Marvel Mart

Originally published April 29, 1994, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1067

I love it when Oh So? provides me grist for my column. It’s almost like getting a freebie.

I very much appreciate the impassioned response of Bob Matson of Comics Unlimited in regards to the Capital Punishment issue, and further the justifiable concern over the impending doom of the Direct Market by Kelli Stanley of The Funny Papers. But Bob not only missed the point, he never even saw it, and Kelli, well… I know you folks are the ones out there on the front lines, but I’m sorry, the Marvel Mart is not the marketing equivalent of the Neutron Bomb. Mishandled and badly launched, yes, but this hysteria gripping the market is simply misplaced.

First thing’s first.

Bob–I’m not gonna speak for Jeff Smith or anyone except myself. I will just assume (always a dangerous practice, I admit) for the sake of argument that my column is included in your characterization of the concerns expressed: “Big, nasty brutish mean old Capital City is picking on the little guy again. Small, starving, independent publishers are being set upon brutally by those big, bully distributors. It’s just not fair, dammit. Hogwash! It’s time for a little reality here, folks.”

Now thanks ever so for putting words and tenor in my mouth and attacking those. I never said Capital was nasty, brutish, and mean… nor would I, since that spirals matters down to a personal level that I did not employ. I’ve known John Davis and Milton Griepp, the owners, for a long time; worked with them in a variety of capacities, and think they’re both good guys. I was attacking policies and the impressions these policies gave: Not people. I never called Capital “the bad guys.” Unfair, yes. I’ve been unfair in my time; everyone has. Life’s unfair. The world’s unfair. Therefore, by your logic, the world is “bad.”

I’m glad you wanted “a little reality” here; by happenstance or design, your interpretation of my column indeed bears as little resemblance to reality as possible.

What’s unfair, Bob, is not–as you would have it—that Capital is picking on the little guy. What’s unfair is that Capital has instituted a policy that is unenforceable against the big guy. If Marvel Comics decides to ignore Capital’s policies–now, or in the future–Capital is not in a position to stop carrying Marvel Comics. If Image Comics opts to invite Capital to take the proverbial long walk off a short pier, Capital’s in trouble. The only ones who they could possibly make it stick against are the small, hand-to-mouth outfits whose financial impact on the marketplace and retailers is negligible. Therefore, if Capital’s goal is to do something about the financial damage being done by late shipping books, then this will not work.

Capital reps have already said that matters of fees will be addressed on a case-by-case basis. Now do you seriously expect me to believe that the way that case-by-case analysis will fall is that for Big Publishers (the ones whose delays of weeks and months have tied up retailer dollars and whose late shipping resulted in boxes of unsold books because the market feeding frenzy had passed) Capital will hang tough, but for the Little Publishers (the ones who, judging by the numbers of books they sell, are not even carried by the majority of retailers) Capital will cut slack?

That, Bob, I will believe when I see. The point of my column is that I don’t think I’m going to be seeing that anytime soon.

You admonish that “The only reason (myself and others) have jobs or businesses today is The Bank of Diamond and The Bank of Capital City.” Aw, come on, Bob. Standing there waving a scolding finger like a fish wife and telling us that, dammit, we should all be grateful, doesn’t remotely fly. I don’t deny anything you say about Capital’s endeavors to keep the direct sales market afloat. In all seriousness I say, Good For Them.

But let’s take it back a notch. If Marvel Comics waggled its finger at retailers and said belligerently, “How dare you criticize the Marvel Mart! The only reason you people have livelihoods is because of Marvel Comics support for, and catering to, the direct market in the past,” would anyone leap into Oh So? and proclaim, “Marvel’s right! Retailers should be grateful—grateful, I say!” I sure wouldn’t. Would you?

The marketplace is interdependent, one faction upon another, one interest upon another. What you’re doing is aggrandizing one faction above all others, ascribing them the purest and most self-sacrificing motives of all, and saying that everyone else’s concerns are secondary to the distributors. Who knows? Perhaps distributors might agree. But publishers, retailers, freelancers, printers, and fans might not see it quite that way. The fans in particular.

