Why Are The Comics Retailers Worried About Mass Store Closings?

>DC’s Prices Are Too Low – Pricing has always been a thorny issue, but this one just makes me roll my eyes. We’ve gone from retailers complaining about customers pushing back on Marvel’s $4.99 first issues and having to just WHY an indie publisher needs to charge $3.99 for a comic to make a living to whining about DC not charging a high enough cover price? Stop. Just stop.

>Are DC’s sales partially due to a lower cover price? I expect so, yes. It encourages sampling and it’s easier on the wallet when you’re bi-weekly. And after a DISMAL couple of years, DC really needed that wide sampling. And some of those readers who sampled new titles stuck around or we’d be hearing a lot MORE about shops being in trouble. Thing is, when Marvel first started upping the price on their more popular titles to $3.99, they didn’t lose a huge amount of sales on most titles (the exception being Loeb’s Hulk, IIRC). If people LIKE the comic, they’ll pay $3.99. I don’t think DC is stealing Marvel sales purely on price point. It probably helped getting the initial audience and it probably helps retaining them, but it’s not such a big factor if Marvel’s creating material the audience clearly prefers. On two books a reader is lukewarm on, $2.99 is going to be $3.99, though.

>So let’s just leave this topic alone and maybe you’ll keep those DC sales you currently have, rather than risk audience abandonment with a price hike. I wish your customers were made of money, but not all of them are. (Just the ones paying ridiculous prices for variants.)

>Customers disappearing – This one startled me a little bit, but I’ve heard multiple stories about the customers, including regulars, dropping out since… perhaps the beginning of the Fall? So after Rebirth finished launching and around Civil War 2? There’s not a lot of agreement about why this is happening. A particularly heated presidential campaign distracting people. More customers switching to tpbs. Marvel fans throwing in the towel. Lots of different explanations, but not a clear narrative. Nobody’s said “customers switching to digital,” and I doubt a regular’s going to admit that to his shop very often, but let’s throw that out there as a possibility. Death of 1000 cuts? Enough people are agreeing this is happening for me to believe it, but the “why” is up for debate.

>Customers Switching to TPB/Book Format – Look, if you’re a regular visitor to this site, you’ve read me discussing this before. It hasn’t changed and the needle keeps moving in this direction. The short version: new readers don’t want to pay $3.99 for 20 pages that are a little on the thin side, in terms of story. They want to get the complete story and not worry about running down individual issues. Price and packaging are factors here. Readers coming in at older ages, not being trained to make a weekly comics run is a factor. It’s not nearly as convenient for the retailer and the ordering cycle, but this isn’t a new thing and it doesn’t look like it’s doing anything but gaining steam, so retailers would be advised to dip their toe in and get acclimated if they haven’t already.

>The challenges here, and these are DEADLY SERIOUS challenges to retailers. When a regular customer decides to switch to tpbs, there’s a gap before the new material can be collected in book format. And it can be over six months. In the case of DC’s Rebirth, first volumes start in… March? Let’s just say if I was one of those shop owners who wasn’t sure if he was going to make it to January, I wouldn’t be real happy with DC not having those Rebirth tpbs ready for holiday shoppers when I could use the money to survive.

>So your customer is waiting on new material. I really hope the customer who told you their intent to switch to tpbs (not trade-wait… it’s time to lose that term) was receptive to getting hand-sold on some new material during that wait. If not, you’ve got to hope that after 6 months, your customer REMEMBERS “oh, there’s new material in those series I read and I could go back to the shop.” They could forget they still read comics in 6 months. Out of the weekly habit, they might go to a different store or order the books online. There’s a retention risk here that wasn’t nearly as serious before. And it sound like a lot of shops are currently in the middle of weathering a year of customers switching formats.

>I don’t think there’s anything unnatural about this switch and the customer gets to choose what format the customer wants to read in. This is about the customer. But it doesn’t mean a big transition isn’t going to be a strain on a shop. And yes, this does sound like an independent bookstore with a much larger newsstand, doesn’t it?

>>88444833
Read the comments too. There's fucking good points about why the comic industry doesn't go digital or TPB-only.

>Customers don’t like Marvel’s Output – This is always a touchy subject as Marvel corporate always goes into a bunker and denies everything while the hardcore fans pitch a fit. And Marvel is doing extremely brisk business in areas outside the Direct Market. Marvel as a company may be doing quite well, but the bulk of their ongoing DM lineup is in a bad place when you take the variant covers away. This has all been discussed before, so again, I’m going to just do the highlights.

>Marvel has been locked in a template for a decade, trying to duplicate the success of Civil War. In broad strokes, it goes like this: six months of cross-over event -> six months of reboot with variant covers -> six months of cover-over event. And the DM audience is just over it. Especially when the crossovers don’t feel organic and half of them are duds. It interrupts the attempts at an ongoing story in the regular titles and guess what? Those interruptions aren’t great for the burgeoning tpb audience, either.

