CBR: Tilting at Windmills - May 20, 2011

[Predabot]

Brian, I sent you a seemingly hostile, but truly heart-felt PM, that I hope you will respond to in a column.

It really does sound simple when you put it that way.

Consumers should buy only what they actually truly enjoy, and not buy for "completion's sake" or things like that.

Creators should only create exceptional material.

Publishers should show restraint in what they bring to market.

Retailers should properly curate their racks and support with dollars things that the consumers want, and shun the rest.

But at the end of the day it comes down entirely to the work, and whether it provides the "right" amount of entertainment value for the cost asked.

-B

Hmm... it certainly does.

I've made no bones about how I hate the completist mentality, so that's a good pick to see you make, Brian.

Someone mentioned however, a question which I realize now needs to be replied to: The question of the price, of the comic, and how it's connected to the creators.

And when I mean creators, I mean guys that can actually do the kind of work that we're used to seeing now, artistically.

Those people could be working solely as novelists, or in video-games (writer/artists alike) or just do an endless stream of commissioned artwork.

1 dollar comics seems to be the thing most people want, but are they prepared to buy completely disgustingly bad, newbie, not-wet-behind-the-ears comics, from people such as me, and everybody else with a dream on this board, to create comics?

Would 1 dollar comics be worth it, if they are actually not worth even 1 cent, content-wise?

[Ultraist]

Would 1 dollar comics be worth it, if they are actually not worth even 1 cent, content-wise?

Well, I think Brian sort of answered that one a couple posts back when he said "at the end of the day it comes down entirely to the work, and whether it provides the "right" amount of entertainment value for the cost asked."

... if it's not worth a cent, then it's certainly not worth a dollar.


Dave Sim also said it nicely when he wrote "If they read your first issue and it cost them what a beer would cost and they come to the end and don’t say, “I should’ve bought the beer instead,” that’s as big as it gets in the comic-book field. You’re a hit! Why? Because you don’t totally suck. Try not to totally suck and try to give them something self-contained in the first issue.”

[briest57]

.

Retailers should properly curate their racks and support with dollars things that the consumers want, and shun the rest.


-B

Curious if you think the glut is hurting slaes have you tried cutting down the number of titles you carry and have you seen an uplift in sales of other books?

Or do you worry that if you cut the amount of titles customers will go elsewhere?

[Ultraist]

Curious if you think the glut is hurting slaes have you tried cutting down the number of titles you carry and have you seen an uplift in sales of other books?

Or do you worry that if you cut the amount of titles customers will go elsewhere?

Hmm. Intersting question!

[Hanzo the Razor]

That's a really good point.

Well, kinda...

I frequent my LCS for monthly books and get the occassional trade there... but when it comes to the big purchases, I go online.

An easy example is the recent Simonson Thor Omnibus -- at $125, it's just too much to pay at one time for a book, no matter how good and high-quality the production is. But at $70 on Amazon? For $55 less? Still steep, but hey, it's more in my price range.

Another example is the recent Art of Thor movie book -- I'm not too interested at $50. But Borders just offered a 50% Off coupon this past weekend and with $5 in Borders Bucks available, I dropped a mere $20 on the thing.

Still another example is some smaller purchases -- I wanted the final volume of Astonishing Wolfman, the latest Irredeemable trade, and a Hellboy team-up TPB. It's somewhere around $55 at retail -- closer to about $35 at Amazon. It's practixally like buying two and getting one free.

I do buy a few things at the store, mostly out of guilt and/or impatience, but the vast, vast majority of my trade buying goes online. The discounts are too deep to ignore and I am able to buy way more than I'd be able to at the shop.

[Ultraist]

Well, kinda...

I frequent my LCS for monthly books and get the occassional trade there... but when it comes to the big purchases, I go online.

An easy example is the recent Simonson Thor Omnibus -- at $125, it's just too much to pay at one time for a book, no matter how good and high-quality the production is. But at $70 on Amazon? For $55 less? Still steep, but hey, it's more in my price range.

Another example is the recent Art of Thor movie book -- I'm not too interested at $50. But Borders just offered a 50% Off coupon this past weekend and with $5 in Borders Bucks available, I dropped a mere $20 on the thing.

Still another example is some smaller purchases -- I wanted the final volume of Astonishing Wolfman, the latest Irredeemable trade, and a Hellboy team-up TPB. It's somewhere around $55 at retail -- closer to about $35 at Amazon. It's practixally like buying two and getting one free.

I do buy a few things at the store, mostly out of guilt and/or impatience, but the vast, vast majority of my trade buying goes online. The discounts are too deep to ignore and I am able to buy way more than I'd be able to at the shop.

True.

I just picked up the Megaman Megamix volumes and "Paying For It" via Amazon for the exact reasons you mentioned... because if I can save THAT much online, I'm going to.

But I also know I've found books in the dollar bin that I wouldn't even pay that much for...

[QCCBob]

The elephant in the room is the business model. Comic shops are run exactly..and I mean exactly like they were 30 years ago.

