Comic Book Resources

Oh, no….No, no…..no….

I was speaking to the editor of the Washington Post the other day, and he told me that they often bury stories of huge cultural significance because “some guy at Golden Eagle Comics knew about it first”.

Marvel are totally right.

As much as I think the fan outrage over this was silly and asinine, the retailers have equal rights to actually be angry. They got legitimately screwed on this one and I think Marvel knows it.

From a fan standpoint, I didn’t mind. I got my copy cuz I’ve bought Cap since Bru got on it. Of course by the time I read it, it had been spoiled by other means but that’s more my fault than Marvels.

But if I was a retailer, yeah I’d be pissed.

I still remember the media blackout on the Death of Superman, caused by the story’s having been solicited in Previews months before…

Horseshit.

I still remember the media blackout on the Death of Superman, caused by the story’s having been solicited in Previews months before…

Hehe…good one, Jeff.

Seriously, though, I think Marvel’s position (although they may not say it publically) is that the New York Daily News would not give them the coverage they wanted UNLESS it was an exclusive story, which it wouldn’t be if they told people ahead of time.

So THAT’S what I really think they mean when they say “had no choice”

But was the nice coverage worth it?

They just did not want months of internet snark and naysaying to spread into the mass media message they wanted to control.
Which still means at the end of the day it was just a sales gimmick.

I can really see where Marvel is coming from with this one. Remember when the solicitations for Infinite Crisis #6 came out? You couldn’t turn on the news without seeing some reporter talking about the tragic death of Superboy, and the issue hadn’t even shipped yet. Then there was the piece 60 Minutes did about Hawkeye’s untimely passing that aired months in advance of the issue’s shipping date. Anderson Cooper staked out my local comic shop for weeks after that story broke. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the mainstream media is absolutely obsessed with comic books.

Well, as a UK retailer I can appreciate where Marvel are coming from, and we certainly saw a good number of new faces coming in the door after seeing it on the news. Unfortunately, of course, most of them were looking to buy themselves an investment, but you do tend to pick up a few new folks out of this kind of thing. Death of Superman, after all, brought a phenomenal number of people back to comics. And Cap has the added bonus of actually being by a talented creative team: Brubaker is a writer with mass audience appeal written all over him.

But as a retailer, in terms of their service to us “Trust us, order big” just doesn’t cut it. Hell, if they had such faith in it, why not offer some kind of returnability on the book? Why should we be the ones having to take chances on sketchy solicitation info? Okay, you could probably read between the lines and make an educated guess at what was coming, but given Marvels propensity for hype we could have just wound up with 500 copies of the Punisher becoming Captain America. Or Steve Rogers going rogue to kick off a “Captain America: Outlaw!” storyline. Or a bloody holographic cover.

Not to mention the difficulty for us outside the States having to also guess around the fact that he’s not a character with a lot of cultural impact here.

I also feel sorry for people who have paid above the board in the secondary market. Okay, so they’ve no one but themselves to blame, but it’s something that could have been avoided by Marvel being a bit more upfront about this whole “massive overprint” in the offing. I get it: they didn’t want us to be conservative with our initial orders, but it would have been nice to have known on the day that I could have more copies for next week (and told my long-standing customers who missed out that I could do so). My only consolation there is that the scumbags who swooped on the store trying to buy stacks of each cover to make a quick buck on (I had to put a limit of two copies per person in place) are going to be out in the cold in a week or so.

There is going to be a TPB in a few months anyway, so the point is moot.

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

I do in a way. Marvel did tell comic shop owners that the issue was going to be big. But no one believed them because… well look at the bullshit that Marvel has shoveled before. Cry wolf often enough, and no one will believe you when they should.

As unpopular as the position may be, Marvel actually did a good job of dealing with the hype here – just look at how they screwed up the launches for books like Truth and the Rawhide Kid, by allowing people to get excited / upset about the book a good three months before it was actually available for sale. It may be unpopular with retailers, but if the alternative to not being able to sell as many copies of a massively popular book is to not sell very many copies of a massively overhyped and overordered book… well, which would you choose?