>Marvel has trained an awful lot of their audience that they’re reading the story of the universe and only the stories feeding into the big events count. So it tends to be an all or nothing proposition and the series that keep out of the events tend to get marginalized as not counting as much. It’s silly for the self-contained titles to flow like that, but it’s a function of the promotional style. I’m not sure Hawkeye would’ve gotten its tpb sales under Fraction/Aja if it was constantly crossing over, though.

>Marvel’s chasing different demographics, but trying to keep them in the same imprint. Marvel is having HUGE success with the tween market, selling tpbs into Scholastic Book Fairs. Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur does HUGE numbers there, but the monthly comic is a barely a blip in the DM. And then people get upset that 40 year old men aren’t picking up comics targeted at tweens. I must be getting old, because I remember when that was an ugly stereotype. The point is, Marvel is putting some of those characters that do big numbers OUTSIDE the DM at the forefront of the monthly titles. If the Scholastic audience doesn’t migrate into the shops to seek out the monthlies, OF COURSE, there’s going to be an audience disconnect. In a perfect world, comic shops would be selling to wider demographics, but especially in shops that serve a tighter market, this is going to create some confusion with audience. I know demographics are scary, but when Harlequin (the romance novels) bought Mack Bolan/The Executioner, they sure didn’t put the Harlequin logo on the cover.

>How many different Avengers/Inhumans/Squadron Supreme/Iron Man, etc. titles does ONE person really want to buy? The line extension is out of control. And if you cross over inside the family of titles enough to make it feel like an all or none proposition, well… there you go again.

>Inhumans and X-Men. How’s that Terrigen Mist plot point been working out the last couple years? Breaking records on that new event yet?

>The cherry on the top of the sundae is when some of the owners think that they’re losing sales on non-Marvel titles because some of the primarily Marvel readers are just not coming in much any more.

>On the bright side, at least Marvel’s getting better about keeping tpbs in print, which was an astonishing problem for years.

>The truth that nobody wants to hear is that Marvel could probably downsize the DM and make a go out of chasing the Young Adult market through Scholastic and the “regular” bookstore market if they had to. It’s going to be pretty darn interesting when the 2016 Bookscan numbers drop, so we can see what’s real and what’s hype, but they’ve been building other markets. We also don’t know, and won’t know, if Marvel’s digital sales have picked up.

>The other thing is that while the state of Marvel’s DM mid-list is approaching late stage New 52 kinds of pathetic, they do a good job of papering over that weakness with those variant covers. Which probably means shops that have a good market for those and/or shops that are large enough to take advantage of those without much extra ordering may be making out like bandits. But clearly not the entire market.

>Is it time for Marvel to get new editorial direction and finally use the nuclear option – a reboot? Axel’s staked his name on Marvel not needing to reboot, so I’m sure he’d say no. The majority of retailers I talk to would just as emphatically say yes. I don’t think the midlist is likely to improve with yet another iteration of “Marvel NOW,” a promotion that’s been run into the ground.

>Here’s the thing, though. Marvel’s better about planning ahead than DC is. LMAO If they were to walk into the office tomorrow, give Axel his severance, put Sana in the EIC chair and say “we need a new direction – start lining up the reboot,” the earliest that would come out would be Fall and the way I hear it, I’m not sure the shops that are in trouble could hang on that long.

>Retailers should have been pointing readers to the Image titles that so many of Marvel’s A-list writers have left for and started doing so 2+ years ago when there was time to build a little publisher diversity into the system. Some shops did, but apparently not enough. There is a sense that the pure Marvel fans have been leaving and it’s too late to get them interested in something else. That sentiment is not as universal as other things, but there’s definitely extreme concern from some of the retailers.

>Rising Cost of Doing Business – There are mentions of rising rent and rising minimum wage. This is a cost of doing business issue. It’s very real, but it’s somewhat out of the scope of what a publisher can control, save taking the cover price off the book… except not that many customers are likely to be excited about $4.99 cover prices, which makes it a Catch -22. And an unfortunate Catch-22.

>Diamond Credit Crackdown – There’s a clear narrative of retailers getting nervous because Diamond’s being serious about credit limits and it sounds like maybe a lot of shops got behind while DC and Marvel were both in the tank. Or maybe there was some over-ordering on big titles that didn’t have as much popularity with the customer as the publishers were hyping. Either way, this is a real problem. Diamond took a hit with the Hastings bankruptcy. They weren’t the only company that took a hit and you really don’t want the distributor for 90+% of the monthly product going bankrupt, so Diamond really does need to protect itself. I’m not sure the market would survive the scramble for all the publishers to arrange alternate distribution if they didn’t. It’s a problem and we can just hope the shops in trouble have good luck with holiday sales.

