COMIC STORES 2023: 'IT'S NEARLY 2024 AND I'M MORE THAN CONCERNED' 4 4

[Lightning55]

There's always a "rude awakening" when the market shrinks back from euphoric levels. Even returning to the pre-2020 status will seem like a depression. 

[Prince Namor]

On 11/14/2023 at 5:41 AM, Dr. Haydn said:

It's been about 25 years since I picked up a new comic book. 

Same here. They could be 100% heterosexual White Males who always save the day, where the female superheroes faint every time they use their powers - all mention of homosexuality or bisexuality, or 'non-whites' could be completely wiped clean and.... and I still wouldn't be buying modern comics.

I mean... if it was that way, I ESPECIALLY wouldn't buy it, but it doesn't matter because I'm not buying them in the first place.

I can read for nostalgia. Sort of. Sometimes. 

But hell, man, I'm an ADULT. I don't spend my time reading Peter Pan and Cinderella either. 

[Black_Adam]

On 11/13/2023 at 9:43 AM, Prince Namor said:

...

A kid friendly section of the store with plenty of stock.

 

 

Do they still make comics for kids? I grew up on a steady diet of Harvey and Gold Key comics but both publishers are, sadly, long gone. In at least one comic store's defense, however, I should mention that I visited a LCS yesterday and when I asked if they had anything my 4 year old daughter would like they pulled out an Amazing Spidey and Friends story/stickerbook. I bought it and the stickers have been stuck by one very happy 4 year old! And we had a new bedtime story.  🌙 

 

[Ken Aldred]

On 11/13/2023 at 11:20 PM, Black_Adam said:

Do they still make comics for kids? I grew up on a steady diet of Harvey and Gold Key comics but both publishers are, sadly, long gone. In at least one comic store's defense, however, I should mention that I visited a LCS yesterday and when I asked if they had anything my 4 year old daughter would like they pulled out an Amazing Spidey and Friends story/stickerbook. I bought it and the stickers have been stuck by one very happy 4 year old! And we had a new bedtime story.  🌙 

 

Be careful with Archies from the 2010s onwards. 
 

Zombie epidemics, werewolves eviscerating their victims, satanism.

Not all-ages entertainment.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Ken Aldred

[NewWorldOrder]

On 11/13/2023 at 2:43 PM, Lightning55 said:

There's always a "rude awakening" when the market shrinks back from euphoric levels. Even returning to the pre-2020 status will seem like a depression. 

Pre-2000 Back Issues are selling just fine.

2023 for me was way better than 2022, and I think people having way more money to spend on real back issues than most new trash comics (that in a month you can get for a $1.00 in the discount bins) that have been coming out since 2015+ helps the back issue market.

#1 Problem for comic book stores is everything is cheaper online and readily available.  Now if customers go into a comic book store and something they want isn't there, and the store owner tells the customer they can order it for you.  Most think to themself, "Well l I might as well just go home and order it myself on Amazon."

Every single comic book store owner I know is telling me 2022 and 2023 has been very bad for new comic book sales, but if they can keep replenishing their pre-2000 back issues that makes up for it.  So the stores that just have generic new stuff for sale in their stores, well they have been on borrowed time for years.  Especially when it comes to Marvel and DC comics because the art/stories have been pre-school trash for almost 10 years now overall.  Marvel characters are doing just fine, just not in new comic book form.  Spider-Man 2 is I think now the best selling PS5 video game of all time now.  Af 15, X-Men 1's, and all the rest of the blue chip vintage comics will still be fine long-term.  I think the back issue market is in a great and healthy place right now.  I feel bad for the LCS's that are going out of business currently, but what they are selling just isn't selling anymore.  Tough to sell garbage for $3.99 each month.

Edited November 13, 2023 by NewWorldOrder

[Buzzetta]

On 11/13/2023 at 4:58 AM, Prince Namor said:

https://icv2.com/articles/columns/view/55531/comic-stores-2023-its-nearly-2024-im-more-concerned

COMIC STORES 2023: 'IT'S NEARLY 2024 AND I'M MORE THAN CONCERNED'

Guest Column by Phil Boyle of Coliseum of Comics

Phil Boyle, whose Coliseum of Comics Chain is the largest comics and games retailer in the southeast, has shared his concerns and suggested solutions for comic stores at a time of declining sales.

It’s nearly 2024 and I’m more than concerned.

Marvel and DC, you blew it.  Or maybe you just succeeded in your plan to kill off an American art form of which you’ve been the able stewards of for 80 years.  It’s baffling that something so prolific was ushered to the chopping block and executed.  Strong accusation?  No, just the unvarnished truth as new comic sales find new lows.

