Tim Marks of Friendly Frank's first raised the issue of Marvel's new policy on (not) distributing info on upcoming titles (see 'Tim Marks of Friendly Franks on No Marvel Info'). Gabriel Hagmann, the owner of DreamStrands Comics in Seattle, Washington feels that the damage will be localized, but substantial.
I have to say that I'm not really THAT disturbed about Marvel's new 'No Info' policy --WHEN DEALING WITH CURRENT, ONGOING SERIES or FLAGSHIP TITLES. Yes, sales fluctuate from month-to-month on all books, but in general, my customers who read Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, or any of the other major ongoing series don't pay much attention to the stories until they read them. They make note of creative changes and may add/drop based on that, so I think as long as Marvel continues to list such info, the flagship series will be safe.
However, by not listing story information for limited series, one-shots, specials, annuals, etc. they are shooting themselves in the foot. I already order VERY limited quantities of these books based on my own opinions and the number of box customers I have for a specific character, i.e. everyone on Wolverine gets a copy of the Sabretooth miniseries by default. So, I never order many extras because I invariably have a few leftovers for the shelf from box customers who don't want theirs. Now, while this system will continue to work for major characters who get a spin-off miniseries, there is NO WAY I'm going to do this for things like this Weapon X series with all its one-shots (even being familiar with the characters) nor will I take a risk on any new series or specials based solely on cover art. This will especially hurt the MAX line, as it is nowhere near established enough to have any 'core' titles.
Now, if Marvel's goal is for us NOT to order their limited series, then this is a great plan. Maybe if limited series sales drop to the point of loss, it will give them a 'business' reason to stop publishing the limited series in comic format and just use the graphic novel format for such stories. Maybe that's their plan, although I doubt the House of Ideas has thought that far ahead as to the impact trade paperbacks and graphic novels are having on the industry right now. Since all the publishers seem to be (finally) getting on the ball and publishing TPB's on a regular basis, then I'll just wait for the collected versions of these books and order those for my shop. At least then my customers can get a complete story and I'm maybe only stuck with 2 or 3 copies of something instead of 15 copies of some random issue of a book that I can't give away.
Of course, this could ALL be resolved if Marvel corrects the problem, or if, like Paul Bene suggested in a previous article, publishers started working WITH retailers to share some of the risk. I kinda like the idea of making the 1st 3 issues of a series returnable. While I realize that accepting returns for unpopular titles puts a considerable amount of risk on the publisher, in the long run I think the successful titles will outnumber the unsuccessful ones simply because I can suggest a book only if its on my shelf. I'll be more apt to have those books on my shelf if I have the assurance of returnability if it simply won't sell.