Bill Eckman of Classic Cards and Comics in Castle Rock, Colorado saw our articles on Trouble (see 'About Face: Marvel Reverses No Reprint Policy' and 'The Return of the Romance Comic') and sent us his thoughts and questions on the title:

 

In May, when I first saw the cover of Trouble in Previews, it caught my eye immediately.  It's not often that you see two bikini clad young ladies of indeterminate age gazing speculatively off the cover of a comic.  It looked more like a cover for Maxim than a comic.  I've seen all kinds of scantily glad women gracing comics over the years, but they all usually fall into the category of 'women' not 'girls'.  The scant description I read for the comic inferred that it was a romance series.  This all spelled out another Bill Jemas hype job to me.

After falling prey to previous hype jobs, The Truth, Spider-man/Black Cat, and Rawhide Kid (zero sales!), I decided that I'd let this one pass me by unless I actually got some requests.  My subscribers all get a copy of Previews when it comes out each month.  So far, no one has requested the book and the most frequent comment has been about the blatant use of the bikini-clad girls to get our attention.

Now that the orders for May have all gone in, I learn through ICv2 that Marvel is really pushing the book and is ready to reprint IF orders warrant it.  Today I received the latest Marvel Mailer, which contained a lengthy description of Trouble #1.  Why didn't we receive any of this information before the orders went out (I realize I can still order)? Call me a skeptic, but I think Marvel had very few orders for Trouble.  Now they're trying to hype it.  They talk about reprinting because they anticipate it will sell out.  I think Trouble is in trouble and orders are spectacularly low, so Jemas and company are trying the full court press to get our attention.

I'm really like to here from some of the other retailers about their initial orders for Trouble and if this latest Marvel blitz is having any effect on customers' requests.