Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett looks at the e-reader battles, the most popular toys for the holiday season, and how to capitalize on the hot trends:

If you need another example of how unpredictable our future is because of digital comics there's the little matter that we're still trying to decide on which gadget we'll be reading them.  I personally don't have a horse in the cell phone vs. e-reader race but have to admit this passage from Cellphone Apps Challenge the Rise of e-Readers by Motoko Rich and Brad Stone that appeared in the November 17th edition of The New York Times makes a certain amount of sense.

Many people who want to read electronic books are discovering that they can do so on the smartphones that are already in their pockets - bringing a whole new meaning to "phone book".  And they like that they can save the $250 to $350 that they would otherwise spend on yet another gadget.

"These e-readers that cost a lot of money only do one thing," said Keishon Tutt, a 37-year-old pharmacist in Texas who buys 10 to 12 books a month to read on her iPhone, from Apple.  "I like to have a multifunctional device.  I watch movies and listen to my songs."

I rarely get to be the bearer of good news so I'm happy to report according to Stephanie Rosenbloom's piece in the November 20th edition of the The New York Times you most likely already have this year's #1 Christmas present for boys in your stores; Bakugan Battle Brawlers.  So you might want to begin working on Bakugan themed window displays and alert your staff to promote the cards and action figures as the perfect stocking stuffer--and not forget to up-sell the supplies; sleeves, sheets, boxes, etc.  And while I haven't checked on its availability with Diamond hopefully it isn't too late to order copies of Bakugon Battle Brawlers: The Battle Begins from Del Rey Manga (although because the art is screen captures, it's technically not a manga).

Last year Bakugon was a surprise retail hit and according to the NYT piece it should do just as well this year:

Mr. Silver of TimetoPlayMag.com noted "when you have a hot item like this, usually Year 2 is bigger than Year 1."  This is primarily because the toy companies are able to ramp up to meet demand the second year.

For the record the #1 Christmas present for girls is Zhu Zhu Pets, those mewling fake hamsters whose name means "Little Pig" in Chinese.

What these dissimilar products have in common is they make for relatively inexpensive presents, something you might want to stress when selling Bakugon.  Of course since Zhu Zhu Pets is also the #1 "must have" toy of the season, naturally stores can't keep them on the shelf and people are playing inflated prices for them online.

The success of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, second in the Twilight series of movies, leads me to ask the inevitable question; where are all the comic book rip-offs?  You'd think that the lag time until the release of the official Twilight manga (if there's an official release date for it I haven't been able to find it) would be the perfect opportunity for publishers to dog pile onto the supernatural teen bandwagon.  But so far there hasn't been a hint of homage anywhere.

Having just recently been scolded for preferring the past to the present I probably shouldn't bring this up but back in the old day's companies did a whole lot better job of keeping up with what was hot in the popular cultural zeitgeist.  Archie used to be particularly adept at taking advantage of fads and trends so you'd think Riverdale would by now be hip deep in emo-vampires, but so far nothing.

I know Marvel and DC still sell a lot of comics featuring the undead but zombies are so 2005; I suppose that one benefit of having a hostage, hermetically sealed audience is you don't have to take the temperature of the outside world all that often.  Still you'd think Image would at least a couple of glossy high school vampire romances in the pipeline or Bluewater would be trolling the Young Adult aisle of a nearby Barnes & Borders looking for a similar themed series (and there's a lot to choose from).

And in my opinion, my former boss Mary Alice Wilson of Dark Star Comics got it just about right in her recent comments to ICv2 (see "Mary Alice Wilson of Dark Star Books on All Ages Comics") .  Unfortunately the direct sales market can only sustain so many all-ages comics but there's a lot to be found outside it.  I'd like to recommend to both her and you the Stone Rabbit series by Erik Craddock from Random House; a PTF excerpt of Stone Rabbit #1: BC Mambo is available at Amazon.com.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.