Worse, you’ve gutted an army of passionate retailers who’ve worked in this biz for decades for close to poverty wages in many cases.  To put such a system of advocates in every state and major city in America, and around much of the world, would cost a fortune.  But it happened organically to your benefit, and in gratitude, you’ve strip-mined what little profit there was in favor of short-term goals and chasing corporate bonuses.

We, the retailers, cultivated the fanbase the same way the under-appreciated creators created the precious IPs that have made their parent companies obscene amounts of money.  It was a biosystem of fans feeding off the Wednesday excitement, eager to spend money on not only the comics that drew them in, but the T-shirts, lunch boxes, and mousepads with Spider-Man or Batman on them.  Fan, retailers, and creators, have all suffered under the recent corporate mandates.

Where did it go off the rails?  It’s not such a conundrum to anyone with two active brain cells and a list of back issues they need to complete their runs.  Comics, first and foremost, have always been entertainment.  Sure, collectible entertainment, which justifies the cost-to-entertainment ratio.  But along the way, the immediate sale and false bolstering of numbers through variant covers, convoluted events, and incessant reboots left the considerations of the fans behind.  Character swapping, gender-bending, and changing sexual orientation of beloved characters fell flat with the Wednesday Warriors who supported the industry for decades.  The crowd of new readers the changes were meant to attract didn’t translate to a 1-for-1 swap, leaving a declining customer base.

To make things more difficult on the retail side, in a very deliberate abuse of both the FOC system and retailers’ goodwill toward publishers, we constantly have to FOC an issue two issues out rather than next issue.  This makes ordering a guess.  Throw in four covers on #5, then six on #6, one of which is by Artgerm and another by Skottie Young, and then #7 has five covers with neither cover artist, and #8 has a celebrity appearance cover, and it’s a constant and very deliberate shell game, forcing retailers to guess on nearly every next issue.

How do we fix this, assuming we can pull the canoe back over the waterfall at this point?

A friend of mine recently moved into a condo and took up an advisory position on the board.  The pool was in need of repair, the roofs needed replacing, and the facades and landscaping had seen better days.  There was no money to make the repairs and the only solution was to add $150 a month to everyone’s condo fees to pay for the repairs.  The meeting that followed the announcement was less than friendly as people complained about the extra costs.  My buddy explained that everyone had been living off the equity in the condos and put no money INTO the condos, thereby devaluing them.

And here we are in the comic industry facing the same conundrum.  Marvel & DC have strip-mined the comic industry for the better part of a decade, putting no money into the market that sustained them for years.  Much like the condo association, an investment is needed by those who lived off the equity for years.  If you want a market in 2 years – yes, TWO years tops – then the time to invest is now.  What we need to revitalize this market:

 

1. $3.99 comics.  I would say $2.99 but we have increased rents, labor, and insurance costs to cover so $3.99.  $4.99 and more is a non-starter with too many fans.
    
2. Fewer covers.  I know this will get some pushback from every corner but without a focus, it’s all about the value of the covers and not what’s between them.  Max of 2 covers.  While you’re at it, give us a hook to sell, not just another convention commission piece with no indication of what’s inside the comic it covers.
    
3. Editors who are editors.  Too many stories are lackluster and agenda-driven, too many covers are con-sketch drivel with no sales point, and too much interior art is amateurish.  It’s clear neither Marvel nor DC has a publishing plan beyond the current reboot.
    
4. The characters are iconic for a reason.  The movies never got traction until they leaned into what made the characters decades-long successes.  Change is good for story but inevitably, you need to touch base with what brought them.  Gender swaps, sexual orientation changes, and outright changes to who’s in the suit are short-term headline grabbers but without long-term sales with very few exceptions.
    
5. Tell stories without proselytizing.  I’ve beat this drum for a decade and more but here we are, chasing away a large portion of our customer base with every new tale as they want entertainment, not a serialized sermon.
    
6. Limited new characters.  Fresh blood is good, but it’s become obvious that characters aren’t organic to stories, they’re shoehorned in for a bump in sales.  Dance with who brung you, as the saying goes.
    
7. I’d ask for Minimum Advertised Price but we’re not in that world anymore.  You made deals with the devil, which is also on you.
    
8. Here’s the big one: Discount and shipping.  Marvel and DC screwed this market so if you want to continue to have people dumb enough to labor 60 hours a week for poverty wages to sell AND ADVOCATE for your precious IPs, you need to invest in that market.  You stripped-mined (that word again, though it applies so precisely) all the cash out of the direct market and retailers are bleeding from the bone.  We need your investment, or this market goes away.  No, you can’t just sell online as the minimum production costs won’t be met with online only.  Investment means putting books on stands at a cost to you, not the people with the highest-per-issue cost.

