DC Comics in Wal-Mart!

[matewan1990]

I was in my local Wal-Mart Superstore last night and walked over to the books section to see if there were any Archie digests I could buy and read when I spotted Adventures of Superman and one of the Johnny DC titles!

This is exactly what we, the comic collecting community, have needed for a long time. What better exposure can comics get than in Wal-Marts, where nearly everyone shops?

I'm excited over the fact that now kids can get comics again. While the entire DC line of stars weren't on display at Wal-Mart, Adventures of Superman is definitely a start.

I'll start the argument with these words: Comics are for kids and we need to get them back in the hands of more children, so that the future of comics can be bright — and secure.

Mike B.

[mister_not_so_nice]

I think it's great news. I'm gonna check my local Wal-Mart next time I'm there.

 

Planting the seed is all that is needed. Let the kids get a few misc. issues here and there, then when they pass by the local comic shop they'll stop in to see what other comics might be available. After that the hook is in (as long as the LCS isn't a dungeon like mine that will only further scare them and parents away)

[Reno McCoy]

Did you find any that were 9.6 or better?

[joe_collector]

Walmart *used* to carry the mainstream Marvel titles circa 2000-2002, but stopped due to non-existent sales. Two of the stores around here even had comic book racks, but they've long since been dismantled.

 

So it's hardly anything new, and if anything a step back from a few years ago.

[Chi Bamm]

To get comics back to kids they need to lower prices. That is plain and simple. You can not expect parents to buy their kids a 2.50 comic book. A buck a pop sounds good.

[Kevin Boyd]

We go thru this constantly. Kids moved on. Parents however, will spend the money on books for their kids if they think the product is worth it. Regretfully, the majority of mainstream comic books are not "worth it", even if it was priced at a quarter or a buck (which the stores won't carry anyway because of low profit margins).

 

The future of comics for children are in publishing ventures such as Scholastic's Bone color books and the new titles they will be adding to the graphic novel line over the next few years. Books are a much easier sell than comic books. DC and Marvel have their Essential and Showcase lines, as well as manga-sized comic digests of their entry level titles for young readers (Johnny DC, Marvel Age).

 

Right now the comics niche for young readers is currently filled by Manga tpb product. Which is priced considerably higher ($7-10) than your average north american comic book ($2-4). That model should serve as an example that for whatever reasons it is the product itself, not the price point, which is keeping parents and children away at this time.

 

Of course, the other major issue is distribution. Since comics are no longer widely distributed there really is no choice for parents or children to make. We can talk about "need" and "should" until we are blue in the face, but comics' return to mainstream distribution is neither wanted by the distributors nor viable in the comic book format (smaller size from magazines, larger size than books causes storage and display problems) and at this price point (too small of a per unit return to make them financially attractive to.

[Chi Bamm]

Quite the analysis there

[Kevin Boyd]

Well, the tendency for most of us is to say - comics were cheap and available when we were kids, and we loved them, therefore all the comic book companies need to do is make them cheap and available and the kids will come back.

 

One needs to understand why that model stopped working in the first place.

 

I believe, based on what I've read elsewere and seen in person, that the model stopped working because:

 

(a) stores stopped carrying low priced comics because they had no economic incentive to sell them compared to higher priced books and magazines

 

and

 

(b) kids (specifically boys) are more interested in videogames and collectible card games than comic books, and since those interests are also more time consuming than reading comic books, the parents of those children are more likely to support them by buying more videogames and collectible cards.

 

The one thing on our side is that some kids still like to read and go to the library and/or local bookseller to get their reading fixes. The way to get new readers (specifically children) is to get our product into those reading spaces. Manga got into that space and the kids devoured it and started to look for them at their local booksellers, even though they have a much higher price point than your average american comic book.

 

There is a store here in Toronto called the Beguiling that orders for the Public Library system here. They advise them on what they feel kids will be interested in and get feedback from librarians as to what the kids like and want to read. They have had a lot of success in getting kids interested in manga and graphic novels... but I can tell you the majority of what we buy, read and enjoy isn't making it onto those shelves.