Ummm, NO! You have no idea what you're talking about and I don't have an hour or two to even start explaining it all...

In 1981, I started in a shop with wire panty hose racks to display new comics, a tupperware cash box, a calculator, a sales tax chart, and a spiral bound notebook we wrote our sales figures in whose original purpose was selling used paperbacks.

The two most important factors affecting the business end from 30 years ago...

We had multiple distributors.

We didn't have Final Order Cut Off.

I'll not waste my time explaining what all that means, but it's a completely different animal nowadays in almost every aspect. Well, except for selling comic books and even that, by reason of the fact that we're pretty much the only place you can get most comics, is completely different than 30 years ago.

Publishers haven't changed much, but retailing has and therein lies the rub. They do most everything about the same which continues to end up with falling sales.

Oh, I don't fault people for wanting to save money, but I have serious doubts as to the viability of affordable books if the DM collapses... Amazon deals won't seem so great when SRPs start skyrocketing.

[mike weaver]

Two thumbs up Brian!
We need quality over quantity! That will get me back in the store and spending my money.
I am just astounded at what I am seeing Marvel put on the shelves these days. With so many of their books I have to ask myself, "Why was this even made?" So much flat, unprofessional, inconsistent art. Honestly, I visit my local comic shop less often just because it makes me feel down to see so much stuff that the editorial process should be weeding out and creators who were clearly not ready for the big leagues.

[Paul Render]

Erm, you do recognize there's an eco-system in play here, right? Without the dollars coming in from "mainstream" fare, DM stores will collapse. Without DM stores providing that dependable non-returnable sale, virtually every publisher that isn't Marvel or DC collapses.

There's very little comics material being published that doesn't require the stable base of the DM in order to be published AT ALL.

-B

I don't think this is entirely true. I buy a lot of comics (90% non marvel/dc) and I visit my local direct market store maybe twice a year.

While I don't want there to be no comic stores, maybe it's inevitable?

[Ultraist]

While I don't want there to be no comic stores, maybe it's inevitable?

I sure hope not! I LIKE comic stores!
(I just wish more of them had all the stuff I like the best).

[dkazaz]

While, certainly, a portion of sales have migrated over to Amazon for price/convenience reasons, your premise is clearly wrong because the DM sells tons of "good"/Popular TPs and HCs -- what doesn't sell is, generally, stuff that people don't want to actually buy (or aren't aware of in the flood of merchandise)... the same stuff that doesn't sell in the DM.

If significant numbers of consumers were "switching markets", you'd see that drop in the TOP of the charts, and you flatly don't.



Every year I do an annual report about BookScan for this very site -- BookScan includes all of Amazon's sales, we are told. There is no detectable general "leeching" impact that I can see in that that channel is growing at the expense of others. Nor do we see any disproportionate impact of Amazon's always available/always cheaper on poor-selling material -- if people don't want something, they don't want it for 40% off with free shipping, either.

-B

Brian I obviously cannot disagree with the argument that low quality content will not sell on amazon or anywhere else, regardless of price.

And clearly I have already agreed that the comic publishing industry's problem is too much material of generally low quality (it really feels like "product" when you read it, not like a story), while high quality content is few and far between.

I have noted with interest the rise of special series like DC's All-Star line to publish the content that is considered really high quality. It's almost an admission that the run of the mill stuff is poor garbage. Shouldn't the regular e.g. Superman comic have that quality? Wouldn't it be better for the industry if there was just one superman book a month, done by the best? Similarl for Batman, the X-Men whatever.

On the other hand my point was that there is a growing market for just trades i mean a segment that never buys magazines. That segment is better served by the online bookstores for the reasons I outlined. Has your analysis revealed something different?
I'd be interested to know, since I have long thought that comic shops should be well positioned to address this market since they understand reading habits better, but very few actually do.
Certainly I can think of a couple I use, but many more fail outright. Maybe it's a question of size but I think it's a question of focus. As another poster said the DM store model is the same as 30 years ago - most stores are run as nickel and dime stores with some notable exceptions. There is no focus on the factors that would give them a healthy online TPB business. I can go into details but I don't want it to sound like a rant.

Curious if you think the glut is hurting slaes have you tried cutting down the number of titles you carry and have you seen an uplift in sales of other books?

Or do you worry that if you cut the amount of titles customers will go elsewhere?

This is something that stores have zero power over and cannot be blamed. If marvel choose to cross their most popular books over to their least popular ones, it forces the store to order at least some of them. A friend tried to radically prune the number of titles he ordered in his store and it was a complete disaster since fans couldn't get what they wanted and switched en mass to competitors.

I agree with Brian that content needs to go from quantity to quality. I also think though that he is in a minority of retailers who are focused on quality in their sales and service models compared to a mass who still function like teenagers are their only market.

[Hanzo the Razor]

True.

I just picked up the Megaman Megamix volumes and "Paying For It" via Amazon for the exact reasons you mentioned... because if I can save THAT much online, I'm going to.

