Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by retailer Steve Bennett of Mary Alice Wilson's Dark Star Books in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett continues his discussion of comic ordering and talks about the info he needs to order a new series: 

So, like I was saying, even with my years of experience ordering comic books sometimes I don't see the latest unexpected hit* from Marvel or DC coming.  For instance, given the failure of Marvel's Untold Tales of Spider-Man I felt I had every reason to believe Ultimate Spider-Man was a lousy idea destined to flop.  Being old enough to remember what a poor seller World's Finest had been, I couldn't have guessed placing one steady seller (Superman) with another (Batman) would give us the sales we see on Superman/Batman.  There'd just been a less than spectacular selling Ghost Rider mini-series, so nobody would convict me for not predicting the way the first three issues of the new ones kept disappearing off our shelves.

At least that's what I tell myself.  But then there's the plus side, there's all the potential landmines Dark Star avoided stepping on, like such titles with 'dead on arrival' written all over them like Son of Vulcan, Marvel Nemesis:  Rise of the Imperfects and The Human Race.

Sometimes I wonder what publishers were thinking when they release certain titles, like Marvel's recent failed Machine Teen mini-series.  I know nostalgia can induce sales (for instance, the recent batch of What If?'s did much better than I would've expected) but did they really think there were that many fans of Machine Man who'd thrill to see their favorite character reduced to an adolescent android?  Or (and this of course is complete supposition on my part) did they think if they crossed the character with the live action Disney Not Quite Human movies they'd have a property that would sell to teens in bookstores when collected in a digest?  And if it was a poor seller in the direct sales market, it would still sell well enough to pay the writer, artists, etc. and the profits from the digest would be all gravy.

I'm just thinking out loud here.

Today most unexpected hits seem to be coming from publishers other than Marvel or DC, titles like Conan, Girls, Serenity, and Fell.  The only thing these comics have in common being they're not super-hero titles, giving at least some credence to my theory the market for them has been saturated.  I like to think The Big Two have started thinking the same way, seeing as how DC is reviving some of their 'off genre' characters as Jonah Hex (which has been a surprisingly strong seller for us) and Warlord.  Or the way Marvel is reaching back into their publishing past to again experiment with monster, romance and western comics.

With the end of Infinite Crisis in sight DC will again be launching a plethora of new super-hero titles, the first being Blue Beetle.  The latest Diamond Previews showed us a page from it, then DC followed suit with a five page preview that's readily available on the Internet. But in the face of DC's anemic hit to miss ratio when it comes to launching new super-hero series over the last couple of years, I'm afraid that's just not enough for retailers to go on to order it responsibly.

Recently there's been an attempt by both Marvel and DC to not reveal too much about upcoming comics so fans won't know absolutely everything about them months before they come out.  And while I applaud these efforts, keeping retailers in the dark as well isn't making their jobs any easier.

Basically all I'm asking for here is Marvel and DC do on a regular basis what IDW did at this year's Diamond Retailer Summit in Fort Wayne.  They had sign up sheet so retailers could receive a PDF version of their upcoming Fallen Angel #1 - our manager Tad Cleveland did and about two days later a copy arrived in our mailbox.  And while I understand publishers' entirely justifiable fear of having unpublished material being passed around that could easily make its way onto the Internet, I'd be happy to sign some kind of non-disclosure agreement if it meant being provided with the kind of material needed to make educated decisions about ordering their comics.

*An unexpected hit being defined (by me) as, well, a title that defies all expectations.

The most unexpected hit of 2005?  Franklin Richards, Son of a Genius.

Not only did it sell out at Dark Star it was it a 'kids comic' that kids actually liked.

I had to tell a disappointed Mom looking for #2 there wasn't one - not yet, anyway.