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#Post#: 15047--------------------------------------------------
Me and the Comic Book Industry
By: Jack Date: September 16, 2019, 2:35 pm
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I don't think there's anything new in this post, but it probably
hasn't been presented in this way before. I shared most of it
in chat last week, and Adric said others would probably be
interested in it as well, so here it is.
As a reminder, I started working for Miles and Comics and Stuff
in about 1980, when I was 15. At first, it was only a few hours
a week, and mostly behind the scenes. To say the least, Miles
was not a good shopkeeper, didn't know much about running a
store, had a golddigger for a wife, and was a slob himself.
I went through college in three years for various reasons,
largely because I was burned out on school by then, but I knew I
needed a degree if I wanted to make much more than minimum. I
decided on teaching because teachers do make better money than
burger flippers, and because their vacation would give me time
to keep working at comic conventions.
First bit about the comic industry: Today, almost everything is
reprinted; often within a few months of being released. That
started in the 80s, but I think it was the 2000s before it
became a huge deal (in the 90s, it was mostly reserved for
really big storylines). Because of that, and because of the
lack of internet, comic conventions could do huge business with
back issue comics and comic memorabilia.
I want to say I worked for Miles through about 1985, but between
moving in with my dad (who lived further away) and getting more
and more busy as I approached graduation, I had to quit. I
worked a while at a convenience store, but that didn't work out
well, largely because it was a family concern and I was the only
non-family member at times, and because they completely refused
to accept my schedule needs as a student. On the other hand, it
was much closer to Dad's house, and it did give me access to a
lot of local boys, as well as a few good spanking stories.
I graduated in May of 86 and began teaching that fall. Even
after I quit working for Miles, I continued to work conventions
for him, but I would work some of my own material as well. I
got him to pay most of the fees, so he got first shot at the
merchandise, but even when I couldn't sell stuff for myself, I
was still able to buy stuff. I already planned on opening my
own comic store, and I was building a good back stock of
material people wanted.
As I said before, Miles wasn't much of a businessman. He kept
his store mostly drained of money to keep his wife happy. I
wanted to buy back issues that we could sell - restocking what
we were selling and filling customer requests. He wasn't
interested, and after I bought stuff anyway after a couple of
times, he flat out told me not to buy it for him. Because of
that, there were several times I was able to buy really good
merchandise for myself at dimes on the dollar at the time, and
by the time I opened my store, it had gone up to much more than
that.
In 1989, two things happened more or less simultaneously: first,
Batman the Movie was coming up on it's release day, which seemed
to draw a lot of interest to comics; and, second, Miles agreed
to sell his store. Part of the reason he agreed to sell, I
later learned, is that they were remodeling the building he'd
been in, and his rent was about to go up a lot. A lot more of it
was that he was too cheap to pay someone to run his store for
him, but too lazy to manage it himself. I was able to offer him
a pretty good downpayment for it, and that's all he saw was a
pocket of money - not the income he'd be losing.
I actually had no interest in Miles' store. What I was really
buying was his customer list and a lack of competition. I
already had what I saw as a much better location picked out, but
by buying him out, I got all his customers to transfer to me,
and I didn't have to worry about as much advertising or fights
to gain/keep customers.
I hired someone to run Miles' store for me while I finished
teaching and prepping my new location to open.
I said a bit about that in my story Leaking Joey
HTML https://www.bransomtx.com/leakingjoey.html
While I do think a lot of my business success comes down a lot
to work (being in the right place to have a chance at an
opportunity), I think this was the best decision I ever made
(business wise). It seemed to me that interest in comics had
grown over the 90s - certainly the industry had. I gambled on
Batman being successful and the interest in the movie switching
to comics in general, but it did. Over the next three to four
years, comics were probably more successful than they'd been
since they were first released.
There have been series of articles written about this time in
comics, so I'm not going to try to repeat all that. What I will
say is that there was a speculator explosion. I tried to
discourage my customers from participating. The speculators
didn't seem to understand that the reason golden age comics like
Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #1, and Whiz Comics #2 were
so valuable is that no one ever thought they would be, so kids
carried them in their back pockets, cut coupons from them, and
they were recycled in paper drives for the war effort. As far
as I know right now, there are only six known copies of Action
#1 (the first appearance of Superman) in existence. That means
that if someone buys 50 copies of a book and puts them in museum
quality , archival storage, that book will never be worth what
Action #1 is worth, much less only 5 years down the road.
