Retroactive Continuity Blog

Wonder Woman's New Costume... or reason #96 why I love the internet

2010-07-05T18:15:00.000-07:00

So last week, in a parallel universe, DC Comics decided to generate a bit of publicity and buzz for Wonder Woman, one of the company's iconic properties. Among the bullet points announced was a new storyline and, most importantly, a new costume.

Like the rational society it is, the comic book internet community responded with tact and grace. While many were skeptical of the move, they applauded the creators involved for taking a chance, and said they would give DC the benefit of the doubt and adopt a wait-and-see approach to the changes.

Over in our universe, DC made the same announcement. And like the anarchistic society our comic book internet community is, we responded by hurling personal insults at the creators, cried about our childhoods being sullied, and declaring it one of the worst ideas in comics history.

You'd think with the amount of bile being spewed, Wonder Woman would be one of the top selling books in the industry. Yet it's barely a Top 100 book, finding itself at #78 in April 2010, selling just over 25,000 units, being out performed by both Supergirl and Batgirl in the process (source: ComicsBeat.com).

I tell ya... Nothing pisses off the comic book fanboy more than change, or at least change he didn't think of first. And this Wonder Woman hoopla is further proof of that.

What's really comical is when the storyline is over, hindsight will show this outrage to be misplaced, because we're talking about alternate timeline here. One in which Wonder Woman's memories of the original timeline will progressively return to her.

Therefore, I believe at the end of the story, the timeline will be restored, but Wonder Woman will retain her memories of her alternate life. And to show respect for her alt-self and her friends and loved-ones from that life, she will design a new costume, combining elements of the classic and alt versions.

But will the fanboys look back and say, “Oops. We overreacted. The whole Wonder Woman thing wasn't that horrible after all. Our bad”? Heck no. They won't remember anything about this. In fact, that short term memory will cease about a week after the first issue with the new costume hits the shelf. Such is the way of the internet.

So what was my reaction to all of this? Well, I added Wonder Woman to my pull list for the first time ever. Really. No joke.

I didn't add the title because I think the storyline and costume change are the greatest ideas ever in comic-dom though. It's more to show DC that not every fan is a whiny,self-important fanboy. In fact, had the internet not over reacted, I probably wouldn't have added the book.

“Big deal,” you say. “Don't act like you're making a huge sacrifice by picking up another book in the store each month.”

On the surface, you might have a point. But remember, I don't buy my books at a local comic book store; I buy online, and the deadlines for adjusting my July and August orders, of which Wonder Woman #601 and #602 would be a part, were long gone before DC made its announcement.

So I had to quickly email customer service imploring them, along with a healthy dose of sucking up, to adjust my orders. Fortunately, adding those two issues wasn't a problem. That's just one of many reasons DCBSerivce.com rules.

Had I been unable to adjust the orders, I'm not sure which would have won out; my frustration with whiny, self-important fanboys or my distaste for the comic book stores in my area? Fortunately, I won't have find out.

This is Not a Lending Library!

2010-05-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

With the release of the iPad, and the corresponding comic book apps, the comic book society on the internet was ripe with exclamations of hyperbole.

One camp decreed it a game changer. It will revolutionize the industry, they said, bringing in millions of new customers and saving the industry in the process. The other camp dug into the sand, explaining that comics on electronic devices are graphically inferior and that paper will never go away.

Interestingly, retailers were equally as divided, with some deluding themselves into believing comics on the iPad will bring new customers to their stores, and others predicting doom for the direct market.

Now, lest you think this post will be about my opinion on the iPad hoopla and its potential impact on the comic book industry, please remember I call this blog Retroactive Continuity for a reason. I have to wait at least another month or two before commenting so I can pretend that everything I say is an original thought.

So instead, I shall wax poetic on a sub-topic of the iPad debate; comics piracy. Not necessarily that the iPad will make it easier and more popular to pirate comic books, but whether piracy is actually stealing.

In a thread on Blog@ over at Newsarama, this post caught comparing the sharing of electronic versions of comics with reading comics for free in a store caught my eye:

"I only ask because, every week, I see people at my LCS reading the comics, but not necessarily buying. That is no different, really. They’ve just enjoyed the product at absolutely no cost. Should store owners crack down on people who read, but don’t buy?"

Well, as a former owner of a comic book store, I emphatically say, hell yes store owners should crack down on people who read, but don't buy. In fact, I'm taken aback by the poster's incredulous attitude that owners ever consider cracking down on people who read, but never buy, in their stores.

The policy at my store was quite simple; customers could feel free to browse through as many books as they'd like, perhaps even read a page or two, but that was it. Reading the issue, then placing it back on the shelf was not allowed.

Because we didn't want there to be any confusion over this policy, we placed signage around the store clearly, and politely, explaining the rules. And 99.9% of the time people were cool about it, because I those 99.9% of the people understand that reading a comic book in a comic book store without purchasing it is stealing. Yes, stealing.

Look, I wasn't a fascist about this. I didn't go around busting people's balls because they read one page too many, nor did I make a scene in the rare instance where I felt someone was taking advantage of our relaxed policy.

And I certainly didn't care when a regular customer read a book, because I knew he or she – oh who am I kidding, all of my regular customers were dudes – would drop $20 in my cash register before leaving, or would do so during his next visit.

But in more than one isolated incident, someone would actually sit down in a back corner of the store with a comic book or three and read them all cover to cover. Yes, they would actually sit down on the floor... the floor of a comic book store, and even though my store was cleaner than most, still...

In these cases, if the customer was new, I'd usually let the first book slide, thinking he would soon be walking up to the register with the rest of his stack. But once he started on the second book, I had to lay down the law – politely, of course.

What confuses me about all of this is that some people feel its acceptable, if not their right, to read books in a comic shop without then purchasing something. I mean, it IS shoplifting, right? Or am I way off-base with that opinion?

And what adds to my confusion is those same people wouldn't even consider taking the book home without paying for it because that's very clearly stealing. It's similar to how downloading music for free is considered acceptable, but stealing a CD from a store is wrong.

Is this because the people in question only consider it stealing if they end up with a physical object to show for their effort? And as long as they're only consuming something digital or words and pictures, leaving the paper on the shelf, it's totally fine? It's the location of that arbitrary line in the sand that perplexes me.

Actually, you what? I take that back. It doesn't confuse me. For we now live in a society with a couple of generations who expect handouts and people to take care of them, and at least one generation raised with the “it's on the internet, so it must be free” philosophy. Perhaps I'm the one with the bogus ethical code; too stuck in the past, and yearning for simpler times.

So I tell you what... the next time I open a comic book store, everybody is welcome to sit on the floor and read for free. I promise I'll vacuum even more frequently to keep everybody's butts clean.

Plenty of Room at the Hotel Comi-Con?

2010-04-13T10:35:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I just spoofed lyrics from an Eagles tune to start this blog post. I feel dirty and cheap... *shudder*

So a few weeks ago, Comic-Con International held its annual “let's work tens of thousands of people into a feeding frenzy of false hope and then crush their souls with rejection” also known as the day its blocks of hotel rooms open for reservations. And just like every other year, it was a tremendous success it always is.

Unlike the true “first come, first served” free-for-all of previous years, the 2010 event was setup like a lottery. At the sound of the starting pistol, participants submitted a form with their desired dates and hotels listed in order of preference. Submissions were then pulled at random by the hotel gods and reservations were granted based on availability at the time of selection.

As with any implementation of a new system, there were problems; not the least of which being incompatibility between the online form and the Firefox browser. How you fail to confirm browser compatibility in this age of internet sophistication and critical importance is just baffling. Baffling, I say!

Then, per tradition, later that day, the next annual Comic-Con International event began; the post-hotel reservation “I'm going to complain on the internet about getting shutout of any decent hotels for Comic-Con” tradition. Surely, there has to be a better way.

Now in the name of full disclosure, I've never participated in the hotel reservation carnival. But since when has a lack of firsthand knowledge or experience ever stopped an internet blogger from declaring, with authority, he or she has solved the problem in question? Exactly.

The lottery format is certainly a step in the right direction. And while I've never flogged myself by relying on the hotel carnival, I'm not a stranger to lotteries. In fact, I participate in them quite frequently for hiking and backpacking permits, and I think one or two lessons learned from those lotteries can apply to the hotel lottery.

In the hiking and backpacking world, the lottery for day and overnight permits for Mt. Whitney is one of the biggest. It functions in much the same way as CCI's hotel lottery. Hopefuls fills out a form with a list of starting dates for their trip in order of preference. The forms are thrown in a pile, selected at random, and then filled based on availability.

The big difference, however, is rather than accepting applications and filling applications upon the same starting bell, as CCI did this year, the Mt. Whitney lottery accepts applications for two weeks before starting to fill them. After those two weeks, applications are added to the pile and randomized as they are submitted.

They do this because applications are only accepted via fax, mail, or drop-offs; in other words, no internet applications. They don't want an unanticipated delay in the method of delivery to put someone at a disadvantage. But it also has the unintended result of buffering out any technical difficulties, like a fax machine being down.

Wouldn't this method improve the CCI hotel lottery? Instead of being in a panic over making sure you submit your application as soon as the clock on your computer hits the top of the hour – as if you're trying to score U2 tickets on Ticketmaster – you could submit it anytime during the week leading up to the deadline and not stress about it.

The application you submit on Wednesday, because a a wonky internet connection prevented you from submitting on Tuesday, has the same chance getting pulled as the one submitted on Monday. And specific to this year's lottery, you wouldn't have been screwed by the Firefox issue because you would have had time correct it.

I don't see a downside of such a quick and easy tweak to the process. Other than removing the traditional stress and adrenaline rush that people seem to love to hate, that is.

Marvel's Bounty on the Lantern Ring Books

2010-01-17T14:49:00.000-08:00

In a rare occurrence here at Retroactive Continuity, I'm going to discuss a piece of comic book news that is less than a month old. In fact, it's actually less than a week old. Has hell frozen over? Are dogs and cats living together? Surely some supernatural power has intervened to push me into the realm of topical news.

Well, not really. Normally, I just don't like writing about the same issues everyone else is writing about. I'd rather revisit the topic months down the road after the dust has settled and perspective has been gotten. That's kinda one of the reasons I named this blog Retroactive Continuity. Plus, adding my two cents well after everybody else has moved on, helps me believe I'm capable of original ideas.

But in this case, this particular news item really got my panties in a wad. I mean, they're wadded to the point that I need to vent in order to unwad them. And just what is this piece of news? Well, that would be Marvel's “Siege variant for Blackest Night tie-ins” promotions.

In case you haven't read the press release from Marvel, please take a few minutes to do so. I'll wait...

Read it? Good. Let's get started.

Bottom line, this is one of the biggest dick moves I have ever seen from a comic book publisher. And before you say, “but Cody, by talking about it, you're just playing into Marvel's hand,” you're probably right. But it's still a dick move.

The press release opens with snarkiness, and Marvel's follow-up statements, especially those from Tom Brevoort, continue the snarkiness. Marvel can spin this anyway it wants, but the announcement effectively places a bounty on a competitor's product, and that is not cool in my book.

It's childish. It's one-upsmanship. It's a neener neener neener move. I think this promotion is a cheap shot and of questionable business ethics. And the fact that Marvel is disguising it as a noble “effort to provide assistance to comic retailers” is just dishonest.

If I was still a retailer, there is no way I would participate in this sham of a promotion. And I say this knowing that reckless ordering was one of main factors in the failure of my store. My focus was in other aspects of the store and business, and by the time I realized what was going on, it was unfortunately too late for my corrections to work.

I would love for there to have been an avenue to dump the ridiculous numbers of general back issues my store accumulated – that's just not how this business works though. Yet even if I had hundreds of the lantern ring books in stock, I wouldn't send any to Marvel just out of principle – something the comic book industry seems to have in short supply.

Also, I hate variant covers with a passion. Yes, they increase the quantities of books retailers order. That's why publishers keep printing them. But they don't at all help to increase the number of readers for that particular title. Think about it, are you going to pick up a book you've never read just because you have the opportunity to overpay for the variant cover? Didn't think so.

At least with incentives like the lantern rings, depending on how the retailer distributes them, readers are introduced to a new title like REBELS or Doom Patrol just to get the ring. Not only are they a retailer incentive, they're also a customer incentive. What a concept!

Immediate internet reaction to Marvel's offer shows retailers are falling on both sides of the issue. But I wouldn't consider that a statistically relevant sample, so it's difficult to predict how many retailers will take Marvel up on its offer. In an ideal world, zero retailers will participate.

But who am I kidding. The comic book industry is far from ideal. There are plenty of retailers out there who are just as childish as Marvel and whose ethics are just as questionable. And they will jump on this opportunity. After all, comic book retailers love to make a quick buck. That's why retailer incentives like the lantern rings and variant covers work in the first place. And that's why Marvel's dick move will work.

Creator or Character: Which is More Important?

2010-01-09T13:23:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, I stumbled upon an interesting thread on the Newsarama message boards asking the following question: Which is the more important factor in your comic book purchasing decisions, the character or the creator? As all Newsarama threads do, it quickly degraded into a chest-pounding, battle of semantics. Yet it's still a very thought provoking question. And it's one I'd like to ask of myself.

To give fair warning, this column isn't going to draw any revolutionary conclusions on the subject or contain any inspiring anecdotes. It's just a little bit about my perspective on reading comic books, which hopefully the four of you who visit this blog will find interesting.

I started reading comic books in the early-90s, just as comic book gluttony was peaking. Back then, there was no internet, and I didn't seek out comic book shops. Hell, it's possible I wasn't even sophisticated enough to know they existed. I bought all of my comics at the grocery store and the monthly comic book conventions at the local mall.

Because I had no exposure to the industry beyond the comics themselves, I was pretty ignorant of the names in the bylines of the books I was enjoying. The only two names I was familiar with were Todd McFarlane and Frank Miller. And to be honest I doubt I could have recognized their work outside of Spawn or The Dark Knight Returns.

But I knew the characters. I was intimately familiar with Batman and the Bat-verse. I knew Superman, the Justice League, Spider-Man, Wolverine and the X-men. I recognized Spawn, Wonder Woman, the Fantastic Four, and Swamp Thing. And as a young man in his teens, I definitely recognized Witchblade for her... assets.

Fast forward nearly two decades, and with near infinite access to material and information on the internet, and years of exposure to the industry, I can recognize which artist drew what, and which writer wrote what. In fact, I get quite the kick out of browsing my old issues of Batman and Detective Comics, and seeing names like Chuck Dixon and Greg Rucka. I'm guessing that's a common maturation process for a lot of readers my age.

So what do my current reading habits say about me? Well, as you can see from my pull list to the right, I'm a total Bat-whore. Always have been, always will be. In fact, the only Bat-titles I don't purchase are Batman Confidential and Superman/Batman.

While I will always buy Batman and Dectective Comics due to the last shred of completism I haven't been able to purge from my body, I buy the rest of the Bat books because I enjoy the characters and stories, not because any particular creator is associated with them.

The same goes for the rest of my pull list. I've picked up Booster Gold from issue one, because I think the character, and time travel, kicks butt, not because Geoff Johns was the first writer. Same with Atomic Robo; I had no clue who the creators were when I picked it up, but the character and stories looked cool.

With that said, creators also play a role in my reading habits. Several writers will always get my attention – Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Geoff Johns, Joss Whedon – as will a couple of artists – Jim Lee and the late Michael Turner. However, while I'll give them the benefit of the doubt at first, I'm by no means a kool-aid drinker.

For example, I won't be picking of Geoff Johns' new Flash series for the simple reason I just don't care about Flash. Yet, I'm almost positive I'll buy Grant Morrison's Multiversity project when it hits the shelves because of its potential awesomeness, and Jim Lee's ridiculously awesome pencils sucker me into All-Star Batman & Robin even though I know it's not good for me. Damn you, Jim Lee.

So in the end, I guess it comes down to the characters for me. While there are certainly writers and artists I tend to enjoy more than others, and will always be on the look-out for their next projects, I always default to the characters. After all, an entertaining Batman story is an entertaining Batman story regardless of the creative team behind it.

New Reader Intimidation: The Root Cause

2009-12-30T10:15:00.000-08:00

At the DC Nation panel during the Long Beach Comic Con in October, a fan asked the panel members when DC was going to create a line of books like Marvel’s Ultimate line, which is free of the company's convoluted continuity and thus new reader friendly. I audibly groaned.

In fact, I was so irrationally upset I wanted to stand up and shout to the guy, “WTF are you talking about, dude?!” I mean, I really enjoy the fact DC hasn’t given in and dumbed things down for the “short attention span, immediate satisfaction” generation. I appreciated the fact that the overall feeling in the room seemed to parallel my opinion.

Jump ahead about two months, and DC announces its line of Earth One graphic novels, the purpose of which is to create an entry point for new readers into a universe free of continuity, making a non-intimidating introduction to comics. *face palm*

I maintain the belief that un-indoctrinated readers are turned-off by pre-established continuity is bunk. The elusive new reader is just not that stupid.

The intimidating part is not coming in mid-story, or the decades of source material. It’s the stores themselves, whether they be mainstream bookstores (the apparent target of the Earth One books) or comic book specialty stores.

The majority of comic book stores can seem confusing and not inviting whatsoever, even to regular customers. Disorganized and non-intuitive merchandise layouts; no internal signage; smug, unfriendly employees behind the counter. As a result, a new customer may walk in, not know where to start browsing, and walk right out the door.

Even the graphic novel and trade paperback shelves at mainstreams book stores can leave a new reader with that deer-in-the-headlights looks. So what if the Earth One books are going to be on those shelves. Big whoop. How will the guy off the street know which books to start with?

Further, why is this alleged lack of gateways only mentioned in the comic book world? You never hear it mentioned in the context of television or novels.

Now, I’ll give you that coming into the middle of a story arc can be confusing, but I'm willing to bet the reader is smart enough to realize the “Part X” in the title or “Number Y of Z” on the cover means there are a few back issues that need to be picked up. It's just the same as coming into a TV show mid-season and needing to catch up on the reruns.

The difference is not the density or complexity of the material, but knowing where to look for it. For television shows, you can check-out sources such as Hulu, iTunes, or the network's own website. A quick search finds the episodes you're looking for front and center.

But comic books are a very different experience for the layperson. Let's say you pick a floppy from the shelves of your local comic book store. Are the previous issues next to it on the shelf, which is the most logical spot for them? At least that's how I'd look at it.

They certainly wouldn't be in those dingy looking, unwelcoming cardboard boxes on the tables, would they? Should I ask the greasy guy behind the counter who appears more interested in the book he's reading than helping me? Maybe I should just put the book back on the shelf and leave.

The graphic novel shelves at a bookstore are only slightly less confusing, because at least everything is right there in front of you. But because the books are most likely in alphabetical order rather than chronological order, it's still difficult to answer the “which book is first” question. Fortunately mainstream bookstore employees are typically more welcoming of questions, although they may lack knowledge specific to comic books.

I think we – meaning the comic book community – need to give the layperson more credit when it comes to reading comprehension. The problem is not intimidation from too much material or continuity; that's easy to sort through. The root cause of the intimidation is a lack of guidance and direction, be that from a messy, dungeon of a store or socially inept employees.

Thus, the burden of growing the customer base is on the owners and employees of comic book stores. It's truly a grassroots effort. They need to make their store inviting and open and user friendly. DC and Marvel can't do that for them.

No amount of “new reader friendly” material will increase the number of readers, if those readers aren’t coached on where to start.

Long Beach Comic Con 2009 - Day 1

2009-10-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

I arrived at the convention center shortly after 2PM, and painlessly picked up my badge. With the ribbon cutting ceremony starring Stan Lee at 3PM, I had some time to kill. Thus, I walked around the “front porch” of the convention center and people watched.

It was your typical beautiful sunny day on the Southern California coast, with a slight ocean breeze only occasionally marred by cigarette smoke. I’m certainly glad I remembered to put on sunscreen before I left the apartment though.

By the time I rolled back inside (2:45ish), the crowd around the ceremonial ribbon was already about ten people deep. There was no way to see through it. It was like lead to Superman’s X-ray vision – ok, that analogy even made me cringe. But I definitely wasn’t going to see anything standing there. And then I looked up, and noticed the balcony.

So I walked up the stairs, and was presented with an unobstructed, birds-eye view of the ceremony. For the longest time, I was the only person up there. Eventually, I was joined by a half dozen people, including the local newspaper’s photographer, each telling me, “I saw you up here and thought ‘what a great idea.’” But let’s be clear here. I had the idea first. I’m a genius.

While I was looking down on the crowd content to stand on the floor with arms stretched above their heads holding their cameras and phones to record the ceremony rather than actually watching it, I first I thought the turn-out was low. I mean, there were, at most, only a few hundred people watching the ribbon cutting ceremony. But then I remembered this is the Los Angeles metro area, and we don’t do anything on-time around here.

We don’t show up until the third inning at baseball games, and barely make it to the arena in time for the main act at concerts. And when you tack on the 3PM start time and the Friday afternoon traffic, the lower turnout kinda makes sense. And perhaps it was for the best, as it resulted in a much more intimate affair. The fans watching Jeff Loeb proclaiming on behalf of LA County that October 2 was “Stan Lee Day” were the fans that truly wanted to be there.

But have no fear, the crowds definitely increased as people started getting off work. By the time I left around 4:30, thanks to the cold I’ve been battling all week flaring up again, there was a steadily increasing influx of people.

After the ribbon cutting ceremony, I ran into a co-worker while I was outside taking a phone call. As we walked onto the exhibit floor, he proclaimed, “I’ve already forgotten the stench of Wizard World.” And I think that’s the perfect summary of Day 1 at the Long Beach Comic Con. Everything that Wizard did wrong, leading to the eventual downfall of its Los Angeles show – i.e. moving out of Long Beach, trying to be San Diego lite, not catering to the fans or creators, all the things I’ve discussed on this blog in the past – the good folks at Long Beach Comic Con did right.

But I was left with one nagging question: Which lantern corps t-shirt should I buy??

Click here for my Long Beach Comic Con 2009 photo album.

Reporting Live from the Long Beach Comic Con this weekend

2009-09-30T13:54:00.000-07:00

Well, if all goes as planned – and in the name of full disclosure, it probably won’t – I will be twittering or tweeting, or whatever the heck the kids call it, from the Long Beach Comic Con this weekend. In addition, I’ll post daily summaries and photos on this here blog.