But I also know I've found books in the dollar bin that I wouldn't even pay that much for...

Right -- if you don't want something, you don't want it at any price.

But there is a middle ground between "don't want it no matter what" and "I'll pay any price for it!" There are plenty of trades I'd read casually -- I won't drop $30 on them but if I find it somewhere for $10... sure, I'll read it.

It's why I dropped 90% of the books I was reading last year. I was getting all the Avengers books, regular universe and Ultimate, Iron Man, Thor, Savage Dragon and a few others. I was willing to drop $3 a book on them... but when they jumped to $4, I had a problem. I walked out of a shop with 10 books after dropping $40 and realized I didn't feel I was getting my money's worth since I was a casual reader of most of the books I was getting.

I dropped down to my "bare essentials" list -- Savage Dragon and Thor books.

That's what the price points kill -- casual fans. I read Invincible, Irredeemable, and a few others in trade format, but I'm pretty casual about the whole thing. I don't buy them right when they come out and could drop them at any point and be cool with it. Hell, I don't even read them right away when I buy them. They sit on the shelves for a while until I'm bored one day and decide I need to read the stuff I haven't gotten to yet.

So, $10 to $15 for the latest Invincible trade? Sure, okay. Any more than that? Nah, I'm good.

Comics and companies need to appeal to this kind of fan. You can't live solely off the rabid, hardcore fanatics -- because there's just not enough out there.

[Hanzo the Razor]

I liked this topic, but may I suggest another column idea, Brian?

You've pointed out the numerous problems in the business models of the
Big Two, but if you were suddenly in charge, what would you do? I thought it might be interesting to see how a retailer would control the market.

Here's how I'd handle stuff if I were in charge of the biz -- I don't know shit about the inner-workings of comics, but it's what I'd like as a customer.

The absolute top-dogs like Superman, Batman, X-Men, Spidey, etc. should have no more than two titles at a time. One should be the "main" title and the other should be the "Ultimate/Adventures" title; simple, easy-to-understand, mostly self-contained that anyone can read without being overwhelmed. These are the ones that they should distro to general audiences at Borders, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, etc. For example --

Action Comics: The "main" title for longtime fans and continuity stuff
Superman: The "general audience" title

Detective Comics: The "main" title for longtime fans and continuity stuff
Batman: The "general audience" title

Uncanny X-Men: The "main" title for longtime fans and continuity stuff
X-Men: The "general audience" title

You get the idea. So, if there's an event like "Fear Itself" or "Flashpoint", it'll affect the "main" title with tie-ins and all that but the "general audience" title will plug along with "classic" versions of the characters. Put top talent on these books instead of guys that are just cutting their teeth as they do with the Adventures line and I think they'll do pretty well.

For trade paperbacks, they should really have a specific time frame in mind that doesn't cut into monthly sales -- not only that, they should be "best of the best" things since trades are what a general audience will see once a movie is released. Clearly numbered, easy to understand. There should be a plan on how these will be released in trade format that makes it easy for anyone to follow the story -- with popular books like Twilight and Harry Potter, it's easy -- you just follow along the numbers. There's not dozens of different Harry Potter books that are only loosely related that you have to wade through to try to understand the story of Harry Potter, with different continuities like Ultimate Harry Potter, Earth One Harry Potter and Harry Potter Adventures. It's the one main book series.

Both companies should do updated origin stories for characters that lead into existing material for readers to follow along. To take Thor as an example, since he has a film out, they should have done the "First Thunder" origin series in a way that clearly leads into whatever the next book that they'd like readers to buy, so it's all pretty seamless. Let's say it's the Simonson run --

Thor Vol. 1: First Thunder by Whoever
Thor Vol. 2: Ballad of Beta Ray Bill by Simonson
Thor Vol. 3: Twilight by Simonson

Etc., etc. I'm sure they can take the important runs and figure out a "path" that makes it easy for a reader to understand how they should proceed up through the modern continuity, ignoring the confusing stuff and cherry-picking the best stuff.

The "hardcore" books can still be published but should be made available to the Direct Market only, with retailers who understand who these books are intended for and can guide new fans in the right direction.

None of this takes into account the digital market, but I'm just going off of what's going on right now.

[Ultraist]

Good analysis "Hanzo the Razor"!

And good call on Savage Dragon.
That book is awesome!

[Brian Hibbs]

I don't think this is entirely true. I buy a lot of comics (90% non marvel/dc) and I visit my local direct market store maybe twice a year.

As I said: it is an eco-system. Any "death" of the Direct Market wouldn't mean "and then no one would ever publish a comic book every again in the history of mankind" -- but the economic basis of publishing print comics for virtually any publisher is largely dependent on having that stable base of non-returnable sales, paid for in a timely manner, to cover the cost of initial production.

So, while I couldn't say with 100% certainty that, say, Fantagraphics would go away entirely, I still feel quite confident that their output and staff would have to be reduced by 3/4 or more.

-B