“It may be unpopular with retailers, but if the alternative to not being able to sell as many copies of a massively popular book is to not sell very many copies of a massively overhyped and overordered book… well, which would you choose?”

I would go with keeping it a secret. Secrets are so rare in this age of the internet. The only thing Marvel could have done better was to make the book returnable. Just making a book returnable tells retailers this is going to be huge.

When retailers act like professionals, and can keep a secret instead of blabbing it to all of their customers and all over the internet, then Marvel can let them in on surprises beforehand.

I have no sympathy for most of the retailers complaining, because I bet you they are some of the first who would have been blabbing.

It had to be kept a secret to get the media coverage they were after. If they told all the retailers what was going to happen, you just know some of them would have been showing off their “insider knowledge” all over the net.

That said, Marvel should have made the issue (as well as other “Classified” solicits”) returnable. Just saying “trust us, it’ll be big, order lots” puts all the risk on the retailers’ side. If they were so confident in the issue, they could have taken a bit more risk.

As someone pointed out, they could have told retailers that it was going to receive media exposure at least commensurate with that given to Civil War #2. I think that they were entirely correct, in terms of their own obligations as a publically-owned company, to not do that, however. By telling retailers to order large numbers and then overprinting beyond that, they made sure that there was stock, and that they couldn’t be held absolutely accountable for any per-store shortages. Meanwhile, knowing that retailers weren’t going to order as massively as they should have, Marvel ensured that the book would benefit from some additional, residual buzz from being a desired, unavailable commodity. Now, Captain America is in the public consciousness more than he has been in the past twenty years or so, and that can only be good for licensing opportunities and for the upcoming movie–either one of which will make Marvel far more money than ensuring adequate stock of this issue would have.

I think the best solution would have been to do things as they were done (i.e. keeping it a secret until the last minute) but, as was said earlier, make the issue fully returnable. This lets the retailers know that this issue is gonna be big and order larger, without worrying as much about the potential risk.

They should have made it returnable.

Also, a little more information than ‘trust us’ could have been good.
I can see not wanting the news to get out, but retailers are running a business, and they can’t do that well if they aren’t informed.

“just look at how they screwed up the launches for books like Truth and the Rawhide Kid, by allowing people to get excited / upset about the book a good three months before it was actually available for sale. ”

I thought they screwed those up by having books that weren’t good.

My understanding is that Marvel dropped numerous hints during the CIVIL WAR run that #25 was going to be an important issue, and that retailers should strongly consider stocking up. OK so not every shop-owner trawls the web looking for random comments about upcoming issues, but one does need to keep a finger on the pulse of the industry in order to prosper.

Marvel DID have a choice of course, you always have a choice between doing the right thing or the wrong thing. In this case, I think they did the right thing. The minor inconvenience of a particular comic being out of stock for a week or two is not, ultimately, a big deal. Putting the details in the solicitation would have undermined a great deal of the impact of the event.

I think that’s BS. Retailers should know without any shadow of a doubt what they are ordering. Period. THe solicits should be no holds barred spoilers.

Does this mean info will leak onto the internet? Yes, yes it does. But in what other markets do stores buy product for totally blind? I’d love to see a grocery store place an order for big brown boxes that were simply labeled “FOOD”

Also, the comic book companies insist that people who read the webpages are only a teensy percent of their readership, so by their own admission the spoiler’s wouldn’t notibly effect sales.

Ryan Day said—
“It had to be kept a secret to get the media coverage they were after. If they told all the retailers what was going to happen, you just know some of them would have been showing off their “insider knowledge” all over the net.”
—–
So in other words, publicity is more important than actual sales.

Conversation overheard at Marvel a few weeks ago????

“Hey, the retailers aren’t ordering as many Captain America #25 as they should.”

“Well, tell them to order more.”

“We did that, but they aren’t.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

“I dunno. Hey, how about we tell them what is actually ion the issue? That should help.”

“Well, I say no. Screw the little f***s.”