A retailer in North Carolina has contacted me, informing me that due to distributor error, he was shorted his entire order of CAPTAIN MARVEL #2. Reorders are, naturally, not available. Several customers have outright told him if they can’t get #2, they won’t be collecting the series.
He needs a dozen copies minimum to fulfill subscriber requests. Any retailer reading this who is interested in moving some extra copies of CM #2, please contact me immediate at PADGUY@AOL.COM, and I will put you together with the North Carolina retailer. Obviously the sooner the better on this.
PAD
• 
My copy of #2 had a printing error (smeared ink on several pages). I took it back and went through about a dozen other copies at the store–they all had the error to one degree or another.
My FLCS here in Cincinnati was also shorted his entire order of #2 but said that he expects to have them next week. I guess this is what happens when one company has a monopoly on distributing. If there’s no competition then there’s not as much incentive to provide top shelf service. I also had an order for two additional copies of CM placed with a mail order service that I use . As long as I can afford to I intend to buy extra copies and try to get others to read the book.
Fazhoul
David:
Long time reader, first time writer.
I wonder if Ultimate Adventures will have the same problem. I bet Marville won’t. Hmmm- a conspiracy to win the competition? We’ll, Mr. Jemas, RHIP!
You know, i didn’t get my book on wednesday last week because my family was here on vacation… so sunday, i went and how suprised and mad was i to learn that i didn’t get it because the idiots a diamond comics filled the order partially… well, i think that’s a bunch of crap. I don’t see why Diamond has to do partial shipments [it’s not the first time] i mean, c’mon, retailers use previews to make sure they get at least what they need, on time.
I have this weird feeling that it’s caused by previews “selling cgc copies” of what they offer. who knows…
All i know is that hopefully i’ll get it this week.
You know, this in light of Jemas defending the no-reorder policy really points out how poorly thought-out this idea was.
I’m glad I get only one or two Marvel books a year. DC all the way for me, son. Well, most of the way, anyway.
What I find weird is that I am always hearing off orders being messed up in the US.
Yet I live in the highlands of Scotland and get my comic delivered monthly by mail order and I never get a bad copy or miss an issue.
I get a range of DC, MARVEL & DREAMWAVE titles including Captain Marvel.
Perhaps we have a better distributer in the UK? I really don’t know if Diamond handles the Uk or not.
I did get my copy of Captain Marvel #2. The comic shop I go to is pretty good with getting all the Marvel and DC comics in on time. (Even when he forgets to pick up a certin issue he is usually able to get another) But I really go to a small town comic store – so that way it’s easier to get better service.
I’m really annoyed by this U-Decide contest. I mean – it’s like Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada cooked up this deal to make it look like Captain Marvel would have a chance to survive and then really stick it to fans when the book is canceled, while pleading innocence over the deal, saying the fans where the ones who decided this. (U-“Decide”) With people not getting their books it sounds like we fans aren’t decideing, but rather Marvel Comics is trying to decide for us!
Plus I don’t understand why people would want Marville to win. Bill Jemas isn’t even going to continue on after the 7th issue. With Captain Marvel you get a wicked better book – plus Peter David has shown time and time again that he stays very well commited to staying on his books for the long hual.
Peter:
I’m awestruck at the absurdity of a comic book’s writer having to appeal to the public to assist a retailer in obtaining copies of a current comic book!
If anything is an indication of just how WRONG Bill Jemas’ policies are at Marvel, THIS is surely it!
It’s a pity this matter won’t receive a fraction of the publicity of the original “U-Decide” nonsense!
Congrats on the very enjoyable YOUNG JUSTICE # 50. A book, I might add, that CAN be reordered for anyone who wants it!
Oh, that’s just wonderful. My retailer had copies for the rack. I’ll try to remember to mention this when I go in tomorrow.
I did get my copy of CM #2(37). What an interesting use of the Punisher…particularly Rick’s comment near the end of the issue about the end of Frank and Marv’s visit to the mob guy’s house. Brrr.
