This thread, while consistently fascinating, is a nightmare to keep up with. I've got four partially written responses sitting on my desktop that refer to posts that have long since been superceded. (I still have yet to answer Rick's question about buying direct from halfway up the first part.)

Anyway: JM, Your historical perspective is accurate in the facts, but I question some of the interpretation. Yes, the "Diamond Market" was distorted before the onset of Diamond's game (though I would think it was Go For Broke, but maybe that's too cute.) There is even an argument to be made that the distortion dates back to the "Seuling Market" of 1973.

For the purposes of this discussion, I would start with the Diamond purchase of Bud Plant's distribution business which followed quickly after Bud's takeover of Alternate Realities from the Rozanskis.

This acquisition brought Diamond up into the range of 45% of the distribution market and gave them coast-to-coast distribution centers. Among the assets that came with the west coast operation was Bud's catalogue department. The unique thing about Bud's business was that his catalogues were bifurcated. There was the monthly order form, that came loaded with advice for retailers about ordering, sales and general business advice and a couple of dozen pages of comics listings. Then Bud had his quarterly retail mail-order catalogue that he'd been sending out since 1970, essentially the same one he puts out today.

In a far-sighted effort to help retailers move beyond the limited variety of product types the were willing to carry, Bud offered his customers non- branded copies of this catalogue (at print cost) so that they could expose their customers to books, statues, t-shirts, and other "high-priced" goods (which could then be ordered from Bud.

Remember that contemporaneously retailers were unwilling to order more than 5 copies of Dark Knight because $2.95 was too much to charge for a Batman graphic novel, especially the first of FOUR books.

So Diamond buys Bud out, moves his catalogue designer to Baltimore and decides that four catalogues a year is not enough to justify the investment. How about converting the monthly order form to this format, so stores can take orders for everything from their customers in advance? Sounds like everybody wins, huh?

Well, maybe not. At the same time Capital was converting their order form into Advance Comics with many of the same goals in mind. So, all of a sudden, retailers accounting for 3/4 of the market are being encouraged to remake their businesses on the model of their suppliers.

Who needs to estimate how many customers will want French Ice versus the ones who will want Samurai Santa? Give ‘em a catalogue, and let ‘em order what they want.

Remember, the comics stores from the "bad old days" of the early 80's? They were ugly, dirty little holes-in-the-wall, around the corner, and down in the basement. But they had lots of COOL STUFF! Over the course of the next 5 years they were supplanted by slat-walled, plexi-glas fixtured catalogue showrooms.

When was the last time anyone went into a Sam Goody for a catalogue of CD's that could be ordered for delivery at some point between one and six months later?

Personally, I never bought in to the advance order system. We carried Previews (and Advance Comics and Comics Scoreboard) but we never used them to stop being merchants. We carried French Ice (and not Samurai Santa) until you stopped publication. Our orders for the Moebius books from Marvel were based strictly on sales of previous volumes and we continued to stock then as long as they were available.

None of these stopped us from selling TONS of Batman comics, T-shirts, dolls, PVC's, et. al. (We do have a lot of Joker stand-ups somewhere, if anyone's interested.)

So I agree with your time-line and your recollections of what went on with sales, I just disagree about the proximate causes.

Jim "finally finished one" Hanley

Jim Hanley said:

"We carried French Ice (and not Samurai Santa) until you stopped publication. Our orders for the Moebius books from Marvel were based strictly on sales of previous volumes and we continued to stock then as long as they were available. None of these stopped us from selling TONS of Batman comics, T-shirts, dolls, PVC's, et. al."

Jim, I fear you were the exception, not the rule.

You have earned my respect in terms of the quality of your stores.

The only purpose of this message (and its predecessor) is not to whinge, just to recount my own experience, and dispel some bogus notions.

I had long conversations with Deni Loubert at the time when Renegade started spiralling down, for no other reason than being squeezed out of the market because -- and I still hold with this -- of the redirecting of cash flow by retailers into buying bat-crap.

A steady, regular seller like FRENCH ICE does not lose 60-75% of its sales in 3 months because of what's in the book, or because suddenly 6 out of 10 customers wake up and say to themselves, "Geez, why have I been buying this book for 8 months? I must stop now."