[joe_collector]

I believe, based on what I've read elsewere and seen in person, that the model stopped working because:

 

But you forget the BIG one:

 

The Direct Market, since it got the comics first, essentially stripped the newstand of its everyday readership, and was the main cause in the drop. Comics were still selling in high numbers, but comic shops siphoned off readers.

 

After the newstand model crumbled, this led to fewer new readers buying into comics, simply because they were not as visible as before. This created an increasing dependance on comic shops and their aging readership, and a subsequent need for ever-increasing cover prices and more "adult" stories.

 

After a few decades of this bizarre cycle, we find ourselves in 2005, with sales continuing to dwindle and readers getting older.

 

Chuckles summed it up quite clearly in a few of his Tales..

[Kevin Boyd]

 

 

With the rise of the specialty shop, mainstream outlets may have suffered a loss in sales, but the purpose in creating the dm was to prevent additional loss of sales from the growing number of mainstream outlets that were dropping comics from their racks due to the reasons I've already mentioned.

 

If children were the primary consumer of comic books in 1979-1985 when the publishers committed to the DM then there wouldn't have been as dramatic a shift - children do not have the resources or flexibility to travel to specialty shops unless they were based within the community in which they lived (in walking or biking distance).

 

Personally, I didn't make the shift to buying only at a specialty store until I was able to travel on the subway system to the nearest comic shop on my way home from school when I was approx. 11 years old in 1980. Before then I could only purchase comics at local convenience stores and the occasional visit downtown to the specialty store with my dad.

[joe_collector]

With the rise of the specialty shop, mainstream outlets may have suffered a loss in sales, but the purpose in creating the dm was also to prevent additional loss of sales from the growing number of outlets that were dropping comics from their racks anyways due to the reasons I've already mentioned.

 

It was a little from Column A and a little from Column B.

 

Sure, there were some retailers looking to drop comics, but the move to the Direct market had the unexpected result of killing virtually ALL of the newstand sales. That's the key, as everyone assumed they'd co-exist nicely, but in fact, timelier distribution allowed one to kill the other.

 

Without Direct Sales, some of the newstand market would have left, but with Direct, they all did. And now that you look back on it, it's really not that surprising.

[joe_collector]

If children were the primary consumer of comic books in 1979-1985 when the publishers committed to the DM then there wouldn't have been as dramatic a shift - children do not have the resources or flexibility to travel to specialty shops unless they were based within the community in which they lived (in walking or biking distance).

 

Kids were not the "primary consumer" of comics, as college students and adults comprised a large chunk of the Marvel/DC pie.

 

I remember seeing figures from Marvel where it was about a 50/50 split between kids and young adults/adults. If that ran true, then the top 50% adopted the comic shops, while some kids likely did as well.

 

That definitely had to hurt.

 

I also remember reading an article that illustrated during the mid-80's, with each cover price increase (dictated by the Direct market), the newstand sales dropped consistently. Adults kept paying the piper in the comic shops, but once the "real world" economics of the newstand were out of the way, Marvel and DC both started racking up the cover price without regard to the "new reader" segment.

 

I remember in the late-80's hitting a local Mac's Milk that I used to nab the odd issue I missed, and seeing the old comic book rack empty, and off to the side, The owner told me that "comics are too expensive (I think they were $1) and no kids are buying". - and trust me, convenience store clerks get the pricing complaints.

 

So in this case, the old "comics were priced too low for retailers" reason is not true, as sales and traffic are the key to a convenience store. Higher prices killed sales and killed comic books in this case.

[Kevin Boyd]

I remember in the late-80's hitting a local Mac's Milk that I used to nab the odd issue I missed, and seeing the old comic book rack empty, and off to the side, The owner told me that "comics are too expensive (I think they were $1) and no kids are buying". - and trust me, convenience store clerks get the pricing complaints.

 

So in this case, the old "comics were priced too low for retailers" reason is not true, as sales and traffic are the key to a convenience store. Higher prices killed sales and killed comic books in this case.

 

I'm not denying that what that fellow said to you was true or not, but all of the information I've come across indicates that the retailers were ordering less and less from the news-stand distributors.