Actual plan:

Set a minimum for each title by store.  Every issue over that minimum is sold to BRICK AND MORTAR retailers for 60 cents.  This puts books on stands, minimizes cost to retailers, and helps print runs.

Why should you listen to any of this?  Because your livelihood is tethered to the retail community.  Rome is on fire.  Fiddle or get on the phone with some of your key retail partners and find out what it’s like out here but be prepared for some ugly stories.  Without some immediate action, I see 25% of the retail stores closing at the end of the 1st quarter, 2024.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.

There are a few good points in this article but there is one thing that they are missing with the primary aspect being price.  We are already seeing many people dissuaded from visiting a movie theater (for all genres of film) unable to justify the costs while shrugging their shoulders awaiting the film to show up on a streaming service. 

Comics are getting to the point where you can either pirate the books illegally with minimal effort or get a streaming subscription for an entire year with what would cost the price of 15 x $3.99 comics. 

When I was a kid, my parents bought me my first comics and even with the rate of inflation I do not think that today's parents believe a $4 or even a $5 price point can be justified for 22 pages of what is really only 7-8 minutes of entertainment. 

Kids also consume media in a non written format.  I saw a kid running around Target the other day in a Miles Morales Spider-man mask.  That was pretty cool to see. However, that kid is more likely to pick up Spider-man 2 for the PS5 or Across the Spider-verse and get more value and time spent out of those two forms of media than they would a comic book. 

We are getting to the point where I don't know if Disney or Time Warner even want to maintain a publishing wing anymore. 

Edited November 14, 2023 by Buzzetta

[Math Teacher]

On 11/13/2023 at 11:43 AM, Prince Namor said:

Disinterested staff that alienates customers. A killer.

No website or minimal effort to produce one (It's cheaper and easier than ever before to have a web presence, there is almost no excuse for this other than laziness) It's the #1 way, people search for comic book stores. wtf?

No mail order business. (Use eBay, Amazon, your own site... everything you can to sell. Again, if they're not doing this, it's just lazy) Yikes...

A kid friendly section of the store with plenty of stock.

I would be hard pressed to remember the last time I bought a new comic. I'm guessing that it is nearing ten years now. This mainly happened due to the fact that I did not enjoy reading new comics, along with the fact that I realized that I was idiotic to continue to purchase comics that I did not enjoy just to have a complete run.

I agree with @Prince Namor's suggestions. I would add the following, and this is mostly related to the publishers. Lower the prices! I can't begin to tell you how many times I have seen or heard a parent express sticker shock, followed by, "These things used to cost $1.25 [or less] when I was growing up!" Why would any parent, in their right mind, buy their child ten comic books, which would provide maybe two hours of entertainment, when they can buy the latest PlayStation or X-Box game for approximately the same price, and get virtually unlimited entertainment?

[Math Teacher]

On 11/13/2023 at 4:04 PM, PopKulture said:

Except for all the people for whom it does.  

I believe that @Prince Namor was commenting on what led him to stop reading comics, rather than commenting about all comic readers.

[KingOfRulers]

I agree with Phil's points.

There are many reasons and contributing factors for the decline in publishing of Marvel and DC.

Publishing in general seems like a dying business; Marvel and DC are no exception. The marketplace is very different than it was 30 years ago. And way different than it was 60 years ago. People's tastes and interests are different. Lots of people will continue to enjoy Marvel and DC properties for years in movies, TV, and video games. Those aforementioned channels are the channels by which consumers enjoy the characters nowadays. Comics still exist as a channel to enjoy the characters, but it isn't the channel anymore. The medium of comic books are now niche appeal, not mass appeal. I don't think lowering the prices will help. In my opinion, today's consumer doesn't have strong interest regardless of price.

It's sad to say, but I foresee interest in newly published comics continuing to decline. I don't see that trend ever reversing. I think American-style Marvel and DC comics had their time, and that time is coming to an end. It's hard for me to imagine newly published Marvel and DC comics going extinct (at least not in my lifetime), but I definitely expect continuous readership declines.

Edited November 14, 2023 by KingOfRulers

[Math Teacher]

On 11/13/2023 at 5:50 PM, Buzzetta said:

We are already seeing many people dissuaded from visiting a movie theater (for all genres of film) unable to justify the costs while shrugging their shoulders awaiting the film to show up on a streaming service. 

I stopped going to the theater because I can't make it through a 2+ hour movie without having to get up to use the restroom. I saw a matinee of the last Avengers movie, and the only way I made it through was to not drink any liquids the entire day. If I watch the same movie at home, I can pause it whenever I need to, so as to use the restroom or get something to eat, and then pick up where I left off when I return. Also, I have been wearing hearing aids for 3+ years, and they amplify ALL sounds, not just voices. Another benefit of streaming services is close captioning, which I don't expect to see in a theater any time soon.

