fallen Angel on my list months ago I doubt she would have copies of it in the store next month.
So, in other words, Ita, your comics retailer is supposed to be a mind reader.
Listen, retailers in today’s market, big and small, have to be choosy with what they order and how much they order. Without input by you, the customer, the retailer does not know accurately how much product to order. Ordering is not an exact science.
My question to you: Would your retailer order the comic if she knew you would buy it? If the answer is yes, why not let her know in advance?
Yes! Yes, tell your retailer to order a title if you like it. Help your retailer help you.
Take a look at Previews every month. Look at all the comics and product offered. Now, look at Marvel and DC’s offerings, alone. That’s a lot of stuff! How many copies would you order for a shop? Does it depend on the market in your area? Do you think that it helps if you communicate with customers? Would you order several copies of a comic that never sells just in the event one person may buy one copy twice in three years?
You said, “My retailer orders everything I ask.” But then you criticize her by saying, “If I don’t ask she won’t carry it just in case…” Just in case you decide you may or may not buy the comic.
But she will order whatever you ask her too.
Hm.
Yep, dámņëd if you do, dámņëd if you don’t.
“…She will order whatever you ask her *too*.”
That, of course is a typo. It should read: “…She will order whatever you ask her *to*.
(Where’s an edit function when ya need one? grumble.)
**(Where’s an edit function when ya need one? grumble.)
Posted by Matt Hawes @ 06/22/2003 02:11 AM ET**
There’s a “Preview your comment” button… try clicking on that! 😉
I think we all agree to disagree. Hëll, I quit buying Supergirl when Gary Frank left! 😛
Matt, relax, I was agreeing with you (though it may not have sounded that way). I learned the hard way to make a list of what books I wanted. Mostly until I heard SG #75 was coming out I was an impulse buyer. I saw a cover that intriqued and by the time I walked out of the store I was several dollars poorer. Thats how I discovered Batgirl and JSA (both now on my pull list) and how I rediscovered Supergirl after several years when I saw Mary Marvel on the cover. SG #75 was the first comic I ordered ahead because I thought there would be a big rush for it. Well there was but since my retailer only ordered about 6 copies (one of which was mine) she didn’t have any extras (which I wanted as a collectible) and had to re-order. She had no idea that there was going to be demand for SG because I was the only one who asked her to get it. From then on I’ve made a list of what I want and guess have completed my transformation from casual occasional comic reader to a monthly reader. The fault lies with me not my retailer – she’s usually very attentive to customer needs (except the one time she slipped Chuck Austen’s recent Uncanny X-Men with the atrocious Church of the Humanity stuff in my bag. Thank goodness it was only 25 cents *Grrrr*)
Matt, relax, I was agreeing with you (though it may not have sounded that way). I learned the hard way to make a list of what books I wanted. Mostly until I heard SG #75 was coming out I was an impulse buyer. I saw a cover that intriqued and by the time I walked out of the store I was several dollars poorer. Thats how I discovered Batgirl and JSA (both now on my pull list) and how I rediscovered Supergirl after several years when I saw Mary Marvel on the cover. SG #75 was the first comic I ordered ahead because I thought there would be a big rush for it. Well there was but since my retailer only ordered about 6 copies (one of which was mine) she didn’t have any extras (which I wanted as a collectible) and had to re-order. She had no idea that there was going to be demand for SG because I was the only one who asked her to get it. From then on I’ve made a list of what I want and guess have completed my transformation from casual occasional comic reader to a monthly reader. The fault lies with me not my retailer – she’s usually very attentive to customer needs (except the one time she slipped Chuck Austen’s recent Uncanny X-Men with the atrocious Church of the Humanity stuff in my bag. Thank goodness it was only 25 cents *Grrrr*)
Yeah, yeah, retailers are the root of all evil and they are to blame for all my problems, yadda, yadda.
I know that there are a lot of retailers who under order PAD’s books, but as a retailer who does order more of PAD’s books than I can reasonably sell because I enjoy his writing and I like pushing quality books to comics fans, I understand that I am taking a big risk when I do so. Some of his comics take off and some don’t. Same goes for most writers, even the “hot” ones to one degree or another except a very select few and their time will pass soon enough. We can’t afford to over-order everyone’s books two to three months in advance just in case they happen to strike gold because with every comic that strikes gold, there are 3 or 4 that don’t. It’s impossible to stay in business that way, so all you can do as a retailer is use your best judgement based on previous sales on that book, or works by that creative team, the solicitation information in Diamond, hype, fan requests and gut instinct. Basically its an educated guess and we have to stay in business by not ordering too much more than we could ever sell. We support PAD’s books because we are fans of his work, but I understand why a lot of retailers might not because there are a lot of other writers and artists we can’t afford to over-order their books on.