>In Summary

>So what we’re *probably* looking at here is a combination of customer tastes changing a little faster than anticipated and those changes, plus the cost of doing business rising, gumming things up for a set of shops.

>What’s This Mean Moving Forward?

>Again, if you’re a regular Beat reader, a lot of this isn’t new. This looks like a manifestation of that perfect storm scenario I’ve been concerned about since ’10, which New 52 and the indie resurgence pulled the market out of. The retailers seemed a little more concerned right now and let me be very frank: when Direct Market comics dealers are very quiet about problems for 3-4 months and then say “it’s BAD,” you should worry. Comics dealers are usually grousing about something, and if they’re not, they’re usually having legitimate concerns about something.

>This is why I’ve been begging retailers to embrace the book format if that’s what’s selling and to add more publishers to the mix so there aren’t so may eggs in one basket. Both of them aren’t necessarily something that can be done overnight.

>The first question is how many shops are really going to close? There are going to be some clearance sales and hopefully that buys a little time for some ships to get righted. Are we talking 20 shops? 100 shops? More?

>The second question is WHICH shops are going to close?

>You know how the conventional wisdom is that ~300 shops make up the bulk of orders for independent comics? I actually think that number has creeped up the last couple of years, but it doesn’t take a lot of hits to this sub-group to start impacting the independent publishers in a meaningful way. 50 small shops is a drop in the bucket for DC and Marvel. 50 indie shops could be 10%+ of sales going away for an indie publisher.

>My gut feeling is that if retailers are concerned about a lot of the Marvel audience walking out, that retailers with a wider selection of publishers will be losing fewer sales and better able to weather the storm, but that depends on how well everything else is selling, the rent, wages and so forth.

>I really hope some of these shops being identified as in trouble can gut it out and emerge healthier. (And it does look like Whatever…, the San Francisco shop with a GoFundMe met their goal.)

>What everyone wants to avoid here is a snowball effect and there are a couple scenarios for that.

>Scenario 1: Widespread shop closings among the shops most dependent on DC and Marvel. Enough for both DC and Marvel to feel the bite. Marvel doubles down on the bookstore market and DC starts switching to more OGNs. Everybody starts feeling more of that pain while waiting for the tpbs come out. The DM gets busted down to a core of larger shops that had deeper pockets to weather the storm. Digital serialization and print tpbs becomes a lot more common for the Big 2. Indie market proceeds as usual, but the shift towards tpb continues.

>Scenario 2: Closings take a big bite out of the indie friendly market and monthly indie comics aren’t as viable as they were in 2016, but not enough closings to bother DC and Marvel, which continue business as usual. There’s a wild scramble as indie creators debate whether OGNs should stick with the current publisher or to court one of the mainstream book publishers with a graphic novel imprint. Smaller indie creators fall back on digital and get VERY familiar with (alphabetically) Kickstarter and Patreon.

>I think what’s more likely is a much, much smaller scale version of Scenario 1 and then Marvel shores things up Q4 ’17 or Q1 ’18 by trying Something Different from the rut they’ve been stuck in. If “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again” worked for DC and Rebirth, a *sincere* apology and return to fundamentals should work for Marvel.

>We really don’t know how many shops are in imminent danger and plenty of them are doing well. That doesn’t change the fact that prominent retailers are sounding the warning bell and are seeing trends that alarm them.

>We’re just going to have to wait and see what happens. If nothing else, the takeaways are that book formats and more complete stories are still gaining steam and the audience is getting disgruntled enough to say no, having a complete run of a title be damned.

>If this gets bad, distribution is going to change a little. Digital’s going to be a little more prominent. Books are going to be even more prominent and if there are more geographic holes in distribution, that means increased demand for digital and mail order.

>The laughter you hear is Jeff Bezos.

>>88444833
>DC’s prices are too low
Stopped reading there. This was obviously written by a Marvel shill trying to talk shit on Rebirth. Rebirth is literally single-handedly saving the comics industry.

>>88445176
He said the DC prices too low complaint likely doesn't have any merit.

>>88444940
Yeah Marvel really really fucked up the event formula which was apparent in civil war 2 showing everything bad about a marve event

>>88444833
Most of those are valid but the DC prices and bitching about trades are stupid.

>>88444935
>There's fucking good points about why the comic industry doesn't go digital or TPB-only
Which is?

>>88444966
>Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur does HUGE numbers there
Neat.
This doesn't explain why Marvel's trying to push her in adult-targeted books, though.

>>88445367
In the comments, anon
Go into the link and scroll down

>>88445176
At least read the part about Marvel being bad. The guy calls out Marvel shills I'm that part and it's pretty good.

>>88444991
>Is it time for Marvel to get new editorial direction and finally use the nuclear option – a reboot?
Well, DC didn't need to do that after the New 52, so no.
Reboots are literally never a good idea.

why don't they do like in the ild days with leader known heroes being togheter with the big ones to taste the waters?