Now, because I’m fully aware I won’t be able to stay at the convention the whole time, expect tweets from areas outside of the convention center as I look for distractions to take me away from the crowds.

You might be asking, why the hell would a hack blogger like you who has no readers, no twitter followers, and barely even uses twitter to begin with even want to blog/tweet from the convention? Trust me, I’ve asked myself the exact same thing, and the answer is I’ve got nothing better to do this weekend. I’m single and the forest where I go hiking is closed. Why not report my mundane and asinine observations from the Long Beach Comic Con?

So if you’re interested, or more likely just really, really bored, follow my twitter account at http://twitter.com/cmachler. I’ve also set up a twitter feed on the right hand side of this blog for the truly lazy. Oh, and be sure to watch for my daily summaries and photos on this blog.

I’ve got my three day pass, a new messaging phone, and I live ten minutes from the convention center. What could possibly go wrong? Other than my short attention span, lack of patience, and dislike of large crowds, that is.

I Went to my LCS and Now I Feel Dirty

2009-09-30T13:12:00.000-07:00

After my store shut down, I made the decision to not transfer my patronage to another comic book store in the area. I arrived at this plan for a number of reasons.

1. Paying frequent visits to a successful store would constantly remind me of my failure as an entrepreneur.

2. As long as you don’t care about getting your books weekly – and monthly is certainly fine with me – it is so much cheaper to buy your comics from an online store, especially when you consider you don’t have to pay the outrageous 10% sales tax that plagues my area of residence.

3. I was witness to business practices by local owners which I consider to be shady – although I later concluded that’s just how things are done in the comic book retail business – and I had no desire to give them my money.

4. Visiting an LCS would just make me more nostalgic than I already am for my store.

I held to that principle for a very long time. And you know what? I didn’t miss walking into a store one bit. But that changed about a month ago when I decided consolidate my comic book collection; a plan which required golden age bags and short boxes, and from financial and lead time perspectives, it made more sense to buy them from a local store.

Incidentally, I decreased the total volume of my collection by almost half by repackaging my comics from individually bagged and boarded to groups of ten in golden age bags. I consider that little project a success. But back to the story…

Thus, in the last several weeks, I visited two of my local comic book stores. And you know what? I feel dirty. Yes, dirty… and not in the good way.

Poorly dressed employees (and owners); The employees (and owners) never tried to strike up a friendly conversation with me – in fact they barely greeted me; Cluttered and disorganized merchandise; Narrow aisles; Poor lighting; An overall atmosphere, intimidating to people unfamiliar with comic book store stereotypes; A stone age cash register with a dot matrix printer and no Point Of Sale system; No friendly “we’ll be right with you” while standing in a long line at the only cash register.

I felt a lack of motivation on the part of the owners and employees to try to evolve and improve their store; to break the proto-typical dark and grimy comic book store mold. There was simply an overall sense of “we’re making money so why try anything differently.”

And why should they? The vast majority of comic book store customers tends to be creatures of habit, and therefore do not ultimately care about the store. They just buy their books and leave.

As long as the store is open and it gets new product every Wednesday, the customers keep showing up. And as long as those customers keep showing up, and provided the owners are comfortable with their level of sales, there’s no need to worry about increasing their customer base. Therefore, they can logically conclude that their old school way of thinking still works, and change is just a troublesome and costly endeavor.

Breaking that mold was my main reason for opening a store. And I think I was successful in doing so. I just didn’t have the war chest of funds to survive while I was building a customer base – well, that and I was working 50 hours a week at my day job and 20+ at the store, which wasn’t sustainable. However, I received more than enough “thank you for opening a bright and friendly comic book store” comments from customers to know at least the concept is valid.

Perhaps one of these days I’ll find a comic book store that doesn’t make me want to leave as soon as I walk through the door. But until then, I’ll stick with the online thing.

No San Diego For Me

2009-07-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

Back in May – has it really been two months since I last posted something here? I’m a such a slacker – I wrote that my interest in Comic Con International in San Diego normally cycles through peaks and valleys, but this year it took up residence in one of the valleys several months ago and stayed there. Thus I didn’t register or book lodging.

Yet there was still a voice in the back of my head that mocked me by saying, “Sure you think you’re too cool for school now, but just you wait until the programming schedule is released. You’ll find one or two panels that will entice you to the point of obsessing over how to get down there, and then you’ll be sorry for at least not registering. Dumbass.”

Deep down, I knew that voice was correct. I would read through the programming schedule and inevitably see something like “Spotlight on Richard Dean Anderson: Join us on Saturday as RDA discusses his career from MacGyver to Legend to Stargate, as well as his personal interests of ice hockey and backpacking.”

Assuming I survived the convulsions of ecstasy, I would wipe the drool from my chin and begin sifting through the list of industry folks I know who might be able to score a pass for me. Of course, the next question becomes what would I do if I couldn’t score a free pass? How much would I pay a scalper? Or perhaps more importantly, what favors would I be willing to give or what acts would I be willing to provide should a friend dangle a pass in front of me like a carrot in front of mule? The answers to those questions are too embarrassing to post here.

Fortunately, there is no programming this year awesome enough to drive me to such depravity. In fact, while viewing the schedule, I only thought, “That might be kinda cool to see,” once or twice. Yet the next day, I couldn’t remember which panels piqued my interest, which means either I have a shorter attention span than I believed or the panels just weren’t that interesting after all. I’m betting on the latter, but only by a little bit.

So why have I lost interest in San Diego when just a few years ago I was all about living the marathon? I don’t think there’s really any one answer, but I won’t be as arrogant as to summarize it by saying I’ve grown up and now see the convention as beneath me. It’s much more complicated than that.

I’ve always been a bit of a loner – ok, more than a bit. I highly covet my alone time, and while I’m ok with small groups of people, I can’t stand large groups. I’m not afraid of them, nor do I suffer from a clinical form of social anxiety disorder. I just have little patience for the general public when it congregates in feeding frenzies like the San Diego Comic Con where everyone is over-stimulated, distracted, and out for themselves.

In the past, the excitement, adventure, and anticipation of San Diego were more than enough to offset my desire to avoid the masses. And hell, I’ll admit it, knowing I might possibly snap after running into my seventh comic book guy with greasy hair and a t-shirt stained with sweat and yesterday’s lunch was also a draw in a “it hurts so good” kind of way.

But whether it’s because the convention’s luster has actually dulled, or my anti-social tendencies have increased, I have nothing more than a passing interest in attending. Even the chance to see swarms of Slave Leias isn’t enough to make me put up with the traffic and crowds.

I’m sure I’ll return to the San Diego Comic Con sooner rather than later. For now though, I’ll scratch my itch with the Long Beach Comic Con in October.

So to those hitting San Diego, I wish you the best of the times. And I’m looking forward to reading all of your reports and viewing your photo albums.

The New Convention in Town

2009-05-16T11:51:00.000-07:00

I’m sure this comes as no shock to my two loyal readers, but y enthusiasm for comic books has greatly diminished over the last few months – not so much for the comic books themselves, but for all the associated hoopla. Heck, I didn’t even participate in Free Comic Book Day, although, to be honest, I was hit with a bit of nostalgia that weekend – just not enough to make me want to visit, or financially support, any of the local retailers.

I’m not even excited for Comic-Con International in San Diego, despite it being a scant, two months away. Normally, my interest in that convention follows a sinusoidal curve, with both the amplitude and frequency increasing as we get closer and closer to the convention. But that isn’t happening this year.

In fact, several months ago, I decided the only way I’d attend is if someone who already had hotel reservations invited me and thus split the lodging and transportation costs. Of course, an additional requirement is now in place, and that is the person who invites me must also have an extra pass handy as I failed to purchase one.

As a side note, watching the registrations passes sell-out and sell-out quickly has actually been highly entertaining. I’ve enjoyed pulling up the site in my browser each morning to see how many are left. The fact that it’s only mid May and only Thursday and Sunday registrations are available, and even those are over 80% and 70% gone, respectively, is comically ridiculous. It looks like my prediction of a complete sell-out by Memorial Day might be right on the mark.

But back to my point; other than reading the books themselves, and a few blogs and message boards, the fires of passion haven’t been burning as hot as they once did. There are numerous reasons behind this, but it all boils down to burnout. I’m just tired, and nothing has crossed my path to rejuvenate me… that is until I saw this result in a recent google search:

“1st Annual Long Beach Comic Con”

Living in the Long Beach, CA, area as I do, I quickly clicked the link to make sure it was referring to my Long Beach, and not one in another state. Sure enough, the convention is in the LBC, scheduled for October 2-4, 2009.

But being the skeptic that I am, I still wasn’t convinced of its official-ness, so hopped over the to Long Beach Convention Center’s website to check its events calendar. I fully expected there to be no mention of the convention, but to my surprise there it was. October 2-4, 2009, Long Beach Comic Con, Exhibit Hall B, Meeting Rooms 201-203. Boo-yah!

Not to sound crass, but reading this gave me a small amount of personal satisfaction, because it confirmed by long-held belief that Wizard made a tremendous mistake when it moved its Los Angeles convention from the Long Beach convention center to the Los Angeles convention center. And I’m not just being a homer for the city in which I have resided for the last nine years either. I’ve talked to dozens of exhibitors and attendees since the 2007 show who feel the same way.

I’m not sure why Wizard decided to move its Southern California show from Long Beach to Los Angeles. Maybe it wanted the “Los Angeles Convention Center” name attached to it. Maybe it had delusions of expanding to rival the San Diego convention and needed a bigger exhibit hall and more meeting rooms than Long Beach could provide.

Regardless, when Wizard moved to Los Angeles for its 2006 convention, the event anecdotally and statistically started going down hill. In 2007, the only year I attended as a retailer and exhibitor, I experienced many of the complaints firsthand. Parking was not available because attendees of the concurrently running bridal expo and classic car convention, which both started an hour or two before Wizard World, took up all the spaces.

And then there’s the area surrounding the LA convention center. While it’s slowly improving, it’s not the best part of town, nor is it very pedestrian friendly. The choice of eateries and other entertainment options within walking distance is extremely limited, and that’s if you even wanted to walk somewhere. Like I said, not the best part of town.

Contrast that with Long Beach, which has dozens of eateries from chain restaurants to mom-and-pop establishmenta all within blocks of the convention center’s front doors. If you need a break from the convention, there’s a multiplex movie theater, shopping, the Aquarium of the Pacific, and waterfront parks, again, all within walking distance. Heck, there used to be a really cool comic book store just up the street, but it unfortunately closed down about two years ago.

Getting back to the convention itself, multiple retailers stated their sales were significantly down that year, some to the point where they packed up on Saturday and didn’t even bother with Sunday. While I don’t have the statistics to back this up, from what I’ve heard, the 2008 convention was even worse regarding sales.

But the most telling anecdote is this. In 2005, the final year in Long Beach, I spent all three days at the convention and never got bored. It was vibrant. It was busy. It stimulated all of my senses. I wanted to be there. Flash forward to 2007 and 2008 in Los Angeles, and you have a completely different energy and atmosphere. A significant number of people told me they walked around for two hours, saw everything they wanted to see, and then went home. That isn’t what you want to see happen at a convention.

Wizard canceling its 2009 Los Angeles show is ultimately all the proof you need to determine mistakes were made. But there’s a wrinkle in the story I find intriguing. If the rumors are true, both the organizer of Long Beach Comic Convention and the founder of the marketing firm the convention has hired both have ties to Wizard. I read about this at The Comics Reporter blog, but haven’t confirmed it else where. It certainly seems reasonable though. If it’s true, then at least some people within Wizard also thought the move was a mistake.

Of course, we would be naïve if we didn’t ask the question, “Will the Long Beach Comic Convention succeed in the same climate in which Wizard World LA didn’t?” At this point, as cliché as it sounds, only time will tell. But the convention’s website gives me hope:

We love everything about the medium and the message - from Silver Age bottle cities, to indy mini-comics based on poetry. We want you to experience it all. That's why we're lining up more than the trendy guests and sneak peeks that Hollywood wants you to see (though we've got that, too!).

We're getting the best, the coolest, the most experimental and the ... well, quite simply, the grooviest stuff we can.

I interpret the statement thusly: We do not want to compete with or become the San Diego Comic-Con. We want to carve our own niche through innovation and making comic book conventions about comic books again.

In my opinion, that is the perfect attitude for success. The Long Beach Comic Convention has me excited about comics again, and I will definitely be there in October.

Heck, maybe I’ll even update this blog more than once every two months now…

Missed Opportunities of Cross-Genre Promotion?

2009-03-01T15:21:00.000-08:00

We all know that the folks who buy comic books on a regular basis are a very, very small community, and the population is NOT growing. As such, internet pundits always bemoan the apparent lack of effort on the part of publishers when it comes to improving the health of the industry. They become flabbergasted when publishes don’t take advantage of the throngs of new faces that hit comic book stores whenever a character appears in the more mainstream pop culture arenas of movies, television, and mainstream media.

Recently, the discontent has gained momentum thanks to events such as Batman’s “death,” Blue Beetle emerging as the breakout character on the Batman: Brave and the Bold cartoon, and, of course, the Barrack Obama meets Spider-Man hoopla. The critics just can’t understand why DC would kill off Bruce Wayne or cancel Blue Beetle on the heels of a crazily successful movie and popular cartoon. Surely all the thousands of new faces will be confused with the differences between what they saw in the mainstream and what they’re seeing in the comic book shop. How could DC screw up this rare opportunity, they ask.

But here’s the thing. That question is completely pointless, because there is no rare opportunity to screw up. Movies and cartoons don’t lure people by the thousands, or even hundreds, into comic book stores, and while the cash grab events do bring people in, they’re only interested in buying the “hot” item. Let’s look at some anecdotes and common sense thought experiments, shall we?

When it comes to movies featuring comic book characters, you can read my opinion here. It hasn’t changed, and I’m willing to bet the logic also applies to television shows. In other words, DC canceling the Blue Beetle will not cause them to miss out on the chance of selling that book to new faces lured to comic book stores after seeing the character in Batman: Brave and the Bold on Cartoon Network, because there are no new faces lured to comic books stores by the cartoon. Sure, there might be one or two of them, but they’re an exception to the rule. In fact, I’ll go even further to say that unless a person is already familiar with comic books, at least in passing, a cartoon isn’t going to make them want to suddenly start buying comics.

Moving onto what I refer to as the cash grab events; the death of a popular character and the Obama meets Spider-Man covers, just to name a few. Lay people still believe that comic books are collectors’ items and excellent monetary investments. Thus, these cash grab events really do bring in new faces by the thousands. But there’s a problem.

The vast majority, I’m thinking around 95% or higher, of the new faces drawn into comic book shops by these big cash grab promotions, have only one thing on their minds, to buy as many of that particular item as they can, then turn around and sell it for a profit. As such, they have no intention of looking around the store for other products. Much like the publisher, all they want is the quick buck. Sure, of the remaining 5%, a few might buy an unrelated item or two. But even fewer will return for a second visit. And fewer still will become regular customers.

This is exactly what happened in my store when Captain America died. We received hundreds of phone calls, emails, and drop-ins from speculators and people who hadn’t bought a comic book in 20 years, all asking if we had the book in stock. They reserved their copies – which we sold for cover price, by the way – but weren’t interested in anything else. And whether it’s due to the passing of time since the event, or because there are none, I can think of no new faces that became regular customers, regardless of our effort.

The situation improves slightly when non-superhero comics get mainstream exposure. Take The Dark Tower books from Marvel, or the company’s recent announcement that it will only be distributing its adaptation of The Stand in comic books stores. The new faces wanting to read those books do become regular customers, because those books are monthly. That’s the good news. The bad news is very few will buy anything else.

For some reason, the other comic books are still too immature and too silly for them, as if The Dark Tower is so goddam sophisticated. Many aren’t even that receptive to retailers suggesting one or two other books they may like. In fact, the only times I was able to convince folks to try something different was when I gave them free copies of the other books when they picked up their order. Unfortunately, I didn’t implement this as a wide-spread policy so even if it was successful, it wasn’t of the quantities to make a difference in the cash register.

Therefore, kiddies, the moral of the story is none of these cross-genre and mass media exposures will increase the comic book buying population by any significant amount, regardless of what the publishers do to coordinate them. In fact, I don’t think the publishers even care if any of the new faces become customers. After all, they sold their extra 10 or 20 thousand copies for the month.

The retailers, on the other hand, do care about increasing their customer base. In fact, while publishers are content with the band-aid spikes in sales, it’s the retailers who should be concentrating on the long-term growth of their businesses. They need to take the initiative to capitalize on the cross-genre promotions. However, many retailers don’t want to spend the time or money to do so, and that’s understandable if they’re content with where they are as a business. It’s a big hill to climb.

Hopefully the internet philosophers will realize that increasing the number of comic book buyers is a grassroots effort, and time is better spent helping their local retailer grow his or her business than it is throwing yet another petty criticism towards the publishers.

I Miss Catwoman

2009-02-21T14:11:00.000-08:00

While browsing through various photo albums of the New York convention – I would never dress up myself, but I’m still fascinated by the folks who do – I stumbled upon this photo of an attendee dressed as Catwoman, taken by someone named muckster.

Not content with simply being in awe of the extremely rare combination of a girl whom a) I find very attractive, b) appears enthusiastic to be at a comic book convention, and c) is dressed as my favorite female comic book character, I’m compelled to nitpick something – and my friends wonder why I’m single.

It’s a fantastic costume, but the choice of fabric is all wrong. Now, I fully realize that popular opinion mostly likely believes the Catwoman cat-suit is constructed of vinyl similar to both Trinity from the The Matrix and Catwoman from Batman Returns. So because of that belief and because I’m assuming vinyl is cheaper and easier to work with than the material I have in mind, I’ll give this fine young woman the benefit of the doubt.

However, I think the more suitable fabric for the Catwoman costume is form-hugging leather, similar to the protective clothing worn by the motorcycling community. At least that’s what David Lopez’s pencils reminded of prior to the cancellation of Catwoman. There was weight to the costume. There was thickness. It wasn’t shiny. It didn’t reveal every crease of the body. And it didn’t ask you for your safety word before slapping your face with a riding crop.

This costume analysis made me realize how much I miss Catwoman, written by Will Pfeifer and penciled by David Lopez. Yeah, I know the baby Helena storyline boiled the blood of some readers, and the book was burdened by its mandated tie-ins with Amazon Attack and Salvation Run, but without exaggeration, I can declare it was my favorite book post the infamous One Year Later jump. And yes, I’m being very serious.

I’m sure part of my enjoyment derives from the fact that the Selina Kyle/Catwoman character is the kind of woman I’m attracted to; independent, strong, comfortable doing her own thing, ready to kick my ass if I get too sarcastic, yet still not afraid to be vulnerable when the time is right. But aside from the mildly disturbing transference of my suppressed interest in finding a life partner onto a fictional character, the book just captivated me.

Now, I’m well aware neither Selina Kyle nor Catwoman has disappeared from the Bat-verse. After all, she played a heart-wrenching role – there’s my world famous wit, ladies and gentlemen – during the Heart of Hush storyline in Detective Comics. But while Paul Dini handled her adequately, Will Pfeifer just had a real grasp of her character. He knew her outward personality, he knew her soul, and he consistently delivered both in such a way that always conjured up the empathy from my normally calm and collected, some may say jaded, demeanor. Seriously, my apartment always gets a little dusty whenever I reread the arc in which Selina decides to give up Helena.

For the record, I don’t blame the good folks at DC for canceling the book. Economics rule every business, and Catwoman just wasn’t selling enough copies. It happens to a lot of good books, as they just can’t seem to find an audience and escape their “niche” moniker. Blue Beetle experienced the same hardships.

It’s certainly not a knock on the creative team. It’s just how it works. Regardless of how much the internet complains about there not being enough books starring lead characters other than white males or not enough books not dealing with the next big event or muddled in continuity, the vast majority of comic book readers think the opposite way, and therefore “niche” books eventually get canceled due to poor numbers. Of course, in the case of Catwoman, even had it not been canceled last year, it would certainly have been canceled along with Nightwing, Robin, and Birds of Prey in order to retool the Bat-books for post Battle for the Cowl.

But all that is little consolation to me. I miss being the excitement I’d feel after seeing Catwoman in the next week’s shipping list. I miss the anticipation of placing the book at the bottom of my “to read” pile and knowing it was getting closer to the top with each book I finished. I miss wanting to reread the issue as soon as I finish it.

I miss Catwoman.

Diamond's New Thresholds vs. Small Publishers

2009-01-29T22:22:00.000-08:00

Much ado has been made of Diamond’s new threshold numbers for books listed in Previews. I won’t bother repeating the specifics, as there are numerous articles already written that spell it out far better than I could. Instead, here’s a very succinct summary: Diamond is increasing the dollar amount a book needs to earn in order to be listed in Previews.

The result Diamond hopes to reach, and it’s admitted as much, from this policy change is a smaller – i.e. cheaper to produce – Previews, and streamlined inventory processing by carrying a fewer number of products that make more money (per listing). One can wrestle with the nuances all one wants, but that’s the long and short of it.

Those of you who know me personally, or those that have just read this blog enough, know I rarely say anything complimentary about Diamond. I honestly believe it is a necessary evil you must deal with if you want to work in the Direct Market. After all, Diamond is the only place retailers can buy DC and Marvel products, and those publishers are the Direct Market.

Knowing my opinion of Diamond, you, dear reader, might be tempted to add me to the pile of critics crucifying Diamond for thinking only about its bottom-line and in the process killing the smaller and independent publishers. However, my opinion is just the opposite.

Diamond is a business, and its number one priority is to be successful, and in the vast majority of cases, a successful business equates to maximizing profits. So if Diamond feels it needs to eliminate titles that don’t meet a specific monetary threshold in order to improve its bottom-line, then that is its right as a business.

However, just because I refuse to condemn Diamond for trying to improve its business model, that doesn’t mean I can’t also sympathize with the publishers. Certainly, Diamond could have announced this new policy in a friendlier manner or not have made the numbers seem so black and white. That would have gone a long way towards scoring points in the public relations arena. I mean, Diamond has to understand that neither retailers nor publishers really like doing business with it, right? So why not take steps to reduce the amount of dickery perceived in such a move.

