Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by retailer Steve Bennett of Mary Alice Wilson's Dark Star Books in
Again this week the subject is 'other' comics but I'm widening the definition so as to include non-super-hero comics from major publishers. And they are out there; just check out the variety of comics coming out this month from DC (not counting the manga): Jonah Hex, Warlord, Claw the Unconquered, Elfquest, The Next, Manifest Etenity, Battler Britton, Rokkin, Sky Runner, Rush City, and in sharp contrast Princess Natasha (based on a Web Flash animation series about a princess by day, spy by night) and A Man Called Kev (featuring the visceral, spray-soaked hilarious adventures of the world's worst covert operative).
Now the predictable thing for me to do would be to praise DC and chide Marvel (which, with the exception of a smattering of Westerns and parody romances mostly these days prefers to stick to its core brand identity, super-heroes), but unfortunately it's just not that simple. Having a diverse line of comics available for order is one thing; actually being able to sell them is something else again.
Each week Dark Star gets weekly Sneak Peaks from Image and DC (but not Marvel, not yet; read nothing into that) and when it came time to put out the previous weeks preview copies on the shelves we hadn't ordered any copies of The Next (in spite of it being a new series by Science Fiction author Tad Williams), A Man Called Kev or Rokkin. The 'why' is probably obvious--just like our customers can't buy every comic, we can't order every comic. We only have so much money and shelf space (especially during times when so much of both is allocated to titles like 52 and Civil War) to work with and hard decisions have to be made.
So, theoretically, the smart thing to do would be to stick with the main Marvel/DC super-heroes, but you can lose out on a lot of steady sellers by just chasing best sellers. For instance, because of lateness quite a few issues of Red Sonja were made returnable to Diamond, but when I checked I found we've been consistently selling out of the title. And you might be surprised by who we're selling them to. Like I wrote last time, there's an increasing number of what I'd ordinarily call strict super-hero readers willing to go off campus, if the right title comes along.
A couple days ago a customer came up to the counter and asked if Battler Britton #1 was any good. Ordinarily he wasn't a fan of war comics and had no idea it was based on an old, obscure (to us, anyway) British character. None of that mattered. He'd seen it, liked it, and I sold him a copy along with his assortment of Civil War-related comics.
And that's the danger in being too cautious when it comes to ordering; you never know what you could have sold. On Monday the first thing I'm going to do after opening the store is check and see if those copies of The Next and Rokkin are still there; because while I still don't think they'll appeal to our customers, you never know.
Because there definitely is a hunger out there for something else. Take, for example, Marvel's Halo graphic novel shipping this week. Without benefit of much in the way of advertising* it's very much in demand. A week before it shipped the special requests for it have exceeded the initial number of copies we're getting two to one.
And what really makes this news impressive is we're not talking about a $2.99 floppy; it's a $24.99 hardcover. There's a part of me that wants to chide Marvel for their apparent lack of confidence in the material, seeing as how it's just a one shot relegated to a high end 'too ritzy for me' format. But given the amount of money it's going to generate for the store, maybe The Marvel actually knows best after all.
Since, after all, another reason retailers have to be cautious when it comes to ordering is you're really not just ordering one more comic, you're (generally) ordering the first in a series, and you're likely to order at least two more before having seen #1. That can add up to a lot of unsold comics. And while ordering 'it's only a one-shot' (meaning it won't take up some of that scarce shelf real estate for months at a time) can definitely be a factor in favor of ordering a title. So instead of so many mini-series, maybe it's time publishers offered us more substantial (48-64 pages) one shots that could test the waters for a series.
*Yes, I know Marvel was nice enough to spot us those promotional postcards and poster but they'd be much more useful if they included a few salient facts about the item being promoted, like, at the very least, the ship date.