If anyone has any other explanation, I'd like to hear it. I researched it fairly thoroughly at the time.

A few years later, deja vu. My conversations with the late, lamented Carol Kalish re: the plummeting of MOEBIUS graphic novel sales led to the same conclusion: we sold the *same* number of copies of MOEBIUS books in roughly 800 stores (at the time, 20% of the market); the other 3200 stores were just squeezing us out -- notwithstanding the fact that they had sold out of our books before!

We had actual examples of stores that had sold 20 Moebius books literally within the week (try finding an INCAL graphic novel) two years before and were now ordering 8 copies. When asked, the answer was always: "I can't afford to order more."

Which is why when I read comments about the quality and/or dependability of books from Diamond or some of their cronies, I laugh. You couldn't beat Moebius and FRENCH ICE for both, and we still went down.

Jean-Marc

Jim Hanley brought up an interesting point about the distributor order forms: 'Who needs to estimate how many customers will want French Ice versus the ones who will want Samurai Santa? Give ‘em a catalogue, and let ‘em order what they want.'

Can anyone confirm that the consumer order form resulted in retailers being less adventurous in what they order? It seems to me that a retailer knows exactly how many order forms are turned in at his shop, and it's a feeble excuse if he or she should decide to take fewer risks simply because the order form exists. But just because it's irrational doesn't mean it didn't happen that way.

The other thing I'd like to ask is, where should we go from here? Is anyone recommending that Diamond eliminate the consumer order form? Is there a way it can be more useful? Does anyone have statistics on how many order forms are turned in, for their individual shop, or for the entire industry?

By the way, I run a little news service, Indypreviews, whose intent is to provide support for indy comics consumers using the consumer order form. It can be linked to from my website.

I've been using the consumer order form myself, although it tries my patience-- Lux and Alby came in about 3 months late, and I still haven't gotten the copies of Measles 1 and 3 I ordered!


------------------
Joe Zabel
joezabel@hotmail.com
Vist the Amazing Montage webpage: http://members.tripod.com/~amazingmontage or go to the Joe Zabel booth in 'Select a Booth' above!

JM: Of course we were the exception. That was my point. We didn't swallow the distributors' line that we should stop carrying comics that we did not have advance orders for. We saw this as one more example of distributors just not getting it. They ordered merchandise based on customer orders, so we should too. They decided what was good based on what was ordered, we decided was good based on what we liked.

I well remember a conversation I had in the summer of 1989 with Ron Forman & Walter Wang of my then-distributor Comics Unlimited. I told them I was setting up direct accounts with publishers because they were doing such a poor job of keeping the good stuff in stock.

"Bud Plant was right!" I told them. "We need to have Prince Valiant in stock and available."

After they stopped laughing, Walter said "Bud Plant was wrong and you don't need Prince Valiant."

I didn't know then and don't know now how to respond to that. There was (and is) no way to objectively prove that I was right. It was a difference of opinion and in the comics retailer/comics distributor relationship all ties go to the dealer. That is, the distributor. After all distributors have spent the last twenty years laboring to keep retailers barefoot and pregnant.

And the bile directed at Diamond for the last four years is deserved not because Diamond eliminated its high-minded, comics-loving, eleemosynary competition. It's because they are the last of the breed of rapacious, greedy distributors who treat their customers as competition for every last dollar to be made selling comics.

On a couple of technicalities, I feel the need to note that for us the first Moebius graphic novel sold better than any subsequent one. Whether this was because we oversold it to customers who didn't appreciate it or because Marvel buyers tried it and also didn't get it, I'm unsure. But I can say with a high degree of certainty that we were never able to achieve the sales penetration with the later volumes. And we took a bath with the early Blueberry books.

I think you analysis still ignores the possibility that the Batmania phenomenon and the drop in orders for French Ice were coincidental. Despite my respect for you and Deni Loubert. I question your ability to determine the cause of retailer order changes from afar. The nature of ordering comics non-returnable means that publishers are cut off from direct contact with actual sell-through information. If issue 1 sells badly, the only feedback you get is a reduction in orders for issue 5. The intervening issues are ordered based upon best-guess application of historical data regarding sales of second issues versus first, third issues versus second, etc.

