Rembert Parker of Reader Copies in Anderson, Indiana saw Paul Stock's comments about distribution service for hobby retailers (see 'Paul Stock of Astro Books on ComicSuite') and says he has had a different experience: 

In his comments, Paul Stock said, 'Promotional support for special displays... Yes, we get promotional support.  Posters from DC and a few other publishers (can't remember the last time I saw a Marvel promo poster), and that's about it.'

We must be on a different shipping list than Astro Books, perhaps because they're in Canada.  We get posters from Marvel almost every week as well as checklist postcards for crossovers, and lately we even get postcards for storylines that are in only one comic.  While the posters may be folded rather than rolled to save money, they work perfectly well pegged to our walls, and in a few cases have even resulted in orders for the rolled-up versions of the posters.

I do however, agree with most of the other points in his article, but we have found it much easier lately to keep back issues in stock with the extra inventory and reprints Diamond has from Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse.  Restocking trade paperbacks that sell is trivially easy; our biggest challenge has always been the changes customers make to their pull lists as comics disappoint or enchant them with new storylines or creative teams, but that has been all but solved by the weekly adjustments offered by DC and Marvel.

Now, if somebody could just tell us how sales will really be affected by Amazing Spider-Man coming out three times a month with rotating creative teams...

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