Tilting at Windmills - Mar 21, 2016

[CBR News]

This month Brian Hibbs checks in with all the knowledge he learned from the 2016 ComicsPRO Annual Membership Meeting in Portland.


Full article here.

[superheroes for hire]

It's always enjoyable to get the thoughts of everyone in the industry - especially retailers. I appreciate that Brian always calls it like he sees it. I have to disagree with him on two points though, from my reader's perspective. First, he says that readers by and large view the need to buy into a line as negative. I'll admit that I begrudgingly buy more titles to fill in the line wide holes, but the core comic reader does want a line and does want it to mean something. That's part of why readers ranted about DCYou. DC abandoned continuity and connected story telling for a year, and their sales tanked. Speaking for myself - I just want a smaller line of series I can buy into and led crossovers. It currently costs upwards of $200 to $250 per month to buy into Marvel, but they have at least carved out a few niche titles that can stand on their own. The problem is when constant events cause more buy in and interruption of storylines. At DC, the lack of continuity caused the opposite result - several decent storylines that lived and died with the story arc. Hopefully Rebirth allows a happy medium with core stories and fringe stories.

My other disagreement with Brian is his claim that the publishers are mostly at fault. I say they're taking all the money to the bank that retailers send them. Like it or not, the success of titles is based largely on monthly sales chart numbers (from diamond). When Brian says he sells an average of 13 issues of Marvel series and 9 DC issues per title each month, how many is he actually ordering? Because current sales numbers are currently inflated by all the various publisher gimmicks. Shop owners could truly send messages with their sales if they strictly bought the number is issues they could sell. Stockpiling extra issues for incentives makes sales data look the same as 150 customers buying Saga each month.

[Brian Hibbs]

When Brian says he sells an average of 13 issues of Marvel series and 9 DC issues per title each month, how many is he actually ordering? Because current sales numbers are currently inflated by all the various publisher gimmicks. Shop owners could truly send messages with their sales if they strictly bought the number is issues they could sell. Stockpiling extra issues for incentives makes sales data look the same as 150 customers buying Saga each month.

So, it isn't really possible to "strictly buy the number of issues we sell", because the market (in both the micro and the macro) is not a static thing. There's a "swing" of month-by-month sales that is inevitable, and even if there wasn't, ordering only what you sell is a complete recipe for stagnation as you can't ever grow from that, only decrease. (because of Standard Attrition, yo)

On the other hand, non-returnable, if you don't have a sell-through of 85% or better, you're probably not making much money.

So, how many am *I* buying? Something close to 14.3 for Marvel and 9.9 for DC -- within 10% variance. If not, you can't really be profitable as a retailer. We're certainly not "stockpiling extra issues for incentives" (with the one exception when Marvel runs the rare +15% discount incentive, where they're effectively paying us to order more copies)

Most retailers *have* to be selling *most* of the comics that they purchase because otherwise? They'd be out of business. There's a few edge cases of people making decisions based on something other than raw sell-through, but math is math for most stores in most situations. This is as real as gravity: you have to pay for the comics you order for resale, and if you order too many, then you can't pay for things like rent and staff and electricity.

(and if you order too few? You can't pay for things like rent and staff and electricity!)

-B

[Xhatch]

I always enjoy reading these articles. I love to read about an actual Comic store owner's perspective on this. Very interesting stuff.

A couple of things. I'm firstly very surprised that this thread hasn't gotten more comments! Secondly, I'm kinda shocked to see Marvel didn't bother to send someone with real decision making power to this event. I don't have any comic related business knowledge, but from a general business perspective, it seems like an un-wise thing to do at the very least.

Just my own opinion on comics in general seems to be, you have very big titles like Batman/Justice League/Spider-Man that seem to have a solid core of readers for years. Then you have these very popular, but almost under-the-radar titles like Saga or how The Walking Dead was before the TV show. And then you have the mid-card stuff, and like the article mentions, seems to not be selling as well as it once did.

I'm not sure how that situation can really be fixed, but things like Rebirth will generate larger sales at the beginning, but it's really what the market will be like after 4+ months that will really tell the story. And for that we can look at All New All Different Marvel. It's been afew months since that started and we are now entering the realm of cancellations. I'm sure more cancellations will follow. But I think Marvel's strategy is to do this Civil War II event for the summer and then hit us all with the next "All New All Different" or whatever branding form it takes, with a whole load of new #1's and titles. Maybe not as many as last time, but still a bunch to be sure.

