Barnes and Noble - your neighbourhood comic shop?

[thunderbolt]

^^^ Then Diamond needs to reach out beyond the direct market to new outlets if they are the only distributor. They also need to get the big 3 or 4 publishers to do some reprints or new stuff and a deeper discount to get hinders in the seats. Get spinner racks back in 7-11's full of one or two buck kid friendly material and they will be pulling in future audiences.

[johnmiic]

If B&N is getting into carrying current comic titles -then it is because they want to put your local comic shops out of business. Support your local shops and avoid B&N at all costs.

When I worked for B&N in 1990 they were poised to launch their "Superstores". The point of their superstores was to put the competition out of business. If they could carry nearly everything in print in each of these stores-no one else could compete with them. Many other smaller & family owned bookstores went out of business in NY when the B&N Superstore came into vogue, (Eeyore's, Tower Books, Colliseum Books, B. Dalton-which they bought out, Ruby's Books to name a few I can remember). Only Shakespeare & Co. remain as a competing chain of bookstores here in NY, (and that's because the customers at S&Co. are snobs and loathe` B&N). The movie You've Got Mail (1998), uses this point as part of its story. Tom Hanks is a stand in for the Riggio Bros. who own the B&N franchise.

[kingdom warrior]

If Diamond or Marvel or whoever wants to get comics to kids, drop the prices and get them into 7-11 and Wal-Mart, and get them to download cheaper than print. Its really a simple solution to the problem.

Great Idea, but when you're a bunch of greedy SOB's like Marvel and DC who only look at the dollar sign.......that's never going to happen.

[VintageMike]

I'm favor for two reasons. One, in the big picture it will hopefully mean more comics sold overall. Secondly while I will always support a shop first, I've had to change shops twice in the last year and a half as two closed. While I know of more it's always nice to have another option of where to get my comics.

[samurainoir]

Here's the thing I think most people are not grasping... comics are actually MORE accessible with a ridiculous amount of material kept in print, than any other time in North America history.

If a kid wants comics, it's not necessarily the 7-11, drugstore or newstand... pretty much most bookstores these days have a graphic novel section, and the big superstore ones have more than one... with specific Graphic Novel sections in both the kids and teens sections as well as the big one for the grown ups.

I wish I could go back and time and kidnap my 8 year old self and plunk him into a contemporary Chapters/Indigo or Barnes and Noble. Those shelves are monoliths of comics reading compared to the puny spinner rack of the 70's.

Not that that in itself doesn't have risks as well... bookstore returns might even be riskier than newstand returns. Diamond started distributing to the bookstore market on a returnable basis a few years ago... and the Borders situation is not pretty.

Whatever direction this goes, just keep in mind that these days traditional print is potentially a huge pitfall. And it won't be the monoliths like DC or Marvel that could suffer the most. They are essentially reduced to R&D for their licensing and feature film/television divisions... that's where the real profits are, not the floppy colourful pamphlets. The big two aren't primarily interested in selling comics anymore... they are selling bedsheets and sneakers and movies.

[thunderbolt]

^^ Yeah, but DC and Marvel need that gateway drug to keep more people like us flowing. A parent isn't going to buy a 3.99 comic for a kid that is as thin as a dime and not to mention part 16 of 82 of some idiot storyline. Now a parent might buy 3 or 4 dollar comics for that kid. Of course, I'm assuming that DC and Marvel want to keep the floppy comic, they might not give a damn about it and go to all trades. They are probably easier to distribute and book sellers are more likely to carry them. When the floppies go, so does the LCS.

[samurainoir]

The best way to get a kid to read a comic these days? Install any of the ridiculous amount of comic apps on their iphone/ipad... particularly ones with free content.

I'm suspecting that this discussion is centred around trying to preserve the old paradigm of superhero print comics we grew up with rather than promote the broader scope of "comics" themselves.

Witness the Scott Pilgrim launch party on Toronto's Markham Street last year (outside one of the most innovative comic stores ever, The Beguiling)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIpxJH61cB4

The participants were mostly in their teens and twenties, and numbered in FOUR DIGITS! When was the last time a Marvel or DC event sparked that kind of excitement?

Kids are reading comics, but it's just not necessarily Dad's comics.

Scott Pilgrim is six original graphic novels in "manga" format, 168 pages and sells for about ten bucks a pop. With a readership comprised of kids, teens, twenty-somethings and older hipsters, Male AND FEMALE, this is as broad an audience as you can hit with comics.

And Bone is also a runaway success in this regard as well now that the colour scholastic editions are pretty much everywhere (including the school book club).

[thunderbolt]

yeah, and Scott Pilgrim did great at the box office.

[samurainoir]

yeah, and Scott Pilgrim did great at the box office.

That's not really the point of this discussion though is it?

Here's the "Box Office" for the graphic novel in August of last year. If that isn't a huge sub-thirty demographic audience for print, I don't know what is...

http://geeksyndicate.files.wordpress...pg?w=640&h=435

Scott Pilgrim dominates Diamond sales - Comics News - Digital Spy

Scott Pilgrim Tops the Sales Charts



The Point: "Kids don't read comics anymore" and "we need to get more kids reading comics" isn't what most people are actually expressing here. I think it's a pretty safe bet that "comics" will be around in some form or another for quite some time. It just might not be the comics we remember so fondly from our own childhoods.

