We did the new Previews last night during the podcast and listening to it as it downloaded off of the recorder, I realized I was a little tougher on them than I should be. So I decided to kind of add my caveat as an explanation of why I am tough on them.
I have always been a Marvel guy. I grew up a Marvel zombie. I read some DC (teen Titans when it was as hot as X-Men and Giffen’s Legion), but I was a big Marvel guy (and First, Pacific, Eclipse – really dating myself now). So I came into this with an existing love of Marvel and an open mind towards DC. Well, in my 6 years having to order and sell this stuff, I have found DC far more easier to deal with as a retailer. Their books are available and in stock, both comics and graphic novels. They do things that generally help us (consignment copies of Watchmen and returnability on the New 52 so that we can have more than enough product on the shelf without any real risk). Variants are pretty straight forward (1:10, 1:25, 1:200) so I know going in if I can bother getting them. If they change something in a book or it ships later than it was originally solicited for and this change loses sales, I can return the unsold copies. Example, the DC Zeroes have sold much better than I expected and I bumped my numbers across the board. People are trying these books out. I keep selling out. And I keep getting more copies in every week. Punk Rock Jesus was a huge surprise hit for me and I have been able to get more for the shelf to sell of each issue.
Marvel is not as friendly to deal with. They make ordering their books far more complicated and end up leaving me with lots of unsold copies or sold out unable to get more. Example, Hawkeye was a much bigger hit than I expected. People told me I should have known. Well, the previous Hawkeye minis sold about 4 copies each. Defenders (written by Fraction) is selling 3 copies. Iron Man and Thor aren’t really useful to judge how to order Hawkeye, based on Fraction’s writing. So I went big and ordered 20. Sold out in a day. Marvel also sold out before it shipped, and I had to wait 4 weeks for the 2nd print. I also sold through 20 copies of #2. (Normally there are some people who try and don’t like #2, so without having more #1s on the shelf, I am hesitant to order more #2s than #1s). Those also sold out right away and I am still waiting for 2nd prints. That is lot of time where I haven’t had product that I could have sold, all due to low print runs.
Marvel also makes creative changes and gets around late books through the Final Order Cutoff system. Just last week they made changes to 28 different titles. From things as little as changing from T to T+ to changing in page counts and prices. But then there are things like a change from Brian Wood writing X-Men to Seth Peck. Well, now I have to deduce how many people were just getting the book just for Wood and adjust down accordingly. But if adjust too far, I sell out and can’t get more. So I will probably leave it alone and just eat the unsold copies. But that is unsold stuff that’s not my fault.
I have two main problems with the Marvel NOW! books and it really has nothing to do with the books themselves, its all in how I have to order them. I am as excited as anybody for new stories by new creators. Fresh writers on the big Marvel books is great. But trying to order them is a nightmare. And it is being done solely for sales chart ranking, which I feel is really petty. Complete editorial on my part, but I think Marvel was embarrassed that, for many months of the relaunch, Aquaman was out selling every Marvel non-event book. And they decided to do something about it.
#1) Marvel is double shipping almost every new Marvel NOW! book. What I mean is that we are getting issue #1 & #2 in the same month. The reason for this? More units on the sales chart (not more money – I’ll get to that in #2). The only reason for this is to have 2 issues on the sales chart. If All New X-Men has 2 issues at 75000 copies, they will blow away DC. And Tom Breevoort can crow that they won and the internet will say that DC is dead.
In the new Previews these new books are all shipping 2 issues in December:
Thunderbolts
Avengers
Cable & X-Force
Avengers Arena
All New X-Men
Iron Man
Hawkeye
Amazing Spider-Man (3 issues)
Avenging Spider-Man
Scarlet Spider
Ultimate Comics Ultimates
X-Factor
X-Treme X-Men
To further complicate things, December is only going to have 3 ship weeks, because the 4th week is 12/26. So you guys are going to crushed with a lot of product in a very short time frame and you are going to vote with your wallet. “I’m already getting X, Y, Z that I like, I’d sure like to try A, B & C, but I can’t afford it.” Or worse, “Geez, #1 just came out last week. I didn’t like it that much that I want to get it every week.” Or “Man, I didn’t even read #1 yet.”