>>88445104
>I think what’s more likely is a much, much smaller scale version of Scenario 1 and then Marvel shores things up Q4 ’17 or Q1 ’18 by trying Something Different from the rut they’ve been stuck in. If “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again” worked for DC and Rebirth, a *sincere* apology and return to fundamentals should work for Marvel.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>88445367
From the comments:
>“The truth that nobody wants to hear is that Marvel could probably downsize the DM and make a go out of chasing the Young Adult market through Scholastic and the “regular” bookstore market if they had to. ”

No, it couldn’t. I have no idea where you are getting this from. Marvel can’t afford to stock in the bookstores without the income from the Direct Market subsidizing the trades and offsetting the losses from returns. And the book fair market is only profitable when you’re doing really big numbers (where is the evidence that Moon Girl is doing huge numbers there?) because Scholastic takes such a big licensing fee.

Dan DeDio and Jim Lee were upfront about it- if a book doesn’t sell well as a monthly TPB sales don’t really matter. People have no idea how expensive making a typical comic book is.

This is all the same delusional talk we hear about digital. But people in the retail business heard over and over customers say “I don’t want to read my comics on a screen.”

The fact is that both Marvel and DC are heavily subsidized by their owners. The industry bet the farm on “diversity” and lost. They didn’t listen to the people who warned them that all those people showing up at cons weren’t there to buy comics. In fact they attacked them- this blog did so more than anyone. No one has ever listened to retailers except those retailers who tell them what they want to hear. But the only people who know this market are the people who actually have made a living selling comics.

>>88445634
I fucked up the green text, but it's all from a comment made by Dr. Comics, a retailer (I think in Oakland)

>>88445019
>rising minimum wage
This guy is full of shit but this is the worst of it. Do the rich buy comics? No. The middle class and lower do and they only way they can afford that is by them getting paid more. say, Your store has 2 employees every day raise minimum wage by 1$. The store plays 16$ wage and s bit more in taxes and all whatever else. 4 comics gross covers that, now of course gross isn't the best comparison, but if some of those comics sit on the shelf snd never sell it is.

But if every one of your customers gets that same wage increase, of course they won't spend it all but they may throw down 10-20 dollars extra a month cause that was only another 3 days work with their new wage. It doesn't take many of them to give you a large profit over what you pay your employees.

What a fucking cunt, saying minimum wage hurts comics

>>88445634
> The industry bet the farm on “diversity” and lost.
Marvel is not the entire industry.

>>88445634
And above that comment is Brian Hibbs (who was one of the earliest to actively push trades alongside comics)

>Speaking as a guy who runs a books-forward comics business, I think Todd radically overstates the potential conversion rate of book-preferred buyers on superhero material. In the significant majority of cases, the size of that audience is 1/3 or fewer of the audience for a serialization of the same work, and more typically as little as a tenth.

>A malaise on Marvel will never be solved by “customers switching to trades”

>There are individual books that are exceptions (HAWKEYE, SQUIRREL GIRL, et al), but when you’re talking about the bulk of Marvel and DC’s lines… well, there isn’t much market juice there. Here, as an example, Waid’s AVENGERS is selling, what? like 40k copies? v2 as a trade barely brought 2k in orders at initials, and I’m sure it’s lifetime DM reorder velocity will no ore than triple those initials. No Waid Avengers material is on any bookscan I have yet, but “comparable” books (say, Hickman’s trades in the years he was still on the book) show numbers that are similar — 2-3k, with not a significant long-tail that I can envision. I’d be surprised if lifetime sales on v2 of Waid’s ANAD ever reach much over 10k sales reported. 40k vs 10k? I’ll take the 40k audience any day of the week

>Customers don’t like Marvel’s output

The problem with Marvel isn't the price or the relaunches it's because their universe is fucking boring now. There are good individual titles (And great titles like Vision) but the overall thing seems pointless. Say what you want aboiut DC but they have a goal right now, there's a story they want to tell and it's spread out across their universe. It's in the background of most titles but it's there. Meanwhile at Marvel It feels like they're just putting out books to fill a slot

>>88445907
>The problem with Marvel isn't the price or the relaunches it's because their universe is fucking boring now.
It's all three, man.

>>88445907

Yeah, even though I don't like every book DC is putting out, it feels like there is a cohesive plan and goal behind what they are doing with their universe. I also think DC is better at appealing to multiple kinds of audiences with different needs/wishes - see how well the DC superhero girls line and cartoon are doing, for example.

move to digital and trades, fucking finally. i feel bad for marvel because i like a chunk of their stuff. (Avengers line and rando books)

>>88446094
>move to digital and trades, fucking finally.

Yeah, that's not gonna help.

>>88445517
Marvel just needs a Rebirth. Lots of fan pandering. Better status quo. They can have some diversity, but don't make it most of your line up.

>>88445809
Certainly not, but as recently as last year publishers said things like "it's Marvel's world the rest of us just live in it."