Regardless of public perception, let’s take a quick look at how success is obtained in the Direct Market:

Small publishers need to get their books in comic book stores to maximize their profits. Those same stores need DC and Marvel, and to a lesser extent Image and Dark Horse, to even have shot at surviving. Those four publishers currently have exclusive distribution contracts with Diamond, meaning retailers MUST use Diamond if they want a successful business. When you take into account that most retailers are inherently lazy and resistant to change, it is very unlikely they would use a second distributor for non-Diamond exclusive publishers even if one was available. Hence, small publishers MUST use Diamond as well.

Thus, it would seem that small publishers are screwed. However, there are a couple of ways, in my opinion, they can successfully deal with this policy change.

First, if a small publisher wants to continue working with Diamond, it needs to find an arrangement that satisfies both companies. In fact, Diamond has suggested several already. Among them is the idea that the publisher offer Diamond guaranteed money in the event its product doesn’t meet the threshold. The skeptical among us will note that is really just a gentler way of Diamond saying, “Sure you can stay in Previews… you just gotta buy your spot on the page.”

The publisher could also explore changing the book from a monthly to a quarterly product, thus increasing the page count and cover price. Or it could forgo the “floppy” format entirely, and just sell it as a collected trade paperback or graphic novel. Either way, the idea is to increase the “sales per listing” number than Diamond cares about. Oh, for the record, I’m purposely ignoring the more obvious option of switching to digital distribution, because I’d like to tackle that subject in a future dedicated column.

So let’s say you’re currently selling a $3.99 comic book. Assuming Diamond’s threshold translates to $6500 retail (which is just me guessing so it’s most likely wrong), you need to sell 1630 units to be listed in Previews. However, your recent sales history shows you’re only selling 800 units or $3192 retail. In other words, you failed to meet the threshold.

Now let’s say you change to a quarterly publication, essentially collecting three months worth of pages, and charge $9.99 – that’s two bucks less than the cost of three monthlies at $3.99 each. If those same 800 units are ordered, your product just brought in $7992 retail. You’ve met your threshold and have the privilege of remaining in Previews.

Of course, the math majors among us will realize that you’re also taking in about $1500 less per three months than you were with the monthly format, but for the sake of this discussion, we’ll only worry about meeting Diamond’s threshold. After all, if you’re relying only on Previews to get noticed by retailers, you’ll be taking in about $9600 less per three months if you can’t meet the threshold.

Moving in the other direction, if a small publisher has had enough of Diamond’s shenanigans like many of us have, and thus choose to no longer do business with them at all, it must take its distribution into its own hands. This could mean finding an already existing distributor who is proactive and competent enough to convince retailers that working with other distributors is not mutually exclusive to working with Diamond. Knowing general characteristics of retailers, that’s probably easier said than done.

A small publisher could also do all the distribution leg work itself such as contacting retailers and sending them samples to read. There are a few publishers that do this. I still occasionally get samples from several publishers, new and established, and even though I’m no longer a retailer, I always take the time to send them my regards and best wishes.

But let’s face it, self-distributing has to be a hell of a lotta work. However, if you have the time, it could be very rewarding in the long run. Perhaps the publisher will get so good at the distributing game, it could provide its new found skills to other small publishers and be their alternative to Diamond.

So in the end, I don’t believe the new sales threshold signals the end of small publishers. Sure, there will be a handful of publishers who won’t be able to move fast enough to supplement their numbers, but most will survive by working harder and not relying on Diamond’s Previews as their sole tool of marketing and promotion. It may even have the positive effect of expediting the move to (and acceptance of) comic book formats other than the 32-page monthly.

If you want to talk negative impacts though, I think this is more likely to be a step towards the end of the Direct Market as we know it. The survival of the vast majority of comic book stores is due solely to the floppies that hit their shelves every Wednesday. If the number of titles is reduced or the format changes to a less frequent and fluid one, a lot of stores will be in trouble. But I’ll save that discussion for another time as I begin to explore the future of the Direct Market.

Thar Be Spoilers Here

2008-11-26T21:38:00.000-08:00

Here I sit about twelve hours after comic shops on the west coast opened with the finale of Batman: RIP on their shelves, and I have yet to read it. Me, a guy who admittedly has a man crush on Batman, has not read the RIP finale. What’s even worse is it will be at least two weeks before I do. Two weeks of doing my best to ignore every review, every discussion, and every spoiler on the internet. That minefield will not be easy to navigate, my friends.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against spoilers. In fact, I read spoilers all of the time. I enjoy browsing sites like DarkHorizons and AICN for movie and television news, but I only read spoilers of the movies I’m not planning to see until it’s released on DVD. I know that sounds like a bold accomplishment, but in today’s market of craptacular Hollywood releases, the movies I don’t plan on seeing are pretty much all of them.

The last movie I paid to see in the theater was The Dark Knight. Despite the months of temptations, I stayed away from the spoilers, and I’m so happy I did. Experiencing that particular movie as it played out on the screen left me incredibly satisfied. Yeah, I admit I totally marked out. Sue me. (By the way, the DVD hits stores on December 9, w00t w00t!) Had I read scene by scene breakdowns before hitting the theater, there’s no way The Dark Knight would have been as enjoyable. Of that, I’m convinced, and that’s why I’m perplexed that so many people insist on spoiling events for themselves.

Now, when it comes to comics, I’m sure some people will say spoilers help them determine which books to buy, and to a certain extent that’s probably a valid claim. Others will say spoilers allow them to share the enjoyment of the book with their fellow fans and participate in the subsequent message board discussions even if they won’t be picking up their own copy for several days or weeks. And I suppose I can buy that logic as well.

But what I really think we’re dealing with here is yet another example of our collective need for instant gratification. No one seems to have the patience anymore required to savor an event and experience all of its varying nuances. Only the destination matters. Get to it as quick as you can, so you can move onto to the next one. And spoilers are the ultimate shortcut to that goal.

Just so we’re clear, I’m not one of those hippies who blame the internet for the woes of our society. I love the internet. I love having all the information at my fingers 24/7. I love being able to research what I want, when I want. I do not blame the people who post content as long as it’s legal, nor do I blame people for viewing said content.

However, I wouldn’t mind seeing people exhibit a bit more restraint by experiencing a highly anticipated comic book the old fashioned way… you know, by actually reading it without knowing what happens ahead of time.

As for me, because I purchase my comics online, two agonizing weeks will go by before I receive Batman #681 in the mail. I have no clue if I’ll have the self-discipline to make it that long without reading the spoilers. Hell, I have no idea if I’ll make it through tomorrow – hopefully, I’ll just eat myself into a food coma and not worry about comic books at all. Yet, should I in fact read the spoilers, I know I’ll be dulling the true experience, be it a positive or negative one, of reading such a highly anticipated story, and that’s a shame.

Surprise! There's Negativity on the Internet

2008-10-26T15:34:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of months, the comic book community on the internet has really rubbed me the wrong way. The negative vocal minority has seemed even louder than usual, and that’s the main reason I haven’t been updating this blog more frequently. OK, that’s not true. The main reason is I’ve been extremely busy at my day job, and very lazy on top of that. But the negativity on the internet has definitely contributed to my lack of creativity.

Every time I sat down to write a column, two or three paragraphs into the thing, I’d realize I was writing a rebuttal to a negative blogger or internet poster, and not wanting to add fuel to the fire, I’d close the document and delete it. Kinda following the old “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” guidelines.

Unfortunately, not enough people follow that rule as the internet hater-ade has definitely become louder throughout the last couple of months – and yes I fully see the double-standard of me using an internet posting to complain about the prolific complaining on the internet, so there’s no need to point that out to me.

Just off the top of my head, I can think of the following examples of extreme, and irrational, negativity:

A ridiculous number of “Final Crisis sucks” or the more general “Dan Didio has destroyed DC” posts on just about every message board out there.

A new blogger claiming to be a person in the know, posting destructive and distasteful rumors about real people using their real names.

A popular blogger freaking out and quitting on numerous occasions due to readers posting comments in opposition to the blogger’s opinion, only to return a week later with business as usual. Shampoo, rinse, and repeat.

More and more columnists on newer websites using the “hypercritical for the sake of being hypercritical” shtick to get noticed.

It’s all very silly, and it reminds me of the evolution the online professional wrestling community experienced in the late 90s and early 00s. As some of you know, I wrote a somewhat satirical column for a wrestling fansite from about 1998-2001. For those of you who know your wrestling history, that was during the height, and eventual downfall, of the Monday Night wars, and the WWF vs. WCW debate was certainly the equal of the Marvel vs. DC debate.

When the online community was new, all of us writers were just writing for the fun of it. Hell, most of us were incredibly stoked to be writing for a website. Remember, ten years ago, blogging and other self-publishing methods were essentially unheard of. In the beginning, it was all about good-natured laughs and creativity. But after a few years, as the community increased in population, different voices with more negative opinions became the loudest.

The behind the scenes creative processes and politics started being widely reported as insiders hit the internet. We soon knew the names and personalities of those involved in the writing and production of the shows. We learned which performers had creative control clauses written into their contracts. Then, armchair quarterbacks emerged. And most important to the topic at hand, reports, some rumor and some factual, popped up regarding which performers held sway over the creative team and who was sleeping with who.

Everything seemed to reach a point of super-saturation, and it just took one last particulate, one final angry know-it-all to cause everything to fall out of suspension in my eyes. Keeping up the website, for which I had become the owner and webmaster, turned into a chore, and I bowed-out shortly there after because participating in the online wrestling community was no longer fun.

Look, I’m not one to proclaim the sky is falling. I didn’t believe the predictions of $200/barrel oil, nor do I believe the current state of the economy is evidence that we’re all doomed. Everything is cyclical. Just as the price of oil and the housing bubbled corrected themselves (actually, they over-corrected), so too will the economy and the behavior of folks within the online comic book community. You just gotta ride it out and not overreact.

So while the online comic book community is giving me the same offsetting feelings as the wrestling community did a decade ago, we have the advantage of a much larger and more diverse internet. There are a lot more places for people to vent the typical negativity, and there are still a few places left for people who don’t want to read that negativity to still have fun. And that’s what I’m going to try to do more of with this blog; make things fun again.

Creator Owned Arrogance

2008-10-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

Much ado has been made about Robert Kirkman’s decree that in order to save the comics industry the big name writers must stop all work-for-hire projects with DC and Marvel, and focus exclusively on creator owned material. If Kirkman was looking to set the internet abuzz with discussion, his video succeeded, as readers, bloggers, and industry professionals all chimed in.

My opinion on the matter tends to align quite well with a statement given by Grant Morrison in an interview with IGN.com, so rather than rambling aimlessly and repeating what’s already been said, allow me to reprint the master’s words – the emboldened emphasis is mine.

I suppose I'm slightly amused by the reformer's zeal with which each new generation approaches the problem of 'saving' comics. It reminds me of humanity's charming, self-regarding notion that it's our job to 'save' a planet which has survived fine without us through several mass extinction events, climactic overhauls and planetary disasters.

I've been listening to people talk about 'saving' the 'industry' for over 20 years while comics have continued to be published and have, in fact, become better, to the point where the only conclusion I've come to is that comics are best 'saved' by sealing them in Mylar bags! Everything else is just messianic inflation. Just do good books and stop trying to be the savior of a whole medium that's been doing okay without you and will continue long after you're gone.

Yes, I think Kirkman's right, in that I'd like to see more of our creative community unleashing their wild imaginations onto the page and less of the obvious 'movie pitch on paper stuff' that's come about recently as a result of comic creators chasing the Hollywood dollar but I don't have a problem with writers and artists working on Marvel and DC properties if they enjoy it. I'd rather read a good Green Lantern story by someone who cares than work my way through a 'creator-owned' project that's been created solely to appeal to lowest-common-denominator movie executives.

Otherwise, he's possibly being slightly disingenuous by issuing this 'call to arms' at a time when, to be honest, I can't think of any significant comic book writer for Marvel or DC who doesn't have creator work on the go. Apart from Geoff Johns, who's told me he much prefers writing DC superhero books, everyone else - me, Warren Ellis, Mark Millar, JMS, Garth Ennis, Matt Fraction, Brian Bendis, Kurt Busiek, etc etc - seems to be hard at work creating new properties, so I'm not entirely sure where the problem lies.

To the one or two regular visitors of this blog, and to those who know me personally, I’m sure it comes as no shock that I share Mr. Morrison’s opinion. I see nothing wrong with working for The Man, nor do I believe all large corporations are soulless entities who care nothing for the well-being of their employees as the many pissed off, embittered whistleblowers would have us believe.

Hell, I work for one of the nation’s larger defense and aerospace contractors, so not only do I work for a large, soulless corporation, I work for a large, soulless corporation whose biggest customer just happens to be the man of all “The Mans,” the U.S. Government.

I’m baffled by the savior complex that exudes from Kirkman and from his apostles. Look, comic books aren’t going anywhere. Yes, the industry will surely evolve. Popularity will always be cyclical. Graphic novels may replace monthlies as the dominant format, or maybe paper will give way to paperless, but comic books and the folks who create them will always be around. In fact, the bigger impact of the evolution of the comic books medium will be felt by retailers, but I’ll save that for another blog.

On an interesting side note, this begs the question, do all people with savior complexes have to make an Audio-Video presentation of some sort? Al Gore made his slide show. Robert Kirkman made a video blog. Will a powerpoint presentation from Jesus be next?

Anyway, more than anything else, what really rubs me the wrong way is the arrogance held by the “work-for-hire is evil” crowd. If you want to be your own boss, that’s fine. It’s your choice. But don’t try to convince the rest of us that everything you touch turns to gold, or every idea you have is brilliant. You’re not that special. And don’t look down upon your fellow creators as sell-outs if they enjoy, and are satisfied, with work-for-hire projects. Again, you’re not that special.

I essentially have a work for hire job that involves creativity and innovation. Sure, I’m not breathing life into fictional characters, but when I’m designing new hardware, I utilize much of the same creative processes. I sketch, make notes, and work through equations with pencil and paper before modeling it on the computer. Throughout the typical 18 month design effort, I become rather attached to my work. I take a lot of pride in it. And you know what? I’m perfectly fine with not owning it. I’m perfectly fine with knowing that should I ever leave the company, I can’t take any of those ideas with me.

In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that us engineers being ok with work-for-hire under soulless corporations is a big reason the United States has the most advanced military in the world. Similarly, I propose the willingness of creators to do work-for-hire books under soulless corporations is why we still have a comic book industry.

Think about it. While a couple of creator-owned works may have recently achieved public notoriety, critical acclaim, and financial success, it’s Marvel and DC and their work-for-hire superhero books that have kept the industry viable since the 60s and will continue do so for decades to come. Claiming that creators should forego work-for-hire with the Big Two in favor of creator owned projects as a means to save the industry is disrespectful to the very people who have kept the industry relevant enough for Kirkman to even issue his decree in the first place.

Therefore, get off your high horse, do what you think is right for you, allow other people to do what they think is right for them, and don’t give them grief for doing so.

Christian Bale Will Not Be Charged for Assault

2008-08-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

According to this article posted on BreitBart.com, United Kingdom officials have decided there is not enough evidence to bring charges against Christian Bale for the assault allegations made against him by his mother and sister. In other words, the UK police came to the same conclusion that any rational person came to shortly after the event took place.

While I admit this requires reading between the lines, I think you can conclude that it was a simple over-reaction to a family squabble. I’m sure most people have gotten into pretty heated arguments with parents at one time or another. Or you could also include it was a case of a mother trying to shake down her estranged successful son for cash after years of bitterness. Either way, Christian Bale was not at fault.

I never wanted this blog to be about gossip, but I felt compelled to post this piece of news, because so many news, tabloids, and comic book bloggers were way too quick on the trigger when it came to reporting and commenting on the initial incident, yet hardly any of them are commenting on the resolution. Hell, a few well known comic book bloggers went so far as to scold readers for “blaming the victim” when they suggested it might be a shakedown for money. That’s how one sided and reactionary it was.

Well, now that we know who the real victim is, where are the retractions from these bloggers? Oh that’s right, the truth isn’t sensational enough, nor does it fit their agenda, so it doesn’t warrant a retraction. I forgot we’re talking about the internet.

Best. Movie. Ever.

2008-07-19T20:16:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning, I wandered down to the local Edwards Cinema to take in The Dark Knight. Apparently, a few other people across the country saw it as well this weekend. Who would have thought a boutique film such as this would pull in these kinds of numbers…

Anyway, because there are countless numbers of reviews and message board discussions about the movie online, I’ve decided to forego a full-up review at least until I see it for a second time. Instead, I figure I should just mention that I enjoyed the movie… really enjoyed the movie… really, really enjoyed the movie. OK, I f’ing LOVED IT!! In fact, I think the text message I sent to a couple people right after the movie sums up my opinion the best:

Mind blown. Coherent thoughts no form I can. Batman. Greatest movie ever. Can’t think straight. Joker. Too much goodness. Rest of Hollywood should give up.

And then there’s the text message I sent just a few minutes ago:

Should I be worried that I catch myself re-enacting scenes from The Dark Knight in my head and then getting chills depending on the scene?

Seriously, people. Go see this movie. It does the big things correctly to please the mainstream audience, and it does many little things correctly that will please the comic book audience. More importantly, as a guy who refuses to see movies in the theater 99.9% of time, believe me when I say I will happily pay another ten bucks to see this movie. It’s that good.

Covers of the 90s

2008-07-05T13:19:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago, when my extended family members learned of my intention to open a comic book store, many expressed their desire to “help me out” by sending me the stacks of comic books left in their basements when their kids moved out. Surely, they must be worth something, right? After all, they’ve held onto them for years and years and years.

Well, as you’ve probably guessed, these books were all printed during the second golden age of comics, the 1990s, and therefore were utterly worthless. However, I didn’t have the heart to inform them of this fact, and thus I ended up with several stacks of crappy books in the corners of my apartment. And to be truthful, “crappy” might be too kind of a description.

A few weeks ago, I finally got around to sorting through everything – I wasn’t just going to throw them in the recycling bin without taking a quick look after all. It’s always possible you might find a diamond in a pile of junk. In the end, I decided to save all the trades and graphic novels, and toss the monthlies in the trash.

However, this trip down memory lane wasn’t completely for naught. There was an example of just about every cover “technology” used during that time period, and I thought an exploration of this subject would make an excellent column, especially since everybody places much of the blame for the near downfall of the comics industry in the 90s on the proliferation of cover ridiculousness. So let’s take a look, shall we?

The Die-Cut Cover

The Chrome Cover

The Die-Cut, Chrome Cover

The Embossed, Chrome Cover

The Hologram Cover

All of these covers were pretty gimmicky, but if any of them screamed “look at me, buy me, buy me,” it was the hologram cover. With the other styles, at least one could argue they were incorporated into traditional cover art. But you can’t say the same thing for the hologram. It sticks out like neon sign. Even I thought hologram covers were cool back in the day, so the gimmick obviously worked – although I don’t believe I ever purchased one. Yet seeing them now, they just look cheap.

Now, I’m not bold enough to claim that the over abundance of cover-gimmicks in the 90s was the main contributor to the near implosion of the comic book industry, but I’m sure it didn’t help. By printing so many covers, the publishers both took advantage of and fueled the collectors mentality, which is really the thing that ultimately hurt everybody.

But it’s not even the money-grabbing that really bothers be about all the cover gimmicks implemented in the 90s. What really bothers me is how stupid a lot of them were; with the chrome and holograms being the dumbest. At least a die-cut cover adds a different layer and dimension to the book. Chrome and holograms, on the other hand, really don’t add anything.

Unfortunately, it’s rather disconcerting today to see the publishers increase the number of covers printed week after week, especially for non-event and non-anniversary books. I’m not going to be so over-reactionary to claim the industry is returning to the 90s, but there’s definitely a quietly growing sense of gimmickry emerging. However, I think I’ll save that discussion for the next column.

Batman's Undies: An Immutable Law of Nature

2008-06-28T21:32:00.000-07:00

While researching my letters page column from a month ago, I needed to find the issue of Detective Comics in which my letter was printed. In the process, I reread #700, the topic of my letter, and noticed the very striking lack of undies on Batman. I had completely forgotten how much I disliked that look, and 15 years later, it’s even more ridiculous.

To wear or not to wear the undies is one of those annoying discussions that pop up on message boards from time to time; annoying because the same arguments are given, by both sides, over and over again. Nothing new is ever presented, nor is there much thought or creativity in the arguments. The underwear looks stupid. Blah blah blah. But it’s tradition and not everything traditional needs to change. Blah blah blah.

For the record, I’m obviously a proponent of the Bat-undies. First, the costume has worked for many a decade, and I’d classify it as timeless, not dated. Second, if the alternative (i.e. just removing the undies but leaving the rest of the costume unchanged) looks worse than the original, and it certainly does in Batman’s, why bother changing it?

I mean, take a look at these pictures from Detective Comics #700 and tell me if they look “right.”

Yep, I didn’t think so. By the way, my apologies for the blurriness of the second picture.

I admit there are certainly costumes for which updated has been required. Usually these are the looks that reflected the fashion trends of the period in which the costume and/or character were created. For example, the 70s inspired looks of classic-Nic Cage and classic-Nightwing. Heck, those groovy costumes support my belief that comic book writers and artists, and musicians for that matter, should never reference anything that dates a book or song that otherwise will be timeless, but that’s a discussion for another time.

However, in order to not close the debate unfairly, allow me to explore the no-undies look further. In Batman’s case, it could be the yellow utility belt that makes the lack of undies so disturbing. The undies provide a waistline or at least a transition between the “shirt” and “pants” for the utility belt to sit upon. Without the undies, the belt is just floating there in limbo. After all, if you take a look at Nightwing, he doesn’t wear a utility belt, and the lack of visual transition between upper and lower bodies doesn’t bother me.

Yet you better check yourself before even contemplating getting rid of the utility belt. Without it, he wouldn’t be the same character, and would look even more naked. Even if the belt was colored to match the cape, gloves, and boots, I don’t think I could go along with it; although I’m sure it would look a heck of a lot better.

