Paul Bene of House of Fantasy Comics and Games in Niagara Falls, New York reacted to the recent debate on overprints (see, for example 'Robert Scott of Comickaze on Marvel's The Brotherhood') by proposing an alternative solution to shared risk on early issue.

I'm probably spinning my wheels once again, because I've been saying this over and over again for the past 19 years I've been in business, but here goes one more time.  Maybe THIS time someone will act on my suggestion.

What the ENTIRE comic book industry needs is a policy of SHARED risk.  Right now (and it's always been this way in the direct market) we retailers incur the vast bulk of risk on any new project by any publisher.  And for years the publishers have been telling us (rightly so) to cycle our sales.  But EVERY publisher introduces new series on which we have NO sales history to go on.  WE are forced to order these new releases two months in advance, so that by the time we're ordering #3 we'll be lucky if we have ANY idea how many #1's we needed.  Hence, if we under ordered #1, then we ALSO under ordered #'s 2 and 3, causing lost sales to both us AND the publisher.  And if this example was a MARVEL offering, we can't even order more.  We lose, Marvel loses, customers lose.

On the other hand, if we ordered TOO many of this #1, then we also over ordered #'s 2 and 3, which we can't sell.  WE lose again.  Do this often enough and maybe in contributes to a store being unable to order enough of other product because of poor cash flow, or potentially worse, go out of business.  We lose, Diamond loses, the publisher loses, and also the customers.

What's the solution?  Very simple really, we all SHARE the risk on the first three issues of ANY new offering.  Just the first three issues, after that, it's responsibility entirely.  How?  By simply allowing a partial returnability on any new series for those first three issues.  If the publishers are so sure that this or that new title will be a blockbuster, then, they should be happy to help INSURE we order enough.  If it bombs, well we ALL took a chance.  But I think the publishers would be just a tiny bit more cautious about what new releases they offer.  Everyone wins.  We get some help ordering correctly.  Everybody wins.  Quality of new releases improves.  Everbody wins.  Publishers, become more like partners in this nutty business.  Everybody wins.

Looks to ME to be a no lose propostion, but no one's listened to me yet.  Thanks for letting me float this idea again.