Unlike the real estate boom nearly 20 years later, comics really
have no intrinsic worth (a few pennies for paper?), and people
quickly became disenchanted when they couldn't make a quick buck
on their 'investments'. Worse, many actual collectors also
became disenchanted, because many people tried to take advantage
of the speculator boom, publishing comics without much
professionalism, so you had 'universes' launched that only
lasted a few issues, or had terrible shipping regularity, or
were just plain bad. By 1995, comics were suddenly passe with
the 'in crowd'. Worse, Marvel comics had took a huge bit out of
the market by starting to distribute their own books.
You have to understand that comics have an actual cover price
printed on them. Technically it's a suggested retail price, but
almost everyone uses it. When a store buys from a distributor,
you order a retail amount, then your discount is figured by your
retail gross. The highest discount most stores get is 55%, but
it can go as low as 40%. Keep in mind that, at this time,
Marvel was by far the largest publisher. When they pulled their
product from the other distributors, suddenly many comic shops
went from 55% to 40%.
In a period of about nine months, between reduced sales and
reduced mark up over what was sold, about 2/3rds of the comic
book stores in America went out of business.
Even before the luckiest break of my life - when I won the lotto
- I was doing all right, for two reasons. First, I was making
use of excel (or was it stll Lotus 1-2-3?) to track my sales.
That means I knew how much I was selling each month, but I also
had a good idea of what my projected sales would be (by
comparing the month I was about to order from from the previous
year, with sales increase/decrease over the previous month and
it's last year). I know other people who tracked at least some
of that data, but still went out of business because they 'knew'
they sold (however many) copies of a certain book, so they
ordered that many even when they weren't selling it anymore.
The other thing that kept me going is that I was always a gaming
store, and when Magic: the Gathering was released, I got behind
it big time, organizing gaming and tournaments at my store.
Even without the lotto, I'm sure I would have stayed in
business. With the lotto winnings, I was able to help people
out by buying their remainder items as they closed. It was a
longer term investment, but when things started to pick up
again, it paid off big.
Many of the people who manage my stores for me - from Josh,
who's no longer with me, to Herman, Tim, Andy, Andrew, and Ben -
went through those same times. There's so much more I could
write about here, like the great things that came from it
(Robin's first self-titled series, Valiant Comics, or Vertigo),
so much that was interesting but ultimately harmful (novelty
covers), and so much that was just badly done (Deathmate,
Continuity Comics, and Image Comics in general), that, as I said
before, it could take a series of articles or even a full book.
Things have recovered since then, but never to the point they
reached in the early 90s. As a matter of fact, while I deal
with a lot of different material these days, actual comics just
aren't a major selling point anymore, which I find a real shame.
#Post#: 15050--------------------------------------------------
Re: Me and the Comic Book Industry
By: Zyngaru Date: September 16, 2019, 4:54 pm
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But the thing is; at any time in the future, comics could have
another comeback. Obviously we can't tell now, what might cause
it to come back into favor, but like in the past, the chance is
always there. A movie, a game, a virtual reality system, some
billionaire someplace in the world, like Dubai who decides to go
all out for comics and brings in a new renaissance. We just
don't know.
#Post#: 15056--------------------------------------------------
Re: Me and the Comic Book Industry
By: db105 Date: September 16, 2019, 5:17 pm
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One problem with comics is that they are kinda expensive. Now,
decompression in comics storytelling is fashionable. That means
that they are not dense with text, and you can read a 4$ comics
pretty quickly. Maybe, to get a story you need 4 or 6 of those,
so the medium is no longer for kids, but for young adults.
#Post#: 15060--------------------------------------------------
Re: Me and the Comic Book Industry
By: Jack Date: September 16, 2019, 5:35 pm
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I have to agree with DB here.
When I first started buying my own comics, in about 1972, comics
were still 20 cents each. When I started high school in 1979,
they were 40 cents. When I graduated high school, in 1983, they
were 60 cents. When I opened my store, in May 1989, the average
comic was $1.00. In '99 they were $1.99. By 2009 they were
$2.99. And now, an average comic runs either $3.99 or $4.99.
There are a lot of reasons for that besides just inflation -
creators now get royalties, and the printing process and the
paper used are all much better quality. Also, where comics were
once available at many places - convenience stores, drug stores,
grocery stores, even five and dimes - now they're difficult to
find outside of specialty stores. Also, both because of the
higher price and because we have to order then non-returnably,
specialty stores tend to order few extras on most titles,
meaning it can be very hard to find something that's not a best
seller.
I was hospitalized once when I was about six years old. My
first step-father, David, came to visit with a stack of comics -
probably 15 or 20 of them... which was a grand total of three
dollars - about 90 minutes of work at minimum wage back then.
Today, 90 minutes of work at minimum wage will buy you a grand
total of two. Comics used to be mainly for kids, and were
easily available to get to kids and for kids. Today, for the
same price as just one or two comics, you can buy an illustrated
chapter book with much more to keep a kid's attention.