You see, there are simply a few things in life that should never change regardless of how often the vocal minority complains; the Stanley Cup playoffs and Batman’s undies are a couple of examples. Why mess with success, right? Besides, he’s the goddam Batman and if he wants to wear underwear on the outside of his costume, then who are we to tell him he can’t?

Quick update: Formatting and DC rumors

2008-06-23T07:02:00.000-07:00

First, my apologies for the formatting of some the entries below. when I posted Saturday's blog, the formats of all the others somehow got jacked. I can fix each post individually, but more than likely will have neither the time nor patience to do so. We'll just have to live with it for awhile.

Second, to answer the question that all three of my readers have asked recently, I won't be commenting on the alleged turmoil within, or the inevitable shutdown of, DC. If and when something actually happens, I'll comment on it. But until then, I won't stoke the fire.

So you want to break up with your LCS...

2008-06-21T18:42:00.000-07:00

I’ve always intended to write a column about the competition between the Local Comic Shop and online, mail-order discount stores, but I’ve never been able to get passed the rough outline stage. I’ve never figured out a good hook for the piece. Fortunately, I saw this thread on the Newsarama message board earlier this week and the light bulb over my head began glowing.

In the thread, the original poster wasn’t asking for the pros and cons of online mail-order stores, although those are discussed. Instead, he had already decided to move to the mail-order store and wanted to know the best way to break the news to the owner and employees of his LCS. I immediately knew that was the angle I wanted to take with this column.

Now, aside from being shocked that a poster on Newsarama had enough sympathy for his fellow human to ask that question in the first place, it really hit home for me because I’ve recently been on both sides of that coin. As a reader, I made the switch to an online mail order store less than a year ago, and as a former owner of an LCS, I certainly experienced the effects of customers closing their pull box. Hopefully, this gives me a unique perspective on the subject.

Let me start off by explaining why I switched over to an online, mail-order store. For years and years, I gave my business to an LCS. I never had a pull list because I only purchased two titles a month – bonus points if you can tell me which two. Plus, I didn’t care for the owner or any of his employees so I figured the less interaction with them, the better.

Of course, once I opened my LCS, I started buying all my books from myself and expanded my pull list to over ten titles. I still think I was ripping myself off with that arrangement considering I was self-funding the store, thus I paid for my pull list twice. I’m not sure if that made me a crafty business owner or a dumbass consumer. Regardless, when I got out of the business, I was left with either choosing another LCS to frequent or go the mail-order route.

To be frank, after seeing several questionable business practices committed by more than a couple local owners, and after hearing many other stories, I just could not see myself ever buying from another store. And that left me with an online, mail-order store through which to get my comics – a pretty easy decision to make. I think it worked out. Certainly, the discounts are nice, but the convenience of having the books delivered is what I’ve really grown to dig.

As for the retailer side of the coin, I certainly don’t bemoan anyone wanting to go mail-order to save a few bucks. Very few brick and mortar owners can afford to match the discounts you can find online. Speaking personally, my store didn’t offer an advertised discount if you maintained a pull list. I had every intention of doing so, because no other store in the area offered one. In fact, my partner worked out a multi-tiered discount program, which looked fantastic on paper. However, we quickly phased it out because, admittedly, it was too ambitious and complicated. Instead, we introduced a blanket 10% store credit on every purchase which could be used on virtually everything but new comics – perhaps I’ll go into more details in a later column.

Now, we did offer unadvertised discounts to several of our better customers. For example, we offered near Amazon.com discounts on (pre-ordered) trades to one customer who bought a crap load each month. And if I was in the store, I would randomly knock off 10%-20% for our regular customers or throw in free bags and boards as a thank you. But like I said, as much as I tried to keep the prices low, I knew I couldn’t compete with online mail-order stores, and completely understood if a customer wanted to make the switch.

However, just because I understood his/her decision, doesn’t mean the impact to my store’s bottomline was lessened. Losing those guaranteed monthly sales is not a good feeling. For example, there were two or three customers who seriously bought every book published by DC and Marvel every month – that’s a very significant chunk of change. Then, after a half-year of patronage, they just stopped picking up their books.

Well, several weeks passed and their files kept increasing in size. At about six weeks, we sent them friendly email reminders and left a voicemail or two, but got no reply. A few smaller pulls boxes also started piling up. I never found out conclusively why those customers left. Some may have been college kids going back home for the summer. For others, it may have been a decision pushed by economics.

Even if they didn’t wish to divulge the reason, it would have just been nice to get a heads up. Then I could have adjusted orders, and more importantly I could have cannibalized their files when another customer asked for a book we had sold-out of on the shelves. But really, I would have just liked to thank them for their business.

So now to answer the 78-dollar question; what’s the best way to break up with your LCS? Well, speaking as a former retailer, the best case scenario would be to give your LCS guy a couple months notice. As you may already now, the direct market requires retailers to order books two months in advance, so if you have a pull list, your LCS guy technically ordered books you’re picking up today two months, and the books he ordered yesterday, you’ll be picking up in two months. I’m sure your LCS guy would greatly appreciate the couple months notice for ordering purposes. Plus, it might give him time to try to sweeten the deal to keep you as a customer.

You could also soften the blow by continuing to buy a few books a month, or the occasional trade paperback, from your LCS, even though the bulk of your monthly fix will be online. By doing so you maintain a friendly relationship in case you ever need to make a special order. And it might help alleviate your guilty conscience.

But most importantly, just be straight with your LCS guy and don’t leave him hanging. Most are working stiffs themselves, just trying to make it week to week, so I’m sure he’ll understand. And if he doesn’t understand, then you shouldn’t feel bad about dumping him.

The Weekly Retcon: Week Ending 2008/06/08

2008-06-07T21:42:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another installment of The Weekly Retcon, the on-going feature in which I interject my opinion, and good natured humor, into the previous week’s news and discussions in a futile attempt to make my blog appear up-to-date and relevant, despite my tendency towards laziness and procrastination.

On to the items that captured my interest…

Manga, Manga everywhere

I guess all of the reports about the Manga popularity explosion are true. Earlier this week, there was a discussion on the PCT-L, a mailing list for the Pacific Crest Trail – yeah, I’ve also wondered why they can’t get with the times and just start a message board; mailing lists are so 1999 – about the best way to remove pages from a guidebook to take with you on a hike. One participant contributing the following:

I surprised no one has mentioned a heating the glue method of debinding the guidebooks. Using a microwave or a clothing iron you heat the glue up to soften it(not melting it as that makes it messy) and then pulling the cover off and the pages apart(may require a few reheatings). You can google book debinding for scanning and find several instructions for getting the cover and pages seperated. Most instructions are related to manga (foreign comics) as there is a large hobbyist effort to scan/translate foreign comics into english.

Hobbyist effort, illegal distribution… it’s really all the same. I just found it amusing that manga popped up in a discussion about long distance through hiking.

SDCC 4-day memberships are sold out!

This hasn’t really been that widely reported in the online comic book community, but the four-day memberships for the San Diego Comic-Con officially sold out before May ended. That’s nearly a full two months before the event. I certainly don’t remember them selling out this early last year.

I’m assuming this means one of two things. One, the organizers drastically reduced the number of four-day memberships available, or two, there are going to be a crap load of people trying to get into the convention this year. Either way, I definitely won’t be partaking in all four days this year. I just don’t have the energy for it anymore.

Greatest Shortpacked ever

If you all missed Wednesday’s installment of Shortpacked, then you really need to check it out. It’s so very, very wrong, yet so very, very good. I love Shortpacked.

The Weekly Retcon: Week Ending 2008/06/01

2008-06-02T19:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another installment of The Weekly Retcon, the on-going feature in which I interject my opinion, and good natured humor, into the previous week’s news and discussions in a futile attempt to make my blog appear up-to-date and relevant, despite my tendency towards laziness and procrastination.

On to the items that captured my interest…

JG Jones Loves him some art school

Check out this excerpt from a recent interview with J.G. Jones on Newsarama.com.

JGJ: I actually went off to college and forgot about comics for awhile. I did the fine art thing -- did painting for years. Two completely useless degrees in painting.

NRAMA: A bachelor of fine arts and...?

JGJ: I have my bachelor's and my MFA in painting.

NRAMA: But that training wasn't useless. You painted the covers for 52 and Final Crisis.

JGJ: Yeah, but I learned all of the painting technique I use now in those high school after school classes. My first teacher, I learned all that watercolor technique from him. 'Cause you know art school is total BS. It's like, go in and figure out how "creative" you are. It's like, "create some artistic statement." It's very important, and you just sit around and jerk each other off.

Speaking as someone with an engineering degree, and as someone who has never “gotten” most kinds of art, Jones’ statement makes me chuckle. Look, I’m not going to make fun of the fine arts community, at least not in a public forum such as this blog – and in fine arts, I’m not including what I call practical arts – so I’ll just say J.G. Jones pretty much sums up my opinion of most art students I’ve met. Pitzer College, I’m looking at you.

Spider-Man: The Musical

According to a blurb on atu2.com, the Spider-Man musical is slated to open in late 2009 or early 2010. The music of The Amazing Spider-Man, as the Broadway musical has been titled, is written by Bono and The Edge (well, probably more so by The Edge as we true U2 fans know who is really responsible for the band’s music).

As a U2 fan, I was sort of hoping the involvement of The Edge and Bono was just a rumor that would never materialize. And now that it’s apparently a reality, I have mixed feelings, and they have nothing to do with “selling-out.”

I just have trouble imagining The Edge’s music fitting with Spider-Man. Maybe it’s because his music is too associated with Batman through Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me and the incredibly underrated theme to The Batman (before it was changed in the later seasons), or maybe it’s because I think his music is just too cool for Spider-Man.

But regardless of my issues with U2 writing the music for a Spider-Man musical, it better not prevent them from releasing an album this fall and touring in 09. There will be hell to pay if that happens.

Chokes in the Open Net...

2008-05-31T14:06:00.000-07:00

So earlier this week, I was flipping through the June/July 2008 issue of the USA Hockey magazine (it’s free with membership), and was surprised to see this full page ad:

Ever since hockey entered my life 18 or so years ago, goalie masks have been the one of the only types of art that I truly appreciate. The vibrant colors, the creative design that reflect the goalie’s personality or nickname or hobbies, and the fact that many masks are so detailed you cannot take everything in during the few seconds of close-ups you see in the course of a game, make them fascinating. So when I saw the ad for the Marvel Heroes line of goalie masks from Itech, they definitely caught my eye.

At first glance, I thought, “man, this is a pretty cool concept, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before.” However, as I took a closer look, I decided some of the designs missed the mark. The Spider-Man and Iron Man masks are both pretty sweet, as the simplicity of the characters’ masks really lend themselves to the “mask over the mask” design. You can easily tell you’re looking at a Spider-Man or Iron Man goalie mask.

But the other three? I think they should have selected another design concept. The faces of Wolverine, Captain America, and the Hulk are just too detailed to translate that way. It’s too hard to tell what you’re looking at. I think it would have been better to put the characters’ faces (or the character posing) on the sides of the mask with a graphic background instead.

One thing’s for sure though… if I was ever dumb enough to play goalie, I would definitely wear a Batman themed mask.

For more information on the Marvel Heroes line of goalie masks from Itech, you can visit www.iamagoalie.com

Book of the Month: April 2008

2008-05-31T11:27:00.000-07:00

I realize I’m a couple of weeks behind in writing this post. I fell behind in my comic book reading, and then got lazy. Heck, I’m still feeling rather lazy, so this review will probably be on the short side. Things should return to normal next month. So with all the excuses clear upfront, let’s move on to April’s Book of the Month.

Batman and the Outsiders #6
Chuck Dixon – writer
Carlos Rodriguez – penciller
Bit – inker

There’s really only one thing that needs to be said to justify making this issue of Batman and the Outsiders my book of month: It made me like Green Arrow. I know! Me liking Green Arrow. I never thought I’d see the day either. Any book that can perform that miracle definitely deserves mad props.

Panel of the Month: April 2008

2008-05-31T10:54:00.000-07:00

Please accept my apologies for the lateness of this post. I’ve sort of fallen behind in my comic book reading. As such, my usual witty commentaries will be toned down to just a sentence or two. Things should return to normal in a couple of weeks when I post the Panel of the Month for May. With that said, let’s get on to the show…

April 2008 brings us a Panel of the Month two-fer special. First off, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 takes home the honor for the third month in a row. In a page from issue #13, Xander and Dracula share another tender moment. I know this only fuels the fire surrounding the alleged out of character sexual relationship or the fire surrounding yet another alleged homophobic commentary in comic books, but I don’t see either.

Instead I see this as two grown men sharing awkward yet complete sincere, non-sexual intimacy. When done well, that awkwardness can be incredibly funny without demeaning or trivializing their relationship, and I think this panel accomplishes that.

Sharing the panel of the month honors is the last page of Batman and the Outsiders #6. I’m a total Batman mark, and anytime someone infers that Batman is more dangerous than Superman, a big smile forms on my face. So with that factoid in mind, I’ll leave this panel to speak for itself.

The Weekly Retcon: Week Ending 2008/05/25

2008-05-25T23:04:00.000-07:00

On to the items that captured my interest…

Batman vs. Li’l Batman??

When the solicits from DC are released each month, internet citizens race to be the first to post which titles have the dreaded “FINAL ISSUE” at the end of its solicit. This in turn is followed by the inevitable “DC sucks” posts, because as we all know, canceling titles due to low numbers is a sure sign that those titles were crappy.

However, every so often, someone might actually comment about the content of a solicit. Usually, the comment is to the effect of “man, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” And that’s why I’m rather surprised I haven’t read any comments about the Superman/Batman #51 solicitation. In case you missed it, here it is:

The Man of Steel and the Dark Knight are shocked to discover little versions of themselves fighting a threat in Metropolis. But where did these tiny heroes come from? As Superman and Batman search for answers, things get worse with the arrival of the Li’l League!

The Li’l League? The Li’l League?! I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty damned cool to me. The JLU episode in which Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern agreed to be turned into little kids in order to battle Mordrid is certainly one of my favorites, so I’m intrigued by this issue of Superman/Batman and I’ll most likely give it a read.

In my opinion, this is the kind of wacky creativity that is needed to inject new energy in the superhero genre. Unfortunately, I’m sure this story, like many others, will be brushed off as “fun” which is usually a nail in the coffin amongst the internet community.

Cost of Final Crisis and Secret Invasion

You gotta love the incestuous chain reaction news reporting in the comic book blogosphere. First, the crack research team at Newsarama “broke” a story about how much Final Crisis and Secret Invasion were going to cost readers. Then, as is always the case, bloggers quickly regurgitated the story, in an attempt to appear relevant, and added their own scathing opinions denouncing both Marvel and DC for making readers pay hundreds of dollars for each story.

Well, you know what I’m spending on Final Crisis? $27.93. That’s right. I’m only buying the main series; none of the tie-in books. And do you know why? Because despite being written by writers I enjoy, I just don’t care enough about the tie-ins to buy them. I know that’s mind-boggling. Buying only the books one wants to read is such a radical concept that I don’t expect everyone to comprehend it at first.

For you see, contrary to popular belief, nothing bad will happen if you don’t read every book involved in an event. The sun won’t turn red. The internet won’t implode. And VH1 won’t stop making its horribly delightful shows about D-list celebrities trying to find love – those shows are fantastic!

Remember. No one has a gun to your head, so don’t feel forced to read every single book. But if you do, admit you’re doing so of your own feel will and live with it.

The Top 200 comic book characters as chosen by Wizard

If ever a situation deserved a big WTF, Wolverine being selected as the top comic book character of all time by Wizard magazine is it. So, all together now… WTF, Wizard?!? Wolverine is a great character and all, but there is no way he’s better than Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man. No f’ing way. In fact, I’m not even going to dignify this travesty with further discussion.

WTF, Wizard?!?!

The Return of the Letters Page

2008-05-24T21:25:00.000-07:00

Should publishers bring back the letters page?

Every so often, this topic pops up on one of the many comics related message boards. I have a feeling the people asking are doing so out of nostalgia, and doing things out of nostalgia is generally not the best reasoning, but it’s still an interesting question. Does a letters page even have a place in today’s comic book culture?

Back in the true golden age of comics, the mid-1990s, I read every word of every letters page in my comics. Of course, back then, the only comics I read were Batman and Detective Comics, and I subscribed to each through DC’s subscription service. I had no concept of comic shops, and Al Gore hadn’t yet perfected the internet, so the letters page was the only asset I had to get a behind the scenes look at comics or get hints of upcoming storylines. They definitely served a purpose.

Hell, I even had a letter, about Detective Comics #700, printed in issue #704. It was 1996, and the email I sent to DC was one of the first emails I ever sent. I mean that very literally, as in maybe one of the first five. I very clearly remember the giddiness and sense of pride that washed over me when I saw my name in the letters page. I suppose it’s somewhat embarrassing that I was 18 at the time and getting so excited. But then again, I’m now 30 and blogging about comics, so it’s a coin flip as to which is more pathetic.

Up until 10 years ago, except for the occasional convention, there were very few opportunities for real-time and readily available interaction between readers and industry professionals, so the letters page served a purpose. But now the internet fields readers’ questions and opinions, and the professionals are more than willing to interact with them. The letters page function as the main communication conduit between the readers and the industry was usurped by the internet and forgotten.

I foresee a couple of big issues in bringing back the letters page. The first is the timeliness. When letters pages were a routine fixture in comics, the letters printed were always a few months old. For example, my letter was printed in Detective Comics #704, but I sent it immediately after reading issue #700. I can only assume the delay was a result of schedules dictating page layouts, printing, and shipping.

Unfortunately, I find it hard to believe in this modern age of instant gratification and attention deficit, that people could wait that long for anything. Although I’m not familiar with the printing process, one could hope that as technology has advanced, letters could be printed in a more timely manner. Yet when you look at comics that still print letters pages, say Angel: After the Fall and Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8, there’s still a delay of several months. The letters in Angel #7 are about #4, and Buffy #14 included letters about issue #6! Even I can’t remember back that far.

Another strike against the traditional letters page is the content of the letters. If you go back through your collection and randomly sample the letters, you’ll see a lot of ball washing. And yes, I realize I’m just as guilty of ball washing in my letter. Yet while everyone enjoys a session of good ball washing, I think a higher level of “sophistication” is needed to make a letters page successful these days.

After all, many writers and artists have their own blogs at which readers already post ball washing and/or criticism immediately after reading the comic, and most of the time, the blog owner will respond. Also, many industry professionals interact with readers on message boards, further reducing the need to communicate through a letters page. Therefore, the only way to make writing and reading a letters page worthwhile is to carve out a new niche.

First, I think you need to forget about printing it in a comic book, and instead post it online. Yes, I realize there are a few readers out there who are unable to access the internet, such as me whenever I visit my family in Montana, and it’s possible that a subset of that group really enjoys the printed letters column and relies on it for the insider information the rest of us get on the internet. Unfortunately you can’t cater to everyone.

An online version has several advantages. One, it would be cheaper, because you don’t have to pay for the extra pages in the printing process or waste valuable advertising space. Two, an online version has no word count limits so more letters could be included and the responses could be longer and more detailed. And three, it could be updated much more frequently, dare I say weekly, with content that isn’t four months old. So yeah, online is the way to go.

Second, you need to make the letters page a destination unto itself. One of the more popular letters pages on the internet, at least that I read, is the Mailbag that periodically appears in The Sports Guy column written by Bill Simmons on ESPN.com’s Page 2. Simmons’ Mailbags have morphed into a combination of legitimate questions and answers, and good natured, back-and-forth snarkiness. As a fan of The Sports Guy – even though I think he’s recently allowed his inherent Bostonian smugness to take over his writing – I’m always in a state of joyous anticipation of his Mailbag columns. They never fail to make me laugh.

In fact, having a letter posted by Simmons has really become a badge of honor amongst his readers, especially the last letter of the Mailbag to which he responds with “yep, these are my readers,” inferring that’s the best email of the column. Readers constantly try to top each other with more creative questions and backhanded compliments. It’s such a badge of honor that for me getting an email printed in a Mailbag would easily trump my Detective Comics email. It’s that highly coveted.

I believe there are enough readers that the letters will take care of themselves, and no one will have to worry about having a large enough selection from which to choose. Therefore, I think the person responding to the letters is far more important to the success of a letters page. He or she – I don’t want to be arrested by the misogyny police – must have the right sense of humor and be able to straddle the fine line between boring and insulting. Maybe a team of folks responding, or a different industry professional, advertised a few weeks ahead of time, for each mailbag might keep things more dynamic.

Whatever the format, the comic book industry is full of creative and witty people, so it should be easy to develop a letters page that is entertaining and keeps people wanting more. But it shouldn’t just be a rehash of the news and rumors you can read on Newsarama or Comic Book Resources. We don’t need yet another member of this incestuous family.

In this modern age of information overload, the letters page it must contain unique information in order to recapture the magic it once had, and that will be a tall order.

The Weekly Retcon: Week Ending 2008/05/18

2008-05-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

On to the items that captured my interest…

I got some FCBD books after all

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in my Free Comic Book Day blog, I did not visit any of the local shops to celebrate the day. Truth be told, I haven’t given my patronage to any local store since I closed mine down – I have my reasons, which I might go into at a later date. Instead, I’ve been buying my comics online, specifically from MidtownComics.com. While there are certainly other stores that offer much bigger discounts, I like the flexibility Midtown allows when it comes to changing your order at the last minute. I’ve been a very satisfied customer.

Well, when I opened my latest shipment, I was surprised to see two bunches of comics instead of the usual one. The additional bunch also contained a note that said, “Thank you for being our customer. Please enjoy these Free Comic Book Day books” or something to that effect. That’s pretty damned cool if you ask me, and completely unexpected. I mean, I actually said “Dude. That’s pretty sweet,” outloud.

In total, I received seven FCBD books, including the offerings from Top Cow, Marvel, Dark Horse, and Dynamite. But my favorite of the stack by far was the Red 5 book featuring Atomic Robo. I’d only read mentions of that title on various message boards and blogs, and since I’m predominantly just into the superhero genre, I didn’t give it much attention. But I’ve gotta say, that title is right up my alley. It’s most definitely getting added to my pull list.

So there you go. Free Comic Book Day pays off.

