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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133317
Posted: 04 March 2013 at 11:12am | IP Logged | 1  
DANGER: UNLIMITED was the first of my books to be killed by the Direct Sales Market. Orders on the first issue were a lot less than the record-breaking JBNM, and, sadly, in the interim retailers had "learned" from the Image explosion that they wanted only books that sold thru the roof. The "bubble" was beginning.

DU started out with orders that would have been fine six months earlier, but the retailers slashed orders on the second and third issues, both without the first even having shipped yet. When I saw the numbers, I realized only half as many people would be able to buy the second issue as bought the first, and even less for the third. The book was essentially born dead, as it had no way of building a readership. The DSM simply wouldn't allow it.

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Allan Summerall
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Joined: 27 June 2012
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Posted: 04 March 2013 at 11:28am | IP Logged | 2  
That's a shame and reading your intro to the book from 2009,it really makes you wonder what retailers were thinking(or not thinking)back then. There's so much packed into those issues,I know I'll have to reread it a few times to absorb it all. As a huge fan of your FF work,this really scratched the itch of seeing you do more FF in a sense. 
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William T. Byrd
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Posted: 04 March 2013 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | 3  
When #1 came out, there were 3 places selling comics in the town I went to college... One store out of the three stocked #1, and none of the stores stocked the other 3 issues. Seems only one of the shops was run by someone that knew much about comics, and his response when I asked him about the series was something along the line of " if it ain't Image or Marvel it isn't worth stocking"

Surprise... he was out of business a year later.

I did get issues 1-20 of Alpha Flight from that store by trading in a McFarlane issue of Amazing Spider-Man... I was so happy to get my hands on those issues after having lost them a few years earlier.
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Thomas Moudry
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Joined: 16 April 2004
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Posted: 04 March 2013 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | 4  
Wow, William! So much for "discovering" a title in that store...

It's like television networks not giving a series a chance to find an audience
before they yank it from the schedule.
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Thomas Moudry
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Posted: 04 March 2013 at 11:49pm | IP Logged | 5  
Incidentally, I remember going to a comics shop when Danger Unlimited was
on the horizon and having to ask for it. The manager only ordered it for me
because he had that Marvel-and-Image-are-all-that-sells philosophy.
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Bill Collins
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Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
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Posted: 05 March 2013 at 6:52am | IP Logged | 6  
It says it all when 20 issues of Alpha Flight are deemed only worth one McFarlane Spider-man,William you got a bargain,but it is a sad indictment of the comic industry.
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William T. Byrd
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Posted: 05 March 2013 at 9:42am | IP Logged | 7  
It says it all when 20 issues of Alpha Flight are deemed only worth one McFarlane Spider-man,William you got a bargain,but it is a sad indictment of the comic industry.

I can't remember what the issue of Amazing was "booking" or "Wizarding"  for at the time, but I do remember feeling he was trying to low-ball me. When I told him what I was really after - the issues of Alpha Flight he had in stock - He was like "oh, hell, sure take'em all." 

A friend of mine that had moved out to Denver during that time, called and told me how great a read Danger Unlimited was... and that it was his favorite Byrne work ever... but it would be 12 years later for me to finally pick them up at a convention and get to read them.
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