 

However, I will agree that those convenience stores (like or Mac's Milk and Becker's) used to be the local gathering place for kids to get comics and junk food. But I don't think you can discount the fact that video arcades were springing up around schools at the same time, drawing away those same kids that used to hit the convenience stores to get their comics and candy on the way home from school. 1 comic or 3 video game plays? Not much of a choice. Video arcades were a big deal in the 1980's, especially among my school chums.

 

I don't think that if a comic was a quarter that it would have been any more attractive to kids and saved your poor vendors comic book rack. One less video game play is still one less video game play.

[HouseofComics.Com]

There is a store here in Toronto called the Beguiling that orders for the Public Library system here. They advise them on what they feel kids will be interested in and get feedback from librarians as to what the kids like and want to read. They have had a lot of success in getting kids interested in manga and graphic novels... but I can tell you the majority of what we buy, read and enjoy isn't making it onto those shelves.

 

Comic Relief in Berkeley and HiJinx Comics in San Jose do the same. All the graphic novels are in the "teen room" at the Berkeley Library and it is quite the selection.

 

Marc

[joe_collector]

I don't think that if a comic was a quarter that it would have been any more attractive to kids and saved your poor vendors comic book rack.

 

Like I said, convenience store clerks hear about over-priced items on a daily basis so if he said kids were complaining, then I believe him.

 

And you say "prices have no impact" when in reality, the sales figures say you are wrong. Everytime comics rose in price, newstand sales dropped all through the 80's. It can't be a massive coincidence, that on the EXACT time of a price increase, kids suddenly decided to play more video games?

 

I remember back then, and the biggest change was one of entitlement, and who actually controlled the comic and sportscard markets. Kids or adults. I think we know the eventual answer to that question.

 

I do remember kids railing about sportscard prices in the 1980's and how none of them could afford to buy them. Same with comics in the mid to late-80's.

[Zonker]

The Direct Market, since it got the comics first, essentially stripped the newstand of its everyday readership, and was the main cause in the drop. Comics were still selling in high numbers, but comic shops siphoned off readers.

 

 

DC tried to finesse this one, by rebooting New Teen Titans and Legion into higher-priced Direct-Only packages, and simultaneously keeping the original series going as a newstand outlet, with the plan to eventually reprint the Direct stories. They called it their hardcover/softcover experiment, reasoning that just like books, some people will pay a premium to get the story first in a more sturdy format and others will wait and get it cheap as disposable paperback entertainment. For the first year the newstand version continued with separate new material and storylines, but I don't think the experiment lasted too many months past the first reprints. Apparently by that point in the mid-1980s most of whatever comics readership remained had ready access to the direct market.

[matewan1990]

Thing is, the newstand model works for magazines and digests. I see Archie digests selling good in my area and I see magazines like Cosmopolitan, People, US Weekly, the Enquirer and other magazines selling great and these are still returnable.

One of the big reasons kids aren't buying comics is that they see them on TV, then go to the comics and can't access the comics. Comic stories are like a members-only club — if you're not already in, then you probably won't get in. The Batman in the comics resembles nothing like the Batman on the cartoons. Superman on Justice League Unlimited isn't anything like the Superman in the comics. X-Men in the movies doesn't look anything like the X-Men in the comics (and we should all remember how badly Chris Claremont fumbled the ball when he took over the X-Men after the first movie and no one, not even the editors at Marvel, tried to make the comic more accessible to the kids who watched the movie. It's part of the reason Bob Harras lost his job).

Comics are also too costly. I bought three comics yesterday and it cost me $10. Okay, say a kid wants to read all the Superman titles and all the Batman titles, you're talking some series cash. The parent sees how expensive comics are and looks at how cheap video games are and knows that the kid will get more entertainment time out of the video game than the comic, which nowadays, with the decompressed storytelling, takes only about five or six minutes to read.

I stopped reading New Avengers because I get tired of paying $3 for a comic that takes me less than 5 minutes to read. For only 60 cents more I can pick up an Archie double digest at the counter at Wal-Mart and it takes me at least an hour to read it.

I've stopped buying a lot of comics because they've outpriced my wallet. There's not enough bang for my buck these days.

[Hobgoblin]

I gotta say that I would never buy comics from Walmart. Too much risk of being seen by someone you know.

