Atomic Comics closes its doors

[Senormac]

I was in an LCS today and asked the owner about his new issue wall. He said, no, he doesn't carry every title....only the ones that "subscribers" ask for. He told me that the trend nowadays is to wait for the TPB to come out and get the whole story or arc instead of waiting month by month to get 15 min of satisfaction....

 

Its gotta be a very delicate situation ordering new issues at a LCS. I mean, whatever doesn't sell goes into the owners back stock.... which can sit for years

[Davenport]

He told me that the trend nowadays is to wait for the TPB to come out and get the whole story or arc instead of waiting month by month to get 15 min of satisfaction....

I had that exact sensation reading the new Daredevil #1. It seemed like a very short prologue to a story. Just about the moment the writer has you in Daredevil's world, and you're primed for a good Daredevil tale, it's over.

 

[Mike's Rack]

I haven't heard of Dr. Fantasy's yet. Thats only 6-7 miles away. Keep us updated if its any good. I've been to Jesse James I am going to reserve my comments about him at this time.

 

Is Jesse James the one at 43rd and Peoria?

 

Yes, that's the one. I didn't make it over to Dr. Fantasy's yesterday, maybe next week.

[the blob]

I was in an LCS today and asked the owner about his new issue wall. He said, no, he doesn't carry every title....only the ones that "subscribers" ask for. He told me that the trend nowadays is to wait for the TPB to come out and get the whole story or arc instead of waiting month by month to get 15 min of satisfaction....

 

Its gotta be a very delicate situation ordering new issues at a LCS. I mean, whatever doesn't sell goes into the owners back stock.... which can sit for years

 

I saw close to the same thing at a shop that was winding down last year. The owner had maybe 15 titles he ordered for the "new issue" section and that was about it. He had been cutting back and cutting back and that was actually the last order he was making from Diamond. I guess his subscription customers were out of luck/he didn't have any anymore.

 

With that said, the 4 other shops in the same general area place a big emphasis on new titles and having a decent selection. One guy might actually go a little overboard with the oddball stuff because he seems to get stuck selling a lot of it 6 months later 3/$1. nice guy, maybe not a good businessman.

[the blob]

"The market size has been increasing for the past decade."

 

Unit-wise or $-wise?

 

Does the "market" include TPBs?

 

 

[the blob]

I

So, how many customers does the average comic shop have? What about the largest comic shops? I suspect DCBS and other online retailers like it have to be some of Diamonds biggest retailers. If every subscriber purchase an average of $100-200 worth of product a month, that's about $300,000 - $600,000 a month going with 3000 subscribers. An online subscriber is going to have to purchase more than a few books in order to get the cost benefit of going with an online retailer even with their deep discounts due to the cost of S&H.

 

This year, comic sales have slowed considerably. I suspect that is attributable to the economy. Overall however, if you throw out this year's data as an outlier (and besides, we won't know how this year turns out until it is over), if I'm reading the reports and numbers correctly at http://www.comichron.com/yearlycomicssales.html, unit sales of the top 300 comics are going down, but the unit sales of the lower tiered books are rising. The market size has been increasing for the past decade.

 

My theory, based on nothing but my personal experience and my personal hopes, is as more and more people move to buying their comics from alternate sources other than brick and mortar comic book stores, they do not necessarily default to buying Marvel and DC comics with the occasional independent title. Let's face it, Marvel and DC do not have to compete with indies at the LCS level. Most of those stores are clearly aimed at pushing the big two's titles, just like Barnes and Nobles is aimed at pushing the best sellers. It's the average LCS' bread and butter. Online retailers level the playing field considerably for the independent comic publishers and people who use the online retailers are choosing alternative titles to the big two. One of my big reasons to moving to DBCS was so I can get the independent titles I'm interested in, because the LCS simply didn't stock the titles I was interested in. At least that is how I'm interpreting the trends I see in the industry.

 

Back to whether or not an online retailer like DCBS can be attributable to the closing of a LCS, I agree there is no evidence of this. I suspect they are one of the many factors that do contribute to the closing of a LCS and I strongly believe they will be a bigger factor in the future than the mythical digital only comic reader, at least short term. I believe we've heard from both DC and Marvel that digital comic sales are negligible compared to the sales of the physical copies.

