Do comic shops actually hurt comic sales?

[Figuremod73]

Looking at Whitmans page, it looks like they didnt last past '85 themselves.

[Figuremod73]

I loved those digest DC put out in the late seventies/early eighties. I use to read the heck out of those.

I had a Aunt who worked at a small town drugstore and she use to say that the comics didnt sell to well (this was in the early '80s), so they started ordering less and less of them, except for the ones in packs from Whitman. I was disappointed because that was my go to place for alot of stuff at the time.

[monitor_ep]

Plus I love the special deals comixology does. this week to get ready for the iZombie pilot tonight you can buy the whole series for under $30.

I like it when once a month the do these big collections of old and new comics for 99 cents each.

[samurainoir]

What killed the comic book stores was digital comics with back issue from 99 cents to $1.99 compared to $100 or higher for the actually comic book.

and given that most kids I know have their nose in a phone or tablet constantly anyways, that makes comics even that much more accessible if you don't live anywhere near a brick and mortar comic shop or book store. I can read pretty much whatever I want, whenever I want with a few taps. I live five minutes away from a comic shop... if you told me in the nineties that I would prefer digital to print, I wouldn't have believed it. Cost/Convenience has won out in my old age. And storage. There is no more room for long boxes anymore.

I'd say the high grade vintage dealer is still thriving from what I see and hear (with online being the preferred method of moving large inventory at a good price). But the market for low grade reading copies has plummeted.

[monitor_ep]

What killed the comic book stores was digital comics with back issue from 99 cents to $1.99 compared to $100 or higher for the actually comic book.

[samurainoir]

Wrong. I live in Ashtabula county, the largest county in the state of Ohio which has five sizable small towns, and there isn't a single bookstore in the entire county. The two closest bookstores are Barnes and Nobles in Mentor, OH or Erie, PA.
Both an hour away. It's ridiculous.

In that case, I think you've got worse problems than comic shops!

No libraries either? at least Amazon.com delivers there right?

few recommendations:

Marvel Universe Ultimate Spider-Man (half dozen volumes)

http://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Universe-Ultimate-Spider-Man-Adventures/dp/0785188142/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426634446&sr=1-4&keywords=ultimate+spiderman+adventures

Marvel Adventures Spider-man (much more than a dozen volumes)

http://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Adventures-Spider-Man-Tangled-Universe/dp/078515258X/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=06NDW26ZRRBVCV4WR713

Spiderman Loves Mary Jane (half dozen volumes)

http://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Loves-Mary-Jane-Sophomore/dp/0785130055/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426634887&sr=1-4&keywords=spider-man+loves+mary+jane

spidergirl (close to a dozen or more volumes)

http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Spider-Girl-Vol-Whatever-Spider-Man/dp/0785123415/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426634987&sr=1-3&keywords=spidergirl

[enyawd72]

re: Bookstores

There are less of them, but even the small towns still have bookstores right?

Wrong. I live in Ashtabula county, the largest county in the state of Ohio which has five sizable small towns, and there isn't a single bookstore in the entire county. The two closest bookstores are Barnes and Nobles in Mentor, OH or Erie, PA.
Both an hour away. It's ridiculous.

[samurainoir]

re: Kids and Comics (and Walmart)

Kids do read comics. It's just that they don't necessarily look like Dad's smelly old comics. That is what probably bothers us the most about it... that it's all stuff that old guys like us don't "get". It's also generally stuff that the traditional comic store does not stock... they can be easily had at bookstores, libraries and schools however.

Here is a snapshot of what the Graphic Novel section of Walmart generally looks like:




Pokemon. Twilight Manga. Narulto. Walking Dead. Video Game and Movie/TV tie ins. The token Superhero depending on what movie/cartoon is out at the time.

Teens are crazy about Attack on Titan (and will read the manga to get ahead of the storyline in the anime)


What comics do girls love? The work of Raina Telgemeier.

http://www.amazon.ca/Smile-Raina-Telgemeier/dp/0545132061

other favourite comics of kids, that you've never heard of? Amulet.

http://www.amazon.ca/Amulet-Collection-Books-Kazu-Kibuishi/dp/144312365X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426633100&sr=1-1&keywords=amulet

note that these are scholastic books (remember the scholastic book club?), and part of a kids comics imprint that was built on top of the success of the colour Bone reprints (something you probably have heard of).

[samurainoir]

re: Bookstores

There are less of them, but even the small towns still have bookstores right? These are todays equivalent of the news stands of our youth, if that is what you are pining for. The only difference is, and this is a plus... thicker volumes with spines.

To me, this seems to be the last brick and mortar stronghold for folks that are purely comic book readers, rather than comic book collectors. If I had Graphic Novel sections like they have now, in the bookstores of my youth, I would have been overjoyed. Of course we know how much bookstores are also struggling these days (and we also see them adapting the same pop culture kitsch and collectibles model that many comic stores have already gone).

