It’s a common fear of mine that my comic book store of choice, Webhead, is a bad year away from folding. The owner Dean, who is a good lad of mine, told me recently that they wouldn’t even be capable of staying open without their business selling shit online.
I was floored. I knew things were bad, but not that bad.
Then I came across this great article by Christopher Butcher that was linked from another blog I frequent, The Beat. Here’s an excerpt:
Things aren’t stable, behind the scenes (and sometimes spilling onto message boards and websites) people are very worried. Fans, Retailers, Publishers. Distributors. But the thing that to me is the most disconcerting and heralds the biggest change? Diamond Comics Distributors drastically raising their order minimums.
I can’t imagine that this is going to do anything but make life more difficult for the struggling comic book store. It’s a lengthy article, but it’s worth checking out if a Wednesday trip down the comic book store means the same thing to you as it does to me.
Tags: Comic Books, DC, Marvel, Prepare for a Shitty Wednesday
THe main culpret is pricing. Now, I’m a pirate, there’s no other term to describe what I do with various forms of entertainment. One thing I told myself when I decided to dabble in this amoral activity is that I needed a constant. Something to hold on to. The answer was comics. I will never steal comics. I will alway pay for them. I will borrow what I can, but I like supporting the art.
Now because I pay for them, does that man I have to pay full price? Not when Amazon.com can offer me deal my local shop cannot. This past week I bought Stom Front vol.1 and Global frequency vol.1 for the whopping total of $37.94. Had I gone to Amazon, the price would have been $25.80.
I would argue the main culprit is a dwindling community, and the death of the print media. If anything, the rising prices of an individual comic are a response to their lack of profits.
This is why I’m hoping good will come out of Disney’s acquisition of Marvel.
Maybe…just maybe…Disney will let Marvel Comics to operate as they see fit. Essentially, the comic books will continue to be produced, even if it means that they don’t generate a profit in and of themselves. Then, the (evil) Disney Superpowers can take those few ideas from comics that seem marketable and make bajillions and bajillions.
Eat a loss on the comics to reap the benefits in movies, action figures, merchandising, etc.
As it stands I think most comic shops really only turn a profit with CCGs more than anything else. And even those are losing steam. Magic has turned into a niche game over the past 6 years. Decipher lost the Star Wars license, making that game a steaming pile. Raw Deal is dead. Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Yo still make money, but not in the amounts that they once did. Lets face it, Mom and Pop are dead. Granted, comic shops are more of “That creepy uncle that looks at me weird, but I still love him”, but they still fall under that category of small business. So a dwindling market caused by whatever, driving prices up, only to drive more of the market away seems foolhardy. I myself have all but walked away from traditional “Super Hero”. Batman is brutal and edgy, Spider-Man is conflicted o the inside, Iron-Man like to drink, Superman is just that … Super. These characters have been around so long that they are bigger than the stories they are in. There’s no more magic. There’s no more surprise. There’s no more wonder. So maybe its the drugs themselves rather than the pushers to blame for a less than enthusiastic audience. They were certainly to blame for the early 90s boom and subsequent bust. So that’s why I’ve more towards the “Preachers”, the “Y:The Last Mans”, the “Walking Deads” of the comic worlds. So if anyone needs me, I’ll be in the Wildstorm Universe dealing with Vertigo and asking myself, What Would Doc Brass Do?
Wildstorm is wildly useless, as noted by the fact that you’re referencing one title that started back when we were barely in high school. And tropes are tropes, I’m not sure that Walking Dead (which sucks) really pioneers new vision.