>>88446094
Did you not glance at the other comments in the thread or are you just stupid

>>88445176
The fact you were unable to read up to him dismissing the claim makes you look like the shill, fucking retard.

Ditch the floppies.

Print anthologies on toilet paper, color optional.

Then sell the comics as TPBs or hardcover.

>>88445075

This guy seems to be implying that DC isn't as strong as Marvel in the bookstore market when I'm pretty sure DC is stronger there. DC has a much better chance iof weathering this shitstorm than Marvel does because they have the monopoly on collected stories. Nobody buys Marvel collections from the 80's but Watchmen and TDKR are still huge sellers

>>88446147
And why qould we want it to? Diamond is killing everything but propping up marvel and DC. Let it die

>>88446257
see >>88446237

File: 864849.jpg (165KB, 600x920px) Image search: [Google]

165KB, 600x920px

>>88446147
>>88446237

1. no i didn't read the thread but i read the article and posted
2. the direct market and diamond have been fucked forever and it's just a matter of time until it falls.
3. How does amazon/ist manage to sell so cheap, huge bulk buys? turning lcs' into bookshops isn't a horrible idea

>>88445683
Except the costs are spread among every industry, every costs rise and then the extra cash the worker earned just dissipates back into nothing.
Artificially increasing the minimum wage does nothing, you have to grow into it, faggot, also you americans earn way too much to the point where you lost touch with reality.

>>88446283
>"let the comic industry die" meme

See that's how I know you're that dumb shitposter who can't come up with ideas.

>>88446282
Claremont X-Men and simonson thor are the exceptions but yeah. DC kills marvel in old trades. How often is Killing Joke NOT in the top sellers?

>>88446218
Marvel's very vocal online fans who don't buy comics would crucify them. Especially since many creators have been toting the company line and talking shit about DC going back to basics.

>>88445809

If Marvel goes down they take the whole thing with them. It's sad because they deserve to die

>>88446329

Are they? It's insane to me there's not easy ways to get big runs in a couple of phonebooks .

>>88446282
>This guy seems to be implying that DC isn't as strong as Marvel in the bookstore market

How the fuck did you even get that from that text?

>Marvel doubles down on the bookstore market and DC starts switching to more OGNs.

Means he thinks that if the worst comes to the direct market Marvel tries to double their efforts on the bookstore market (which like you said, they aren't as strong in) while DC does more things like Earth One.

>>88446223
>Certainly not, but as recently as last year publishers said things like "it's Marvel's world the rest of us just live in it."

It was literally a Marvel shill who said that. For fucks sake, Marvel doesn't even make comic books- they're a variant cover and toy licence company.

>>88446366
>shill
Just stop.

>>88446299
>How does amazon/ist manage to sell so cheap, huge bulk buys?
Ordering wholesale and already having an existing distribution system. Amazon sells fucking everything already, so they don't have a problem with adding some more books. IST is a subsidiary of DCBS, which lives off of floppy sales.

>>88446334
>Marvel's very vocal online fans who don't buy comics would crucify them.

But who cares? Like you said they don't buy comic so they can just be ignored. The worst thing you can do to these types is give them any attention at all. Whatever Marvel does for "diversity" it will never be enough for these people.

>>88446375
Stop responding to it

>>88446282

i remember some dude talking about how the best thing dc did is keep all that stuff in print and in the public mind. But they also said the movies actually hurt sales of like Watchmen.

Marvel doesn't have easy to get mid priced trades of their classic Spider-Man, X-Men, FF, etc stories.

>>88446380
IST and DCBS are part of Diamond, are they not?
Its on a the boxes the ship, iirc.

>>88445809
No, just over a third of it, and if over a third of the industry goes under then it'll take down the rest of the industry with it. Retailers barely make a profit as is. Take away one of their two biggest money makers and they won't be able to stay in business unless they can sell a few of those $1,000+ variants.

>>88446350
Never heard of omnibuses?

>>88446396
It's arguable that image means more than sales to Marvel since Disney bought them for movie rights.

>>88446396
Marvel is using it for free advertising. It's really despicable, but brings them money. It may bite them in the ass in due time but they don't seem to plan ahead

>>88445493
Yeah. I actually like her book well enough, but trying to shove her into OTHER books is fucking retarded.

DC is absolutely retarded when it comes to tpbs. The entire industry is, but I believe A LOT of people, especially outside the US is going to trade-wait for a lot of Rebirth titles. But their trades take forever to come out. They need to get their shit together, but it looks like that won't happen any time soon.

>>88444833
>DC’s prices are too low
I would actually buy them if they were lower.

>>88446492
In canada it isn't an anti conservative idea though. Plenty of conservative governments have raised minimum wage, some more than liberals have. It is a bi partisan agreement except for those very few far right wingnuts. Which have been coming iut of the woodwork just lately.

