CBR: Tilting at Windmills - Oct 17, 2008

[CBR News]

Brian Hibbs covers a wide range of topics this week, including how his store's new point-of-sale system has generated surprising results, the distributor bottleneck and publisher problems handling back lists.


Full article here (http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=18475).

[Comcman]

"While Marvel no longer has a strict “print to order” policy as they once did (except for the MAX line), they’re still keeping a hard brake on their sales potential by not having enough overprints available. This is clearly demonstrated by the number of second printings that flow from them each week — it is a rare week where we don’t get at least two different second printings on periodical comics, and we had at least one week recently where it was five or more. That’s crazy."

But without a short overprint you couldn't have press releases announcing sell-outs the day after a book is released.

[Brian Hibbs]

But without a short overprint you couldn't have press releases announcing sell-outs the day after a book is released.

But what good is that if the customer comes in looking for the book, and can't find it...?

-B

[QCCBob]

But you're forgetting the Jemas rule... Marvel doesn't sell comics to collectors, they sell comics to retailers. How often do they really sell out (and I mean at the Diamond level) BEFORE they solicit the second printing? Retailers will order a second printing with a new cover even if we still have the first print in stock for completists. That's why! Marvel's numbers would be suffering even more without the ability to sell the same books over and over by way of incentive and 50/50 variants and multiple printings. Now, at my shop, the demand for variants is dropping like a rock and we were never that big with them in the first place. For instance, Amazing's 50/50 caused me to go up 5 copies and I'm still fine while the main store bumped up by 20. Your mileage may vary.

[Brian Hibbs]

How often do they really sell out (and I mean at the Diamond level) BEFORE they solicit the second printing?

In the last year (at least), I'd say 100% of the time...

-B

[Comcman]

But what good is that if the customer comes in looking for the book, and can't find it...?

-B

I agree with you completely. And I don't understand it either. My point is that I think they base their print runs on being able to announce a sell-out rather than having the product available for the long run. But I also think that that is the company's philosophy. They look at the "right now" more than the big picture. They want the public to think "Wow, these must be great books, they keep selling out. Retailers can't seem to order enough. Marvel Comics must be great!" when the reality is that retailers are ordering tighter because Marvel is putting out too much questionable product and there is nothing in the warehouse when one of those books does better than expected and retailers need more. 90% of the time when I sell out of a DC book, I can get more. I'd say the number is less than 50% for Marvel books.

And the cynical part of me sees this scenario coming in the near future:
"Can't find X-Men X-cess #1? You can read that and all of the other sold out Marvel Comics at Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited!"

Here is a good look at the planning and attitude of the 2 companies. DC, knowing the Watchmen preview was going to run before Batman, did a special promo to make sure that stores were stocked with the book to meet demand. Marvel, knowing there would be a segment on the new Iron Man DVD about the Iron Man Extremis TP not only didn't do anything to get it in the stores, but it is currently out of stock when the demand for it is at its highest.

But you can probably read it on the Marvel Digital site.

[uthor]

Whether it’s something like the first hardcover of “Runaways” (arguably the largest early-21st century original superhero success) being out of print for months at a time (limiting sales on the later volumes)

I thought the Runaways hardcovers were a limited run, much like the Bendis Daredevils or the Ennis Punishers or almost all of Marvel's Omnibuses (Omnibi?).

It seems like Marvel is eliminating, or at least scaling back, their oversized hardcovers, so getting a new printing of Runaways is a distant posibility.