A Clarification of My Concerns from the Prior Post

Matt and I had a little back and forth on Twitter last night, so I figured I’d clarify what my problems with the Marvel promotional efforts are. I have zero problems with Marvel promoting the new #1s and the new creative teams. That is what they are supposed to be doing. Promote the heck out […]

The Marvel Hype Machine is Starting to Concern Me

Now, don’t get me wrong here. I love when a company gets behind a project to promote it. Too much stuff just kind of comes out with very little fanfare and doesn’t do well. And I want Marvel NOW! to sell like gangbusters. But some things I see from Marvel concern me. A little history. […]

Some Publisher Percentages Just For Fun

This is for Joe F. On my retailer message board, a store asked what our (all of the stores on the board) sales percentages were. He was just curious. So I worked up the numbers, year to date. Comics: 48% Graphic Novels: 25% DC: 39.11% Marvel: 29.68% Image: 6.75% IDW: 5.8% Dynamite: 4.1% Dark Horse: […]

The Marvel Numbers Game

I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the exact sales on the sales charts because they don’t always reflect what is really going on.  I look at trends and things like that, ie how is a bookselling over the last 6 months and things. You get weird spikes that show the numbers can […]

Random Thoughts for a Thursday

Doing the board is always interesting for me. Not only am I slowly (line by line) figuring out what is coming out the next week, but I find myself shaking my head at some things.  Here is what I mean: One of the big news items to come out of SDCC is that there are […]

Welcome and How Things Work Here

Welcome to all of my new visitors and customers. Since I started my new email newsletter, my guess is that there are some more people checking this site. And I know that there are are more coming into the store. I figured that this was a good time to explain what goes on in the […]

Top 100 Comics Sold This Year

I decided to be a little more accurate and made a spreadsheet to include all variants and 2nd prints in the totals.  I also expanded the list from 25-100. 1. JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 2. BATMAN #1 3. BATMAN #2 4. DETECTIVE COMICS #1 5. JUSTICE LEAGUE #2 6. GREEN LANTERN #1 7. GODZILLA KINGDOM OF […]

Top 25 Comics and Graphic Novels for 2011

These are what actually sold Top 25 Comics for 2011 Justice League #1 Batman #1 Action Comics #1 Batman #2 Green Lantern #1 Detective Comics #1 Justice League #2 Godzilla Kingdom of Monsters Pittsburgh Comics Variant Batman #3 Flash #1 Fear Itself #1 Superman #1 Justice League #3 Batman Dark Knight #1 Detective Comics #2 […]

Troubling Times as a Comic Retailer (UPDATED)

No, I’m not talking about the economy.  I’m talking about my “Publishing Partners” (as they call themselves when they are trying to cozy up to us) not playing fair.  I’ve gotten used to Marvel doing stuff without telling us, ie, offering us a book, then putting it on their website for free before we get […]

Question for You Folks Regarding Publishers Bagging Comics

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/11/10/marvel-comics-ultimate-digital-download-codes Beginning in January, Marvel is going to be including the digital codes with all of their Ultimate comics.  Now, its not the digital code part that bothers me (well, it does, but that is a whole other subject).  What bothers me is that now every copy of every Ultimate book is going to be […]