This is a laugh riot!
Eat a dick racist retailers! It took awhile, but your end is finally close at hand.
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"“when they see that Thor is a woman and Captain America is a black man.” Like really retailer, I wonder why you are failing.
(also funny cause Mighty Thor is one of the best selling Marvel comics and a great story)
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There are actually two issues going on here, and it’s too bad that the retailer’s racism undercut his legitimate argument about variant covers.
Was trying to figure out, are they required to buy and sell the variant covers?
I guess they probably have some sort of higher mark up.
This article, although long, does a good job at explaining the issue:
Basically, in order to qualify for the “cool” variant lenticular covers, a retailer has to order 200% to 225% of their normal order for that book. The problem is that a lot of Marvel titles are suffering sales wise, so retailers are forced to order 200% of books that aren’t selling well just to get the cool cover. On top of that, lenticular covers are more popular than “normal” covers, so once a retailer orders the required 200% to 225% of the normal covers to get the variant covers, most of the die-hard fans will just buy the variants, leaving the retailer holding the bag on tons of unsold issues.
“If you get 225% of the one you can order the other, more desirable version, but then you lose pretty much any demand for the “regular” edition in the first place, even if you can sell 300% or more of the fancy version. Literally, you are being asked to purchase comics you can’t sell, in order to gain access to comics that you can. While a small handful of people are willing or able to buy multiple copies of the same insides, the largest majority of customers just want a single version to buy.”
Ah yea that’s crazy, I was thinking about Floppies, yesterday when I was thinking about my DCBS order for October. Cause I found that I bought a bunch of random floppies, which I haven’t gotten yet and I had to make decisions as to whether I want issue 2 or 3 or even 4 without having seen if I will like Issue 1. Of course this is why I stayed with Trades for so long.
I only get floppy #1 at the steep discount. Then if it’s good I get the trade. If not, I only spend a few pennies on one floppy.
As for variant covers, they have been around and been a problem since the '90s. If you are a retailer, and you are losing money because you have to buy big quantities to get variants, DON’T do the variants. That variant cover gets you a sale from one lousy customer who is a nerdy collecting dude. If that dude is the lifeblood of your store, your store is fucked either way.
If your store can actually foster a large enough base of actual readers who don’t care about collecting, then you are going to be able to push a lot of product. If you can get it big enough, you’ll end up getting the variants as a free bonus on top of your normal sized order.
Don’t blame the publisher because you suck at your job.
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Apparently a bunch of comic shops around the country, and even in the UK, are boycotting the whole lenticular cover thing.
From a retailer perspective, it’s a totally valid complaint, it’s just too bad that it’s going to be totally overlooked because that one retailer at NYCC was a racist asshole.
Would make sense to just get rid of the Floppy as a full story, use it as a preview copy to the trade. (Or do the whole shonen jump way with bunch of single issues combined.)
Like I pointed out though, comic retailers are having to order 200% to 225% of their normal sized order to get the variants. Even if you usually sell 20 issues of Iron Man, a comic shop is going to be hard-pressed to sell 40 issues. And even if a comic shop orders 40 issues of Iron Man to get the variants, now everyone will just buy the cooler variants and the comic shop eats the cost of those 40 normal issues.
If it wasn’t such a collector racket, the Variants would be a good idea for people who get subscriptions. Seems like the smart way to do it is reward someone who puts money down to buy a year’s worth ahead of time or something.
If you sell 20 issues of Iron Man, just buy 20 issues. You don’t get variants. So what?
From a logical standpoint, it makes total sense. Unfortunately, from the way the comic industry is set up, from a financial standpoint, it’s impossible. The creative team behind the comic needs that income to live. Comic creators don’t get advances the way book authors do. And even if they did, it wouldn’t be enough to let them live above a subsistence level while they’re finishing up the full story. I can’t find the link now, but there was actually an article from an independent comic creator about how almost impossible it was to just write a graphic novel without the income from the monthly floppies.
They actually do have subscription variants. Even for things like My Little Pony (yes, this is how bad it has gotten.) You can see them on the DCBS order form. A lot of times I’ll see something like this:
MLP - Normal cover seen on the shelf in the comic shops. Costs normal price.
MLP - Subscription variant cover. You won’t see it on the shelf at the comic shop because it’s only for people who pre-order. Also costs normal price.
MLP - 10 copy incentive variant. The comic shop only get 1x of this variant for each 10x regular copies they order. Costs at least 2x normal price.
I was just pointing out that this part of your comment was inaccurate. Comic retailers are being forced to order double the size of their normal order to get the variants. So just getting their normal sized order wouldn’t qualify for any free bonuses. It’s not sucking at their job, it’s asking them to almost do the impossible.
What I said is not incorrect. DO NOT get the variants. Simple as that.
And that’s what many comic shops are doing. The part of your comment where you said that if a comic retailer can foster a large enough base of actual readers, they would end up getting variants as a free bonus on top of their normal sized order.
Then what are they mad about? Just keep doing that. Marvel will be the one stuck with extra books on their hands.
Your comment is incorrect where you said that if a comic shop will get variants as a free bonus on top of their normal sized order. That’s not how you get variants in this instance. Comic shops are being asked to order 200% of their normal sized order.
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Yea that’s a crazy practice.