Unfortunately, if kids aren't introduced to comics, they'll
never have the chance to learn to enjoy them. Until something
happens to change that trend, I don't think there's much chance
of them making a big comeback.
#Post#: 15073--------------------------------------------------
Re: Me and the Comic Book Industry
By: Zyngaru Date: September 17, 2019, 9:50 am
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Question?
Is it possible to print inexpensive comics? Let's say cut back
to $1.00 a copy? Kid's allowances have increased since I was a
kid, when a dime was a fortune.
What I am getting at is this. Is it possible for someone who
wanted to make the investment to create their own comics line
and print them cheap, for kids. Yes the big names would be out
of reach for lower priced comics, but how about a line of new
superheroes in comics for kids at kid prices.
We see this sort of thing in other industries. When a store
chain gets too big and too expensive, someone like Sam Walton
comes along and sees the opportunity to undercut those expensive
stores and take over the market. Personally I think we are
probably on the brim of something like that happening again,
because The super stores are getting too expensive for the
common laborer. Why couldn't this work in the comic industry?
Just curious to see if this is even a possibility, because I
don't know.
#Post#: 15083--------------------------------------------------
Re: Me and the Comic Book Industry
By: Jack Date: September 17, 2019, 5:03 pm
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Zyngaru, here is an actual plan that I've mentioned to people at
Marvel and DC both. In both cases, some interests was
expressed, after listening politely, and I never saw or heard
anything about it again.
Before I begin, let me remind you that almost every monthly
comic from a major publisher is reprinted in a 'trade paperback'
that collect several comics together. These are often released
within a year of the last issue in the collection. One book
we're ordering this month - Aquaman: Unspoken Water - is
collecting a storyline that just finished last April (about five
months ago).
My suggestion is that either monthly comics could be printed
with a much lower quality, saving the higher quality for the
collections, or they could use a hardcover/softcover format,
releasing at least their most popular titles in both a high and
low quality format. That, however, was tried in the past and
eventually abandoned.
However, none of those ideas solve the problem that comics just
aren't as ubiquitous as they were once. When you could easily
buy a few comics for a sick kid who was staying home from school
while picking up cough medicine or chicken noodle soup and 7-up,
a lot of kids were introduced to them. Now that it requires a
special trip to find them, it's much harder for a kid to be
randomly introduced to them.
One thing I've tried to do is working with movie theaters and
selling comics (especially when I could sell them at a discount
or even give some away) to tie in to comic book movies.
However, in the past few years, I've noticed many theaters
starting to carry their own movie-related merchandise, so even
that's more difficult.
#Post#: 15097--------------------------------------------------
Re: Me and the Comic Book Industry
By: Plagosus Date: September 18, 2019, 9:11 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Jack link=topic=1483.msg15060#msg15060
date=1568673328]
I have to agree with DB here.
When I first started buying my own comics, in about 1972, comics
were still 20 cents each. When I started high school in 1979,
they were 40 cents. When I graduated high school, in 1983, they
were 60 cents. When I opened my store, in May 1989, the average
comic was $1.00. In '99 they were $1.99. By 2009 they were
$2.99. And now, an average comic runs either $3.99 or $4.99.
There are a lot of reasons for that besides just inflation -
creators now get royalties, and the printing process and the
paper used are all much better quality. Also, where comics were
once available at many places - convenience stores, drug stores,
grocery stores, even five and dimes - now they're difficult to
find outside of specialty stores. Also, both because of the
higher price and because we have to order then non-returnably,
specialty stores tend to order few extras on most titles,
meaning it can be very hard to find something that's not a best
seller.
I was hospitalized once when I was about six years old. My
first step-father, David, came to visit with a stack of comics -
probably 15 or 20 of them... which was a grand total of three
dollars - about 90 minutes of work at minimum wage back then.
Today, 90 minutes of work at minimum wage will buy you a grand
total of two. Comics used to be mainly for kids, and were
easily available to get to kids and for kids. Today, for the
same price as just one or two comics, you can buy an illustrated
chapter book with much more to keep a kid's attention.
Unfortunately, if kids aren't introduced to comics, they'll
never have the chance to learn to enjoy them. Until something
happens to change that trend, I don't think there's much chance
of them making a big comeback.
[/quote]
I can say much the same for the UK. In the 1950s The Dandy cost
2d and had a circulation of 2,000,000. The spending power of 2d
in 1960 is equivalent to about 20p today when the cheapest
newspaper (unlike The Dandy) subsidised by adverts) costs 50p. I
cannot see a comic selling for 20p even with a circulation of
2,000,000.
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