No amount of railing against stupid retailers killing books by cutting orders on second issues will stop this practice. There's a good reason for this: it works. No matter what the comic, or who the creator, the second issue always sells fewer copies. If the orders for issue 2 are too low to fill demand, I'll wager the orders for issue 1 were also.

I'm willing to concede that comics retailers a superstitious and cowardly lot, but (to mix references) sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Jim Hanley

Joe Zabel asks: Can anyone confirm that the consumer order form resulted in retailers being less adventurous in what they order?

What, my opinion isn't enough for you?

Joe Zabel said: It seems to me that a retailer knows exactly how many order forms are turned in at his shop, and it's a feeble excuse if he or she should decide to take fewer risks simply because the order form exists.

The only thing a retailer know exactly is that his retirement depends on the AARP lobbying Congress for higher Food Stamp benefits. Despite the fact that to many fans (and creators) comics retailers may seem to be high up the food chain, the truth is that we are usually surviving hand-to- mouth. The landlord is just a pain about taking comics to cover the rent and employees are not much better about it.

Last night I took Alex Simmons down to the basement to show him why no one had been able to find the copies of Blackjack that had been inadvertently sent down there. He was not the first to compare it to the warehouse from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. And as I've often pointed out to people when holding up a pile of left-over comics, these all used to be dollars.

So a lack of adventurousness among retailers is to be applauded not ridiculed. It's a necessary survival trait.

Oops! Posted twice.

[This message has been edited by Jim Hanley (edited 07-17-99).]

Dear Jim:

Re: FRENCH ICE. What happened was as follows. Deni had originally committed for 6 issues. #1 naturally did quite well -- around 12,000 -- #2 dropped to around 8,000 then it sort of went up a bit and hovered in the 9,000-10,000 range for #3, #4, #5 and #6. The book was bimonthly so we had plenty of time to track sales.

By then, of course, Deni decided to go for another six issues. So we did #7, and #8 and suddenly -- CRASH! Orders went spiralling down. The curve from #9 to #13 (the last issue) were a straight line going down from 9,000 to about 3,000.

I was given to understand that the same happened to WORDSMITH, etc. Retailers had seemingly decided that there wasn't enough money to spare to keep Renegade in business, notwithstanding the fact that FRENCH ICE *was* popular.

(Hell, Frank Miller even drew a cameo by CARMEN CRU in ELEKTRA LIVES.)

Maybe the release of the batcrap at around the same time was just a coincidence? But if you have another explanation for the above phenomenon, I'd love to hear it.

Re: MOEBIUS. You're quite right -- #1 did exceedingly well. In fact, it went back to press & in total sold 32,000 copies. I didn't even factor it in my message because I was well aware of the #1-magic factor.

#2 and #3 did quite well too. They too went back to press, totalling sales of about 25,000.

#4 and #6 did around 20,000 and #5 (January release???) did less well (even though it was an all-new story at the time): around 16,000.

Then we released the three INCAL books which, being a little more expensive, did 15,000 with a peak of 18,000 for #1 of course.

The first five BLUEBERRY -- being a western and all -- did around 12,000.

I also think the downward curve is indicative of the Barbarians getting closer to the Forum (Marvel, the heart of the Empire).

Then we did #7 (THE GODDESS), which by normal standards ought to have sold around 15,000 copies had there been no distortion.

But by then, the barbarians were rampaging on the forum, the glory days of Epic were gone. For the first time we dipped below 10,000.

So MOEBIUS #7 (THE GODDESS, a sequel to #5 and an all-new story) did actually less well than BLUEBERRY. Amazing, huh?

To me, the answer is the same: Cash flow was being reallocated en masse, away from certain products (notwithstanding the fact that a) they were good; b) they shipped on time, and c) they sold in known quantities) and into other products -- first the bat crap, then the multiple covers, then the new #1s of everything, then the holograms, etc.

When you're being shown the door, you don't overstay your welcome. Hence my decision to mostly (not entirely) write off the comic book market.

Again, the ONLY point I'm trying to make here is that when Diamond talks about quality and/or reliability (see the recent discussion about Bissette), I laugh because I think it's either a lie or a delusion.

JM

Dear JM:

As with much of debate on this thread, the antagonists (you & I) are on the same side of the argument.