Paul
– Sigh –
Just to add another complaint to the pile:
My copy of CM#2 had several torn pages. Although they were in pieces they were still readable.
Since I’m more of a reader than a collector, I figured, “What the heck, I got to read the story and life’s too short to worry about this stuff anyway.”
You know, back in the 1980s, the owner of the shop I dealt with said he’d sooner throw himself in a bear pit than deal with Diamond on a regular basis.
We need a new or improved distribution system for the American comic magazine.
Like, yesterday.
So, how does this distributor error work? Did some other shop get 100 extra copies of the issue, or something? Presumably Marvel printed as many copies as they had orders for, which they then gave to Diamond, so re-orders shouldn’t be an issue, unless Diamond set fire to a bunch of them or something…
On a related note though, the last two issues of “Soulsearchers” haven’t made it to my shop (in London), so I’ll need to contact Claypool about that.
On the other hand: if the no reprint policy wasn’t in place, retailers wouldn’t have ordered as many copies as they did, relying on re-orders, the initial sales numbers would have been dreadfully low, and the book might already be cancelled.
Look, the no reprint policy isn’t perfect, but I can’t blame Marvel for trying to wake some retailers up.
If those fans can’t get issue #2 for some reason, tell them to wait four months and Marvel will likely put out a trade of the first 6 issues. Then they can start picking it up with #7 again.
(Now, let the flaming commence.)
-Augie
From Augie:
One small problem with that notion–how many TPBs of the previous Captain Marvel series are available?
Why should we (or anyone who misses any issue) expect a collection of this 6-issue storyline?
Oops–part of my post didn’t make it in.
Trying again:
from Augie:
If those fans can’t get issue #2 for some reason, tell them to wait four months and Marvel will likely put out a trade of the first 6 issues. Then they can start picking it up with #7 again.
One small problem with that notion–how many TPBs of the previous Captain Marvel series are available?
Why should we (or anyone who misses any issue) expect a collection of this 6-issue storyline?
Unfortunately Marvel isn’t interested in doing TPBs of its lower-selling/cancelled books (ie Agent X, Soldier X, Thunderbolts, Black Panther and Spider-Girl) unless there’s some kind of media tie-in.
I have suggested an instant Captain Marvel TPB to Joe Quesada. He says that no decision has yet been made regarding the matter. I would suggest that PAD give him a nudge of encouragement.
I blame diamond more than Marvel for the re-order problem.
Maybe I just don’t get it, the mentality of people who say “I’ll wait for the TPB.” Meanwhile, sales of the “pamphlet” book languish, leading to a possible cancellation of the book. What’s Marvel’s (or any company’s) incentive to issue a collection of a book that seemingly didn’t appeal to a wide audience?
<>
Ideally, the knowledge that more and more people prefer their comics in this format and they can make money should be a pretty good motivator.
I know only ONE person who reads serialized comics (and no, I don’t).
I know at least ten who will buy at least the occasional trade or graphic novel, two of whom probably buy at least one trade every week (myself included).
Marvel and DC need to realize what just about every other publisher seems to have figured out. Hope the monthlies break even, make your money on the back end. Why else do you think just about every single title from Dark Horse or ONI or Fantagraphics is collected eventually?
I’m wondering right now, how many copies of Sandman: Preludes has DC moved. It’s been in print for ten years now and it gets consistently good bookstore sales, in addition to the direct market sales, both of which are things that NO monthly comic has going for it.
In the end, the attitude I’ve been forced to adopt is even if a series I know I would totally love is never collected (see most of PAD’s work right now, unfortunately), there is still enough material out there that IS collected that I will enjoy to keep me entertained to my dying day.
I think the new CAPTAIN MARVEL series has a better chance of being collected. For one, it’s started wth a new #1. It’s refocused. It’s got a new art style. It’s selling better than it used to, and has some additional buzz, in Marvel’s eyes, thanks to U-Decide.