We may have worse than Harper coming soon.

>prices too low

Haha what ? You must be stupid to spend 4$ for 20 pages with ads when you can now have so much more for this price.

>>88444833
I haven't bought a comic book in over 4 years. I don't even care about downloading them all either. I've too many comics in long boxes I just want to sell so I can buy more Blu-rays and CDs.
IDGAF what condition they are either. No, I haven't been to my LCR in that long either. I just stopped caring and it was getting too fucking expensive. Dropped everything from my pull too.
But I could work at my LCR and just say I care more about collecting movies than comics.

>>88446407
>But they also said the movies actually hurt sales of like Watchmen.

How? Watchmen got a boost during 2009 but when the sales went down it didn't really go down too badly. Even its lowest sales year post-movie--2011--was still higher than pre-2006 numbers. The Before Watchmen stuff isn't doing that well though.

>>88446433
Christ, you're such a humongous faggot that I'm going to replace my entire pull list with Marvel just to spite you.

>>88446556
>>88446615
No matter you guys like comics. A lot less reading goes on there.

>>88445176
If you stopped reading there then you missed all the ways he talk about DC was doing better then Marvel.
Grow a skin thicker then a soap bubble you touchy idiot.

One Piece is 11 volumes to contain roughly 100 issues.

>>88446615
The "Prices Too Low" thing comes from some retailers who don't feel as though they're making enough profit from DC, not from customers. But it's really just overlapped with how badly Marvel has been selling at stores because even though DC sells really well at some stores its sales aren't enough to make up for the lost sales in Marvel. Even the article writer proved that DC having lower prices isn't the problem.

>>88446545
After the vol 1s come out I January the vol 2s are coming out four months later

>>88446545
I have to agree. I'm waiting for at least four DC Rebirth trades. Thanks to the rebirth story times they're trades I never would have considered otherwise but I really want to pay for them.

>>88444833
And Ryan Higgins responds to the article, too.

https://twitter.com/RyanHigginsRyan/status/809461757877964800
https://twitter.com/RyanHigginsRyan/status/809463982796869632

How's Walking Dead doing? I feel like that is what marvel wants to emulate

>>88447174
Forgot these:

Response to someone who brought up other people that want non-cape stores:
https://twitter.com/RyanHigginsRyan/status/809472222154760192

Response to someone asking how well digital does at his store (50-70% less on new releases):
https://twitter.com/RyanHigginsRyan/status/809475273238323200

>>88447214
Generally decent.

10/2015: The Walking Dead #147 -- 67,056 (- 2.6%) [68,007]
11/2015: The Walking Dead #148 -- 65,526 (- 2.3%) [66,446]
12/2015: The Walking Dead #149 -- 65,406 (- 1.6%)
01/2016: The Walking Dead #150 -- 156,166 (+138.8%)
02/2016: The Walking Dead #151 -- 67,381 (- 59.6%)
03/2016: The Walking Dead #152 -- 67,258 (- 0.2%)
04/2016: The Walking Dead #153 -- 67,358 (+ 0.1%)
05/2016: The Walking Dead #154 -- 68,922 (+ 2.3%)
06/2016: The Walking Dead #155 -- 71,755 (+ 4.1%)
07/2016: The Walking Dead #156 -- 76,355 (+ 6.4%)
08/2016: The Walking Dead #157 -- 97,689 (+ 37.0%) [104,596]
09/2016: The Walking Dead #158 -- 94,316 (- 9.8%)
10/2016: The Walking Dead #159 -- 91,291 (- 3.2%)

Remember that this book used to sell in the 30,000s like five years ago, which was an improvement over when it started in like the 10,000s.

>>88447261

Wait, I was wrong, it started out with less than 10,000.

Walking Dead #1 7,266
Walking Dead #2 6,067
Walking Dead #3 6,992
Walking Dead #4 7,019
Walking Dead #5 8,829

>>88447261
One of the few examples where tv synergy works. New season comes out people buy. But all you idiots that think image is a tv pilot farm are idiots. Image supports everything they think is good. And they seem to have a better track record than dc or marvel.

>>88447144
It's like they have the option to make more money, but choose not to.

I mean, like be realistic, it would probably take some changes within the company, with printers and so on, to get trades out faster, but still, they must like money.

>>88447174
Why does /co/ keep posting that guy's shit

Or is this you Ryan?

>>88448100
>Why does /co/ keep posting that guy's shit

Because he's one of the few retailers on Twitter talking about his sales on a regular basis.

Are you someone from Marvel trying to do damage control?

>>88448100
because he sucks dc's cock mostly when other retaielrs try to be more fair to marvel, image, and everybody else

>>88448178
>Fair
Man, I like a lot of what Marvel's putting out, but their business practices are absolutely indefensible. Fuck off.