 

Again, no hard evidence, just my feelings on the matter.

 

 

 

Thanks,

Ron

 

Now its time for one of the frequent boardies who believe the comic industry is in danger of imminent collapse to come along, refute my opinion and belittle me in the process.

 

$100-$200 per customer sounds like a lot. Then again, it's less than 10 titles a week maybe.

 

My guess is that Midotwn's total customer pull clientelle is probably bigger, but as they also have an online component to their pull customers in addition to physical pick-up at 3 locations in the heart of Manhattan business areas, I dunno how that is split.

 

Not to mention, there are plenty of smaller shops that ship and have mail order pull lists. Someone is a customer, they move..they prefer to deal with the same people, etc.

[Senormac]

I was in an LCS today and asked the owner about his new issue wall. He said, no, he doesn't carry every title....only the ones that "subscribers" ask for. He told me that the trend nowadays is to wait for the TPB to come out and get the whole story or arc instead of waiting month by month to get 15 min of satisfaction....

 

Its gotta be a very delicate situation ordering new issues at a LCS. I mean, whatever doesn't sell goes into the owners back stock.... which can sit for years

 

I saw close to the same thing at a shop that was winding down last year. The owner had maybe 15 titles he ordered for the "new issue" section and that was about it. He had been cutting back and cutting back and that was actually the last order he was making from Diamond. I guess his subscription customers were out of luck/he didn't have any anymore.

 

With that said, the 4 other shops in the same general area place a big emphasis on new titles and having a decent selection. One guy might actually go a little overboard with the oddball stuff because he seems to get stuck selling a lot of it 6 months later 3/$1. nice guy, maybe not a good businessman.

 

One thing he said that I found interesting was that 95 % of the books out nowadays are serial style... or continued next issue..... and next issue and next...

The industry seems to be into hooking people like fish, and then reeling them in... or at least their wallets

 

[Conan_Aficionado]

Looks like the direct market contraction continues to claim victims.

[FlComicFan]

Print runs are getting ridiculously low. My shops orders are down more than 70% since the height of 2008 or so. Customer apathy, the hike in cover price to $3.99. People switching to discount online services. The horrible economy. Its a lot to contend with. The supposed bonus of grapic novel/trade paperback sales has been taken away by Amazon/online discounters. 2 years ago I'd sell 20-40 trades a week Now I wonder why I bother even having a trade wall. Yeah I order mostly Marvel/DC Not for lack of effort I racked loads of Indies for years but after crunching the numbers you cannot continue to stock items in hopes of someone buying it Not with the low sales numbers in this economy.

 

Golden age, silver age, high grade bronze, original art When I opened in 2005 I had walls full of all that stuff Within a year I realised 1. its hard to sell from a LCS 2. you can sell if faster and most of the time for as much if not more online with far less hassle. Who wants to have a book sit on a wall for 6 months and finally get a wlk in and the guy wants it for what it would fetch on ebay, only you'd have had the cash already months ago?

 

Far as back issues goes you just dont get enough local walk ins that look at them to justify the space anymore. What you get are "pickers" Collectors/Ebayers etc buying to try and resell Guys with lists printed of mycomicshops want list etc. The day of a customer coming and being happy with boxes and boxes of $1 back issues is gone.

 

The way to combat all this and make money has been to grasp at what the internet is good for and buy anything and everything of value over the counter and sell online.

 

I have people walk in all the time and ask about all sorts of items I used to sell (statues,busts,toys novelties) "Why dont you stock all the new titles?' Why dont you carry every graphic novel that comes out? Why? Because 99% of people buy on impulse and you cant stock all that junk in hopes somebody might buy

 

Sorry this has become a rant One last thing Why is it pull file customers cannot call and tell you to cancel their pull file? For every 10 pull files that go delinquent and end up not paying for their books maybe 1 call or stops and tells me they are done. You pull comis for someone for years shooting the bull every Wed and they dont have the courtesy to pick up a phone/text/email/use smoke signals to say cancel my file