[Kevin Boyd]

And you say "prices have no impact" when in reality, the sales figures say you are wrong. Everytime comics rose in price, newstand sales dropped all through the 80's. It can't be a massive coincidence, that on the EXACT time of a price increase, kids suddenly decided to play more video games?

 

You are misinterpreting what I said about the current state of affairs. Prices did have an impact when kids were buying - comics lost out when kids wanted other things, a price increase meant those that were buying might buy less. I'm not denying that rising prices had some impact.

 

These days though, kids aren't naturally gravitating to comics, nor have they any inclination to spend their money on them... so you have to bring the comics to where the kids are and might either borrow or get their parent to buy them, which is my point. If they get hooked then they will hopefully make some effort to find comics.

[Kevin Boyd]

Thing is, the newstand model works for magazines and digests. I see Archie digests selling good in my area and I see magazines like Cosmopolitan, People, US Weekly, the Enquirer and other magazines selling great and these are still returnable.

 

Sure, but no or very few) comics. Comics opted out of that system for various reasons. If comics wanted to get back in their best bet would be to come back as either magazines or digests.

 

One of the big reasons kids aren't buying comics is that they see them on TV, then go to the comics and can't access the comics. Comic stories are like a members-only club — if you're not already in, then you probably won't get in. The Batman in the comics resembles nothing like the Batman on the cartoons. Superman on Justice League Unlimited isn't anything like the Superman in the comics. X-Men in the movies doesn't look anything like the X-Men in the comics (and we should all remember how badly Chris Claremont fumbled the ball when he took over the X-Men after the first movie and no one, not even the editors at Marvel, tried to make the comic more accessible to the kids who watched the movie. It's part of the reason Bob Harras lost his job).

 

I pretty much agree with most of that - except that the companies have tried to do versions that mesh with the cartoons and movies - Batman Animated, Batman Strikes, Justice League Unlimited. None of those are success stories. However, I think DC has had some minor success with the digest-size comic reprints of Batman, Superman, Justice League, etc.

 

But yes, if the kids wanted to make the jump to the main Batman or Justice League titles they are completely different.

 

Comics are also too costly. I bought three comics yesterday and it cost me $10. Okay, say a kid wants to read all the Superman titles and all the Batman titles, you're talking some series cash. The parent sees how expensive comics are and looks at how cheap video games are and knows that the kid will get more entertainment time out of the video game than the comic, which nowadays, with the decompressed storytelling, takes only about five or six minutes to read.

 

Sure, but I think we're talking about PERCEIVED value here. Comics, at any price, don't have any PERCEIVED value to a parent if it's only going to, at best, provide a kid with 5 minutes of entertainment.

 

Even if we were to compress the storytelling it might, at best, be 20 minutes of entertainment. What's the actual value of keeping a kid entertained for 20 minutes? A cartoon DVD will cost you $20 for 80 minutes entertainment, a videogame, even at $60 provides you with hours, sometimes days of entertainment.

 

Then the answer might be - better storytelling at the current price? I won't disagree with you on that front.

 

I stopped reading New Avengers because I get tired of paying $3 for a comic that takes me less than 5 minutes to read. For only 60 cents more I can pick up an Archie double digest at the counter at Wal-Mart and it takes me at least an hour to read it.

 

I don't like Archie so I wouldn't want to read it at any price. New Avengers I would rather get in a collection so that I can get the decompressed story in one place.

 

I've stopped buying a lot of comics because they've outpriced my wallet. There's not enough bang for my buck these days.

 

That's a personal choice. I can understand that, but I think that's where you have to find the books that are giving you the bang.

 

Most stores offer member discounts. So find a place that isn't charging you cover price. If you aren't getting a 15-20% discount on your new books then you are shopping at the wrong stores. So yeah, cover price might be $2.50, but how many of us actually pay $2.50? I don't. The people that shop at the stores I go to sure don't.

 

If a kid wanted to buy all of the Superman or Batman books at a comic shop the owner would likely offer them a chance to have a pull file for their comics or discount them on the rack. So while a it may cost $10.49 cover to buy all of the Superman books (Action/Adventures/Superman/Superman-Batman) they could be paying $8.40 or less.

 

So, how many videogame stores offer a 20% discount to their customers?