Bill Eckman of Classic Cards and Comics in Castle Rock, Colorado saw our article on Neil Gaiman's remarkable group of fall releases (see 'Neil Gaiman's Triumphant Return To Comics') and shares how he's handling the ordering on these books.

 

I'm a fan of Neil Gaiman.  He always manages to grab and keep my interest.  As a fan and a retailer I'm excited about Endless Nights.  Combine a great writer and great artists with a well-known property (Sandman) and you get a positive buzz even before it's released.  It's an easy sell that I can recommend to customers.

Unfortunately, 1602 puts me in something of a quandary.  Marvel is billing this as the 'Mini-Series Event Of The Year!'  This immediately makes me leery, since the House of Hype tends to push a product and then not deliver in a timely manner (Spider-Man/Blackcat, Daredevil: Hard Target, to name a couple examples).  Marvel is providing absolutely zero detail, so I don't even know what the series is about except that it's set in the Marvel Universe.  On the positive side of the equation is the creative team of Neal Gaiman, Adam Kubert and Richard Isanove.

So we've got a property that should be wonderfully written and beautifully illustrated about?  How do I recommend this 'white elephant' to my customers?  Trust me, you'll like it?  How do I make a sound business decision on how many to order?  I can't, plain and simple.  I've got to rely on instinct and a guess.  So until I get some more information, I'm not going to let Marvel push me into ordering heavy on a mystery project.  I'll direct my customers looking for Neil Gaiman toward Endless Nights and tell the rest to wait for the inevitable 1602 trade paperback that will undoubtedly follow the conclusion of the series.