[KingMob]

At my store we are down to actually racking 17 DC titles. A third of the books DC publishes I don't even order and the rest I am ordering 1-3 issues for club members. The numbers are worse than I could have ever imagined them to be. I never could have imagined that I would own a comic store that did not rack Action Comics or Flash but yet that is the reality I live in today. For me as a reader of DC comics for 38 years it is really depressing.

With the slow roll out of information for this project and the sales on DC books being so abysmal I am left with two questions a) where will I find the space to rack 32 new DC titles? b)Do I really want to find the space to rack these books? Unfortunately for me the answer is a resounding NO! There has been no change in the people who got DC to this point so why am I supposed to invest my money in these same peoples ideas? I hope they can prove me wrong but my prediction is that a lot of editorial jobs will be opening up at DC in about 9 months.

[service295]

Very informative article Mr Hibbs. KingMob I do think this is a store by store basis, at our store, while our DC sales a down , somewhat. For us they (DC) are still head and shoulders above Marvel. In fact Image is very close to Marvel some months. The Northeast/Mid-Atlantic area of the country has always been stronger with DC then Marvel though. Keeping my fingers crossed that the DC relaunch will work as well as last one but with better legs for the industry as a whole. As Brian as pointed out before , the Marvel relaunch has been a general dud , in as far as bringing in lapsed/1st time readers/buyers. And KingMob to show you the difference in stores , we do the following numbers on Action 42 pulls , 15 for the racks (have 4 left of the latest). Flash 35 pulls , 12 for the racks (down to 2 on the racks). 3 years ago this time Action was at 85 and Flash was at 102. So hopefully the relaunch can get us back to the numbers of 3 yrs ago.

For comparison the Marvel relaunch , books like Hawkeye , and Avengers are already lower then last years numbers at this time

[superheroes for hire]

Most retailers *have* to be selling *most* of the comics that they purchase because otherwise? They'd be out of business. There's a few edge cases of people making decisions based on something other than raw sell-through, but math is math for most stores in most situations. This is as real as gravity: you have to pay for the comics you order for resale, and if you order too many, then you can't pay for things like rent and staff and electricity.

(and if you order too few? You can't pay for things like rent and staff and electricity!)

-B

Excellent points, Brian! I had not connected all of the dots, and I was just thinking of the fact that the sales numbers don't always match up. I truly admire the business savvy of successful comic book store owners. It's got to be quite the challenge to play the comic selling game each month. Keep up the good work building your customer base and keeping the industry accountable. It will really be interesting to read your perspective following Rebirth.

[chrisjuricich]

Overall, I always enjoy Brian's take on the retail end of selling comics. Being way out of the loop now (I managed a comic shop for a couple of years) I only have the greatest respect for those who continue the slog.

In a sense it raises a question for me. While Marvel and DC are bolstered by their other media and licensing value, what about businesses like Valiant? Can they really manage to sell enough funny books as a publisher to afford an office, staff, etc.? And sending SEVEN people to Portland? While its impressive, hotel, air, etc. must have cost them a penny or two. They don't ha any licensing benefits or income I know of besides the sales of their funny books. How do the small publishers manage to stay n business? Fantagraphics does by hook and crook and low salary rates, fan/pro passion, and hard knocks. It remains a mystery to me.

[Brian Hibbs]

While Marvel and DC are bolstered by their other media and licensing value, what about businesses like Valiant? Can they really manage to sell enough funny books as a publisher to afford an office, staff, etc.? And sending SEVEN people to Portland? While its impressive, hotel, air, etc. must have cost them a penny or two. They don't ha any licensing benefits or income I know of besides the sales of their funny books.

Valiant received an announced NINE-figure financing deal to make films.

http://valiantuniverse.com/2015/04/2...to-big-screen/

-B

[Vernon w]

While as a retailer, I am "optimistic" about the idea of the DC relaunch, the biggest point thay can make for a new, better product is a pedigree of good creators. That's a big part of what sells comics these days. The odd idea that these names are being held onto for two weeks after Previews comes out is bizarre, and indicative of the types of things DC's marketing does that flies in the face of their need to get folks excited about their books. I look forward to the relaunch, but I haven't seen much here that will improve their bottom line for more than six months or so.