With most books, especially #1s, I have to make an educated guess on ordering #2, but I at least have a week or so of sales data on #1 before placing my order for #2. I can gauge your reaction. Heck, I can read it and make my own decision. But by shipping twice a month, I have to have my final non-cancelable orders in for #2 before seeing #1 (and the holidays may play even more on the December books and I may have to have my orders in for #3 before seeing #1.
Example. I am selling about 35 copies of Avengers right now. New #1. New writer and artists. How do I order? Normally I’d go 50-60. We’ll have more people wanting to try it than are jumping off the book. I just looked and saw that I sold the exact same number of copies of the last X-Force and the first Uncanny X-Force, which was the last book to have a creative change like this. Avengers renumbered, but kept the same writer. Incredible Hulk doubled sales, but it had been pretty down at the end.
So, lets say I gamble and order 75 copies of #1. How do I order #2? There are lots of #1 guys who don’t come back for #2. Maybe 60? But then I am also guessing on #3. Maybe some don’t like it and I’ll shoot for 50. But if it tanks and only sells 30, I have 20 extra copies. Mutiplied by 5 new titles shipping twice a month and I am swimming in new books in a short time.
So that is what I see when I see #1 & #2 shipping the same month.
#2a) Retailer incentives.
There are 2 different ones that Marvel plays with – Variant covers and extra discount. Both are designed to get us to up our order. Say I felt 75 was a good number, but Marvel has a 1:100 variant. Well, if I sell the variant, it will cover the cost of the extra 25 copies and will let me have more on the shelf to see if they sell. But if I don’t sell it, I’m eating the extra books. But then Marvel makes it complicated. Here are the variant requirements for Avengers #1
Ribic 1:50
McNiven 1:100
McNiven Sketch 1:150
Blank Exceed order of AvX #10 and order all you want
Deadpool Style Exceed order of AvX #10 and order all you want
Young Baby Exceed order of AvX #10 and order all you want
So I ordered 100 copies of Avx #10, so to get those other variants, I need to order more than that, so 101 copies. So lets I go for it and order 5 of each variant. Now I have 116 copies of a book that I thought I was stretching for at 75. As I look behind me, I still have the 1:100, 1:50 and 1:25 variants of AvX #12 that came out yesterday. So are variants really enough to make me stretch my order number? No, so Marvel then adds this.
#2b) Additional discounts. They are offering us an additional discount on these books if we order more. (Exceed 200% of Avx #10 and get and additional X% off your order of Avengers #1) This is what leads me to believe that it is all about the sales charts and not making more money. Based on the additional discount, I can get 150 copies of Avengers for $4 less than it would cost me to order 100. So they show additional sales, when in reality, I won’t sell any more copies because of this. I am looking at an extra 75-100 copies of just this one issue. In last week’s email, Marvel had, I believe, 22 offers like this. Even 50 extra copies (if I take them up on the offer) will be 4 long boxes of over stock in one month. That then becomes an inventory and storage problem. So I have a quandary. Do I take them up on the offer, have all of the variants available for sale and then deal will getting rid of hundreds of extra copies? And how the heck do I order the #2s if I ordered 150 copies of #1, especially when I will have no idea how #1 was received before I have to order. That is something else I see when I look at all of these number ones in the Previews.
And Marvel gets to crow about how they are dominating the sales charts, when in reality, they aren’t moving that much more product. I guess it may just be my sense of fair play that makes me dislike Marvel for this reason. Its like the Yankees crowing about sweeping the Pirates in a series. Its easy to win when you set the system up in your favor for the sole purpose of showing you can make the retailers order more of your product than the competitions. I’d just rather that they focused on making great books and let the sales chart reflect how much the actual readers like a book rather than how much you can incentivize a book. It reminds me of when Platinum wanted to have the best selling graphic novel in the sales charts in order to leverage their position to sell the books as a movie. They paid big retailers to order thousands of copies just to affect the sales charts. That’s what I feel Marvel is doing here. I’ve enjoyed the fact that Aquaman has been outselling Avengers on the basis that more people are enjoying reading Aquaman than Avengers. For the next 6 months or so, Marvel is going to dominate the sales charts, but it won’t reflect how much people are actually enjoying and even purchasing the books. It will just show how much they convinced retailers to order. And I guess, that’s what bugs me in the end.