Slim pickins' at the comics shop today as--once again--a few boxes were missing from the store's weekly shipment. Economically-speaking--and critically, for that matter--I'd be fine if a few more boxes went missing occasionally, to be honest. But there is an inherent problem here...
The comic shop I frequent seems to have this missing box thing as a consistent problem. Since all comic books in America come from one distribution company (albeit different distribution points), it's easy to point a finger (you can pick which one) and say here is where the blame lies, but I'm not entirely convinced that the problem doesn't lie with my local comics shop and the payment of bills. So here's my question to you West Coast-living comics fans who visit your local comics shop every Wednesday: Are missing boxes a regular thing at your shops, too? Is there product that regularly doesn't make it for new comics day? Is this a distributor problem or one peculiar to the shop I visit? I know when I was publishing my comic back in the 1990s (a century ago), the Los Angeles branch of the world's largest comics distributor was often a black hole into which books descended and never appeared again. Is this still the case?
And while I have your attention...
Many moons ago, when I was but a mere lad in short pants (or maybe I was short and the pants were long), DC started a new thing called "Dollar Comics." It was a sincere effort to help stem the tide of the dying newsstand sales of comic books, an attempt to get a higher-priced product into the hands of retailers (in the days before comics-only retail shops) to compete with the likes of Time, Newsweek, and Playboy. At that point in time, visionary that I am, I had the brilliant idea that DC should take it's entire monthly output of say, Superman titles and put them into one Dollar Comic book...Superman, Action, World's Finest, Superboy, Adventure...so instead of buying 5 comics a month, we would be buying one. Needless to say, they didn't listen to me (mainly because it was an idea I myself had and didn't share it with anyone), but fast forward to the new millennium, and what does Marvel do? Take all their Spider-Man titles and consolidate them into one title, Amazing Spider-Man (the flagship one) and kill the others and bring it out weekly. Or three times a month. You pick.
So here's my question(s), oh True Believers...why bother to do this and publish what is ostensibly a weekly comic, and then only do it three times a month? Why then add a FOURTH title, a resurrected Web of Spider-Man, and have it sort-of, kind-of relate to the ongoing storyline? Why not add a fourth issue of Amazing Spider-Man, thus making the almost-weekly ASM a true weekly? And while we're on the topic, why does the skip week--or sometimes two weeks--frequently seem to occur between the next to last and last part of a storyline, thus absolutely KILLING any momentum in the story? I'm all for weekly comics; the format is more immediate and compelling from a story-telling standpoint, but Marvel--DEAR Marvel--you're doing it wrong. Your thoughts?
That's really strange. Maybe they just have a really bad packer assigned to their books. I bet if they kicked up a major fuss it would stop.
Posted by: Maryanne | November 09, 2009 at 08:13 AM
As for Spidey, I think it did, but my point is why add a new Spidey title with different writers and artists...why not just incorporate it into ASM?
As for the local shop I frequent, I don't think it's an ordering problem...these are standard books that are missing, and it's never the same titles. This week all the Marvels came in, but some of the DCs were missing. It's never consistent, title or publisher wise, just a missing box or two.
Posted by: Gary | November 06, 2009 at 10:45 PM
I'm guessing the "missing box" has more to do with what they didn't order enough of, or didn't order at all. It's far easier to save face and blame the distributor, than admit that you didn't order it. (Not to say said distributor doesn't have their issues, but they're pretty on top of their shipments.) We rarely had missing boxes, and if we did they were replaced in a matter of a day or two. And the store we go to now never claims "missing boxes".
I think the Amazing Spider-man not being a true weekly had to do with having wiggle room for the artists, didn't it?
Posted by: Maryanne | November 06, 2009 at 09:45 PM