The new mandate with Marvel seems to be to keep on top of the series with trades. With BLACK PANTHER, it was already too late since they’d have to release 8 trades to catch up. But with new titles and new creative teams, it’s easier to pump them out as you go along. (See NEW X-MEN or AMAZING SPIDER-MAN or THE PUNISHER or DAREDEVIL.)
It also helps to break down your on-going series into bite-sized chunks that make for good trade paperback length. I don’t recall CAPTAIN MARVEL being done in 4 or 6 issue storylines. That seems to be the way Marvel wants to go these days, for better or worse.
-Augie
The problem Augie is that retailers DIDN’t get their full initial order.
I know that my friend’s store ordered at least 25 or 30 copies and only got 5.
I went there today to help out and asked about CM2 and my friend said “we are s.o.l. buddy, they say they are sold out…”
Does that make any sense to you?
I forgot, if Marvel wants to sell TPBs that bad, why don’t they publish all their books in TPBs only? I mean, c’mon.
I don’t mind TPBs for certain books but for something i really enjoy i want the singles… call me a weirdo.
I was lucky enough, after searching all day stores in the area, to remember seeing a comic rack at Borders this week-end and went there. My hunch payed off cause there was 2 copies waiting… bought both since my friend needed one also.
As to retailers not getting their full shipments: That is troubling. I’d love to know who’s to blame for that. My gut tells me that it’s the monopoly that is Diamond, but I’m sure others would like to lay it on Marvel. The end result is the same — people who pre-ordered their books (in many cases) don’t get them. That’s unforgiveable.
It’s one of the drawbacks to the no-overprinting plan.
(So, to recap: Retailers don’t order enough copies to satisfy the demand, and it’s Marvel’s problem/fault. Diamond doesn’t ship as many copies as the retailers ordered and it’s still Marvel’s problem/fault. No wonder Jemas threw up his hands and quit trying.)
One other thing on this topic: I believe Sean McKeever created a website for retailers to meet and trade excess stock back and forth.
Ah, here it is: http://comicsmover.com/
Maybe that could help with some of these problems, as well.
-Augie
I’ll be sure to send this link to my friend, thanks.
Yves, Supergodginrai on CBR board
Well, I remembered to mention this when I picked up my new books today, but my store sold out of [i]CM[/i] #2/37.
Hope some other stores could help…
Well-intentioned thoughts, Augie, but, as Marvel is not the only publisher and these situations do not take place in a vacuum nor are uncommon, please allow a bit of a rejoinder to try to explain the infeasibilty of the argument:
–quote–
On the other hand: if the no reprint policy wasn’t in place, retailers wouldn’t have ordered as many copies as they did, relying on re-orders, the initial sales numbers would have been dreadfully low, and the book might already be cancelled.
Look, the no reprint policy isn’t perfect, but I can’t blame Marvel
for trying to wake some retailers up.
— unquote —
Ah, but those initial numbers would not have been the criterion upon which such a judgment was made, as there would have been a track record of re-order activity to factor in in order to get a final sales number.
The ‘no overprint’ policy badly punishes conscientious retailers who carefully and using the best tools available, place their monthly orders.
And many, many retailers wisely do not overorder to compensate for the no overprint policy, but instead, order what they think can sell and what their budgets allow, rather than squander money on ‘what ifs.’
But let’s loook at cold, gard reality. In the Previews catalogue alone, there are nearly 4000 (that’s Four THOUSAND) items listed each and every month. Ignore additional orders from any other suppliers besdies Diamond for now.
Taking into account each individual item, plus any special storylines, plus writer and artist, plus seasonality in sales patterns, plus any past sales track record for the item, the character and the talent behind the book, plus customer feedback for the item is quite a task. Some items have such a bare baones description offered to retailers that we are truly ordering blind. (I am not complaining, merely stating what is.)