Would you want to be the one who explains to the fan of a small black and white line that the publisher went under because of fees (according to your own letter) that came about largely as the result of late shipping by Image or questionable publishing policies by Continuity? Once again, I sure wouldn’t.

“Small publishers… solicit a whole bunch of titles and then only print those titles that receive enough orders to be profitable for them to print.” Putting aside that that’s a questionable claim, I can only say: Horrors! Where do small publishers get off, not publishing books that will put them in the red! Those selfish cretins!

Cripes, Bob. So either small publishers should produce books that they’ll lose money on and go out of business… or else they should face high fees and go out of business. For some reason the words “Ðámņëd if you do, dámņëd if you don’t” leap to mind. Why not just argue that retailers must order books they know they can’t sell. Makes as much sense.

Am I seriously supposed to believe that retailers will lowball the timely Elfquest or Cerebus because of money tied up ordering copies of a small publisher that doesn’t ship? And how many copies did the retailer order of the alleged “trial balloon.” One? Two? Three, maybe? “Hogwash,” Bob. Tell me retailers have a couple hundred dollars tied up in a Marvel or DC or Image that didn’t ship and, therefore, ordered sparsely on Wave Dancers, and my head will bob (sorry) as vehemently as one of those little springy-head baseball statues. But this trial balloon thing isn’t floating. I’m still waiting for the “little reality” you promised, Bob, because this scenario sure doesn’t apply.

Just as an aside, Elfquest and Cerebus weren’t always timely in the early days either. If the Capital Punishment fees had existed then, I wonder if those titles would still be around.

Over on the Comics Roundtable on the computer service GEnie, Bill Neville made some additional observations about your letter that hadn’t occurred to me. Rather than present his thoughts as my own, I instead quote him with his permission:

(Bob Matson) describes a situation with retailers who were drowning in excess Superman inventory and unsold comics from the summer, and tells how the distributors came to the rescue of these retailers. (But later) he says that if a creator lacks business acumen, he shouldn’t be in publishing (and) expecting a `free ride’ from distributors. Evidently, the place for people lacking business acumen who want a `free ride’ is in retail…

He goes on to point out that it’s about time the publishers started covering some of the distributor’s expenses, instead of leaving it to the retailers. Hey, Bob… why don’t you try running a double-page advertising spread in Previews? Then go through and count the advertising pages in one issue. Then take the issue to a few printers and get estimates on how much it would cost to publish a print run of 50,000 or so. The distributors make a lot of money from publishers, I’d say.

“Matson says ‘It no longer makes sense to order $20,000 worth of retail comics for a projected sales level of $15,000…’” Evidently, this at one point was a reasonable thing to do in his mind. He has now decided that Antarctic Press should suffer for the sins of Continuity.

Sorry, Bob. Your arguments are about as convincing as… Well, as this Marvel Mart business, really.

Once upon a time, when I was Marvel’s sales manager, I had to defend even bone-headed management decisions or programs because… well… it was my job. Now, though, I am but a humble pain-in-the-ášš freelancer, and have torn into Marvel publicly on any number of occasions.

But I’m sorry, Kelli Stanley… with all due respect, this just isn’t one of those times.

Years ago, whenever Marvel would launch some new retail program, the immediate retailer action was always—always—reminiscent of Dr. Smith on Lost in Space crying, “We’re doomed!” Or the Marine in Aliens shouting, “Game over, man!” Marvel gets racks into bookstore chains. “We’re doomed!” Marvel produces bagged comics assortments for retail chains. “We’re doomed!” Marvel, in an unheard of maneuver, goes back to press for second and third printings of G.I. Joe. “Game over, man! Game over!”

And in the meantime, direct sales got bigger and bigger and bigger.