Reason #37 why comic book publishers can’t win when it comes to the internet community

This week saw the Final Crisis Sketchbook hit shelves across the country, and the reaction from the online community took me by surprise (even though it shouldn’t have). A very large number of the message board posts discussing the sketchbook can be paraphrased thusly:

I can’t believe I spent my hard-earned money on the Death of the New Gods mini-series, only to have DC bring back the characters less than a month later, nor can I believe I put up with the shameless hyping of the new designs of the New Gods only to have them look virtually identical to the classic appearance.

First of all, how can you be disappointed with Grant Morrison noting in his description of Desaad, “I like the idea of him wearing high heels under his robe”? In my opinion, that’s all kinds of cool, and I can’t wait to see that image in action. Secondly, you know the latest incarnations of the New Gods were going to be pivotal characters in Final Crisis, so how long were you expecting them to be out of commission? Use your brains for once, people.

But here’s the real kicker. Let’s say Morrison and Jones developed interpretations and appearances of the New Gods that are radically different, as in unrecognizable, from their classic looks. I’m sure message boards would be filled with a different subset of people complaining about Morrison and Jones raping Jack Kirby’s vision. There would be post after post saying, “How dare they ignore and insult Kirby like that. DC should be ashamed.” In fact, I’m positive at least a few of those posts would be from the same people bitching right now about the lack of creativity.

I really want to ask why people just can’t enjoy comic books for what they are, simple entertainment, and if they don’t like what they’re reading, why don’t they stop buying it. But then I realize asking that question is pointless, because this is internet, and folks will complain about anything just to complain. I guess I need to accept that publishers, writers, and artists just can’t win.

Books I Read Last Month: April 2008

2008-05-13T21:15:00.000-07:00

The following is the list of comic books that shipped in April 2008 for which I had the opportunity to read:

Angel: After the Fall #6
Batman #675
Batman and the Outsiders #6
Booster Gold #8
Brave and the Bold #12
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 #13
Catwoman #78
Checkmate #25
Countdown #4-1
Death of the New Gods #8
Detective Comics #843
Gotham Underground #7
Jenna Jameson’s Shadow Hunter #2
Justice League of America #20
Salvation Run #6
Supergirl #28

Stay tuned for my Panel of the Month and Book of the Month.

Do comic book movies lead to comic book sales?

2008-05-10T12:22:00.000-07:00

So I had planned to see Iron Man yesterday morning, which is very odd for me because I never go to movie theaters these days. I just don’t like dealing with the movie going public. Crowds, lines, screaming kids, ringing cell phones… no thank you. Heck, the last movie I remember seeing in the theater is Batman Begins. But for whatever reason, I decided to try Iron Man.

I had the day off from work, and I figured the 10:30AM showing would be my best bet. Hopefully, the theater would be mostly empty, amd I’d be able to watch the movie in peace. So I walked up to the ticket window, and saw one other person. My plan, so far, was working perfectly. Then I saw the ticket price. $9.50 for a matinee? $9.50!!!! That’s outrageous! When did ticket prices increase so much?

Well, I turned around in disgust, saying F that. Fortunately, I had to pick up a few things at the other establishments in that shopping center, so it wasn’t a completely wasted trip.

On the drive home, I started thinking about comic book movies in general. Most seem to be cash cows for the studios that produce them, and most people seem to love them – although I suspect that has more to do with people not being critical enough and less to do with the quality of the actual movie. But do comic book movies actually help the comic book industry, specifically the direct market?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any hard sales figures at my immediate disposal, and I really don’t feel like doing any research on a weekend, but when has a lack of data ever stopped someone on the internet from commenting about anything. Luckily though, I do have anecdotal evidence from my store, so I have a basis, albeit a slight one, for my claims. But as always, just remember, I speak with no authority on this or any subject.

So here’s my take. Simply put, I don’t think comic book movies, on their own, help the direct market in any discernable way. While I certainly agree that any mainstream media exposure is good, I’m willing to bet that sales figures don’t show an industry-wide bump in the days or weeks surrounding the opening of a comic book movie, and certainly no long term effects.

I just can’t imagine a lot of children asking their parents to take them to a comic book store so they can buy a few Iron Man comics after watching the movie. Do kids who don’t already read comics even know about comic book stores? I also can’t imagine a lot of movie-going adults making the leap into comic books.

To the best of my recollection, my store was open for the theatrical releases of Ghost Rider, Spider-Man 3, and 300. Looking only at our regular customers for now, I know for a fact that Ghost Rider and Spider-Man 3 did not convince any who weren’t already reading them to pick up the monthlies of those characters, nor did we see a spike in trade sales.

However, 300 most definitely resulted in a lot of graphic novel sales. It even spilled over into other Frank Miller penned graphic novels. So perhaps the original graphic novel is the key to capturing the interest of folks who already read comic books. Movies based on monthlies aren’t likely to translate into sales, but movies based on graphic novels will.

Now, while those small bumps in sales are nice, they unfortunately do not mean your business is growing. You need new customers for that, and to make that happen I think retailers need to be proactive about capitalizing on the movie-going audience.

Obviously, if your store is next door to a movie theater, or at least visible from theater’s front door, then a lot of your job is already done – thanks to your killer decision to open your store in that location. Now all you have to do is create some eye-catching window displays showcasing whatever character is on the big screen. You should be able to attract a fair amount of folks as they arrive and leave the theater.

You can also make an effort to give your store a presence at the theater, regardless of your proximity to the cineplex. A very obvious marketing approach is to distribute coupons and/or flyers and/or free comic books right in the theater. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Well, I know, from firsthand experience, the difficulty of this task depends entirely on the theater chain and the local manager you’re dealing with.

Each theater handles it differently. Some may let you hand out the information yourself. Some may require one of their employees to do the job; and you’ll pay that employee’s salary on top of the advertising fees you’re already paying, by the way. Plus, each operation has its own rules controlling what types of material you can distribute and what you’re charged to make it happen.

Marketing your store at theaters during comic book movies can be both confusing and frustrating. I can certainly understand why more store owners don’t even want to deal with it. However, it’s something that needs to be done if you want to attract new customers, because the comic book movies by themselves won’t do the job for you.

Memories of Free Comic Book Day 2007

2008-05-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

As we all know, yesterday was the first Saturday of May, also known in the comic book industry as Free Comic Book Day. To be honest, I really hadn’t given FCBD a lot of thought this year. I had no plans to visit any of the Southern California comic shops. Heck, I haven’t visited any stores since I left the business about six months ago.

However, the live coverage at sites like Newsarama and Comic Book Resources of FCBD events across the country definitely made me a bit nostalgic for last years event at my store. Of course, that didn’t make me want to change my plans of not visiting any of the local shops – there are factors behind that decision far more powerful than nostalgia – but I figured I could at least write about it as I look back with fondness.

Free Comic Book Day 2007 was the first and, as it turned out, only FCBD in which my store participated. It was a time of excitement and optimism. I was still naïve enough to believe that I could work 50 hours during the week at my day job, 15-20 hours in the store on the weekends, and somehow manage to keep my sanity. I was also naïve enough to believe I had the comic book business savvy – also known as nickel-and-diming expertise and stepping on other retailers for a quick buck – to build a successful store. But that’s a topic for another column. This one is about Free Comic Book Day.

Those who know me, know that I’m a chronic planner. In many cases, I find the planning phase just as rewarding, if not more so, than the execution. Thus I started working on my store’s FCBD event months ahead of the fact, and surprisingly the planning guide that Diamond includes in its FCBD kit came in very handy. I know! I’m as shocked as you are that I’m praising something from Diamond, and something that Diamond does to help retailers no less. But as the saying goes, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every so often.

My first step was to write a press release and a “add Free Comic Book Day to your event calendar” announcement, which I sent to the local papers and magazines. And I didn’t just send them once; I sent them every other week until the day arrived. The media blitz, if you want to call it that, definitely paid off, as every publication added my FCBD event to its calendar, and most sent out a report or at least asked for an email interview.

The next step was working out the details for the raffles, door prizes, flyers, grab bags, sampler packs, and newsletter. The latter three were so successful, I made them regular features in the store, so I think I’ll save their explanations for a later column. We passed out flyers to our customers and I also dropped them off at the neighboring businesses, schools, and community areas. As for the raffles and door prizes, they were handled thusly:

Each person walking into store received a newsletter with a raffle ticket stapled to it. Every tenth person, i.e. every ticket ending in a zero, automatically won a door prize. The door prizes were low-value items from posters to coffee mugs to key chains, just to name a few. Basically, they were items that had been sitting on the shelf for several months and not selling. It’s always amazing how much more appealing something becomes when it’s free.

In addition to the raffle ticket the customers received upon entering, we gave them an additional ticket for every five dollars they spent. We held the drawing on Sunday morning, and called the winners that afternoon. The raffle prizes were higher-value items. If I remember correctly, the least expensive prize had a retail price tag of $30 or so. There were five prizes including a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 signed poster-sized lithograph and a Batman gift pack containing action figures and trade paperbacks.

So on Saturday morning, I got to the store around 8AM (we opened at 10) to take care of the final tasks. Thankfully, my employees gave the store a thorough cleaning the day before, so I was able to focus on what I needed to do rather than obsess about clutter and disarray. I set up tables for the door prizes, the raffle, and the freebie items. Next, I stapled raffle tickets to several hundred newsletters. I made some last minute, minor tweaks to merchandise displays, and finally began filling dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of balloons with helium to set along the sidewalk.

I remember looking up from the helium tank and towards the door around 9:30, and seeing ten or so people already waiting for the store to open. I was genuinely surprised. I never imagined people would be lined up at the door. And I certainly never expected the activity to continuously increase throughout the day.

Simply put, I was absolutely blown away by the turn-out; miles beyond all my expectations. From the time the store opened at 10:00AM to approximately 6:30PM, it was non-stop hustle and bustle. There were enough people that I was mildly concerned about the fire code, so I was very thankful for the open floor plan I insisted on when laying out the store. I don’t know how the well established stores, with their claustrophobic layouts, handle the FCBD crowds.

To be honest, much of the day is a total blur. I remember greeting a lot of customers; about 85% of which were new faces. I remember chatting with a lot of customers. I remember a run to Taco Bell to get lunch for all of the employees. I remember recommending a lot of Batman books. And while not nearly my favorite memory, I remember the cash registers being worked like they had never been worked before.

At the end of the day, as the last customer walked out the door, the adrenaline dissipated and exhaustion kicked in. We all stood around, with somewhat glazed looks on our faces, congratulating each other on a job well done. But then a snarky comment or two was made regarding the perceived lack of effort I put into the event. Apparently, I was outside too often or socializing too frequently with the customers.

Sure, I could have been just as snarky in my response by pointing out that I had been up since six getting everything ready, while no one else showed up until 10 minutes before we opened. And I was tempted to do just that. However, I instead chalked the whole thing up as a misfired piece of good intended sarcasm, and told everybody to take off early while I closed up.

As an idea, I think Free Comic Book Day is fantastic. Even in practice, I think FCBD is fantastic, and that can’t be said about most great ideas. New faces will find you as long as your store is in the FCBD directory. Of course, distributing flyers, buying ad space in the local rag, and hanging the big FCBD banners in your windows will help bring even more people through your door.

So the trick really isn’t in getting people into your store. Just participating in Free Comic Book Day takes care of that. The hard part as a retailer is using your creativity to convert the new faces into regular customers. Looking back, I know there are more things I could have done to capitalize on the momentum of the Free Comic Book Day publicity and crowds. However, despite the 20/20 hindsight, I definitely consider FCBD 2007 a successful event, and highly recommend participating to every store.

Greatest. Internet content. Ever.

2008-04-27T22:03:00.000-07:00

WARNING: The following contains crude language and adult situations. If you are under 18, please ask your parents for permission before reading.

Well my friends, we can pack up the internet and go home. On Saturday, April 26, 2008, at 10:19AM, the greatest internet content ever was posted on Newsarama.com by a genius who calls himself nova. Every message board, regardless of theme, might as well close, because every other post is meaningless in comparison. It simply will never be topped.

Seriously, reading this post will ruin all other message board posts for you. Hell, it will ruin the internet in its entirety. It will be like South Park episode in which Cartman broke his sense of humor after seeing the Thompsons; you know, the husband and wife with butt cheeks on their faces. Nothing else was funny after that. This Newsarama post raises the bar in much the same way.

Therefore, without further ado, it is my pleasure to present to you the greatest internet content ever.

so i was looking at the cover to uncanny 497 and it got me thinking about cyke and emma going at it, and what kind of weird sex they might have due to their unique abilities. i know other heroes like supes and mister fantastic have been discussed, but i think cyke could possibly be the ultimate pleasure giver. if emma were to change into her diamond form, and cyke pops off an optic blast inside her box, that thing would ricochet around in there like mad, probably giving emma mindblowing multiple orgasms. the effect would be something akin to an optic gerbil. i know what your're thinking.. the blast would probably just shoot back out her cooch, but i'm pretty sure hank or the professor could come up with some ruby quartz panties to keep the blast inside until it dissipates. food for thought. thoughts?

Greatest. Internet content. Ever.

P.S. Optic Gerbil will be opening Coachella next year.

The Weekly Retcon: Week ending 2008/04/27

2008-04-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

On to the items that captured my interest…

It’s the final Countdown

*que ridiculous 80s synth music*

First of all, I’m disappointed, nay, appalled, that more people in the blogosphere and on message boards haven’t used this joke. If there was ever a time to resurrect the song that singly exemplifies everything wrong with music from the 80s, this would be it. So before we continue, let’s pause a few moments to allow Europe’s hit to stick itself in our heads…

It’s the final countdown! Do do do do, do do do do do. Do do do do, do do do do do do dooo…

Be sure to think of me when that song pops into your head a totally random moment later today.

OK, so Countdown is over. We all know it didn’t work out as DC had planned, and the company changed direction about midway through the series. Rather than sticking with the 52 formula, DC tried something different, failed, and tried to right the ship as they went along. Dan Didio has admitted to as much. I give the company credit for trying something new. I’ve always believed you learn more from your mistakes than your successes, so you can be sure DC won’t be making the same errors with Trinity.

What I find more concerning, but by no means surprising, is the negativity spewed on message boards by readers. Week after week, the same readers would post the same hate like “This series is just pointless” or “I’m so glad I dropped this book after #38” or “I can’t believe I’m still paying for this garbage.”

If you continued paying for a book you did not enjoy, you have no one to blame but yourself. You’re the idiot. The publisher isn’t forcing you to buy anything. And further, even you stopped reading the book because you didn’t enjoy it, why continue to waste your time posting about it? Actually, let me rephrase that. Why continue to waste your time posting and reposting the same comment? If you have new reasons for your dislike, or constructive suggestions for improving the book, by all means, post them. But please spare us the same old, boring drivel.

The 8^th Grade Supergirl; promoting inappropriate body image?

NOTE: The following section is written with a heavy amount of sarcasm, and while perhaps a bit crude, after the heat given to the main Supergirl title, it’s sarcasm that needs to be written.

Oh my god. Have you seen the drawings for the new 8^th Grade Supergirl cartoon? She’s a stick-figure! The animators and producers should be ashamed of themselves. Don’t they realize the majority of young girls, at least according to the popular media, are overweight? And yet the creators of this cartoon are telling these young girls that they only way they can be “super” is to be a waif-like size zero. That’s an awful message to send our children.

I tell you, if I had a daughter within the target demographic, I certainly would not let her watch this cartoon. Sure, I could sit down with my hypothetical daughter and help her understand body images in cartoons aren’t to be taken as realistic expectations. But that would require actually talking to her. Placing the responsibility and blame on the cartoon’s creators is much easier.

The new poster for The Dark Knight; too soon after 9/11?

As soon as I saw the new poster for The Dark Knight, I knew it would be criticized for looking too similar to the burning World Trade Center buildings. And sure enough, internet citizens began posting the “this is too soon after 9/11” comments. Yawn.

Look, I’m willing to bet I’m a bigger flag waiver than most folks who read comic books. Tears still form whenever I see footage of the WTC attacks, and I absolutely feel our military response has been far too compassionate. However, unless you are personally linked to the WTC attacks (i.e. a family member or close friend died in the towers), it’s time to stop complaining about the presence of 9/11 symbolism, be it intentional or unintentional.

This is why I try not to read between the lines when reading comic books. I just want to be entertained and not worry about the socio-political commentary in Civil War or The Dark Knight Returns. I read comics for escapism, and I watch comic book movies for the same reason. It’s much simpler that way.

Sometimes a giant, burning bat-shaped hole in a building is just a giant, burning bat-shaped hole in a building.

Advancing Women in Comics... Until She Has Sex

2008-04-25T14:11:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, the New York Comic Con, hosted two “Women in Comics” panels. One, I believe, was sponsored by the Friends of Lulu organization, apparently making it a legitimate panel, and thus immune from any criticism. The second panel was not sponsored by the Friends of Lulu and was headlined by Jenna Jameson, thus making it exploitative and all about the T&A.

Before I really get into this discussion and open myself up for accusations of being ultra conservative and sexist, let me say I absolutely do not support maintaining the alleged white, male country club culture in the comic book industry. Diversity not only increases the talent pool, but brings new perspectives to the table.

However, I also do not support diversity for the sake of diversity. That’s affirmative action, a concept I cannot get behind. I believe, perhaps naively, the most qualified person should get the job, and if the only difference between candidates is their reproductive organs, then flip a coin. If I was a woman, and still had my personality and background, I would be offended if I found out the only reason I was hired was my anatomy.

But what do I know about discrimination in the work place. I’m a straight, white male and therefore have clearly had everything handed to me.

Anyway, back to my point about the NYCC panels. My beef isn’t with the panels themselves, but with the reaction to the panels from women in the industry and media; specifically the reactions to the inclusion of Jenna Jameson as a “woman in comics.” I’m not sure if these reactions were grounded in legitimate concerns, or if they were derived from irrational, catfight-like behavior. Again, I’m a straight, white, comic book reading male, so the ways of the women confuse and frighten me. Hopefully, someone can help me figure out the root of the criticism.

Did people criticize the inclusion of Jenna Jameson because she’s new to the industry and was overshadowing more established creative talent?

If so, I can actually understand this one. No one likes it when a noob comes in and is promoted more heavily because of his/her name recognition at the expense of those who have toiled for years to prove themselves. Anger and jealously are natural, and forgivable, emotions in this situation. It’s happened to me once or twice at work. We spend months and months busting our asses to figure out a solution, and then a manager gets all the credit because he briefs the program office. That’s a sucky feeling.

But I have to ask, what if the “celebrity” wasn’t Ms. Jameson. What if it happened to be a “classy,” respected actress, say Natalie Portman? She would clearly receive the top billing because of her name recognition, even though she’s only created one project. Would the community be as outraged? I suspect not, which makes me think there’s more to it than longtime talent being outshined by a celebrity. So…

Was the outrage due to media frenzy that follows Jenna Jameson, which can potentially hijack the panel from its intended purpose?

Like the last question, I can understand the concern here. As the panel organizer, you have a limited amount of time to make your impact. Even if things progress as efficiently as possible, you still can’t get to everything, so you certainly don’t need off-topic questions gobbling up valuable time. When one of the panelists is widely known for his/her career outside of comic books, non-comic questions will inevitably be asked.

But again, I have to wonder, what if in Jameson’s place we had a Natalie Portman or an Anne Hathaway. They would obviously be asked about upcoming movies or past roles, derailing the conversation off the comic book track. Yet, I suspect a lot fewer people would be upset with those tangents than tangents about Jameson’s past roles.

And that leads me to what I think is really at the root of the controversy… Jenna Jameson is part of the sex industry.

This has gotta be it, right? These panels were about advancing women in an industry dominated by men, and I’m sure the critics perceived having a porn star participate as being mutually exclusive to that goal. The critics ignore the fact that Jameson is an extremely successful business woman and entrepreneur. They also ignore her battle with the city of Scottsdale, AZ, over its shady rezoning decision designed to run her business out of town. All they concentrate on is her adult film career.

Does this mean that public sexuality is anti-feminist? I thought dispelling the double standard in which men having sex are studs, while women having sex are sluts, was front and center in the equality of the genders movement. So why is it such a giant red X when it comes to Jameson being taken seriously in comics?

Please help me out here.

The Weekly Retcon: Week Ending 2008/04/20

2008-04-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

On to the items that captured my interest…

Catwoman to take a prolonged catnap

As we saw in the DC solicits released on Monday, Catwoman, my favorite on-going book, had the dreaded “FINAL ISSUE” phrase in its description. My first reaction, after the obligatory “sonofa…” and “those bastards,” was to quickly write a farewell to Catwoman blog. But after thinking about it, I decided to delay that post until this summer when the final issue hits the shelves. So instead, I’d like to comment on the reactions from the internet community.

Much to my surprise, the message boards were full of very vocal outrage at the book’s cancellation. Thus proving yet again that fans on the internet do not the majority of comic book readers make. One thread in particular stood out. It asked the basic question of what creative team could resurrect Catwoman.

The original poster believed that Catwoman needs a female voice, and therefore Gail Simone is the obvious choice for writer. Another suggested the team of Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee because of how they handled Selina in the Hush storyline. While I admit a Loeb and Lee helmed Catwoman would be a guaranteed best seller, I’m also asymptotically certain it would be of poorer overall quality than the current team of Will Pfeifer and the Lopezes.

I think the lower tier superhero books like Catwoman, Blue Bettle, and the All New Atom suffer in the same way books from smaller publishers do. Their success is largely determined by word of mouth, and it just doesn’t appear that readers are willing to branch away from the top tiered books regardless of how many recommendations a book receives. Perhaps it’s yet another result of the comic book reading population being too small.

Final Crisis hype

I’m not the type of person to get overly excited about things. In fact, I have a tendency to rage against the hype. The more people talk about how cool a movie is going to be, the more determined I become not to see it. The attitude stems from a combination of my inherent pessimism and the desire to not be a member of the sheeple herd. Heck, I can be completely turned off something I was already looking forward to if people start saying, “this is going to be the greatest story/movie/book/whatever ever!”

Yet the Grant Morrison interview about Final Crisis posted at Comic Book Resources last week has gotten me so pumped up for the series that I’m now hoping that I’m not raising my expectations too high. What’s worse (or better, depending on how you look at things), Morrison now has me wanting to read the tie-ins. The man has done his job.