And remember that each retailer’s copies are not returnable – if they don’t sell, they belong to the retailer and (of course) must be paid for. So judging how much overage (if any) to order in is yet another factor. If re-orders are (generally) available, that makes the ordering process a little less uncertain. If the overprint run sells out, well, them’s the breaks, but at least there was the opportunity to get more.
A wise retailer will also be ordering within a specific monthly budget, thus some items orderable on the initial order may have to be foregone or reduced in quantity to keep within that budget.
No retailer is perfect. We all slip up on ordering when dealing with so many items, particularly as sales on any one title can wildly fluctuate from month to month (leaving aside, for now, the issue of late shipping books – which, cumulatively, tie up millions o dollars of retailers’ money that could have been used in the interim to bring in more and a wider range of stock, not to mention having to order even more future issues without having sales patterns to rely on).
Occasionally something sells more (sometimes demand is a LOT more) than anticipated. Having a safety net of at least some print overage (to cover damages as well as demand) just plain makes sense, at least for some books.
— quote —
If those fans can’t get issue #2 for some reason, tell them to wait four months and Marvel will likely put out a trade of the first 6 issues. Then they can start picking it up with #7 again.
— unquote —
Aside from the case of seemingly diminishing sales and interest negating any compunction to print a collection, retailers have already ordered issues 3 and 4. So, if custmners give up because they can’t get #2, then the retailer is going to be stuck with those two later issues. Multiply this by the number of titles these things happen with over the course of a year, and you’re talking about some real money lost. And, unless those customers actually tell the retailer that they will be buying the title again beginning with issue 7 (unlikely, and it should not be necessary for them to do so) then the retailer is going to order based on sales of issues 4, 5 and 6, so issue 7 (and, lilkely, issue 8) will, essentially, be unavailable for those customers as well.
Suppose a TPB is put out (assume, say, a cost of $15.95, which is probably in the ballpark). Looking at the declining sales of the single issues, how many copies of the upscale-priced TPB (these, too, are not returnable) will a wise retailer risk bringing in? Plus, Marvel’s track record of keeping TPBs in stock and available is dismal, so the same conundrum evinced by the no overprint policy holds.
Not to mention that, during the ‘4 month wait’ during which the customer is NOT purchasing any issues, the retailer has normal, ongoing operating expenses – again, in the case of just one title, the loss is relatively insignificant, but each of those ‘grains of sand’ add up to a large dune over time, and the resultant irritation of those grains of sand doesn’t produce a pearl; rather, the product is potential financial instability and possibly ruin.
I hope you accept this response in the spirit in which it was offered: as an attempt to give a quick outline of just some of the parameters of the situation, and not as a flame.
Supergirl Artwork. OK, Peter, you have done it now. You must pay Ed Benes whatever he asks for as long as he lives to draw this book. I don’t think anyone has ever drawn Supergirl better (since Perez!). Luckilly, you have a really good history of keeping artists around a long time. Wonderful choice!
amen. i love the new artist on supergirl. some really dynamic covers from Ed could really get some new people picking up the book.
honestly, if i thought the cover of issue 75 was how the book was drawn on the inside, i would have passed. thanks to comics continuum and it’s 4 page preview, i saw how good the interior art is and bought the issue. i’m now a supergirl reader.
issue 1 of the captain marvel relaunch has made me a big PD fan. over the past few weeks i have purchased the full run of back issues for young justice.:)
The cover of Supergirl #75 certainly will finish in the top 3 ‘misleading covers of the year.’
Frankly (and there is no way to sugarcoat this) it appears to have been drawn by an autistic, dyslexic, sight-impaired, one-armed 5-year-old.
Peter and Ed, Kara and DC, each of you deserved better.
Hey Skring –>
No flame taken. It’s a terribly tricky situation without any easy answers. I think the Direct Market, however, has made too many retailers soft. They’re afraid to take any chances anymore and have come to expect everyone else (the distributors and publishers, mostly) to shoulder most of (if not ALL of) the risks.
When the HEROES poster book came in with initial orders as low as they were, that’s when I realized how bad the situation was.