There may well be people at Diamond with taste and a commitment to the medium rather than just the business of comics. It's just that they have never identified themselves. While I would definitely count Phil Fournier among that number, he hasn't worked there for many years.

Some of my best friends in the field would argue that this is as it should be. Let the businessmen handle the business, and the artists the art. Unfortunately, the result of this is not necessarily good for business or art.

While your details of the French Ice sales trends bolster your arguments, I still find the concept that orders for Batman sneakers caused retailers to turn away good money for Wordsmith counter-intuitive. Not impossible to believe, but I'm still in the ranks of the unconvinced.

I was similarly skeptical of First's argument in 1983 that Marvel's solicitation of The Elektra Saga and the Moon Knight reprints caused stores to turn away customers for American Flagg. Or Denis Kitchen's similar complaint in 1990 about the McFarlane Spider-Man 1 vs. the Spirit reprints.

All I am currently willing to concede is the possibility that retailers cut orders for back-stocking on these titles in those months. On the face of it, its obvious that the net effect would be the same. It's just easier to believe that orders were cut for books that were intended for sale long-term than for books that would have sold within a week of their arrival on the racks.

And, of course, we are only able to speculate now as you & Deni (and later you & Carol) did then. This is not unlike making anthropological pronouncements without doing field observation. Some number (5000?) of individuals made discrete decisions on what to order and we are disputing their thought processes based upon the numeric total of their orders.

One more thing. I've learned not to trust retailers own testimony in matters of ordering. Too often responses like "I couldn't afford it." really mean: "I don't know what the @#$% I'm doing most of the time, so I cut everything by 20%."

And we must remember that Mr. Heinlein tells us that "common sense is neither."

Jim "final arbiter" Hanley

As a retailer there are several things you know:

A) you have a limited number of customers (planning for walk in sales is very difficult/ to impossible)

B) what sells to your core customers.

c) your core customers have a limited free money supply..


given the above facts you realize that you have "X" amount of recoverable cash you can use to place orders to diamond...

Now the thing I see currently eating up the dollars which would otherwise be used for indy's are:

A) Toys (action figures)

B) Anime vidoes, mechandise, and manga... (all of which I personally buy and which keeps my cash away from the indy's)

C) "Mainstream" varient covers and assorted gimmicks.

Its an old cycle which was definitely in play during the timeline Jean-marc is speaking of... the names and dates may have changed but the effects are just as devistating.

Bottom line: Quality and timeliness are definately factors in a books sales but other factors can include: pop culture prominence, sexual appeal, name recognition, advertising, direct and indirect competition for sales, and target market intuition(which I believe would fall under the heading of tribal maketing).

Jason.

------------------
chuma.cas.usf.edu/~jmaranto/home.html





[This message has been edited by jason_maranto (edited 07-18-99).]

Jason said: >>As a retailer there are several things you know: A) you have a limited number of customers (planning for walk in sales is very difficult/ to impossible) B) what sells to your core customers. c) your core customers have a limited free money supply.<<

With all do respect, Jason, I'd have to observe what retailers and everyone else in the business should also know: Those core customers (for phony collectible superhero comics) are dwindling at a precipitous rate. To save the Direct Sales Market, you need to bring in those walk-ins (non-superhero readers) in great numbers. Unfortunately, the exclusives and Diamond, who unquestionably control the market, are in the superhero business and have made it next to impossible for new directions to happen.

Jim: Your observations are astute and funny (although in a tragic sort of way). I wish the retailers would band together and formulate a direction this business might go in that is good for them. Direct sales needs a strong and profitable retailer base that tells the publishers what the customers want (via sales to new customers) not the other way around.
I would have to concur with Jean-Marc about how the various gluts created by Marvel, DC and Image affected sales for self published bottom feeding titles in the nineties. A big summer superhero 'event' was a guarantee your sales would take a hit, even in the best of times. And the fact that the 'event' was almost always a money pit for retailers, and that they would buy in again for the next one. was a source of constant amazement and frustration to those of us trying to expand what the form could be (i.e. create new customers).


------------------
Rick Veitch
Invites You To Read THE DAILY RARE BIT FIENDS
updated every day along with news of the world's most popular artform!
THE COMICON.COM DAILY SPLASHis always refreshing!
www.comicon.com/splash