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Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11264
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 4:45am | IP Logged | 1
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One of the big problems with the direct market,is that most young kids cannot go into a major town or city on their own,but are free to visit newsagents in their neighbourhood by themselves,this is how many of us got into comics.If the direct market was all there was in the 70`s,i would have had to get a bus and train to travel 12 miles to the nearest comic shop,which would have been way too expensive and not allowed by my parents for safety reasons.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132629
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 5:08am | IP Logged | 2
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Comics need to be sold where other magazines are sold, where people can find them without a special trip, where impulse buying can once again become a factor.+++ I've never been able to understand why retailers can't seem to grasp this so-simple piece of logic. How can they be that short-sighted, yet be business owners? •• Many retailers -- not all, thank dog, but enough to make a problem -- belong to that idiotic mindset in which a dollar made by someone else is perceived as a dollar they, themselves, have "lost". Getting comics back into the widest number of venues would go a long way toward restoring the DSM to its original function, as an after-market for back issue sales.
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Kip Lewis
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 March 2011
Posts: 2880
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 5:09am | IP Logged | 3
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On the other hand, one of the big difference between now
and when we were kids is we left the house and played in
the neighborhood and would go to local stores. One of
the big losses and complaints about kids today is the
don't go outside. Between fear of abductions and all the
cool inside toys like the computer, and parents over
scheduling time, that trip to the local store with
friends is a thing of the past.
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Craig Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 November 2010
Location: United States
Posts: 1756
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 5:38am | IP Logged | 4
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Without knowing anything about the inner-workings of comics, I'd say that if I owned an LCS, I would love it if more places offered new titles to pull kids into comics so that they might then make trips to my shop to buy back-issues and over-priced comic paraphernalia. My teenage son tries to talk comics with his classmates at school, but there are only a handful of kids who know actual comics. And like my son, only because their fathers were comic readers and take them to the LCS. When I was growing up, there was only one comic book shop within a 30 mile radius to buy comics after Hooks Pharmacy pulled their spinner racks in my hometown. And this was pre-internet, so as a person under the driving age, I had to somehow know someone who knew someone who knew where that comic shop was AND had to convince my parents to drive there. It was an impossible endeavor. I didn't really begin to build a collection until I had a driver's license, a car and a part-time job. When Disney bought Marvel, I really hoped that they would crack down on the main universe books to be more child-friendly and approachable in contrast to the Ultimate books which cater to older readers. Unfortunately, the main universe books have become the Ultimate universe and the Ultimate books are unreadable. Don't even get me started on the Marvel Max snuff-porn
Edited by Craig Robinson on 14 April 2013 at 5:39am
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Clifford Boudreaux
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2012
Posts: 443
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 5:50am | IP Logged | 5
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I'm ignorant of how the newsstand industry works. Is there just a few newsstand distributors? Is it the distributor who determines what is ordered, or is it the news seller?
Generally speaking, the store has very little to do with what gets ordered. The newsstand vendor sets up a display and cycles the merchandise, charging the location for whatever is sold/missing. If they're so inclined the store owner/manager can request stuff, but it's up to the vender to stock it.
But most often, there's a disinterested third party in between the buyer and the seller. It's about the worst possible system you could have in place for customer satisfaction which goes a long way toward explaining why comic fans migrated to comic shops where the person behind the counter at least has a vested interested in what they're selling.
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Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11264
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 6:04am | IP Logged | 6
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When i was a kid we weren`t allowed outside alone much because the `Moors Murders` and `Cannock Chase Murders` were very fresh in our parents minds,the latter was a child muderer based in Walsall.So the very near locality was as far as we were allowed.
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Shawn Kane
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 November 2010
Location: United States
Posts: 3239
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 6:38am | IP Logged | 7
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Jeffrey mentioned Toys R Us earlier. I saw that my local Toys R Us has moved their comics from the action figure section to their video game section. Not sure which area would serve comics best but at least they're in areas that make sense.
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Robert White
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4560
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 7:23am | IP Logged | 8
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Digital is a very possible savior. I'm 35 and have made the switch to digital as far as the new stuff I read, all of which I read on comixology. I have ZERO interest in individual issues and storing them. (I either want digital or nice TPB editions to go on my bookshelf)
Now if I can make that leap, it has to be second nature to younger potential readers. What I see standing in the way now is the ridiculous prices which, to my understanding, are there currently so the DSM store owners don't cry foul. At what point do people start realizing that the DSM is a huge part of the problem and fast becoming an obstacle to growth?
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Jason Czeskleba
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 April 2004
Posts: 4565
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 12:51pm | IP Logged | 9
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Clifford Boudreaux wrote:
The only thing preventing it is the newsstand distributors. Marvel and DC aim dozens of books at the newsstand each and every month. They've never stopped aiming books at the newsstand.
The newsstand vendors don't order the books. |
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True, but one of the reasons mainstream vendors don't want comics (and haven't for at least 25 years or so) is because the comic companies have failed to produce a product appealing to them, that they believe they can sell or that is worth their time to sell. Price and content of the books are likely factors in that.
At any rate, I do believe the window of opportunity has closed. The time for comics to get back into mainstream distribution was 15 years ago. Periodical print media is dying off and most magazines are struggling to hang on. When major magazines are floundering, it's not the time for the ugly stepsister of periodicals (comics) to get a date to the ball.
Maybe digital is the solution. The thing that turns me off about it is that you generally can't purchase a digital copy of a comic that you can read at any time, anywhere. You can only purchase access to read stuff on the server of the content provider, and that means you're limited to reading only when you have internet access. You're also SOL if the site crashes. That kinda stuff bothers me, but I am a collector and have a collector's mentality. Maybe civilians will be okay with that model.
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Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11264
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 1:41pm | IP Logged | 10
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Is one thing preventing news stand distribution the sheer glut of titles that the big two have flooded the market with? 52 DC titles and god knows how many Marvel? Where do the news stands find the space?
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Jason Czeskleba
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 April 2004
Posts: 4565
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 1:51pm | IP Logged | 11
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I don't think Marvel and DC make all of their titles available to mainstream retailers via conventional distributors. In the rare instances when I come across comics at a mainstream retailer these days, it's always just a handful of the "big name" titles/characters. So I suspect they already are trying to limit the selection to avoid overwhelming retailers.
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Kevin Sharp
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 09 December 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 326
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| Posted: 14 April 2013 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | 12
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While this is not a distribution issue, I have been repeating for years (since comics were $2/issue) that EVERY new #1 should be 99 cents -- whether it's a brand new title or a reset of an existing title.
If I were running one of the companies - big or small - this would be my mandate. I want as many people as possible to sample my wares!
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