>>88448222
you're just proving me right anon

>>88448178
>Guy's sales of Marvel products are tanking because of Marvel's current direction and business practices and he's upset he's losing money.
>This guy sucks DC's dick and isn't fair to Marvel!!!!!

>>88448240
>>88448178
>Marvel intern trying to do damage control and failing

>>88448100
Because Ryan is literally /co/.

He mostly likes DC and Marvel, hates marvel right now, and reads only a handful of popular image books.

>>88446439
I'm fairly certain diamond is on the boxes because they are reusing the boxes that comics were originally shipped in, to ship orders to the customer.

>>88448252
Not that anon but he is a DCfag just listen to his podcast

>>88444833
I literally only read comics digitally or as a collected book volume, so I guess I'm the cancer killing the industry.

Why would I ever go to a store in person when I can just wait until the story is actually finished and read it in one sitting.

I (and a lot of other people) do the same thang when it comes to TV, I'd rather watch an entire season in a couple sittings than wait forever in between each episode

>>88445634
>They didn’t listen to the people who warned them that all those people showing up at cons weren’t there to buy comics. In fact they attacked them- this blog did so more than anyone
Wow, ComicsBeat really sucks.

>>88448752
You are not problem, really. They need to realize no one cares about decompressed writing. I would rather wait Godspeed arc of Flash in trade than to buy each 9 issues of nothing like a retard.

>>88445176
>Stopped reading there.

You are everything that's wrong with modern discourse. If the writer doesn't immediately pander to you and your preconceived notions you get mad and piss your pants.

>>88444940
Events are breaking readers. Especially when Civil War II was just outright bad.

>>88444966
>Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur does HUGE numbers there, but the monthly comic is a barely a blip in the DM.
IF that's the case, why not just make it straight to TPB?

>>88444966
>>How many different Avengers/Inhumans/Squadron Supreme/Iron Man, etc. titles does ONE person really want to buy? The line extension is out of control. And if you cross over inside the family of titles enough to make it feel like an all or none proposition, well… there you go again.
I think the issue is that there are a shit ton of characters, and they have to rely on names.

>>88449453
Because TPB sales aren't always as high as monthly comic sales. See >>88445821 and >>88445634

>>88445075
>Scenario 1: Widespread shop closings among the shops most dependent on DC and Marvel. Enough for both DC and Marvel to feel the bite. Marvel doubles down on the bookstore market and DC starts switching to more OGNs. Everybody starts feeling more of that pain while waiting for the tpbs come out. The DM gets busted down to a core of larger shops that had deeper pockets to weather the storm. Digital serialization and print tpbs becomes a lot more common for the Big 2. Indie market proceeds as usual, but the shift towards tpb continues.
The perfection scenario desu. The DM needs to die already, it's fucking cancer.

>>88445176
The only one sounding like a shill here is you.

>>88449716
>Marvel doubles down on the bookstore market and DC starts switching to more OGNs
Isn't this how they do in Europe too?

>>88449716
>It's a "DM needs to die" post made by someone who doesn't understand business post

>>88444966
>>88444991
I'm sorry, what is "DM"?

>>88450044
Direct Market.

>>88444991
>Is it time for Marvel to get new editorial direction and finally use the nuclear option – a reboot? Axel’s staked his name on Marvel not needing to reboot, so I’m sure he’d say no. The majority of retailers I talk to would just as emphatically say yes.

Oh hell no. The decades of continuity is what puts Marvel ahead of DC, and letting people like Bendis meddle with it without any editorial oversight is part of why they're going down the tubes now.

>>88450575
>continuityfag

>>88450628
Guilty as charged.

>>88448609
Nope, years ago he was shitting on DC and New52, nice try Marlelshill

>>88450715
>guilty of not caring about quality, only about continuity
Thanks for the info.

>>88450839
He wasn't the worst he's said against DC is that some books don't sell and it was never to the extent he's doing Marvel now

Plus this is the same dude that says Bvs and MOS were great movies while Civil War was mediocre and AoU was the end of the MCU

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>>88450907
>Bvs and MOS were great movies
>Civil War was mediocre and AoU was the end of the MCU
Well, it's true.

>>88450575
>decades of continuity
>marvel

lol, wut. Marvel had had rolling retcons for decades and literally JUST finished their own Crisis on Infinite Earths. Even One More Day was used as a stand-in for a Crisis. For fuck's sake, do you think the Punisher is still a Vietnam veteran?

There is no way you can sit there and argue that Marvel hasn't done the exact same kind of """"""reboot""""" style continuity fixes unless you literally don't read DC.

Why are Marvelfags so stupid? Why do they refuse to read comics?

>>88450907
But all of that is true. New 52 had some really good books, but the loss of continuity made a lot of people mad. DC You was mostly really excellent books but didn't sell because they weren't A-listers.

And yeah, Civil War was another extremely mediocre Marvel formula movie stuffed of quips, CG, bad action, and a half-baked barely present villain.

