This is what Jim Crocker of Modern Myths (along with a lot of other retailers as well I'm sure) would like me to address in these columns and I have to admit he has both a good point and a good question, one we should focus on more when retailers talk amongst ourselves during conferences or at conventions.

Unfortunately the answer (at least mine) is... you can't.

And things will stay this way until we rid ourselves of the fallacy you can sell the same people ever more comics, when what we desperately need aren't just more people but different kinds of people coming in our stores.  Of course first you have to let them know that you're there and (as I like to say) there's always something you can do: advertising, coupons, sales, game nights (Super-fly Comics & Games made the front page of last Saturday's Dayton Daily News thanks to their Guitar Hero II competition; that's publicity you literally cannot buy).

Unfortunately only X number of people are going to buy superhero comics the same way X number of people are going to buy the Vertigo-style books I was just disparaging.  Because both genres don't appeal to mainstream tastes they'll always remain niche genres for niche audiences, not that there's anything wrong with that; niches brought us the biggest blips on this year's sales charts.

All Marvel had to do was let their fans know they were planning to publish comics based on Stephen King's Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born and Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake and their fans sought us out, wanted to reserve copies (even the variant covers, showing this peculiar mania even effects 'civilians'), called wanting to know when the next issue was coming out, etc.  And thanks to that untapped market we made money.

Then there's the hardcover Heroes graphic novel.  I don't know how well it did for you, but I have two pieces of anecdotal evidence I'd like to present to the court: Dark Star the bookstore sold eight copies, Super-Fly the comic shop only a block away maybe two or three.  My supposition?  Heroes is no big deal for someone regularly reading superhero comics, but for fans of the show it was attractive enough of a package they didn't mind the $29.99 suggested retail price.

And no, this doesn't mean now we can 'make' them read Countdown; you can't even make me read it.

In other words, it's meant for them, not us.

I do so hate being reasonable as I see it this is the model we need to follow.  In my last column I mentioned The Frontiersman, a historical novel by Alan W. Eckert.  It's the first volume of his Winning of America series, a sweeping five part epic of America set in the days before Ohio was a state.  It may not mean anything to you, but Dark Star sells a lot of his books, new, used, hardcover and soft.

Back when the author lived in the area he was too busy working on his next book to devote an entire day to do a proper book signing for us but occasionally he'd make the time to come in before opening to sign books for us.  And we had a waiting list of people willing to come into the store that early just to meet him.

So clearly there's a niche audience for historical novels, especially those written by Alan Eckert, who feel the same way about them as we do about Superman and Sandman.  And if some publisher got the rights and produced an adaptation of the series with the blessing of the author I'm guessing there are a lot of people who would seek us out to buy it.

And the more of them we have in our stores the better for us.

Since we're on the subject of niches it gives me an opportunity to take another ride on one of my favorite hobby horses; the way Tintin hasn't been marketed in America.  We're still a couple years away from the release of the first Stephen Spielberg/Peter Jackson movie version but if the comics are ever going to break the States in a big way, they're first going to have to create a genuinely American version of them.

I've enjoyed the photos Chris Butcher, manager of The Beguiling comic book shop in Toronto, has been posting on his blog of his trip to Japan, especially the shots of a Japanese Tintin shop.  On sale were both imported French albums and a Japanese edition, manga-sized and in black and white, one original page having been cut in half to make two.  In other words they had been adapted for their market.  Purists might complain but they looked OK to me (but then I first discovered Tintin in the pages of Children's Digest magazine).

As much as I love European comics as they are, if a publisher wants kids (and somehow I can't imagine the readership of 100 Bullets getting into The Crab with the Golden Claws) to read Tintin, making them look like manga wouldn't be the worst thing they could do.

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.