Comics were once the poison and bane of booksellers, teachers and librarians back when I was a kid, now you will hardly find a stauncher ally in the Battle for Reading. I've done a great deal of dedicated comics shows in libraries (mostly kid-focussed), and they generally seem tremendously well stocked and fully embrace the diversity of the medium beyond DC and Marvel. There is literally something for everyone in comics format these days... you just need to match them up with the right material.

[samurainoir]

Re: Comic Book Stores.

My wife noted recently how a dozen years ago, I behaved like the world would end if I didn't get to the comic shop on Wednesday to get my weekly fix. Now as a digital reader, I can get my Wednesday dose of new comics delivered right to my ipad.

The Traditional Comic Book Shop is Dead. I don't see many stores these days that thrive or survive on strictly a new comics or back issue model.

Comic Shops are subsidized by additional product now, and there are two primary categories that I can see (and often shops are a hybrid of the two). Gaming and Collectibles.

In smaller cities/towns and bedroom communities in particular, I've noticed Gaming is their bread and butter. Often giving teens and twenty-something male geeks a social, outside the house activity on Friday nights and weekends. (it seems like the equivalent of the video arcade back in our day). This was something I hadn't noticed myself, up until I had an interesting discussion with Derek about this at Mego Meet (in terms of how his store has become primarily gaming). Of course for this to work, you need Space... hence it seems mostly suburbs, small towns/cities.

In the Cities where real estate is a much more precious commodity, Collectibles seem to be the order of the day. In my conversations with retailers, this is why Statues have become a Big Thing for them in the past decade. Pre-Orders of course are the Golden Ticket, but dedicating a certain amount of their primary floorspace to well lit, and attractive glass display cabinets is more than worthwhile given their margins on a $100-$300 SRP statue vs comic books with $3-5 cover price. I've also heard more than one retailer say that Pop Vinyls have been their saving grace in the past few years in the category of more casually priced product.

[samurainoir]

re: News Stands

It wasn't the comic companies that abandoned the news stands... it was the newstands that abandoned comics. It's been well documented that the retailers themselves (news stands, grocery stores, convenience stores and drug stores) in the 70's and 80's wanted the increasingly precious rack-space dedicated to $2-$5 glossy magazine rather than a 50 cent comic book. And it's not like the comic companies didn't try just about anything to keep that real estate on the news stands... from the Dollar Comics line, multipacks, to packaging comics in magazine formats. Also worth noting as a factor in the decline: Affidavit Returns (google that with "comics").

Exception: Archie Comics, which survived in the traditional markets. Although I believe the female friendly content was the unique factor given it's placement in the grocery store check-out line next to Soap Opera Digest, and Oprah. Also: Digest Size and their timeless and endless reprint content which adequately services the traditional turn-over kids audience every few years. Marvel tried a last ditch in digest format around the mid-eighties with Spider-Man, GI Joe, and Transformers. DC had a good run in the 70's and early 80's as well with digests, but I think ultimately the more simplistic line-art of Archies survived shrinkage much more than the increasingly complex line-work and dialogue heaviness of Marvel and DC content.

Note: rather than sticking with their comfortable direct market niche, going to the news stand marketplace were factors in putting Comico and Now Comics out of business.

By the late 70's and early 80's, had Marvel and DC stuck with the news stand model, they would have been out of the comics business and became strictly licensing companies moving forward... DC in particular as a subsidiary Warner. It's believed that DC's survival as a comics company stemmed from the fact that the folks in charge at that juncture, maneuvered themselves under the Studio division, which was a bold visionary move... since that made them R&D for the lucrative film and television (and also licensing) arm, rather than publishing, particularly after Time Magazine and it's subsidiaries and distribution channels were merged with Warner.

Arguably, the direct market saved comic books as a medium for the next two decades. A life-raft before Bookstores became the new mainstream outlet, that is not dissimilar to the news stand model of yesteryear (bookstore returns have put quite a few companies out of business).

If anyone nowadays is looking for Spider-Man or any other comics for themselves or kids, most Bookstores these days have a well-stocked Graphic Novel section. As do most libraries. Often THREE in fact... in the Kids, Teen and Adult sections.

[monitor_ep]

I miss those spinner-racks of comic book days and the price. If I grew up in today's market I would have never been able to collect comic books.

[Hedji]

Grocery stores were great. Drug stores too. That was where I would get lots of mine as a kid. I'm happy to say Wegmans grocery stores still carry a spinner rack. Lots of Simpsons, Spongebob, Scooby, Star Wars, and a few Superhero titles.

[Boris71]

I have to say I recently went to buy comics digitally after several decades of buying paper comics and saying I'd never go to digital. And I have to say I prefer it and access to titles my local comic shop didn't stock any more. Though I have to agree that comic companies messed it he selves up in the 90's pandering to get people to buy them as the saw them as a modern mythology and now bored with them a have moved on leaving fans with the fallout of that era

[Earth 2 Chris]

Yeah, beyond the kid titles, the only all ages super hero comic I can think of from the big two is Batman '66. DC would earn a lot of points from just doing a non-continuity classics line. Put guys like Jerry Ordway on it. Do a Superman, Batman, Flash, GL, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Teen Titans and JLA comic. Call it good. Marvel did this with their Adventures line from a few years back.

Chris