Greatest. Story. Ever.

Iron Man promotion at Best Buy

According to page 10 of Sunday’s Best Buy ad, you can get a “Free Iron Man comic book instantly, when you buy any of these movies.” There are 12 eligible movies; among the choices are Event Horizon, Payback, Red Eye, Aeon Flux, and Patriot Games. The comic pictured is Marvel Adventures Iron Man #1.

I think we can all agree that this and similar cross-medium, cross-retail sector promotions can only help the comic book industry – although the magnitude of that help is debatable. However, I find the choice of book, one that’s written for the kids demographic, strange as it is being paired with movies intended for a more mature audience.

I know both the Marvel Adventures and Johnny DC titles are read more by adults than kids, but those adults are already comic book readers. I just don’t see this promotion attracting new readers of any age. I mean, unless a parent buys the DVD and then gives the comic to his or her child, kids aren’t going to read the book, and if the book is kept by the adult, I just don’t see it being appreciated enough to make the adult want to read more.

The fine print confuses me even further. It reads “Minimum four per title, per store. No rainchecks.” So does that mean any given store could only have 48 comics in stock, and if four people buy Payback, the fifth person might not get one? I understand Best Buy not wanting to have a bunch of “stupid” comics in its storeroom if the promotion is a bust, but it just strikes me as odd.

Maybe I’m just too cynical.

Cited By The Beat!

2008-04-17T13:00:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you’re sitting at work, failing to keep your non-clinical (i.e. imaginary) ADD in check? Well, if you’re anything like me, you decide to waste a few minutes by Googling yourself. Luckily for me, neither my first nor last name is very common, so the first several pages of results are typically about me and not another Cody Machler.

Normally, when I Google myself – is it wrong that I laugh each time I type “Google myself”? – the results link to newspaper articles and press releases written during the time my comic book store was open for business, or to papers I wrote and projects I worked at school, or to results of various 10K runs in which I’ve participated. But in today’s search, I noticed several new results. It seems my name, and Retroactive Continuity, is being cited by other more popular and way more reputable comic book blogs. As Tommy Lee would say, “That’s bananas!”

Most are just mass collections of data feeds, but the standout, by far, is The Beat linking to my post regarding Rogue Wolf acquiring Cold Cut Distribution. I don’t quite know how I missed this when it was posted back in February, considering that I read The Beat every day, but that’s not important. What’s important is I was cited on The Beat! In the words of one of the greatest philosophers of modern times, “Yeah boooyyyy!”

I don’t know why this has tickled me so. Retroactive Continuity was started with no realistic intentions beyond giving me an outlet separate from my personal blog on which to post comic book related musings because my friends – most of which can’t stand comic books – were getting tired of reading them. I had no plans for global domination of the comic book world, but this is clearly a step in that direction. So perhaps I should start taking things more seriously around here…

Yeah right.

Book of the Month: March 2008

2008-04-16T21:05:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This post was written prior to learning of Catwoman’s cancelation in the latest solicits. Expect a rather lengthy “Ode to Catwoman” post in the weeks to come.

Catwoman #77
Will Pfeifer – writer
David Lopez – penciller
Alvaro Lopez - inker

All three of my dedicated readers know that I think very highly of the Catwoman comic book. It’s been one of my favorite books since the One Year Later jump. In fact, issue #71 was my favorite single issue of 2007. As the kids on the internet say, “it is teh awesome.” So it should come as no surprise that another issue of Catwoman is being given my book of the month honors.

This issue continues Selina’s cross-over adventure with the Salvation Run storyline. She’s still trapped in the alternate reality, dream machine thingy, but she’s slowly realizing she has omnipotent-like powers in this world of her subconscious construct. This leads to fabulous fight scenes between the superhero community and an already ass-kicking chick, who now has the power to take out her aggression and frustration on said community. And this involves multiple cases of Cat on Bat asswhooping.

Now you all know I’m a huge Batman homer, right? As far as I’m concerned, he owns the DCU and no one should step to him. But if there’s one person I’m OK with punking Batman, it’s Catwoman, and here’s why. She shows him respect by taking him down before Superman, Green Lantern, and Flash because:

“First rule of fight club is you take out the toughest opponent first. And despite the lack of super strength, super speed or a power ring… That’s the guy dressed like a bat.”

But the fun doesn’t stop there. In fact it only gets better. Selina then “borrows” the kryptonite ring from Batman’s utility belt to one-punch Superman. Next she pick pockets Hal Jordan’s green lantern ring – which she will later use to light a victory cigar – before roundhouse kicking his jaw. As for Flash, well, he runs into a wall of green energy.

The whole thing was just fun to read. And that’s the beauty of Catwoman. With the combination of Preifer and the Lopezes, emotion and action and all chords in between are struck. It’s like the perfect storm of characters and creative talent. That’s why everyone should read Catwoman.

The Weekly Retcon: week ending 2008/04/11

2008-04-12T09:53:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first installment of The Weekly Retcon, a new on-going feature in which I will interject my opinion into the previous week’s news and discussions in order to make it look like I’m always up-to-date and relevant, despite my tendency towards laziness and procrastination.

As I’ve said numerous times, I never intended this blog to be a location for breaking news or industry announcements. You can get that information from a dozen other sites whose sole purpose is to report it. With the hours I spend at work, I don’t much time in the evenings to write – not to mention, when I do write, I’m so much of a perfectionist that a single one page post takes me hours and hours to write because I endlessly rewrite and tweak phrases – so it’s rather difficult to even give my opinion as news breaks. Therefore, I’m hoping The Weekly Retcon will be an adequate solution to my problem of allowing this blog to fall behind. Expect it to be posted each weekend.

On to the items that captured my interest…

Buffy discussion on OccasionalSuperheroine

On Tuesday, there was quite the discussion in the comments section of this OccasionalSuperheroine post about the possibly implied gay relationship between Xander and Dracula in Buffy #13. And then there was talk about gay females being more acceptable in our society than gay males. At least that’s what I think all the hub-bub was regarding.

I mean, being the innocent, naïve, straight, white male that I am, I typically don’t see these issues in things I read or watch. Much like the South Park kids seeing nothing wrong with their city’s flag, I’m very slow to see gender or race or sexual orientation issues in pop culture. Perhaps it’s because I’m an evolved man of the 21^st Century… or maybe it’s because I’m an equal opportunity hater. Either way, I just don’t seek out that level of subtext.

Hell, I just found out the other day that King Kong is a racist movie because King Kong was a big black gorilla who fell in love with a beautiful white woman, and eventually The Man killed him because that love was not an acceptable one. This was used as an example by a woman protesting the Lebron James cover of ESPN the Magazine. I guess you only see the subtext you’re predisposed to.

And here I thought the lesson in King Kong was women are the root of all evil.

The Battle of the Craptastic Trilogies

So last weekend TNT showed the Lord of the Rings trilogy while Spike paralleled the schedule with Episodes 1-3 of Star Wars. Quite frankly, I’m surprised the Universe didn’t implode with 20+ hours of such crappy movies. Seriously, these trilogies have to be one and two in the list of bad movies that earned way more at the box office than they should have. I mean, shouldn’t the evil eye lighthouse thing in the LOTR disqualify the trilogy from receiving any accolades? Total lowest common denominator movies.

What really pisses me off about The Lord of the Rings trilogy is its given Elijah Wood, a mediocre actors at best, a free pass for life in the eye of public opinion. He will always be the guy that brought the heroic, heart-wrenching, inspirational journey of Frodo Baggins to life. He could be found coked-up and naked in Malibu and people will still see him as Frodo. Actually a coked-up Frodo might have improved the films.

And yes, I still watched all six movies. I’m such a nerd.

Alex Ross X-Men cover

ComicBookResources gave us the first look at the Uncanny X-Men #500 cover drawn by Alex Ross, and gee, big surprise, it included the “iconic” looks of the characters. Almost immediately the comments became polarized between those who love Alex Ross and those who can’t stand him. I for one am very excited to see him doing more work at Marvel, as that will hopefully result in less of his crap appearing in DC books.

I’ve never liked Alex Ross’ art. Look, I know as a comic book fan, especially a DC snob, I’m supposed to worship at the temple of Alex Ross because he’s responsible for Kingdom Come and because painted comic books are a rare breed and should be cherished. Blah blah blah. I’m sorry, but I just don’t get the whole painted thing. I’m incapable of appreciating that art form. After all, there’s a reason I don’t go to art museums.

So to all of the Marvel readers I say, in the words of Nelson Muntz, “HA ha!”

Designing the New Batman

Over in his blog, in a post about DC Universe #0, Tony Daniel – the current, and incredibly awesome, Batman penciller – wrote the following:

“Grant and I did a three page Batman/Joker scene. Between this, which I inked while Sandu was hauling ass on inking the last of 676, I've also been busy with Batman 677 and also the redesigning of Batman. All of which has kept me a busy bee.”

I took it upon myself to italicize the most important part, but let me repeat it to make sure we all read it correctly: Tony Daniel is redesigning Batman.

Normally, the phrase “redesigning Batman” would make me cringe because I hate change. Yet this announcement has me excited. Watching Tony evolve as an artist on this book has been a fun journey, and you can tell by his posts, he is a true professional, and one that is always looking to improve from issue to issue. I’ve said this before, but it’s worth mentioning again, I wish more artists shared that attitude.

Therefore, I am very much looking forward to what he and Grant Morrison have come up with. Plus, in an earlier post, he mentioned that he’s designing a new Batmobile. Batman is in very, very capable hands right now.

And one more thing… Hopefully this dispels the Lying in the Gutters rumor from awhile back of an Alex Ross designed Batman. Let us never speak of that rumor again.

Panel of the Month: March 2008

2008-04-05T12:43:00.000-07:00

By winning the Panel of the Month for March 2008, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 makes it two months in a row. This time around we have the very last page from issue #12 (Goddard, Jeanty, Owens).

What makes me chuckle about this panel is the dry deliveries from both Dracula and Xander. On one hand, we have Dracula matter-of-factly greeting his manservant. You can just tell Xander’s return doesn’t surprise him at all. It was fully expected.

On the other hand, we have Xander who puts up no fight giving in to Dracula’s inevitable control of him. At the same time he relinquishes free will, it’s obvious he’s thinking “goddammit, not again.” It reminded me of the final scene in South Park’s metrosexual episode when Kyle tries so hard to take a stand against his friends for shunning him, but knows he can’t.

Scenes like this are why I love comics.

Books I Read Last Month: March 2008

2008-04-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

The following is the list of comic books that shipped in March 2008 for which I had the opportunity to read:

Angel: After the Fall #5
Batman and the Outsiders #5
Booster Gold #7
Brave and the Bold #11
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 #12
Catwoman #77
Checkmate #24
Countdown #8-5
Death of the New Gods #7
Detective Comics #842
Gotham Underground #6
Justice League of America #19
Salvation Run #5
Supergirl #27
Teen Titans #57

Stay tuned for my Panel of the Month, Art of the Month, and Book of the Month.

The Superman Copyright Decision

2008-03-31T09:32:00.000-07:00

Man, you gotta love the internet. Its collective panties were bunched when the Superman copyright decision came down on Friday. One group of online fans bemoaned the greed of the Siegels because it might impact the character. Then another group of online fans said the first group of online fans was being retarded for being selfish and not thinking of the creator. Like I said, you gotta love the self-righteousness of the internet.

The truth is we won’t know the true fallout of this decision for quite some time. I know jack about copyright law, so I won’t even begin to analyze the issue from its legal implications. But that’s going to stop me from commenting based on logic and economics, yet my positions might surprise some of you. After all, no one enjoys a good “sticking it to the man” story more than I do – even though, deep down, everyone aspires to be the man whether they admit it or not – but for this bout, I’m sitting in DC’s corner.

My first problem is the “creator sold his/her rights before the true value of the property is known” argument. Luckily, we live in a capitalistic economy, so the true value of a property is very easy to determine. It’s whatever someone is willing to pay for it at the time you need to sell it. Therefore, when Siegel and Schuster sold their rights to the Superman character for $130, it was worth $130. Had another company wanted to pay $500 at the time, it would have been worth $500.

Even if you have something tangible, such as a copy of a really old comic book, regardless of the priceguide listing it at $300,000, it’s barely worth the paper it’s printed on until someone buys it from you. And if someone offers you half the asking price, and you accept, then it is worth half the asking price.

Further, this retroactive price inflation is just wrong in my opinion. I mean, if I sold my house for $300K to a guy who fixes it up, adds square-footage, installs brand new, state-of-the-art appliances, decorates it immaculately, and three years later sells it for $1.3 million, am I entitled to a piece of that million? After all, I didn’t know the true value of the property when I sold it for a measly $300K.

Oh, but now you’re saying that the person I sold my house to is the one who put in all the work that directly resulted in its worth increasing by four times, and therefore, since I didn’t do any of that work, I don’t deserve to share in the profits? Interesting that you bring that up. I mean, isn’t that exactly what DC did? It bought low, invested a crap-load of time and capital into the property, and is now reaping the profits. If I don’t deserve a piece of the pie because I was too short-sighted, or not smart enough, to put in the work, then why do the Siegels?

This argument reminds me of the The Simpsons episode “The Curse of the Flying Hellfish.” Grandpa and Bart salvaged from the bottom of the ocean a safe full of German paintings that Grandpa and his Army unit – the Flying Hellfish – palmed during WWII. However, upon making it back to shore, they were greeted by the U.S. State Department which confiscated the paintings in order to return them to the artist’s descendant. Here’s the dialogue:

State Department Agent: Baron von Wortzenberger, on behalf of the American people, I apologize for...

Baron: Ja ja ja, mach schnell mit der art things, huh? I must get back to Dancecentrum in Struttgart in time to see Kraftwerk.

[the agent is storing the paintings in the trunk]

Baron: Hey, und dummkopf! Watch out for the CD-changer in my trunk, eh? Idiot.

[hops in the car, turns on the radio and drives away]

Grandpa: I guess he deserves it more than I do.

There’s also been a lot of talk about comic book creators deserving more than they make, or getting treated like slave labor by the publishers. On a personal level, I feel there’s an amount of truth to that, same with teachers, police, fire fighters, and so on and so forth. Conversely, on a personal level, I feel professional athletes, doctors, and lawyers make far more than they deserve.

However, this again boils down to simple economics; you are worth what you are paid until you decide to do something about it. If you want more money, then you need to find an occupation that will pay you what you think you deserve. If I wasn’t happy, or at least content, with what the man was paying me, I’d look for another job, even if that meant not doing the engineering thing, something that I really enjoy, anymore Simple as that.

And for everyone saying this is about artists’ rights and “the principle of the thing,” let’s not delude ourselves. This is about money. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that by the way. Let’s just call it what it is; Siegel’s heirs want a payday. I’d be more inclined to believe the intentions are altruistic if a family tried to reclaim the rights of a character who wasn’t worth millions and millions of dollars. So until that happens, this will continue to be about the benjamins – again, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Book of the Month: February 2008

2008-03-28T11:38:00.000-07:00

Jenna Jameson’s Shadow Hunter #1

Christina Z – script
Mukesh Singh – art

There are several reasons why I’ve selected Jenna Jameson’s Shadow Hunter #1 as my Book of the Month for February 2008, but the two that will be of the most value to you, my loyal band of three readers, are as follows: 1) This book was unfairly judged by the “high and mighty” before even a single preview page was released and I’m always in favor of debunking so-called expertise, and 2) It’s just a damned good book.

Let’s tackle these reasons in order, shall we?

From the very moment this project was announced, the internet was abuzz with unfair, and inaccurate, pre-judgments. Indy comic snobs decried yet another celebrity pet project consuming money from a publisher, which could have changed the life of a hard-working, down-on-his-luck, creator by funding the book into which he has poured blood, sweat, and tears. At the same time, the ever expanding comic book feminist movement deemed the book another example of cheesecake art, objectifying and degrading women for profit. Excuse me while I get out my tiny violin.

Had either of these groups waited to learn more about the project before opening their mouths, they would have seen their claims were unfounded and thus saved themselves the embarrassment. Then again, where would the internet be without these knee-jerk overreactions? Then again, again, where would I be without these knee-jerk overreactions to comment on?

While I can at least see where the indy snobs are coming from – even though they’re clearly wrong – I’m very perplexed by the “degrading to women” claim. After all, neither Christina Z nor Jenna Jameson strikes me as being misogynistic. Hell, in my opinion, Jameson has done more to empower women than most so-called feminists of her generation. Say what you want about the morality of the adult film industry in the country, but it has done a lot of good when it comes to encouraging woman to accept their sexuality and, in a way, gain strength from it. More generally, Jenna Jameson is an example of a very successful businesswoman with her own empire. Why would you think she’d create a misogynistic comic book?

The same thing can be asked of Christina Z. Haven’t these same comic book feminists always touted her as a shining example of a woman succeeding in a traditionally male dominated industry? Has she ever written anything that would make one doubt her intentions in this matter? The fact that she’s immediately labeled a misogynist just because she enters a project with Jenna Jameson makes me batty. How is that logical??

I better move on to the actual book before I go all Frank Grimes on the situation.

Note: This is the part where you’ll discover why I rarely review books. I just don’t have the vocabulary for it. I’m definitely a right-hemisphere brain guy, so I am much better at describing things quantitatively. “How this book made me feel” statements are not my cup of tea. If I could derive a manner in which the comic could be expressed quantitatively, such as an overly complicated equation, I’d be all set. I’ll have to start working on that.

Let’s begin with the art, shall we? Normally, I find the art to be inconsequential to my overall enjoyment of the book. Sure, really crappy art can be distracting, and conversely, really good art can make my jaw drop, but the writing is what makes or breaks the experience for me. With that said, the art, produced by Mukesh Singh, in Shadow Hunter #1 is absolutely striking.

The line-work is composed of contradictive goodness. The lines are very distinct and crisp, but at the same time have a soft subtlety about them. They’re also incredibly detailed, but only if you are specifically looking for the detail. Otherwise, the line-work blends in with the overall experience.

A very clear example is the “brambly” monster. There is so much detail and depth that my eyes continuously shifted their focus from layer to layer, which gave the appearance of movement, almost like heatwaves shimmering off the desert floor. Very cool effect.

I’d also like to direct the esteemed reader’s attention to the color palette. The use of a single, color family, which differs page to page, is something I’ve never seen before. Of course, I’m fairly ignorant when it comes to these things. However that doesn’t take away from its visual impact and how much I liked it. It definitely paid off in my eye.

As for the story, Christina Z completely won me over on page three when she mentioned “quantum realms” and “wormholes.” Now, in the name of full disclosure, there are certain topics of discussion that get me a bit too excited; hockey, comic books (obviously), hiking, backpacking and associated travels, and theoretical physics, just to name a few. Unless you want to get way more information than you needed, those are doors you shouldn’t open with me.

Pandering to my intellectual fetish aside, Christina Z wrote a terrific first issue as she assembled all the right components. It’s a well paced book, one in which I was never confused due to ineffective storytelling. Most importantly, it clearly establishes the protagonist’s, Jezzerie Jaden, status quo leading up to this point in her life, and then quickly tears it all down. Yet equally as important, the drops enough hints at the how and the why everything is changing, forcing me to wait weeks to learn more; a wait I’m more than happy to endure for more goodness in issue #2.

I would also like to point out something I noticed about Jezzerie’s narration and dialogue that I think is very clever. As I read it, my mind’s ear would hear her speech patterns transition between royal, proper, aristocratic tones and those of a modern, still trying to find herself, almost ditzy young woman. Now, I have no idea if this is the effect Christina Z intended, and most likely it isn’t since I rarely know what I’m talking about in these kinds of discussions, but I’m going to run with it until I hear otherwise. It will make me feel smarter.

So in conclusion, don’t believe all the haterz. If you enjoy science and old-world mythology colliding in the modern, everyday world, with a strong, yet vulnerable female lead in a book with captivatingart, then you won’t be disappointed Jenna Jameson’s Shadow Hunter. Check it out, yo.

Panel of the Month: February 2008

2008-03-09T17:41:00.000-07:00

February’s installment of the Panel of the Month is a two-fer, because I just couldn’t make up my mind while going back and forth between two sequences. I figured since either would have been a slam dunk on its own in separate months, there’s no need to punish them for hitting the stands at the same time.

My first choice is from Detective Comics #841 (Paul Dini, Dustin Nguyen, Derek Fridolfs). This sequence is a perfect representation of what I’ve always imagined Batman thinking whenever he comes across yet another lame villain gimmick. The look of disbelief and pointlessness Nguyen put on Batman’s face is just hilarious. Plus, that Carpenter chick is pretty hot.

Up to the plate second is Big Bag reveal fake-out from Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #11 (Joss Weadon, Georges Jeanty, Andy Owens). The de-masking of the uber-villain can be one of the most suspenseful and dramatic elements of a story, especially when you know the villain is someone from the protagonist’s past. However, at my core, I am a man who loves humor. I truly believe a good laugh can improve any situation, so I really enjoyed this gag.

Books I Read Last Month: February 2008

2008-03-07T19:07:00.000-08:00

The following is the list of comic books that shipped in February 2008 for which I had the opportunity to read:

Angel: After the Fall #4
Batman #674
Batman and the Outsiders #4
Booster Gold #0
Brave and the Bold #10
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 #11
Catwoman #76
Checkmate #23
Countdown #12-9
Death of the New Gods #6
Detective Comics #841
Gotham Underground #5
Jenna Jameson’s Shadow Hunter #1
Justice League of America #18
Salvation Run #4
Supergirl #26
Teen Titans #56

Stay tuned for my Panel of the Month, Art of the Month, and Book of the Month.

Kevin Conroy: Behind the Cowl Again

2008-03-04T07:15:00.000-08:00

So this morning, as I do every weekday morning, I sat down in front of my computer with a bowl of honey-nut cheerios and pulled up Dark Horizons – my choice for the latest in movie and television news – in a Firefox tab. I clicked on the headline “Latest ‘Dark Knight’ Update” and read the following:

The site [World’s Finest] also reports that Kevin Conroy, the actor who voiced Batman in the original "Batman: The Animated Series" and "Justice League" shows, will return to voice the role in the upcoming direct-to-video anime anthology "Batman: Gotham Knight" hitting DVD & Blu-ray on July 8th. New shots from that are up at KungFu Cinema.

