Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by retailer Steve Bennett of Mary Alice Wilson's Dark Star Comics in
The last thing I ever want to do with this column is give the impression I think of myself as some kind of know-it-all, so I want to thank everyone who took the time to respond to the column that mentioned the Coheed and Cambria comics. I appreciate the information which helped make ordering them for Dark Star possible.
And I have to admit Jim Crocker of Modern Myths made a valid point when he responded to last weeks column; having an animal ambassador (i.e., store pet) isn't for everyone (and checking out your lease before you get one to see if you're permitted to have non-working animals on your premises is a must).
But when it comes to 'safety' concerns, all I can say is that next year Dark Star will be celebrating its 25th anniversary and in all that time we've had three store mascots and have yet to have a single feline related injury to either animal or customer. Which is pretty amazing, given the number of turbo charged toddlers who've chased cats all over the store over the years.
And thanks sincerely for contributing the phrase 'geek squee' (which I'm going to assume means 'geek squeal') to my personal and professional vocabulary, as it totally captures the gleeful reaction so many of our customers have when they encounter new store cat Mr. Eko for the first time. Just to prove I am not in fact not a 'cat person' let me tell you about his latest trick; skillfully plucking the straw from my soft drink and running to the back of the store while chewing on it furiously. Everyone thinks it's hilarious; except of course me.
Well, what else is there to talk about this week except the delay of Civil War #4?
We at the store were eagerly awaiting the posting of this week's New Joe Friday column over at Newsarama, hoping against hope for once genuinely hard questions might be asked of him. But for the most part the questions were as lackluster as the answers; about the only memorable thing was Joe actually said he was sorry, which is more than we got from other Marvel personnel (the gist of their statements being 'suck it up').
But there were two tidbits that stood out: first, his admonition to retailers to 'look at the larger picture;' and second, the statement that Marvel was going to do its 'best to make up some of the lost revenue for everyone involved.'
Responding to the second one first, I'm keen to learn just how Marvel plans to demonstrate its regrets. Are we talking higher discounts, more retailer incentives, perhaps some absolutely free comics with variant covers? Even your local radio station is willing to give away free t-shirts and key chains to pay for some cheap good will. But given past history frankly I'll be surprised if they even make any of the Civil War-related comics returnable.
And second there's the whole 'looking at the larger picture' comment. Sure, we retailers in the trenches tend to think invoice to invoice, but that's because we're most often too busy holding onto our livelihoods to do a lot of 'larger picture' gazing (i.e., reflecting on 'the future of the industry,' like how soon we'll be replaced by Internet downloads). But of course what Joe meant here was all the money we'd eventually be making off of the Civil War hardcover and trade paperback collections.
Which is really kind of funny, given Civil War #4 ultimately isn't late because the artist turned in his artwork slower than expected. It's late because Marvel was unwilling to create a sufficiently long lead time so the material could be finished before it was solicited. And that's because it would have meant spending some of their own money to pay the writers and artists instead of relying on ours (the money coming in from monthly sales) to do it.
Given the amount of money Marvel and DC reasonably could have expected to make from Crisis and Civil War they easily could have afforded to have more issues completed before soliciting the #1s, but they didn't. Because, quite frankly, publishing is a business; they've not going to do anything that impacts their financial bottom line unless absolutely forced to.
Hopefully this debacle will exert enough pressure to make the necessary changes to their corporate cultures; but I really kind of doubt it.
And finally one suggestion I don't think anyone else has made; what harm would it have done if while Steve McNiven worked on finishing his pages of Civil War #4, you had Sal Buscema draw the very same issue. Marvel could have published the Sal Buscema version (and all the ancillary Civil War books) in a timely fashion for grubby old commerce, and when it came time to do the collection for the ages it could include the Steve McNiven version. Heck, months later Marvel could publish a Steve McNiven version of Civil War #4 (at a higher price point, of course) and sell the same steak twice.