And, of course, we can now add to the list of problems in the comics market the question of a trade-based market. How can retailers adapt to survive in a market that’s increasingly becoming trade-oriented and not single issue-oriented?
For what it’s worth, I’m all for Marvel overprinting a select few titles. If I may namedrop for just a second: I visited the Marvel offices a couple weeks before the announcement was made about not overprinting a couple years ago. Joe Quesada told me it was coming and asked what I thought. And I told him that my fear was not for the extra copies of the lower-rung titles that wouldn’t be available anymore, but for the new #1 issues and mini-series. THOSE, I said, should be overprinted just a tad to cover the reorders that will most likely come down the pipe later. It’s impossible to always guess correctly what the customers are going to want and in what numbers. Yes, a good retailer can rely on his records on similar titles and knowledge of his customer base to tell him how many to order, but there will always be a surprise favorite somewhere somewhen.
And if you have enough faith that the fans are going to love the book, give it a show of support by overprinting it and accepting reorders.
On the other hand, I can see Marvel’s point — the second you start making exceptions is the second you dámņ the whole thing. It’s like a parent telling a kid not to have sex and then handing them a condom saying they’re not going to listen, anyway. Mixed signals. Doesn’t work.
-Augie
Well, Augie, the Heroes poster book was solicited outside of the normal ordering cycle, on a very short-term basis, and we retailers had next to no information about the format, content, etc. Just something along the line of ‘a bunch of single page posters commemorating Sept.11’ – so having the initial orders come in low based on such a sketchy description, coupled with the fact that this was an unusual format, plus the awareness that such poster compilations in the past have performed poorly, shouldn’t have surprised anyone. Marvel, to their credit, did keep it in print and available. The follow-up orders on ‘Moment of Silence’ likely reflected sales on Heroes, but, then, that book couldn’t be given away.
Personal aside — at least in my store, none of the Sept. 11 stuff (including the Heroes book) sold very well – merely a handful of copies. In fact, some people commented that they would never buy such things, as they thought (perhaps incorrectly, but with conviction nonetheless) the whole concept was in poor taste.
I do disagree with your statement that retailers want to take no risk, though. We are willing to shoulder our fair share of the risk, but Marvel’s current plans put the bulk of the risk squarely on retailers, who have to commit to pony up their money in advance, with little or no information on which to base the decision, no recourse to place their orders elsewhere, and a solid guarantee that anything that might increase sales on better-selling items and related subsequent issues will never be an option.
There will always be anomalies – individual books that break out of sales patterns unexpectedly. We can all live with that (see below). It is dealing with the run of the mill books that has become such a dastardly burden, as they now exist in a ‘order it or lose the chance’ situation.
A short history of Origin #1 at mny store: we ordered, initially, about triple the normal numbers for Wolverine (had but sketchy ordering info, plus it was a much higher price than normal books, so we felt no qualms about not ordering more). After 3 weeks on the shelf, finally sold down to the final few copies. So I have no complaints about that – just an example to show the differences among retailers.
As for Call of Duty #1, which reports stated was sold out immediately – moved 2 copies, and have the (luckily, small) bulk of the order just gathering dust.
I’ve read articles about things becoming trade-based, but have seen absolutely no sales evidence or pattern locally to back that up. In any case, retailers should not have to turn into libraries, keeping every possible trade available for sale at all times – that is what warehouses (be they Marvel’s, DC’s or Diamond’s) are for – to keep the product in stock and available for order – whether for new, re-stock, or ‘just in time’ ordering by retailers.
Small point for future reference: it is SKRINQ – with a ‘q’ and not a ‘g.’
I agree that there are nbo easy answers. But the terms and operations of the direct sales contract have been skewed, twisted and altered so many, many times by fiat of the publishers and/or distributors that the parameters that formed the basis for the system are no longer valid. Retailers, of course, nowadays have no option but to accept all such changes instituted from ‘on high,’ but have not yet relinquished the right to comment on same.