Felt Really Bad for my LCS yesterday...

[DavidAllred]

I know it can't be easy to stay afloat as a small business owner. For a small comic shop, I bet it is even more difficult. So, yesterday I went in to grab my pull list in spite of still not reading some of the stuff from last week.

COUNTDOWN is on my pull list. I'm kind of ho-hum about Countdown, mostly because I have utterly no interest in the twerp Jason Todd. But I digress.

In my folder, the Countdown tie-ins were pulled with a note, "Let us know if you want this in your file."

I didn't. I mean Countdown to Mystery and Countdown to Adventure and Countdown to my Bowel Movements might be really good books, but the series just isn't hitting me in all the right places to justify reading another whole set of comics.

So anyway, I browsed the shelves to see if there was something else I wanted... and lo and behold, there were like four or five dozen Countdown tie-ins crammed in several spaces on the racks. Looks like I wasn't alone in refusing the tie-ins. I understand why they bought them. I understand that Countdown is on my pull list, so naturally they'd assume I might be interested in the tie-ins. But the amount of money they lost on that gamble had to be significant. I'm sure they based their ordering of the tie-ins based on the Civil War and WWH tie-ins that are selling really well at my LCS.

DC fans are a bit more fickle, and I guess they'll live and learn. I mentioned that this wouldn't be the last time this happened and that a slew of tie-ins were on the way.

I hope they order more efficently next time, because I'd hate to see them get sunk on the expectation that people are going to gobbling this stuff up in the coming months.

[Michael P]

I feel sorry for them, just because they'll be putting those tie-ins back in the proper place on the racks for weeks. Is it really that hard for people to put stuff they don't want in the place where it goes, as opposed to the nearest available empty space?

[PatrickG]

I feel sorry for them, just because they'll be putting those tie-ins back in the proper place on the racks for weeks. Is it really that hard for people to put stuff they don't want in the place where it goes, as opposed to the nearest available empty space?

I didn't read anything in his story to indicate he put it back in the wrong place...

[Michael P]

I didn't read anything in his story to indicate he put it back in the wrong place...

No, but he noted plenty of other people did.

[DavidAllred]

I feel sorry for them, just because they'll be putting those tie-ins back in the proper place on the racks for weeks. Is it really that hard for people to put stuff they don't want in the place where it goes, as opposed to the nearest available empty space?

The shop owners put it back in the rack, not the customers. Just to have that many reshelved, and knowing there are probably two dozen more in files for people that haven't come by yet... that's a massive ordering issue where they thought the demand was going to reach their ordering potential.

I'd compare that to Booster Gold, which my LCS has massively under-ordered. I've yet to read an issue, so I had it added to my pull list.

[Astonishing X-Fan]

You should get Countdown to Adventure. It's good. The actual tie-in part is just the Forerunner backup story...the main Starfire/Strange/Animal Man story is a sequel to their 52 stuff, and not a Countdown tie-in. And it's a lot of fun.

[Jack Zodiac]

I feel sorry for anyone trying to run their own comic book store, too. Still, when I ran my old store back in Pennsylvania, I knew better than to just assume everyone getting one book would want everything that tied into that book. Of course, at the time, the industry was at the nadir of its crossover-frenzy, and the worst thing DC was milking was Our Worlds at War; but today, both DC and Marvel are going insane with their events, crossovers, tie-in mini-series and one-shots, etc., it's no wonder people are burning out, especially on the shitfest that is Countdown. Part of running your own comic book store, though, is interpreting the business, and clearly they didn't do a very good job of it, here. They should've under-ordered on those tie-ins. Unlike Marvel, DC does a pretty good job of overprinting enough to consider re-orders, unless it's something they want to sell out fast to make it look like it's even bigger and better than it actually is.

[Arawn]

DC and Marvel also have a habit of lying to stores. Once again at the retailer summit we were told everything would be huge.

I understand believing in the product and being excited about it, but outright trying to con stores into ordering the piss out of some books really bothers me. House of M, Inhuman War, and Amazons Attack are a couple recent examples.

We were told about how these would be huge epic and world shattering. That if we didn't over order we might get left out in the cold. And well, they sucked some giant ass.

Fewer disposable events, longer lasting deaths, and far reaching repercussions would help us a lot. I don't care if its a massive mistake like no more Amazons. If fans believe that it's gonna be that way for a long time they are more willing to run with it.

The idea that all these DC events are leading to yet another reboot, or that Marvel is about to have their own, makes it pointless to care.

Both companies have basically said that anything that happens could be undone within the next year. So where is the need or desire to worry about heroes and what is happening?