[Ken Aldred]

On 11/14/2023 at 12:10 AM, Math Teacher said:

I stopped going to the theater because I can't make it through a 2+ hour movie without having to get up to use the restroom. I saw a matinee of the last Avengers movie, and the only way I made it through was to not drink any liquids the entire day. If I watch the same movie at home, I can pause it whenever I need to, so as to use the restroom or get something to eat, and then pick up where I left off when I return. Also, I have been wearing hearing aids for 3+ years, and they amplify ALL sounds, not just voices. Another benefit of streaming services is close captioning, which I don't expect to see in a theater any time soon.

Very similar for me now.

I tend to fall asleep at the cinema, lose attention after about half an hour or so, and it’s better that I can break up my viewing conveniently, and also the top end of my hearing is shot by listening to too much loud metal in my younger years and some bad ear infections.  Always watch films at home with subtitles on, otherwise with ADD and about 50% normal hearing I’m missing too much detail.

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by Ken Aldred

[Ken Aldred]

On 11/14/2023 at 12:10 AM, Math Teacher said:

Another benefit of streaming services is close captioning, which I don't expect to see in a theater any time soon.

You see an occasional showing at the local cinema here with this.

[Ken Aldred]

On 11/13/2023 at 11:58 PM, Math Teacher said:

Why would any parent, in their right mind, buy their child ten comic books, which would provide maybe two hours of entertainment, when they can buy the latest PlayStation or X-Box game for approximately the same price, and get virtually unlimited entertainment?

Yup. Classic recent example for me was Witcher 3 : Wild Hunt, which I got for £12, including free PS5 upgrade, which we’ll compare more directly with the approximate price of a trade paperback collection, typical 6 issue story arc.

Played the game, on-and-off, several completions, for over 6 months.

Says it all.

[fastballspecial]

My quesiton is why isnt this brought up at Cons when executives are there for this discussion?

[Buzzetta]

On 11/13/2023 at 7:29 PM, Ken Aldred said:

Yup. Classic recent example for me was Witcher 3 : Wild Hunt, which I got for £12, including free PS5 upgrade, which we’ll compare more directly with the approximate price of a trade paperback collection, typical 6 issue story arc.

Played the game, on-and-off, several completions, for over 6 months.

Says it all.

I played my first real video game in ages this past summer, Zelda Breath of the Wild and also got more out of that then a stack of comic books at price per hour (or minute) of enjoyment. 

[Ken Aldred]

For me, there’s also the problem of paying $3-99 for part of a story which in the end turns out to be mediocre, even terrible, or something that you don’t emotionally connect to or get anything of value in any way, shape or form.  A bit of a risk, and, in the end, there have been many impulsive purchases that I could’ve done without, having bought them fresh off the newsstands or from the LCS on delivery day.

At least with digital bundles you can accept that not all of the material may suit your tastes, or some books may pleasantly surprise you, but with a stack which often works out at 50c a copy or less you can more easily, literally, afford to be experimental, without as much remorse as I’ve felt in recent years about my physical copy collection.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Ken Aldred

[Prince Namor]

On 11/14/2023 at 6:58 AM, Math Teacher said:

I would be hard pressed to remember the last time I bought a new comic. I'm guessing that it is nearing ten years now. This mainly happened due to the fact that I did not enjoy reading new comics, along with the fact that I realized that I was idiotic to continue to purchase comics that I did not enjoy just to have a complete run.

I agree with @Prince Namor's suggestions. I would add the following, and this is mostly related to the publishers. Lower the prices! I can't begin to tell you how many times I have seen or heard a parent express sticker shock, followed by, "These things used to cost $1.25 [or less] when I was growing up!" Why would any parent, in their right mind, buy their child ten comic books, which would provide maybe two hours of entertainment, when they can buy the latest PlayStation or X-Box game for approximately the same price, and get virtually unlimited entertainment?

Video games really did destroy so much of the teen market for comics...

[Prince Namor]

On 11/14/2023 at 7:18 AM, Ken Aldred said:

Always watch films at home with subtitles on, otherwise with ADD and about 50% normal hearing I’m missing too much detail.

I do the same thing! I thought I was weird...

[Paul © ® ⚽️💙™]

Comic books aren't as good as they were.  Shocker.  

In other news....

[Ken Aldred]

On 11/14/2023 at 1:13 AM, Prince Namor said:

I do the same thing! I thought I was weird...

No. Allows you to get deeper into the story and dialogue, spot foreshadowing, etc.