Ted Mays of Gecko Books & Comics in Honolulu, Hawaii comments on DC's promotional posters (see "Andy Battaglia of Comics Etc. on DC Promotional Materials") and the large number of Marvel titles shipping this week.

A few recent thoughts:

I commend DC for everything they've done with the "Drawing The Line" at $2.99 campaign.  I thought the posters were wonderful, and the header cards will be great as well.  We paid over $20.00 in freight for those posters, but it brightened the day for many of our customers when they got them in their bags, so I considered it an acceptable promotional cost, just like Comic Shop News.

Check out the Big Two releases through the month of January:

For the first 3 weeks, Marvel has averaged 13 titles a week, with only 4 "Top Tier" titles--2 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men: Legacy, and Invincible Iron Man #500.  For the last week (January 26), Marvel will give us 26 titles, including (by my count) 10 "Top Tier" titles, with Fantastic Four #587 as the #1 title of the month.  That's 4 Avengers titles, 9 X-Men titles, 3 Ultimate titles, and a many more, all the same week.  So, my Marvel bill for January 26 is more than DOUBLE any other week of this month.  Contrast that with DC for January: 10 titles or so a week, with every week's DC retail within a few hundred dollars of the rest.  Now, here in Hawaii, our customers don't have twice their normal budget to spend the last week of the month.  Is it the same on the mainland?

Lastly, Marvel Studios conducted a brutal smear campaign against Ed Norton, Terrence Howard, and even John Favreau during the Iron Man 2 negotiations, so there is no doubt in my mind that they are behind the attacks on the Green Lantern movie.  Form your own opinion, people!  It's a solid cast with a great director, and Warner is clearly going to polish the heck out of it before it hits theaters.

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