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  1. #1
    Fantastic Member Kaled's Avatar
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    Default Where Does the Casual Reader Go Now?

    In the 90s newsstands stopped selling comics but the slack was picked up by booksellers. Now the only booksellers left are Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million ( I am not counting Amazon since right now it is not a brick and mortar building). 2 years ago Barnes & Noble stopped selling comics and as of December 2018 Books-A-Million stopped selling comics. DC got their Giant Sized books into Wal-Mart but if the casual reader wants to try something where can they go to check out some comics? Gamestop was suppose to start selling comics but I have not seen any at Gamestop and a local comic shop is not an option since in some places that might mean a 2 to 3 hour drive to check out comics. For collectors like myself there are subscription services and digital but what can the casual reader do now that the only place to get comics is the direct market? I should mention part of the reason BAM stopped selling has something to do with Diamond. I don't know about B&N. I should also mention BAM did this out of the blue not even the employees or managers knew what was going on. They have asked the same questions I did. I should also point out that BAM corporate is not giving any answers either.

  2. #2
    Uncanny Member MajorHoy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaled View Post
    . . . 2 years ago Barnes & Noble stopped selling comics . . .
    I don't know if it was so much that Barnes & Noble chose to stop selling them as opposed to many companies stopped producing comic books for newsstand distribution. Marvel stopped doing it a while ago, then DC raised the cover price by $1.00 for many newsstand titles for a while (versus direct sale cover prices), but then those seemed to disappear, to.
    I don't know what happened with Archie Comics and direct sales copies, but the last company I saw sold at Barnes & Noble was Bongo (Simpsons), and I thought they stopped publishing altogether.

    As for why companies don't like producing copies for newsstand sales here in the U.S., that's easy: unlike comic books made available to direct sales comic book shops, newsstand copies that weren't sold were returnable by the stores (meaning whoever produced them had to eat the costs). And with those "returned" copies, it wasn't even the whole comic book that had to be returned for credit. It was often just the cover.

  3. #3
    Mighty Member C_Miller's Avatar
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    I mean B&N still sells trades. Floppies just aren't written for the casual fan anymore. That's the real issue. Back in the 60s-90s, a ready could read issue 4, 8, 15, 17, 18, 20, 32, 45 and not really be lost. If you miss one issue these days, unless it's #1, it's practically unreadable.

  4. #4
    Hold your machete tight! Personamanx's Avatar
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    For single issues? They read them on facebook pages that post them in their entirety. Or on one of those awful Youtube videos. That is if they're not tech savvy enough to torrent them. The casual reader doesn't have much interest in physical issues that aren't Number Ones or bought from a yard sale.

    For collected editions? Physical bookstores or ordering from Amazon. That is if they don't just do the above.
    Continuity, even in a "shared" comics universe is often insignificant if not largely detrimental to the quality of a comic.

    Immortal X-Men - Once & Future- X-Cellent - X-Men: Red

    Nobody cares about what you don't like, they barely care about what you do like.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Personamanx View Post
    For single issues? They read them on facebook pages that post them in their entirety. Or on one of those awful Youtube videos. That is if they're not tech savvy enough to torrent them. The casual reader doesn't have much interest in physical issues that aren't Number Ones or bought from a yard sale.

    For collected editions? Physical bookstores or ordering from Amazon. That is if they don't just do the above.
    I agree when I was young and broke you could buy a few issues get separate stories and the occasional continuing, nowadays the greed
    of the publishers having long story arcs cross into numerous titles just so they can sell those titles, it makes it near impossible for the casual
    fan. Nowadays waiting on collected editions is the way to go

  6. #6
    Uncanny Member MajorHoy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scarpad View Post
    I agree when I was young and broke you could buy a few issues get separate stories and the occasional continuing, nowadays the greed of the publishers having long story arcs cross into numerous titles just so they can sell those titles, it makes it near impossible for the casual
    fan. Nowadays waiting on collected editions is the way to go
    WAIT A MINUTE . . . what's this about "the greed of the publishers"?!?

    Honestly, while we readers may WANT less expensive comic books, there are certain realities that can't be ignored. There are the costs of the writers, the artists, etc. that have to be factored into the cover prices. While in the old days a story might be told in an issue or three, how many current, younger readers would want to go back to 6-8 panels per a page and all the dialogue / captions that were common back then? (How many times have you heard of people complaining that Silver Age comic books were "too wordy" and less enjoyable to read?) The there's the decreased number of issues of comic books that are actually sold. The fewer number of copies of an issue of a comic book that are produced/sold means the greater the share of the cost of an issue has to be factored into the price charged.
    Plus the retailers who sell the comic books want to actually, you know, earn a living, so that has to be factored into the cover price.

    I don't know how much it actually costs to produce an issue of a comic book these days, but it probably ain't as cheap as it was in the old days.

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