Even though I’ve been unable to find corroborating source material beyond the World’s Finest post, I decided to blog about it anyway.

As I’ve said before, having “grown up” with Batman: The Animated Series, Conroy’s voice is what I hear when I read Batman comics. Whether that’s because his performance is the best or because his voice is the first voice I associated with Batman doesn’t really matter – but we all know the former reason is certainly the truth. What does matter is this is a wonderful bit of news.

If “Batman: Gotham Knight” is truly going to be a dark, gritty bridge between the two Nolan movies, the Conroy is the perfect choice. Actually, he’d be the perfect choice even if it was all sunshine and lolly-pops.

Plus, I think it’s a great show of respect and appreciation from the producers. They could have gotten Christian Bale or another name to lend his voice, but instead they called upon the man who, has been mostly been forgotten since JLU ended, despite numerous incarnations of the character he made famous.

Most importantly for the producers, and I’m sure I’m not just speaking for myself here, “Batman: Gotham Knight” has gone from a DVD I didn’t really care about and probably wasn’t going to spend money on to a “must purchase” solely because of this announcement. I’m very curious to see how many more units will be sold due to Conroy’s involvement.

Good news, my friends. Very good news.

Best of Newsarama: February 2008

2008-03-02T10:25:00.000-08:00

It’s the post you’ve been awaiting for an entire month. It’s the Best of Newsarama, February 2008 edition! What you’ll find below are my favorite posts from the Newsarama message boards collected during the previous month. The criteria I use to select these posts are many and varied. They could be humorous or absurd or thought provoking or stupid, but the bottomline is I found them very entertaining, and I hope you do as well.

As always, I’ve left the spelling errors and grammatical mistakes within the posts to preserve the message board experience. And remember, from here on out, my comments are shown in blue italics.

Let’s start things out by visiting Earth 51. It was certainly painted as the perfect world. No crime, no suffering. Love and joy for everyone. However, at least one Newsarama poster found something less than perfect about Earth 51…

Topic: Counting Down: Talking to Carlin and Bedard about Countdown #13

Posted by: Shenanigans Inc. on 2-1-08

there's absolutely nothing perfect about a world with Fat Zatana.

Sticking with the Earth 51 theme…

Topic: Things that happened on Earth 51

Posted by: dck_2001 on 2-5-08

Green Bay beat the Giants, and won the next two Super Bowls. Favre announces he will play until he's 60.

The Bears will have 1,425 quarterbacks since then.

Max sneezed, and missed Ted Kord. The bullet bounces off Skeets, and hits him right between the eyes.

Joe Q. decided to keep his pizza delivery route and ends up manager of a Pizza Hut in Iowa.

Power Girl gets a breast reduction.

The Amazons never attacked.

Batman never lost his yellow oval.

I never wasted 20 bucks to take my kid, my nephew, and myself to "Meet the Spartans".

Clearly dck_2001 is delusional, but what else can you expect from a Packers fan. As a Bears fan, I’d like to point out that Favre and the Pack got beat down TWICE by Chicago last season, and the immortal Bret Favre throwing the game losing pick against the Giants will forever be one of my favorite sports memories. And just to show that I’m not bitter about the Bears taking a dump this season, the “1,425 quarterbacks” comment is pretty damned funny.

Unfortunately, this thread quickly turned political…

Posted by: MrJasonTodd on 2-5-08

all superficial ____.

9/11 never happened. Almost did but the people regained control of the planes from the terrorists. The US confronted Muslim leaders and spoke rather than drop bombs. No war = Clinton surplus still intact, thus no mortgage or economy troubles, better funding for schools and research make the intellectual contributions by the US to the world one to be envied again. Bush would've lost to Kerry because he couldnt run on a wartime platform

Posted by: ApacheDick on 2-5-08 in response to “Bush would’ve lost to Kerry”

What a way to find a reason to be HAPPY Earth 51 was destroyed!

Posted by: Xero on 2-5-08

Al Gore wins the recount and serves as President for two terms. As a direct result the human race experiences a technological singularity and enters a five hundred year Golden Age.

Posted by: Slick on 2-5-08 in response to Xero

Where everyone drives a Prius, no thanks!

In an effort to remain politically neutral for the sake of this blog, I won’t expand on any of these comments. However, I’m willing to bet that if you pay attention to which “zingers” I’ve included, you’ll deduce which way I lean.

Here is some more fun with politics…

Topic: Presidential Candidates as Marvel heroes

Posted by: drizpiece on 2-5-08

mike huckabee: William Stryker

He's Evil, He hates minorities... makes sense huh?

Posted by: vbartilucci on 2-5-08

Hillary Clinton = Jessica Jones

Married to an indestructible mack daddy, and nobody can quite remember what she's done on her own.

Guess which two word phrase from the following post made it one of my favorites…

Topic: Smallville bad?

Posted by: savok on 2-2-08

The fact he isn't boning Chloe is what killed the show for me. Here's a chick better then every other person around you combined and you still don't give her the super wang. Clark's a jackass.

I shall now be using the term “super wang” in my daily conversations as much as possible.

I think this post is pretty self-explanatory. Yet another reason why Batman pwns Superman. However, I feel obligated to request that any reader under 18 years of age get permission from his/her parent or guardian before reading the post.

Topic: In his own words, Phil Jimenez explains why he is gay

Posted by: Hobowatcher on 2-7-08 as quoted from The Gay League

GL: (pause) What makes YOU gay?

Phil: What makes me gay??

GL: I said we ask the tough questions......

Phil: Hmm. I'll tell you why I'm gay. I'm gay because when I think of Wonder Woman, I think of feminine grace, strength through peace, the healing power of force, and the fabulous Lynda Carter in her WW gear.

When I think of Batman, I think of rugged good looks, a football player's build, an incredible hairy chest, leather cowl and toys, and what I believe to be a thick, meaty cock - MUCH bigger than Superman's, by the way. THAT'S why I'm gay.....

Let’s take a look at a couple of posts about Grant Morrison.

Topic: Talking About Final Crisis with JG Jones

Posted by: J.D. Lombardi on 2-11-08 in response to Jones visiting Morrison in Scotland to get a FC rundown

This is like having Batman take you on a tour of the Batcave after flying you out on the Batplane.

Topic: Talking Batman with Grant Morrison

Posted by: Albert on 2-22-08 in response to someone posting before reading the interview

That's sad then, because reading a Morrison interview is like looking in the face of God and living through it.

So if Morrison is like god, and Morrison is also like Batman, does this confirm what we’ve always known? Does Batman equal god?

Here’s evidence that comic book nerds are not the lowest run on the nerd society ladder.

Topic: Best Shots Extra: Booster Gold #0

Posted by: vbartilucci on 2-12-08

The geek-half of my brain wants to learn the scarabspeak and Kryptonian alphabet so I can read those little bits of business whenever they pop up.

But the mundane half of my brain reminds me of the people who have spent time learning Klingon, and the desire passes.

And finally, we have a post that really touches my heart, and it’s something I’ve said myself on numerous occasions. It’s comforting to know I’m not alone after all. *sniff, sniff*

Topic: Do you have a hot girlfriend?

Posted by: Weiser_Cain on 2-26-08

As for me, I'd don't have a significant other but I imagine it has more to do with me not leaving the house and otherwise avoiding human contact than whether or not I buy comics.

Like the Cover of a Slayer Album

2008-02-29T20:56:00.000-08:00

In an interview recently posted on WizardUniverse.com, Grant Morrison made the following statement about Final Crisis:

It's also what the DCU stands for. It's the apocalypse. It's Revelations. It's the hard-edged, death metal version of the DCU. It's cooler than anything Marvel's doing for the next year. If you like superheroes, this is the ultimate superhero story. That’s what I would say. We wanted something that's really like the cover of a Slayer album. Batman crucified. Superman crushed under the boot of Darkseid. This is serious stuff. This is the end.

To this I say, HELL MOTHER EFFING YEAH!!! My head is spinning with possibilities. For those of you unfamiliar with Slayer, let’s look at a few of the group’s album covers:

Christ Illusion

Reign in Blood

South of Heaven

Divine Intervention

Now that you’ve been educated, let’s hypothesize about what this means. In the words of the great Eric Cartman, “hippies hate death metal,” so it’s highly unlikely Final Crisis will be filled with sunshine, flowers, or peace and love. But who wants to see that stuff anyway. Incidentally, the “Die Hippy, Die” episode of South Park is one of my favorites.

So here’s what I do know. If the death metal comparison is accurate, we’re pretty much guaranteed that Final Crisis is going to kick us all square in the balls, and without a second thought we’ll shout, “thank you, sir, may I have another!” as we make devil horns with our fingers, headbang, and get ready for the next kick. This is going to rule!

No new posts until next week

2008-02-27T06:57:00.000-08:00

As much as I enjoy letting my thoughts spew forth on this blog, unfortunately, I haven’t been able to post anything as my day job has been keeping me too busy lately. Judging by the number of columns I’ve started and stopped during the last week or so, I just don’t have the energy or attention span for writing at the moment. So I figured I should just be forthright and announce that I’ll be taking a break from this blog for a few days.

However, I expect to be back with a vengeance next week, or maybe even as soon as this weekend. We’ve got my “Best of Newsarama” column to look forward to, as well as my Panel and Book of the Month. Following those, I’ll have a rebuttal of sorts to the “discussion” that took place over on Occasional Superheroine regarding gender, homosexuality, and their social context in comics, plus columns about Grant Morrison and sales figures.

Thank you very much for your patience to all three of you who actually read this blog. Give me about a week, and we’ll be back on track.

Late Books: What's the Answer?

2008-02-21T17:57:00.001-08:00

By now, I’m sure most of us have read the latest Lying in the Gutter, specifically the rumor from “sources close to freelancers” regarding DC tightening the screws on art deadlines in an attempt to prevent late books. Now, I’ve said it numerous times before in this blog, but my goal is to not fuel the rumor mill by commenting on unsubstantiated stories, especially those from the column in question. Instead, I’ll leave it to you to read the source material and the myriad of message board threads stemming from it.

However, late books, depending on the situation and who you ask, are either a minor annoyance or one more nail in the coffin of the direct market, so a discussion of the issue is valid. Therefore, I believe it’s a much more positive use of my time, and my Level 3 Intellect, to analyze the shipping delays, their effects on the industry, and possible solutions rather than a rumor about DC intending to actually enforce deadlines.

As a reader, late comics have never bothered me, provided I haven’t prepaid of course. My pull list is currently 17 titles deep, so if one or two don’t ship, I really don’t notice. Maybe if I only read one or two books a month, and one was delayed, my opinion might be different. But as it sits right now, a delay of a few weeks or a month is no big deal.

I don’t buy the argument that a “longer than a month” pause in the story kills its momentum, because one can always reread the previous issue to refresh the details. Nor do I think I’ve ever been so excited about a comic that I said “Oh man, I cannot wait for Book X to ship,” and subsequently, I’ve never asked, “Son of a… Why can’t Publisher Y get its act together and ship on time? Don’t they know how important this is to me?” Trust me, I obsess about lots of trivial things; just not comic book shipping dates.

With that said, I do find constant rescheduling annoying. I fully understand if a book is late. Things happen. But I think announcing a new ship date for a late book, then missing that new date, requiring you to reschedule again just looks unprofessional. I’d rather the publisher just leave the ship date as TBD until the book is ready.

Now, let me put on my retailer-hat for a moment. When I was in the business, I didn’t worry about late books. Sure, it was annoying when the same handful of obsessive customers would ask me every week, “Did book Book Z come out this week? Well, when it supposed to get here?” For the record, I was around for the delays of Civil War, the Spider-man Back in Black arc, books Jim Lee was involved with, the brothers Kubert penciled books, just to name a few. But I don’t recall seeing a drop in sales due to the late shipping. Although to be honest, I wasn’t tracking sales data to that level of detail at the time.

However, some retailers say, in no uncertain terms, that late books do result in decreased sales. I’ll take their word for it, and just assume they have the facts and figures to support their claim. It’s a strong possibility I just wasn’t in the business long enough, or didn’t have a wide enough and/or diverse enough customer base, to see those trends. Yet, even if there is a drop, I’m willing to bet that it’s been blown out of proportion. I mean, for all the bravado and the “that’s it, this book is dropped” declarations we see on message boards, how many actually go through with it?

Whatever the real impacts are, DC wants to take take steps to prevent delays, if the rumor is true. Its plan essentially boils down to giving the delinquent pages, and corresponding income, to other artists if the original can’t deliver on time. While I think DC, and other publishers, should crack the whip – after all, damned near every employee in every other industry has to meet his/her deadlines – I’m not convinced this is the right approach as it opens the door for a perceived decrease in quality.

Personally, I would rather have a book be late than contain inconsistent or subpar art – and this is coming from guy who enjoys the writing more than the art. An abrupt change in art style would distract me, as I’m sure it would many other readers. The same goes for obviously rushed pages. There has to be a middle ground between on-time books with questionable quality, and late books with superb quality. Luckily for this blog, I have a suggestion.

With the detail, complexity, and sophistication of modern comics arts, perhaps 12 issues a year for a monthly title are just too many. Would a ten-issue year (four months on, one month off) or nine-issue year (three months on, one month off) be better? Some titles, such as Brave and the Bold, already follow similar schedules, and no one seems to complain.

Ignoring the financial repercussions for a moment, decreasing the number of issues per year has got to be a positive. Sure, coordinating cross-overs and tie-ins might be more difficult, because there would be fewer issues and thus less flexibility, but if you know that’s the schedule ahead of time, you should be able to work it out.

And I can’t imagine an artist not wanting to have more time to finish his work. Obviously artists who are repeat offenders at missing deadlines would love an extra week – although for some that may not even be enough. And I’m very curious to see what Tony Daniel (Batman artist), who takes great pride in meeting his deadlines and still turns in phenomenal art, would do with an extra week. Take a look at this quote from Tony’s blog:

I'm a little more old school in my approach to my job. I'm all about hitting my deadlines and doing the best I can within the time allowed. It means checking my ego at the door and understanding (and agreeing with) the fact that I'm not going be as polished as I'd like or perfect as I'd like.

In my mind, those are the words of a true professional; one that understands and respects his fans. If more comic book artists shared that philosophy, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Unfortunately, money rules comics, just like any other industry, so we need to evaluate the financial impacts of publishing two fewer issues per year of a “monthly” comic. Let’s first assume the cover price remains $3. Instead of $36, a reader would now spend $30. That’s a savings of 17%. If you’re buying 15 books a month, you’ll now have an extra $100 with which to spend on other frivolous habits. I’d enjoy an extra hundred bucks, wouldn’t you?

While that’s good news for the readers, but it’s bad news for the retailer, distributor, and publisher as they will see a 17% reduction in revenue. That’s a significant hit in any business, and actions would be taken to rectify the predicament.

In a perfect world, the 17% the readers are saving would never leave the comic shop, because they’d use that cash to buy books they’ve never tried before. Or perhaps the publisher would create new books, be them monthlies or mini-series, to make up for the decrease in quantity. In that situation, everybody is happy. Consistent art, on time books, a larger quantity of titles to choose from.

But we all know this isn’t a perfect world, so in order to compensate for the potential loss in revenue, the publisher would likely increase the cover price. In the 10 issues/year schedule, a cover price of $3.60 would be required to offset the projected revenue loss. The publisher and distributor would be happy, as they are printing and shipping less but bringing in the same revenue. The retailer is indifferent because, while his revenue is unchanged, he has to listen to complaints from his customers. And the reader is just pissed because now he’s paying more per page.

So is there a perfect solution? Well, aside from finding more people like Tony Daniel, probably not. But there has to be a compromise between the two extremes, and it really comes do to whether readers would be willing to pay a few extra cents per page, or accept potentially sub-par art, if that meant books would ship on time all the time. I think the overwhelming answer to that question would be, “hellz no! We already pay enough!” and I agree to a point.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how DC’s bold, new plan works out. I’m sure as it’s implemented, the processes and requirements will evolve, and who knows, maybe it will inject a higher level of professionalism into the industry. Yet, I doubt it will solve the problem of books shipping late, because, according to the rumor, exceptions will be made for the high profile artists. And those artists are on the high profile books; the books that receive all the attention when they ship late.

Therefore, even if DC succeeds in completely eliminating delays in the low to medium profile books, will anyone notice, or even care, if, at the same time, the big titles are allowed to have schedule slips? Probably no. The focus will always be on the negative.

So, as always, you’re damned if you do, and damned if you’re don’t.

==============

The full links to the pages cited in the above post are:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/
index.cgi?column=litg&article=2999

http://tonydaniel.blogspot.com

Cold Cut Distribution: About to Take on the Man?

2008-02-17T12:09:00.000-08:00

Here at Retroactive Continuity, I don’t have the necessary connections to the inner workings of the industry, nor do I have the ambition to break the news like the well-read blogs. However, I am motivated enough to comment on news that broke several weeks ago. Besides, I don’t really like to fuel the rumor mill, and would rather wait to comment on the news after it’s been substantiated than get all worked up over something that will be debunked in a couple of weeks.

I first read a rumbling about Cold Cut Distribution coming under new ownership on The Beat at PublishersWeekly.com at the end of January. This week, ComixTalk.com confirmed the news; Cold Cut Distribution has been purchased by Rogue Wolf Entertainment. Although neither Cold Cut’s nor Rogue Wolf Entertainment’s websites have made an official announcement (at the time I’m writing this post anyway), ComicBookResources.com has posted an interview with Lance Stalhberg, the new VP of Operations.

For those of you unfamiliar with Cold Cut – and I certainly hadn’t heard of the company until I read the above reports – it is a distributor specializing in independent to medium press companies. As for Rogue Wolf Entertainment, it develops comic books and is it currently publishing three web comics.

So why do I think this transaction is a big deal? Well, if the new energy and money injected into Cold Cut gives it the opportunity to eventually be competitive with Diamond then it will be a very important development in the direct market.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ve never hidden the fact that I do not like Diamond. As a retailer – or former retailer in my case – Diamond is a necessary evil of the direct market. Due to exclusive contracts, it’s the only game in town if you want your store to sell comics from any of the big, mainstream publishers. As such, Diamond really has no incentive to think of anything other than its bottomline, and I believe most retailers would have no second thoughts about doing business elsewhere if there were other options.

It will be many months, probably years, before we know if Cold Cut will try to compete with Diamond, so I think I’ll save most of my analysis until then. For now, I’ll say that I’m encouraged by this news, especially the somewhat cryptic answers given by Lance Stahlberg in the interview with ComicBookResources.com. While he feels Cold Cut has a successful niche in the direct market, you definitely get the feeling the new ownership has the itch to expand and make a name for itself alongside the “other guy.”

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.

I fully support any attempts Cold Cut makes to bring solid competition to the direct market, with the exception of signing exclusive contracts with publishers that is. It certainly wouldn’t take much to be more attractive than Diamond; treating retailers with respect, negotiating better return policies, and losing the “premiere publisher” designations are a good start.

I look forward to reading more as this chapter in the direct market unfolds, and wish Cold Cut the best of luck.

===============

The full links to the pages cited in the above post are:

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2008/01/31/
cold-cuts-mystery-future/

http://comixtalk.com/lance_scold_cut_under_new_management

http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=26

http://www.coldcut.com

http://www.rogue-wolf.net

Tips for the Costumer

2008-02-15T14:17:00.000-08:00

I just found the first issue of Comic-Con Magazine in my mailbox a couple of hours ago. It’s replacing the Update magazine that SDCC published for many a year. From the quick browsing I gave, it seems like a valid attempt at moving beyond just a pamphlet for pushing the convention into a full magazine with engaging content relating to the industry in general. While I doubt I’ll ever find any earth shattering content in it, it will definitely work as reading material when I’m – how shall I say this cleanly? – leaving an offering for the porcelain gods.

Anyway, on page 43, you’ll find Costumer’s Corner by Martin Joquish, Comic-Con’s Masquerade Coordinator. In it, he gives several tips to help you get started designing your costume. His third tip is advice everyone should heed:

Wear something that works with your body type, not against it. Not everyone looks good in every type of costume. A clever costumer spends a long time at the mirror, evaluating.

In other words, a lot of you people should not be wearing spandex; not at Comic-Con, not in real life, not EVER! Truthfully, I don’t think spandex looks good on any body type, but at least I can tolerate it if the person wearing the spandex has a fit, toned body. And I hold myself to those same standards, by the way – at least when I’m out in public. When I’m alone in my apartment, I see nothing wrong with putting on my Batman costume and playing with my MiniMates, but I digress.

Look, it’s cool that you’re comfortable enough in your own skin to wear outfits that extenuate the less than flattering features of your body. In fact, I wish more folks, including myself, had that level of self-confidence. But the truth is, the rest of us do not want to see chubby Catwomans or Green Lanterns with beer guts parading around and working up a sweat.

So please, the next time you’re flipping through a comic book and say, “Damn, I would look hot in a Supergirl costume,” think of the rest of us and have some shame.

Book of the Month: January 2008

2008-02-10T20:14:00.000-08:00

It gives me a warm, tingly feeling to make Batman #673 my Book of the Month for January 2008, because, if you believe the message boards – and why wouldn’t you? After all, they represent EVERYONE who reads comics – I’m one of the few people that is actually enjoying Grant Morrison’s run on Batman. While everybody else thinks it’s been a bunch nonsensical, disjointed, steaming pile of horse plop, I like to think that he’s building to something big. Imagine that. Allowing the writer time to tell a story and not demanding instant gratification each issue. Oh well, perhaps my standards are just to low and the rest of the comic book reading community is right.

Regardless, two things happened in this issue, which deserve the props I’m bestowing upon the book. First, all of those “nonsensical” story elements that Morrison has been spinning clearly started converging. I’m sure I wasn’t the only reader who had an “Oh of course, I get it now” moment. Yes, there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered, but you can definitely tell things have shifted into a higher gear with this issue.

And by the way, for those of you who are still scratching your head about the issue, I recommend reading the last two pages and then re-reading the issue. Hopefully that will lift the veil of confusion.

