Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by retailer Steve Bennett of Mary Alice Wilson's Dark Star Comics in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett talks about converting recent media coverage of comics to sales:

 

Was anyone else surprised by the level of media attention given the announcement of the upcoming (to quote one particularly cringe worthy press account) 'Lady Loving' version of Batwoman?  It certainly caught me unawares, maybe because Yellow Springs, home of Dark Star, is situated in a lovely little blue bubble sitting in a blood red state.  But mostly it's because I'd assumed popular culture, comics included, had squeezed as much cheap thrills and free press as possible out of, you know, girls kissing and stuff.

 

But the story was everywhere (the syndicated Bob & Tom radio show did a relatively respectful, theoretically 'comic' interview with the character) and I can't deny it makes for an eye-catching headline on a slow news day.  What made me really incredulous though was the highly unlikely number of people who seemed to believe they actually remembered the character when she hadn't been a semi-regular character in the Batman comics since 1964.

 

Of course having a homosexual as the lead character in a mainstream super-hero comic book would be groundbreaking, especially in the face of Marvel's declaration of their  'no gay leads except in MAX titles' policy (does this make Marvel a Red State and DC a Blue, or did DC just decide to zag where Marvel zigged?).  Except there is no Batwoman comic book, which is what makes all this wonderful free publicity so frustrating.

 

I've read over a dozen pieces on the story (I know I'm repeating myself, but if you want to see how the mainstream media are reporting on comics, you couldn't ask for a better source than the World Famous Comics Newsroom site) and, coming from the exact same press release, they were all pretty clear on the fact the new Batwoman was set to appear in an upcoming issue of 52.  They even did a fairly good job of explaining what 52 was, but that didn't stop people from calling or stopping by Dark Star asking, 'When is that new gay Batwoman comic coming out?'

 

But this is one of those 'problems' that's actually an opportunity, and the answer to this particular opportunity is salesmanship; because though we don't often think about it, those comics don't sell themselves.

 

I've said it before but salesmanship isn't trying to foist shoddy merchandise on some poor unsuspecting sap (i.e.; 'You really should pick a copy of Zoom Suit -- it has variant covers!'), it's just talking to your customers - and communication has never been as important as when it comes to comics like 52 and Civil War.  I know; you'd think these high concept blockbusters with all the full weight of their company's promotions department behind them wouldn't need much in the way of a sales pitch.  At the moment 52 and Civil War are neck and neck when it comes to the largest number of pulls for our file customers but hardly a day goes by without someone asking us 'I've heard about this Civil War comic; what's it about?'

 

That's your cue.  What they really want to know is what it's about and (even if they don't ask this directly) is it any good; when it comes to the first point it's importing to avoid giving out too much information -- they're looking for, maybe, a five minute bullet point presentation.  And for the second, hopefully you like the comics in question, but if you don't, of course lying is always an option, but much more preferable is having someone on your staff that does like them do the talking.

 

But, how can you sell a Batwoman that doesn't exist?  When a recent customer came in asking about it we certainly could have honestly answered that there wasn't one and wasn't likely to be one anytime soon.  But instead we explained that there was this comic called 52 that's pretty exciting and next month she's going to be in it.  That way resulted in someone walling out of our store with an armful of comics.

 

And while I'm on the subject of the media and comic sales, there's the movie Superman Returns.  On the one hand I'm very pleasantly surprised to find the character still so well remembered both gays and Christians have tried to claim him as one of their own, but no one expects the movie to have any impact on the circulation of the comics.  For the obvious reasons sure (most movie viewers aren't comic readers and there's no overwhelming reason for them to start now), but I think it might have something to do with the fact the movie version only bears a slight resemblance to the print one.  And I'm not talking about the cosmetic changes to the costume. 

 

We tend to forget the 80s John Byrne reimagining of the character a super-hero battling super villains is of a fairly recent vintage for a property as old as Superman.  And since the movie reflects the 70s movies, which reflected the comics from the 50s and 60s, I expect the harshest reviews of the movie will probably come from inside the fan community.  Or as someone at our store succinctly put it; 'They spent 180 million dollars on Superman Returns and I don't think he even hits anyone'.