>>88450842
I only buy quality, but I really like continuity.

Good example right now: Foolkiller, one of the only comics I'm buying by the issue.


>>88451006
Marvel doing soft reboots are bad enough, but a hard reboot would be where I draw the line.

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>>88444833
>Mass exodus from Marvel

I thought the hipsters were picking up their tab? Didn't they tell all of the greasy, misogynistic, racist comic book guys to take a hike, because they didn't need their money? Why would comic shops in California have anything to worry about, what with all of the progressive, forward thinking leftists they have there?

Oh, they don't buy comics? Gee whiz, that sounds like a big fuck up there, Marvel.

>>88446282

You left out Miller's Daredevil stuff, but otherwise I agree completely.

>>88446696

Why are you posting in this thread?

Why would Marvel need to reboot? All they'd need is a general "heroes acting like heroes again" branding like Rebirth.

Now that even the world of comics "journalism" is starting to turn on Marvel (Civil War 2 was too bad for even them to make excuses for, and the Cap/Hydra thing revealed that social-justice criticism is not Marvel's friend) I figure Marvel NOW!again is leading up to something like that. The current theme is "heroes aren't acting like heroes any more." So we'll get another shitty event and a "Heroic Age 2: More Heroic" branding.

>>88448899
>They need to realize no one cares about decompressed writing.

This. There are so many amazing stories from the 70s, 80s, and even 90s which were done in like 2 to 4 issues.

These days however everything takes at least 6 issues. I do imagine that it's the editor's fault more than anyone else as they want to milk every idea (good or bad) for as much as they can. Though it could be Bendis' influence with his atrocious waste of page real estate.

>>88449418

Of course Civil War II was bad. It was created so there would be hype with the movie and to try and rain on Rebirth's parade.

>>88444919
>not trade wait, we need to lose that term

....but ...that's exactly what it is to WAIT for run to complete and breally bound into a graphic novel/tp/hc

>>88451711
I honestly don't think writing for the trade is currently as bad as it was in the '00s when everything was forced to be in 5 or 6 issue increments. Single-issue stories and short arcs are more common now than 10 years ago at the big 2.

>>88448609
So? Are you going to call all the other retailers on Twitter and Bleeding Cool pointing out that Marvel's stuff is selling poorly, that they were sending too many "free" comics that charge retailers for shipping as "DCfags" too?

>>88451639
>All they'd need is a general "heroes acting like heroes again" branding like Rebirth.

This.

Also, I think about problem Marvel has is having too many teambooks and losing the essence of what makes their characters interesting.

Like, Spider-Man isn't about a regular guy having to balance his normal everyday life with being a Superhero. I'm not saying we should go back to Peter being a teenager again, I think Peter should be allowed to grow as at character, but he shouldn't be a tech industry giant.

Also, with things like Black Lives Matter and the recent Pipeline thing, and the Pulse nightclub shooting X-Men could be killing it as a book if the X-Men were still a superhero melodrama standin for minorities like they should be instead of terrigian mists and Rightclops stupidity.

They got rid of the core contraction and duality of Daredevil by making Matt a vigilante and prosecutor instead of a defence and civil lawyer while also being a vigilante.

The Fantasic Four is no longer about a FAMILY of superheroes, because the Fantastic Four don't fucking exist.

And the countless other examples of how they've fucked everything up. Unworthy Thor and Hydra-Cap are basically the only things worth reading with Marvel at the moment (not counting One More Day because it isn't in mainstream continuity).

>>88451859

Notice I didn't mention the early 2000s in my post. But yes, I do agree with you they are more common. The beginning of Superson was done in two issues of Superman which I'm grateful for.

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>>88445500
>Reading any comments section
>ever

>>88446218
Marvel doesn't need a reboot. It needs to go back to telling stories.

A story should not just be "guess what happened"

New books should just not have random new people with no real explaination why and they didn't come from a previous comic book story.

The events need to tell a complete story and not just have time skips afterwards "where stuff happened" and is not explained till a year later.

>>88447261

>Reminder that these profits go to a handful of people and Kirkman is better paid just for floppies than anyone at DC or Marvel

>>88451639

Nothing short of a reboot and mass firing of creative staff will get me to buy another Maeve comic.

Since that isn't happening, I'd say they are shit out of luck when it comes to getting my business back. I was probably buying 20 of their books a month when I stopped back in Spring.

>>88451913
No but he is a dcfag.

Even his co-host on his podcast says it

>>88447779
I think I remember reading somewhere that their trades are produced by the same people who make the Image ones, while Marvel has their own, different publishing unit. This could be the cause of some red tape

>>88447261
Is the new arc of TWD any good, thinking of jumping back on. I haven't read since around when Negan was introduced, is the comic better or worse than it was then?

>>88454462
TWD is still really tedious

>>88455549
All I needed to know, dodged a bullet there. Thanks anon.