And now, finally, finally, it’s deflating. Sales are dwindling back down to pre-feeding frenzy levels. It’s a repeat of the black and white glut from some years back, except it’s in color. And I think we can all agree that deflation didn’t have a dámņëd thing to do with bookstore chains, or bagged comic assortments or third printings of G.I. Joe… except in the sense that expanding into markets beyond the direct gave comics additional exposure and drew people into specialty stores. Under ordinary circumstances, this would be considered a “good thing,” except that people went berserk or deluded themselves into believing that tomorrow would never come.

(And when I say “people”–unlike some who like to blame problems solely on “greedy retailer pigs”–I mean everyone. Publishers, retailers, distributors, collectors. Everyone had a hand, everybody profited or tried to, and everyone’s feeling the crunch now. Except writers, of course. Writers are utterly blameless. They are, in fact, the saints of this industry, and should not suffer for the transgressions of others.)

But jittery retailers, already feeling besieged, see the Marvel Mart ad and cry, “Marvel’s turned on us! We’re doomed!” One retailer in Diamond Dialogue actually characterized it as “evil.” Game over, man!

My take on it is this: It’s a perfectly decent idea. No different than Marvel’s earlier attempts to expand the market. Indeed, if Marvel weren’t trying to expand the market, they would be criticized for strip mining the present consumers instead of trying to find new ones. And I have yet to see one shred of evidence to indicate that consumers have departed their local comic shops, and the variety and personal service those shops provide, in favor of haunting a spinner rack at an impersonal Waldenbooks.

There are some definite caveats that Marvel should beware, however:

1) Good God, Marvel, keep the ads for Marvel Mart the hëll out of direct sales editions.

All of Marvel’s previous expansion efforts have been far removed from the direct sales environs. Run it in the newsstand editions, by all means. Let kids who might not have known of the existence of Marvels or other upscale product learn that such things are published. This is a society where, as Carrie Fisher wrote in Postcards From the Edge, “Immediate gratification takes too long.” Consequently, I suspect that once kids learn of such books, they won’t sit around and wait to order more stuff mail order. They’ll want to know where they can go to find this stuff pronto.

But placing the ad in the direct editions undercuts every single claim that the purpose is to expand the market.

(Of course, one could speculate that if Marvel had done that in the first place, direct retailers might have said, “Look! Look! Marvel’s trying to sneak something past us by running the ad in comics we wouldn’t ordinarily see! We’re doomed!” But that way lies madness.)

2) Placing print orders in advance for various titles at the time of printing is fine. Do not, however, go back to press for the sole purpose of producing product for Marvel Mart. Not unless you openly announce, “We’re going back to press on Marvels #1″ and give retailers a crack at it through normal solicits.

3) Avoid soliciting stuff in Marvel Mart that hasn’t already come out on the direct market. If I were a retailer, that would be the kind of thing that would drive me berserk and give me the strongest feeling that Marvel is working head-to-head against me. You have enough stuff in backstock, and enough material to choose from, that you don’t need to wave this kind of red flag at the retailers. And I can’t believe you need the money such actions would generate that much. I mean, it’s not like you have to make up for the shortfall in EuroDisney or something.

4) Do not, under any circumstance, offer any sort limited product that retailers don’t have access to. For example: Several outfits presently offer signed limited editions of comics. You could argue, therefore, that Marvel Mart has just as much right to produce a similar product. You might even be correct. But having the right to do something doesn’t mean you should do something. I, as the pedestrian, have the right of way when crossing the street in most circumstances. But when the speeding truck bears down on me, well… I’m not interested in dying to defend my right of way. Stay the hëll away from specialty products, Marvel, or risk serious treadmarks on your back.

In short, gentlemen, endeavor to avoid acting in an unfair manner. After all, we all know unfair equals bad.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, was amused to see that, indeed, the self-same Diamond retailers who sat on their hands and scowled when Tony Lobito announced the Spawn/Batman crossover at last year’s seminar, then placed orders that put the book at the top of the sales charts–exactly as I prophesied they’d do even as they were busy making Lobito squirm. It’s nice to know that, in an unpredictable world, some things remain safely foreseeable.)