Should most retailers be ordering more of PAD’s books? Yeah they probably should because his stuff keeps selling out. However, here are a few other questions :
Could Comic Book publishers be advertising his successes better?
Could the fans be more communicative with their retailers about what they have an interest in puchasing in advance?
Could Peter David try to write higher profile projects like Geoff Johns, Mark Waid, Kevin Smith, JMS, Bendis and other “hot” writers do?
Fallen Angel has received very little promotion from DC so far.
The customers at my store have said nothing to anyone about wanting to buy it. Not one.
It has no recognizable characters in it whatsoever. It could be the next Fables or Y The Last Man and be the most popular thing since sliced bread, but it is more likely that it won’t be.
Yet, we have ordered a bunch of copies for the shelf just based on the fact that we like Peter’s work. The only pre-orders we have are myself and the store owner. If this is a reflection of how fan response is across the nation, then why would most retailers order tons of copies? Most hugely succesful comics were pushed like there was no tomorrow by the publishers and had a huge amount of fan anticipation beforehand.
As a retailer, I am sick and tired of being trashed in generalized statements by creators, publishers and fans alike. When a comic is a huge hit do retailers get any accolades for pushing the book like crazy when they find a book that’s amazingly done? Nope. That’s the success of the publishers, the fans and the creators. Retailers get all of the blame and none of the accolades, yet books like Fables would be selling about 1/4 of what they do now in our store if we didn’t recommend it to people. Despite DC’s and Willingham’s best efforts, most people still weren’t taking a look.
I think that retailers, fans, creators and publishers need to start working together in order for this business to stick around for the long haul rather than telling each other how much the other guy sucks and placing all of the blame on one group’s shoulders. There’s plenty of blame to go around for everyone so lets work together instead to make this a better industry. Constructive criticism works better than bìŧçhìņg.
“Yeah, it’s not all sunshine and roses, PAD. Still, it’d be nice if you could address the fact that every once in awhile, it’s sunny.
BTW, Fer, qualifiers can be a good thing. It helps to avoid confusion such as that which led you to post what you did in defense of retailers.
PAD would probably not be too keen if I were to say “Comics writers are hacks.” Saying “Retailers don’t order my comics” implies all reatilers. Adding a “the” is no different, as it still refers to a group as a whole. “Some” would be more accurate and fair.
Matt Hawes
Comics Unlimited
654-B E. Diamond Ave.
Evansville, IN. 47711″
Here, Here, Matt!
While PAD shouldn’t have to make a list of every retailer that didn’t support him, qualifiers do serve a function in common linguistic usage. They help to minimize confusion when someone means one thing when they say another. PAD has been mentioning how retailers didn’t support him on Supergirl for at least 6 months now on a fairly regular basis with no mention of how DC had plans to cancel it in favor of the new Supergirl, Cir-El anyway. I do not recall any qualifiers like most, some, not enough, whatever, being stated. It is simply retailers, and no qualifier. The stance of “The retailers” as a qualifier necessary to blame all retailers is ridiculous. Example :
Comic Book writers are to blame for the current state of the comic market due to their lack of talent.
VS.
The Comic Book writers are to blame for the current state of the comic market due to their lack of talent.
Granted, “The” has greater implications that comic book writers are solely to blame for the current state of the comic market, but without a qualifier in the first version of that statement, most people would assume that person believed that most comic book writers,if not all were to blame for the current state of comics, especially if he stated the same thing over and over.
Hey there Rich, glad to see you’re back home from the convention! Hope you’re getting some good rest after that exhausting weekend. Oh, by the way, PAD’s feeling pretty down about TMNT selling out and he’s going off about retailers again, but I already made a bigger scene over it than I should have, so you might not want to…
Oops. Never mind.
Seriously speaking– PAD, just so you don’t think we’re ganging up on you over at our shop, we do honestly still like you. I honestly didn’t get to warn Rich that I’d already made a stink about it first, and as you can see it’s been a bit of a sore subject with us lately, so he just jumped right in there before reading my post.
But as far as I’m concerned, I said I was feeling unappreciated and disrespected, PAD responded to my feelings by saying he didn’t mean those retailers who tried, and even offered to stop in at my store– well, you can’t get much more appreciated than that.
Matt– I also appreciate the support. You managed to get my point across without a lot of yelling and screaming. I wish I had.
As to the qualifier thing– sure, I think a stronger qualifier than not using “the” would have gone a long way to avoiding my blowup. But PAD’s the writer, it’s his website, his forum– if he feels that’s enough, then I can either accept that and play by his rules or stop playing in his pool. So I’m cool with it.
-Fer