Mike Gold: Comic Books Take A Hike!
It was a small notice in one of the media newsletters, a pick-up from Publisher’s Weekly: Marvel Halts Sales of Periodical Comics in Bookstores.
According to Media Bistro, “Marvel has ended sales of print single-issue periodical comics through trade bookstore channels. This will not affect the sales of book format graphic novels through those retailers. Several earlier accounts reported that Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble were dropping single-issue comics. According to Barnes & Noble spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating, the removal of single-issue comics from B&N and other book stores is Marvel’s decision.”
This is not the end of an era. It’s the final death throes of an ancient era, a time of candy stores, corner drug stores, newsstands and newspaper wuxtras.
And that’s okay by me.
Don’t get me wrong. I love print. I love those 32-page pamphlets. I enjoy going to the magazine racks at Barnes and Noble. But let’s note that the decision to pull the pamphlets from the two largest American bookstore chains was Marvel’s, not the retailers’. And Marvel is simply being realistic.
Newsstand sales, as opposed to direct sales to comics shops, sell only about one-quarter of the number of copies sent to the newsstands, on average. Or, to put this in more political terms (I am what I am), for every four trees chopped down for newsstand comics, only one gets turned into stuff people actually pay to read. And the publisher has to ship these books and may have to accept returns (that’s a long story; trust me). That’s a hell of a lot of oil being wasted.
And for what? Clearly, the publisher isn’t making much (if anything) off of newsstand sales. The news dealer isn’t making very much, and policing comics racks is work-intensive. Better that such material is sold as e-comics, which carry a carbon footprint of a baby oompa loompa, and in anthologies.
Yes, there’s a loss-leader argument, but it’s very dated. The argument goes “New readers and people who don’t live near comic book stores can discover the thrill of comics by stumbling across them at Barnes and Nobles.” Fine, except that most newsstand comics are from Marvel and DC, and both companies are completely obsessed with “event” (read: stunt) marketing that require a reader to buy dozens of comics in order to understand the epic story… and some of those issues often are sold only via direct sales. So there is no jumping-on point for newbies.
Mind you, I could be wrong but I don’t see Archie, Dark Horse, and other publishers that are not OCD-compliant exiting the market as fast. They have high visibility books, often with impressive pedigrees such as Star Wars. But the economics of comics publishing are such that I can’t see them holding on to returnable sales to general newsstands.
I see Marvel pulling out of traditional bookstores as the logical thing to do. It’s probably the harbinger of things to come.
Of course, the way these guys have been doing the past couple of years, it’s pretty easy to see Barnes and Nobles and Books-A-Million going the way of Borders, Dalton’s, and Brentano’s. That’s a major shame, but it’s a shame of a different color.
So if you’re dependent upon one of these outlets for your comics fix, go buy an iPad. It’ll be around a lot longer, and you won’t strain your back lifting long-boxes.
Oh, yeah. And Happy, Brave New Year.
THURSDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil
THURSDAY AFTERNOON: The Tweeks
FRIDAY MORNING: Martha Thomases
I’m okay with monthlies vanishing from B&N’s shelves. I just wish they could be replaced with something.
I’ve said it MANY times, and am so convinced it’s the right idea it’s one I’m dedicated in bankrolling as soon as I hit the lotto. Wal-mart and the like need to be given their own special comics that STAY in print.
A series of one-and-done comics in the style of DC’s Secret Files and Origins books from a few years back. Four or five pages of new material, some info pages, and a mess of reprints. A primer for the characters. Fill it with ads for the other ones, and have the comicbook.com ad on the back cover. And keep it in print – do four to six of them a year, no more.
And make it cheap. Not “sell at a loss” cheap, but go back to newsprint, no glossy covers, anything that can be done to get the price down. Three bucks, but for at least 64 pages.
Get comics into kids’ hands. It’s imperative. Marvel has that Spider-Man magazine that they get into the magazine racks at the register. Mad expensive, but WELL worth it. DC really should do that as well. Something on the order of Dynamite or Bananas from when I was a kid.
LOTS of cross-sell to the local shops, and Comixology. A FAR more interactive website than DC has now.
And more important than ALL of those…
Get the law about what can be advertised on kids’ TV amended so that comics of a character are allowed to be advertised on that character’s show. Right now, even that little plug at the end of Adventures of Superman would be illegal.
Vinnie, there is a theory that holds that the decline of the readership of comic books among younger kids has no relation to content or advertising or outlet. That decline correlates first with the boom of inexpensive television in the 1960s, and later with the boom of inexpensive videogames in the 1990s.
I’m not saying that comic book companies couldn’t get more comics into kids’ hands. Just that the olden times when millions of kids would buy comics is probably never returning, and that is why comic companies first turned to teenagers and then to middle-aged men.