John Gavin of York Comics and Cards in Parma, Ohio was prompted by another retailer's comments on con sales by publishers (see 'Rich Biedrzycki of Dreamland Comics on Publishers Sleeing at Shows') to send this message of agreement, and to note a different aspect of the issue:
I agree with the comments of Dreamland. My shop is located in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio (6 hours from Chicago) and I was affected too. I had over a dozen customers attend the Wizardworld: Chicago and they all purchased their copies of Battle of the Planets #1 there. I was anticipating their purchasing the books from me. Some of these customers had already reserved copies with me, but the lure of getting the books early was hard to resist, so they bought them in Chicago and left me stuck with unsold copies. It would have been nice if they were able to only buy one copy in Chicago, but they were required to buy all four covers. If they would have been able to buy just one cover, I might have been able to sell the additional covers to them. It is nice that Diamond is going to make unsold copies returnable, but I don't see Diamond or the publisher making up for the lost profits on this book.
Another problem I have is with the Transformers: Armada #1 chrome cover that was sold at Chicago. This cover was not made available to retailers. Two of my loyal customers did not purchase it in Chicago, assuming that I would have it available, since the Chrome cover of Transformers: Generation 1 #1 was available in my store. When they came in and I did not have they were very surprised. They originally blamed me for not ordering it. When I pointed out the Previews that solicited Armada and showed that there was no chrome cover available to me, they apologized. I feel bad that by standing by and being loyal to me, these customers lost out on a book that they wanted.