Anyone who says there are no outlets or material for kids to experience comics and get into them just don't have their eyes open to the amount of material that is actually available.

[thunderbolt]

OK, so kids are reading one comic, and it tanked as a movie. I stand corrected.

[Janson]

Why would you use BnN as a comic shop if you have a local one is beyond me? BnN 10% off coupons, pfft, any LCS would gladly match match the discount. Their are alot of Comics that are really good out there that the big 2 don't publish and would not see the light of day if they didn't sell in LCS's first. Scott Pilgrim would never be carried in BnN unless Diamond sales in smaller shops didn't show how popular it was.

Walmart will win the retail wars by 2030 but I guess everyone just wants to shop there anyway.

[ctc]

>so kids are reading one comic, and it tanked as a movie

They're reading a lot more than one. Who do you think bought 50 volumes of Naruto? (And counting....)

Don C.

[Janson]

If Barnes and Noble becomes the destination for comics kiss the genre good-bye, its over Johnny.

Look what we did to the Music industry, goodbye to any semblance of art form.

[ctc]

>If Barnes and Noble becomes the destination for comics kiss the genre good-bye, its over Johnny.

I disagree. Comics moving OUT of the comic shops and into the bookstores 10 years ago was the best thing that happened to them in a LONG time. You can get a much wider variety of material now; as opposed to the 90's when it was either Image, or an Image ripoff. Even for the Big Two and a Half; you can get compilations of comics from a fifty year span, anything you want. Don't like the new stuff from DC? Pick up them Showcase collections. Hell; I'm not even a superhero fan, and I've read the first hundred issues of Fantastic Four, Spiderman, The Avengers, Teen Titans.... just 'cos they're cheap and readily available. That wouldn't have been feasable for me AT ALL before comics moved to the bookstores. It's a boom-time for casual readers, the curious, and those not willing to sink hundreds of dollars into reading copies of the classics. And THAT'S what pulls in new fans, the ability to try stuff, without shelling out $5 for 22 pages of story based on some obscure nerdly bit from 20 years back. ("Wait.... Humbug is actually.... UNCLE BEN?!?!?")

>Look what we did to the Music industry, goodbye to any semblance of art form.

Music is kind of an odd one; but even then, it's not completely bleak. CD sales have been up for a while; not for the big companies, but for the "small press" stuff. (File sharing back in the 90's hit the biggies hard, but the networks and means established allowed smaller bands more acces to audiences.) And the big chains have started noticing. I can get stuff like the Creepshow, or The Matadors at HMV. Lots of the older stuff has been reissued on disk as of late too; allowing me to finish off my sets of groups like the Monks (including a recent issue of their never released third album) or BOC.... often including songs that had never been available before.

Don C.

[Janson]

>If Barnes and Noble becomes the destination for comics kiss the genre good-bye, its over Johnny.

I disagree. Comics moving OUT of the comic shops and into the bookstores 10 years ago was the best thing that happened to them in a LONG time. You can get a much wider variety of material now; as opposed to the 90's when it was either Image, or an Image ripoff. Even for the Big Two and a Half; you can get compilations of comics from a fifty year span, anything you want. Don't like the new stuff from DC? Pick up them Showcase collections. Hell; I'm not even a superhero fan, and I've read the first hundred issues of Fantastic Four, Spiderman, The Avengers, Teen Titans.... just 'cos they're cheap and readily available. That wouldn't have been feasable for me AT ALL before comics moved to the bookstores. It's a boom-time for casual readers, the curious, and those not willing to sink hundreds of dollars into reading copies of the classics. And THAT'S what pulls in new fans, the ability to try stuff, without shelling out $5 for 22 pages of story based on some obscure nerdly bit from 20 years back. ("Wait.... Humbug is actually.... UNCLE BEN?!?!?")

>Look what we did to the Music industry, goodbye to any semblance of art form.


Music is kind of an odd one; but even then, it's not completely bleak. CD sales have been up for a while; not for the big companies, but for the "small press" stuff. (File sharing back in the 90's hit the biggies hard, but the networks and means established allowed smaller bands more acces to audiences.) And the big chains have started noticing. I can get stuff like the Creepshow, or The Matadors at HMV. Lots of the older stuff has been reissued on disk as of late too; allowing me to finish off my sets of groups like the Monks (including a recent issue of their never released third album) or BOC.... often including songs that had never been available before.

Don C.

I gotta respectfully disagree. I don't understand the correlation of bookstores as the ones we should thank for cheap reprints of material from 50 years ago. That really is just a natural progression of publishing existing material in any format. Marvel and DC have been reprinting their books since the get go.
I'm glad that already published books are more readily available today no doubt, but good luck getting any new stories once the comic shops are gone. Like the LCS or not its THE vital part of the industry today and without them as a "proving grounds" for independent books, you don't have half the material of the last 40 years plus and now half the damn movies in Hollywood.
I'm just telling it like it is, you don't support your small comic shop your really not supporting comics. And yes I'm the jerk that will be telling everyone told you so.
By the way don't go to your Local Comic Shop for Free Comic Book Day next week, go to Barnes and Noble and see what happens.
Michael Kormanik