People Are Talking About Various Issues

A few on-line discussions out there worthy of note:

* Marvel Editor Tom Brevoort's use of old sales figures at his blog has proved intriguing for a lot of folks, particularly when it comes to making comparisons to the market back then, at the height of a flush period that included a lot of back-issue collectibles speculation, and now, when things are better than they were five years earlier but are nowhere near the raw figures of 15-17 years ago. In other words, "Why can't we sell 8,000,000 copies of Spider-Man anymore?"

One thing I think worth noting is that while speculation was a huge force at the time Brevoort's charts represent, particularly for boosting the three or four titles at the absolute top of such lists, it should be noted that the overall delivery system allowed for that much product to be moved. It also sustained way more titles over 100,000 copies. In other words, the notion of blockbuster comics as it existed in the early '90s exploited a system that was obviously better suited to delivering a higher number of superhero comics overall. One of the things I try to track about today's comics is the effects when the same sort of top-title mentality is unleashed on an underlying market that isn't as healthy top to bottom.

I think it's likely a smarter market. There seem to be more longtime retailers with a degree of savvy generated by years of experience. I also don't get the sense of active hostility from the mainstream companies aimed at driving books of the stands as I saw 15 years ago, although that's largely because it's a battle that's already been fought (and won) in most stores. My hunch is that there's a lot of dross (a policy aimed at maximizing the top end of sales in a flush market when the market is not quite that flush) being spun into gold (smart, careful ordering that allows the market to act as if it's healthier and more stable than it is) by the Direct Market retailers as a group.

Still, it makes me wonder where that market would be right now if Marvel and DC paid more attention to replicating the market conditions that preceded the gorging period Brevoort's charts depict, and building a more solid infrastructure on which much even more sizable hits could be built. Simply avoiding the absolute worst excesses of a period can never be enough to fully maximize the modern period's potential. I think we're seeing that despite actual, sizable gains over the last five years, the difference between now and then isn't just speculation, it's the degree of big-company investment in their best market that made capitalizing on speculation possible.

* Articles like these on micropayments or similar issues where generally the hoped-for result hasn't come through tend to deal in speculation of another kind, imagining how something might be true, that I have a difficult time investing myself in any of the arguments that follow. Your mileage may vary. The only thing I took away from it is probably too laughably basic and dim for me to say it out loud, but I honestly hadn't considered that a huge factor in bringing the notion of payment into something is the consumer culture that precedes it.

* Alan David Doane advocates that comic book shops pursue every avenue of comics distribution available to them because of repeated displayed shortcomings in distribution from Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc., but what I found valuable is his note that the store The Beguiling doesn't use a first-look program of early shipping in order to better prepare itself for the ups and downs of the periodicals market. The thought that the maybe the best way to share information with stores about upcoming product -- giving them the product -- exists as a pay-for program instead of routinely used in the course of maximizing sales for a book speaks to a key dysfunction in that comics market, as, from the other end of things, does word that a retailer used to sell those comics to Doane.
 
posted 3:06 am PST | Permalink
 

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