Current Edition
August 2010

an economy of words

Comic books were invented to be a disposable, inexpensive form of entertainment. They’ve been just that through World Wars, semi-World Wars, recessions, sky-high inflation and even higher gas prices. In fact, during the worst of these times, comic books have actually thrived. Along with films, Comic books have been the refuge for all classes of people to seek escape from the turmoil of hard times. In case you didn’t know, the worst hard times are upon us all. The cause goes beyond the blame game that all politicians are so eager to play. Spending time blaming someone else is what people do when they can’t figure out how to solve a problem. That only prolongs the problem.

For decades comic books held steady at a cover of 10 to 12 cents. Even taking into consideration the value of the dollar from the late 1930s through the early 1970s the price of comics remained a very cheap form of entertainment.

During the 1970s we saw the cover price of comic books jump from month to month. This was due to the rising cost of printing, cable television, less mass-market distribution, the birth of video and arcade games as well as the beginning of the direct market. The time of the consumers was being challenged by the increase of other pop culture outlets and dwindling youth based consumer base. By the 1990s the cover price of comic books had hit an all time high of $1.99.
It was during the late 1980s and early ‘90s that the collector craze made its way to the comic book business. It’s true that there have always been comic book collectors, but that core base was made up of buyers that had been reading and collecting comic books since early childhood. Now non-traditional speculators, not so much readers, were invading and producing a false bottom to the comic book industry via collecting. The rise of variant covers, enhanced formatting and added collector value issues were being produced in record numbers. Everyone thought they were going to be rich, send their kids to college and retire early through buying multiple issues of comics and waiting to unload them as true collector’s items in a few years. Publishers were overprinting comic books in the millions making all of these dreams bloated balloons just waiting to burst.
And they did... Like carpetbaggers in the old south after the Civil War, (The real one, not the Marvel one) the speculators left and went to the action figure market to repeat the damage they had done to the sports card market and the comic book market. Everyone saw it coming, but no one could stop themselves from snorting comic books like they were cocaine on a glass table. That left a crater-like hole that comic books are still trying to climb out of today.

Presently we couldn’t have a worse time to have poor mass-market distribution. We couldn’t have a worse time to lack a marketing program that will cultivate young readers that will grow into adult readers. We couldn’t have a worse time to only have one direct market distributor that is now showing the wear and tear of a broken system. All of this comes when times are as tight as a short skirt on Beyonce Knowles.

And those times are going to get worse... I am not channeling Chicken Little here. The economical facts are right there in the freight train bearing down on all of us across the globe. Unless we can become the switchman that will find a way to divert this behemoth, we’re all in for one hell of a train wreck.

Comic books now carry an average cover price of $4.00. That is a very dangerous level in any time let alone the harder times to come. Comic books are no longer an inexpensive form of entertainment. I find it very hard to believe that soon there will be enough people with the ability to feed the desire to buy more than ten comic books a week. With the average comic book reader being male, 30 - 55 years old, that comic book money is going to have to go to making a mortgage payment, gas and grocery bills. Companies are cutting jobs left and right. That’s going to increase in the next year. Things were tough enough with pop culture time being drawn away by the internet, DVD’s and video games. The warp speed rise of technology has been the biggest competitor of comic books in the last ten years and there is no sign of it slowing down or the comic book industry finding a way to harness it for their own profitable good.

I know this all sounds like gloom and Doctor Doom, but this is common, eyes wide-open, sense I’m talking. I refuse to lie to myself and to you. These are the facts that so many in comics have been lying to themselves about. These are the facts that so many have been wishing will just go away if they don’t think about them too hard. The sad part is that no one (or group) has been smart enough to come up with a real plan or a spark of a plan to change things. I wish I was able to take my twenty plus years of experience and change things, but unlike a hero in a comic book, one man can’t do it.

I can, however, add MY suggestions:

.01] Inventing a mesh of the mass-market with the direct market. Take the best of both and cut out the worst. There are ongoing books like The X-Men, Batman and Superman that come out every month and will continue to do so. Offer the retailer (Mass and Direct) a deeper discount with no returns on those types of books. Offer less of a discount with mini-series and new series with returns on unsold issues. Do not drag out the return time frame. This will help retailers be able to keep better track of the movement of the books and also not prolong the payment to distributors and publishers.

02] Offer reasonable overship programs on new monthly comics and mini-series. Again, stress a shorter return time frame with retailer breaks and incentives on shipping. Keep new product as low risk to the struggling retailer as possible.
03] Keep trade paperbacks in print. Give retailers confidence that they will be able to order product and be given time to build a consumer base for that product. If a publisher has enough confidence in a product to publish it, then they should give that same confidence to the retailer they are asking to buy that product. As a small publisher, if you cannot afford to keep the trade paperback in print for an extended time while waiting for it to find an audience, then let the retailer and consumer know up front the print run so that they can order it with a lower risk or plan their purchase ahead of time. This would make the first printing even more of a collector’s item if the book goes into multiple printings later.

04] Use the internet as a true steering wheel to cultivate young, new and non-traditional readers. Do not rely on just singing to the choir. If you do this, a majority of your customers will be dead in thirty years and there won’t be anyone to take their place. It sounds cold, but it’s the truth.

.05] Instead of running expensive events that ask the consumer to buy not only the expensive event comics, but the expensive monthly comics that tie in as well, make the event issues themselves at a loss leader cover price in a less expensive format that will make it a lower risk for the reader to buy. Keep the tie-in monthly issues at their regular price.

.06] More stand alone story issues that have a better chance of snaring new or come back readers.

.07] Cut back on multiple titles from characters like Batman, Superman, The X-Men. During these times it’s just too much to ask money strapped readers to invest in watered down issues of the characters.

.08] Introduce new heroes and villains in flagship monthly comics. Test the characters in safe waters before you throw them out to sink or swim on their own. New heroes and villains are at an all time low. Look at what has come before...The Inhumans, The Silver Surfer, The Black Panther, Wolverine, The Punisher and Galactus. Build a new icon on an iconic foundation.

I realize that these are not the answers to all the problems, but they’re a start and, to be honest, more of a start than what we’re being given right now by others in power. The most important thing is to understand not to keep looking short term. We’ve been doing that much too long. The only way to change things is the bigger picture. Gradual change is the sticking change. No quick fix diet. It has to come day-by-day. Too many people already think the word WORK is spelled E-A-S-Y. It’s not...
Your amigo,
Beau Smith
The Flying Fist Ranch
beau@flyingfistranch.com
www.flyingfistranch.com

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