David Gray of Dreamland Comics in Libertyville, Illinois saw comments from Garner Loudermilk chastising retailers for being unprepared for the demand of Captain American #25 (see 'Garner Loudermilk on Death of Captain America') and says Marvel should have informed retailers of the planned media hype among other things:
I'm finding hard to take criticism from Garner Loudermilk about retailer ordering of Captain America #25. For your information Garner, Previews gives you very little, if any, important information on books. If I ordered large quantities on every book listed as 'hot,' I'd be out of business. How about Fantastic Four: Death in the Family? That was 'hyped' and I ordered accordingly. It fell on its face and I'm looking at more copies than I'd like to see. So, please don't tell me how I should order comics. They aren't returnable and I have to order accordingly to make money.
Since both Marvel and DC have a final order cut-off system, Marvel could have given us a little information about Captain America #25 before the cut-off and let us add to our orders. Also, before the cut-off they could have told us that there will be a lot of media hype about the book without giving away the storyline and that they were doing a huge overprint on it. I think that information would have given me enough insight to adjust my order accordingly. So, I do blame Marvel for not giving me the opportunity to sell a book to everyone who came in or called looking for it. They could have given us the chance to back their huge publicity push and I would have been very happy to help out. It would have been a great opportunity to get new customers. Now I'm doing damage control on copies I'm hoping to still get in time.
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