The second turning point, so to speak, in Batman #673 is Tony Daniel staking his claim to the book. Yes, he’s been penciling Batman for several issues now, but there was something about this particular issue that made me say, “Wow, this guy really gets Batman.” If you regularly read Tony Daniel’s blog (tonydaniel.blogspot.com), you’ll see that he has a legitimate enthusiasm for drawing Batman and desire to always learn more about is craft and to maintain a high level of professionalism; traits that are missing from a lot of artists in the business these days, and traits that make me very excited that he’s owning Batman right now.

So in summary, if you’re one of those people who jumped off Batman when the story got weird and the issues delayed, I recommend jumping back on, and now’s the perfect time.

Panel of the Month: January 2008

2008-02-07T11:41:00.000-08:00

The Panel of the Month for January 2008 comes to us from Countdown #15.

I’m actually fairly indifferent to Donna Troy. I do realize she has quite the following of devoted fans, but I don’t find her particularly interesting, nor do I particularly like her. She’s just another character to me. So why, I’m sure you’re asking, did I select this panel showing Donna Troy’s triumphant declaration of self awareness as my panel of the month? Well, there are a few reasons.

First, it reminds me of Dave Chapelle’s “I’m Rick James, bitch!” which will never get old in my book. On my former hockey team, we would constantly shout it at random times during games. We nearly ran it into the ground, but luckily shouting “Flava Flav!!” become more appealing, and “I’m Rick James, bitch!” retained its edge. Oh, and just in case you’re wondering, I will NOT be shouting “I’m Donna Troy, bitch!” at my games.

Second, it reminds me of another oft-repeated quote, this one from Happy Gilmore; “The price is wrong, bitch!” Why can’t Adam Sandler make good movies anymore?

And third, well, who doesn’t like a good cat-fight? That's right. You know what I’m talkin’ about.

Books I Read Last Month: January 2008

2008-02-05T20:48:00.000-08:00

The following is the list of comic books that shipped in January 2008 for which I had the time and/or desire to read:

Angel: After the Fall #3
Batman #673
Booster Gold #6
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 #10
Catwoman #75
Checkmate #22
Countdown #17-13
Death of the New Gods #5
Detective Comics #840
Gotham Underground #4
Jenna Jameson’s Shadow Hunter #0
Justice League of America #17
Salvation Run #3
Supergirl #25
Teen Titans #55

I certainly do not plan to review each of these comics here in this blog. That would consume far too much time, and I highly doubt any of you are willing to read a review of a book that hit the shelves several weeks ago. So I’ll spare all of us the pain.

Instead, over the next week or so, I’ll post my Panel of the Month and Book of the Month selections, and a tidbit or two that I thought were quirky, humorous, or interesting in some way. I’ll do my best to make them entertaining. Stay tuned.

Mark Bagley's Trinity promo

2008-02-04T23:06:00.000-08:00

OK, I admit it. I wouldn’t be able to pick out the Mark Bagley pencils from a line-up of contemporary comic book artists unless every other artist in said line-up was someone I recognized and could therefore narrow it down through the process of elimination. That’s not a slight against Bagley. I’m just an unapologetic DC snob, and quite frankly, don’t read enough Marvel to recognize any of its current artists – well, except for Ed McGuiness, but only because I’m familiar with his DC work.

So when DC signed Bagley to an exclusive, I just figured a long-time Marvel artist wanted to flex a different set of creative muscles and signing with a not-Marvel publisher was the way to do that. It was only after reading countless message board postings that I was apparently supposed to realize that this was a major coup by DC. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Like I said, I don’t know enough about Bagley and his history to make that call.

While I feel a bit left out of the discussion regarding the overblown importance of Bagley’s signing in comics history – especially because it’s an opportunity to say immature things like “nanner, nanner, nanner, we got Marvel’s top penciller” – it does provide me a unique opportunity to judge Bagley’s work in DC without the Marvel baggage. And now, with the release of his promo art of the Big Three, rather than making statements like “Superman’s face looks just like Peter Parker,” I can judge it for what it is.

Speaking of Superman… there is something about his face I don’t really dig. The swept up hair and the severe eyebrows, not to mention his smirk, make him appear sinister. I get a bit of a “Black Adam before he went wack-o and killed an entire country all because of a chick” vibe from this rendering. He just looks smug, and Superman shouldn’t be smug. Heck, I’ve already put up with enough smugness from the New England Patriots the last few weeks. And like the Giants dominating the Patriots, I just want someone to beat this Superman down.

Unfortunately, it’s doubtful the ol’ reliable “Superman gets pwned by Batman” will be happening with this Batman. He just looks disinterested and pre-occupied, almost sad even. Or maybe he’s in the process of nodding off, and is in the “glazed-over, three seconds from starting to drool” stage. Or maybe Bagley’s Batman is a mouth breather. Whatever the case, it is seriously hampering my badass Batman man-crush.

And finally, we arrive at Wonder Woman. I don’t really have any complaints other than a few fickle ones. First, the transition from her knees to her thighs looks odd, but I’m sure that will be cleaned up in the actual book. Second, she has man-hands. And third, her breasts, much like those on all current renderings, are just too big for my taste. I know, I know. What kind of comic book reader am I not liking big breasts? Well, I just think they’re a crutch that is leaned upon too much these days. Big breasts aside, I do like her hair and face. There’s definitely an exotic, Greek-ness to her.

In summary, as someone unfamiliar with Mark Bagley’s pencils and reputations, I’m not sold on his renditions of the DC Big Three. They’re good, just nothing exceptional. Hopefully, when the previews of actual pages are released, the characters will look better in motion.

Best of Newsarama: January 2008

2008-02-01T12:40:00.000-08:00

In last month’s Best of Newsarama post, I promised that future editions would be more extensive with longer commentaries and posts from more than just the DC forum. I was well on the way to making that a reality until a few days ago, when I opened file only to discover it had been corrupted to the point that Word couldn’t read it. I also tried to open the file with numerous Word-compatible applications to no avail. And for whatever reason, I hadn’t backed-up that particular file at all, so there was no recovery.

It’s a real shame, too, because there were several great digs at Alex Ross and Joe Quesada that I was very much looking forward to commenting on. But them’s the breaks, I guess.

Fortunately, there was one post that stood head and shoulders above the rest, and I had made a mental note to mention that it was my favorite of the month. So because I simply don’t have the patience to browse through a month’s worth of Newsarama posts this weekend in order to re-write this column, my favorite post will just have to do.

So please sit back and enjoy this very abbreviated, yet very high bang-for-your-buck value, Retroactive Continuity’s Best of Newsarama, January 2008 edition. As usual, my commentary will appear in italics. All spelling and grammatical errors in the posts are that of the original poster. I’ve left them in place because that’s part of the message board charm.

Topic: “The Dark Knight” Costume

This thread discussed the translation of costumes from comic books to movies. While Batman was the primary point of contention, Superman’s iconic red and blue were used as an example, giving us this gem of a post. I’m still laughing at it.

Posted by: Equinox on 1-29-2008

That's awesome because he looks like a Curt Swan drawing come to life.

That's awesome because it looks like a Kryptonian suit. Not an Earth-man's suit, but something not from this world.

That looks like a douche in a Superman costume.

The suit itself is iconic; it all depends on who's wearing it.

Tune in next month for another exciting edition of the Best of Newsarama.

POS Systems: Too Sophisticated for Your LCS (Part 3)

2008-01-27T13:03:00.000-08:00

Note: This post originally appear on my old comic book blog, Quoted for Truth, on 1-25-08.

If you care to investigate, and I really don’t, so the following claim is purely conjecture on my part, I’m sure you’ll find POS systems customized for almost every retail sector, meaning there is probably a specialized food service (restaurant) POS system which differs from the system used by a clothing store which differs still from the system found in a consumer electronics store. Further, if you have the money to burn as a business, and most national chains do, you can develop a branded POS system. In other words, the POS system used at Circuit City probably has the easy button all over the GUI, while Best Buy – Best Buy!! (those of you who listen to the Kevin & Bean Show on KROQ 106.7 FM will get the joke) – will have a blue and yellow system.

Following this philosophy, Diamond has developed a POS system customized for the comic book sector. Its goals are to make available a system that is affordable to retailers and to integrate many different functions, in order to make a retailer’s job more efficient.

The first integrated function is downloading pre-written item records for any item you order. The UPC, the description, the price, and the rest of the data would automatically load into the POS system. Other than the quantity and any modifications the retailer wants to make, there would be no need for any manual data entry using Diamond’s software.

The other feature, which is, on the surface at least, promising, is direct communication between the POS software and Diamond’s ordering system. I’m assuming the intent is to have the retailer input his or her order into the POS software which in turn will upload the order to Diamond. I suppose the software might even be smart enough to recommend quantities for specific titles based on the sales history. In addition, perhaps a retailer may also be able to instruct the software to automatically reorder items when a pre-selected quantity is reached.

Now, I admit, those features sound beneficial. The ability to download pre-written item records would certainly save time, and being able to avoid Diamond’s archaic, and downright lame, online ordering interface would make many a retailer cheer. But being the cynical man that I am, I suspect Diamond’s ultimate goal is to strengthen its grip on the direct market’s short hairs by making retailers reliant on the company’s software, thus further solidifying its monopoly.

Plus, I believe Diamond is using a Microsoft product as the platform for its POS system, and like many geeks my age, I have an irrational dislike of Microsoft. Combine that with my rational dislike of Diamond, and this unholy alliance doesn’t give me many warm and fuzzies.

Now we come to the million, or whatever figure Diamond stands to make from this, dollar question. Will retailers buy it? I’m not sure I have a good, quantitative answer other than to say I don’t think the software will be as well received as Diamond is anticipating. There are several reasons behind my prediction.

First, I don’t think Diamond realizes how many comic book retailers would choose, given the chance, to not do business with the distributor at all. There is a great deal of frustration in the direct market due to a variety of factors, many of which I’m sure I’ll eventually discuss in this blog, so I’m really not sure how many retailers will want to jump into yet another bed with Diamond.

In my case, had Diamond’s POS software been available when my store was open, I highly doubt we would have used it. I’m sure we would have evaluated it against the other software packages, but ultimately would have gone in the direction we did.

The second reason the new software won’t be catch on is comic book retailers are notoriously cheap. Therefore, the success of Diamond’s POS software will largely depend on how much it costs. My guess is success will require a sub-$500 price tag, which would include the necessary hardware such as the cash drawer, UPC scanner, credit card reader, and receipt printer, and I’m not sure Diamond can accomplish that. On top of that, I’m assuming the retailer will need a computer running Windows.

For example, I think we spent $1500 on the hardware and software. And to keep the numbers nice and round, I’ll say we spent $500 on a basic computer to run everything. Now, as a start-up store, it was relatively easy to justify spending that money. In fact, we never considered NOT using a POS system. Heck, back when I was only a customer, I could never comprehend why so many stores just used a crappy cash register or a shoebox. It legitimately baffled me.

However, for established stores, I guess I can see the hesitation to spend that money. In many cases, $2000 equals the weekly payment to Diamond. Other than the independently wealthy store owners, I’m sure most retailers would have chest pains cutting that check, especially when most already only survive week to week. So like I said, Diamond really has to think about the price tag.

The final reason I’ll discuss is related to the inherent cheapness. It’s the “change is bad” mentality that permeates the retail side of the industry. Let’s face it, there’s not a whole lot of innovation these days in comic books stores – a topic I’m sure I’ll be discussing in future blogs. We tried some cool ideas in my store, many of which were successful. But for most retailers, if something has been working ok for the last decade, there’s no need to change it. And that most definitely includes the use of POS systems. After all, my seven year old, ticker tape cash register works just fine, dammit! I don’t need one of them fancy pants, new fangled systems. It’s Y2K all over again, I tells ya!!

Yet with all that said, I will reserve further judgment of Diamond’s software until it has had a chance to be implemented. Personally, I feel that POS systems are well worth the up-front investment, if, for no other reason that it actually makes the store look like a professional business. I applaud Diamond for its forward thinking, even though it’s still a few years behind the rest of the world. However, there are just too many long established paradigms and closed minds in the direct market for Point of Sale systems to ever get a foothold.

POS Systems: Too Sophisticated for Your LCS (Part 2)

2008-01-27T13:01:00.000-08:00

Note: This post originally appear on my old comic book blog, Quoted for Truth, on 1-17-08.

Once you figure out what you’re doing – and I maintain it’s a continuous learning process – you can make the data entry and the functionality of the POS as complicated or as simple as you would like. However, at a minimum, each item, be it a comic book, a trade, or a toy, requires a unique entry in the system which includes the following data: description (or name), price, initial quantity (if you’re tracking inventory), and UPC (if available).

It took us a few months to get the bugs worked out. Sure, we could have read a few articles online, played around with some tutorials, or even just read the manual, but where would have been the fun in that? The “try stuff and see what happens” method of learning has served me well for 30 years. Hell, that’s how I’ve learned every software tool I’ve used in my engineering career. Why should a POS system be treated any differently? I mean, there’s just something so satisfying about pushing lots of buttons and finally stumbling upon whatever function you’re looking for, or better yet, something totally unexpected. It’s just a shame that sense of adventure or exploration is missing from today’s culture of instant gratification. But I digress.

Although it was a continuous learning process, we eventually figured out how the software worked, and more importantly, we determined which parameters and data sets we wanted to keep track of. Based on those requirements, we developed a repeatable process for handling our new items on any given Wednesday.

We would first count the new shipment to make sure everything was included and that there were no damages – not that Diamond would ever screw up an order. One of these days I’ll have to tell you about the time our entire order of 52 Week 52 was replaced by Checkmate. Good times. Now, while counting the order is pretty standard procedure for probably all comic book stores, our process had a few more steps to it.

After each title was counted, enough copies would be set aside to fill the pull lists, and one copy would be set aside, in a special pile, for entering into the POS database. The rest would be put on the shelves.

Once everything was counted and the pull lists filled (especially those of our customers who like to stop by before we officially opened for the day), we entered all the new items into our POS database. This involved creating a unique entry for each item. In the “Description 1” field, we typed the Title and issue number. We also had a “Description 2” field in which we included data such as “2nd printing” or “variant cover”. At a minimum, we also filled in the vendor, cost, quantity, and UPC fields. The end result looking something like this:

Department: Comic Book
Vendor: DC Comics
Description 1: Detective Comics #840
Cost: $2.99
Quantity: 50
UPC: 76194120019484011

Once entered, the books joined their brothers on the shelves.

There’s an old saying in many industries that is very applicable here; “garbage in, garbage out.” In other words, the system is only as good as the data you feed it. If you enter crappy data, you’re gonna get crappy data. And actually, how you enter said data is just as important. The set-up is really the lynch pin to the entire operation.

For example, let’s say in month N, employee A enters Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman #525 into the database, and she does so by typing “Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman #525” into the Description field, which in my book, is the correct way of doing so. And let’s say this employee follows the same syntax for the next several months. Smooth sailing, right?

Well, now we’re at “the next several months” plus one, and for whatever reasons, employee B is entering the data. Let’s say this employee just happens to be lazy, and enters the comic as “FN Spiderman #530.” Now, as long as the UPC is correct, the system will always find the book during a purchase and adjust the inventory quantity accordingly. But let’s say the scanner isn’t working, or you want to bring up a list of all Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman issues. Well, if you sort alphabetically, or do a search for “friendly,” #530 will not show up. And let me tell you something… for a detail oriented guy like myself, that’s incredibly frustrating.

Most of the problems we encountered were just variations of that same theme, i.e. we made errors during the set-up. Unlike Microsoft Office, in which a paperclip thinks it’s smarter than you, the POS system only does what you tell it to do, with the data you give it. Yet in my opinion, those few negatives were completely dwarfed by the numerous positives a POS system brings to the table, or in this case, the check-out counter.

The system integrates credit card processing, which was a big deal for us as most of our customers preferred to use credit cards. Yeah, as the retailer you have to pay a processing fee and the transaction doesn’t actually hit your books for a couple of days, meaning even though somebody bought $25 of comics on Thursday, the money won’t appear in your checking account until Monday, but I still say it’s better than having a bunch of cash lying around.

Gift cards are also a breeze for the retailer to load and equally as breezy for a customer to use when the store is running a POS system – just like at any other retail store. Imagine that; an LCS utilizing the same modern conveniences as all other retail stores.

You also have a detailed history of each transaction, with a receipt automatically printed and the electronic record stored. Those transactions can even be augmented by setting up profiles for your regular customers to track what items they’ve purchased and how much they’ve spent; data that comes in handy if your store has a rewards programs or you like to make recommendations based on purchase habits.

And of course, all of this recorded data makes certain tasks very easy. For instance, right now, it’s tax season, and all I have to do is export sales report from our POS systems and email that file to our accountant, and wham-oh, the dishes are done, man.

Another for instance is reviewing sales history to make more accurate initial orders. One of my Sunday afternoon tasks was to pull up a list of all the items sold that week, which I would then add to a ridiculously nerdy spreadsheet that I constructed to track all manner of sales data for comics including, but not limited to, graphical breakdowns of quantities sold vs. time. In other words, I could quickly see how many copies of each comic sold the first week, how many on the second week, etc. Ultimately seeing how long they sat on the shelf. That way I could ask things like, “do we really need to order 30 copies of Shadowpact if 12 of them are going to sit on the shelf for six weeks before someone buys them?

Of course, the simpler way would be to alphabetize the list of comics sold in the last three months (a standard POS generated report) and base your next initial order on those numbers. So yes, my method was probably overly complicated, but I get off on details and processes like that. I mean, I’ve spent the last two years, off and on, trying to derive an equation that will quantitatively determine the difficulty of any given hike using the integral of the elevation vs. distance curve. But I suppose I should get back to comic books…

In Part 3, I will discuss my opinions of Diamond's customized POS system and why I think there is a resistance to this technology among retailers.

POS Systems: Too Sophisticated for your LCS (Part 1)

2008-01-27T12:57:00.000-08:00

Note: This post originally appear on my old comic book blog, Quoted for Truth, on 1-16-08.

On Thursday 12/27/07, Newsarama posted the latest edition of Talking Shop, a column of sorts in which Newsarama compiles the thoughts and opinions of various comic book retailers from across the U.S. and Canada about hot topic of the day facing the retail side of the industry. In this edition, the topic was the use of Point of Sale (POS) systems in comic book stores, specifically the introduction of Diamond’s POS system, customized specifically for the comic book industry (i.e. its customers). You can read the Talking Shop article here.

It’s writing columns about topics such as these where owning a comic book store for a year is going to come in very handy. In fact, I may just rip off the whole Talking Shop idea, and write a rebuttal of sorts each time Newsarama posts a new one. Kinda like the opposite political party always getting its five minutes of fame after a state of the union address. And for the record, I have no illusions that my opinion should be included in Talking Shop. After all, my store is at this point, to put it kindly, less than successful, so my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt.

Before we begin, and for those of you who neither read the Newsarama article nor pay attention to the registers at any retail store, let’s define a POS system. A POS system is a combination of computer software and hardware that integrates the cash register, inventory management, and sales data into one system. At the heart of the POS systems is the barcode, or UPC (Universal Product Code). 99.9% of products you buy have one.

The UPC is a unique series of digits assigned to that particular product. In the case of comic books from most “big” companies (DC, Marvel, Image, Dark Horse, IDW), the barcode digits appear in this form:

A LLLLL RRRRR B NNNNN

For the sake of this discussion, characters A and B are not important, so we’ll only discuss the L, R, and N groups. The manufacturer (publisher) is identified by the L-group, and the product (title of the comic book) is identified by the R-group. Incidentally, the A through B range appears on virtually every product be it shampoo, flat screen TVs, or potato chips. In every case, the L-group is the manufacturer and the R-group is the product.

The N-group has unique meaning in the comic book industry. It contains the identification information at the issue level. The first three characters are the issue number (001 for issue #1, 666 for issue #666). The fourth character represents the “cover” for lack of a better term, meaning a 1 represents the standard cover, and 2 and up would represent variant covers, typically with lower print runs – conversely, two covers in a 50/50 print run would utilize the same UPC. The fifth and final character represents the printing (1 for the first printing, 2 for the second, and so on and so forth).

With that data dump, let’s look at a couple of real examples:

Detective Comics #838: 7 61941 20019 4 83811

Detective Comics #838 (2nd printing): 7 61941 20019 4 83812

Supergirl #25: 7 61941 24904 9 02511

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight #10: 7 61568 14111 5 01011

From the barcodes above, we can deduce that 61941 is the manufacturer code for DC, while 61568 is the manufacturer code for Dark Horse. 20019 is the product code for Detective Comics, 24904 is the product code for Supergirl, and 14111 is the product code for Buffy Season 8. Regarding the individual issues, take a look at the two Detective Comics examples. 83811 indicates this is issue #838, standard cover of the first printing, whereas 83812 is issue #838, standard cover of the second printing.

Once you know what to look for, it’s pretty straightforward. Yet there are problems with barcodes on comics. First, there is a governing body for the UPC world and thus manufacturers have to pay for UPCs. As a result, many smaller publishers simply do not use them. As a retailer using a POS system, you can get around a missing UPC by assigning the product a barcode internal to your POS system that can be scanned at the register. Or you can simply enter the title by hand. Either way, the POS system still has a unique entry for that book; the importance of which we will discuss later.

A second problem is some manufacturers will pay for the UPC, but not add the five additional characters for the issue identification. Dynamite is a good example of this practice. Regardless of the issue number, each issue of, let’s say, Highlander, would have the exact same UPC, which the POS system will not allow. To get around this, when we filled in the UPC field in the POS entry, we added “space-issue#” characters. As a result, when you scanned the comic, the system would pull up a list of items with that UPC, and then we would select the specific issue being purchased.

Yet a third problem, but not the last, is the UPC location isn’t standardized from comic to comic. On some, the UPC appears on the front cover, some on the back cover, and others, but much rarer, on inside of the front cover. While the vast majority of UPCs are placed on the front cover, they’ll appear anywhere around the perimeter and in any orientation. This is huge annoyance when you’re processing a large quantity of books during a purchase and you’re forced to flip and spin from book to book to find all the UPCs. Fortunately, DC has all but standardized the UPC location on its books to the bottom-left corner of the front cover. This is yet another reason why DC, in my less than fair and balanced mind, is the best.

In Part 2, I'll discuss what it takes to set up a POS system, its annoyances, and its advantages.