About a year ago, we first reported on Marvels hitting other channels faster than Diamond was getting them to comic stores (see 'Are Newsstand Copies of Marvels Out Before the Directs?'), and on the reason (see 'Why Marvel's Newsstand Customers Beat Directs and DC's Don't').  Recently, reports of early Marvels in other channels have been surfacing again, and we also heard from a long-time Ohio comic retailer that now plans to order a portion of her Marvels from Ingram. 

Mary Alice Wilson of Dark Star Books and Comics (3500 square feet of new and used books, comics, and toys in Yellow Springs, Ohio) is planning to switch about 60% of her Marvel business from Diamond to Ingram Periodicals, which primarily sells periodicals to bookstores.  This represents her shelf stock; Marvels for hold customers will be ordered from Diamond.  Even if the Ingram books arrive one-two days after Diamond's shipment, Wilson feels her customers' needs will be met.  'I don't have people beating down the doors except for the reserve customers,' she said.  'I've got them on the weekends.' 

Wilson is pursuing this new strategy to maximize sales without having unsold books, which she describes as 'the bane of this business.'  She tied it to Marvel's no overprint policy with this marvelously succinct question.  'Why, if we can't reorder Marvels,' she asked, 'shouldn't we just order a bunch and if they don't sell, strip 'em?'

Wilson felt that the increased sales that will result from having enough Marvels available will pay for the lost discount on the Ingram portion of her purchases, and the savings from being able to return all unwanted books will drop to her bottom line.  She contrasted the situation with some alternative comics, which continue to sell for months after their release, with Marvels, which if popular are collected in a trade and in low demand in periodical format.