“Please, people, don’t buy them on eBay! You’re just making things like this worse when you do. Support your LCS that carries them for cover price, and sells to readers, not short-term investors.”

I think it’s the idiot investors who are buying the inflated eBay copies, which…in my opinion…is exactly what they deserve. As a fan, and thinking about all the fans I know, I wouldn’t think many (if any) of them would be going for the eBay scams. Most comic fans worth their salt know they’ll be able to get their hands on a copy at some point, whether it’s a reprint or a TPB collection. Cooler heads always prevail.

But hey…if someone can get $100 for a Cap #25 on eBay, more power to him or her. The suckers who don’t bother to research their investment markets (in this case collectible comics) deserve to get screwed.

Marvel really, really put the “screwgie” to us retailers on this one. As John points out in the ICv2 piece, Marvel had been building the hype for a little while now, but if we believed them every time they hyped, where would we be? Does anyone remember “Fantastic Four: Death in the Family?” When you’re treated like that for so long, pretty soon it’s just crying wolf. They knew this was going to be huge and they didn’t print nearly enough, and we’ll probably be waiting 2 to 4 weeks for 2nd prints to ship. We’re taking names for the 2nd prints at our store, but out of the dozen or so people that have called or come in looking for it, only one has been interested in that. It’s frustrating when you do the FOC, up orders to above where they were when the book was a proper Civil War tie-in and its still not enough. How is this the same compnay that gave us the Dark Tower midnight release?

Wow, Cable…way to be an idiot.

You do realize that they could have simply told retailers that this issue would have the same possible media attention that Civil War #2 had and it would have significantly moved orders upwards? No retailer wants to be without a book to put in the hands of a new customer, so they would have ordered more.

Heck, Marvel could have at least done partial returnability to help increase orders (which would have ended up benefiting them and the retailer). Marvel, it seems, is entirely too adverse to sharing an iota of the risk with the retailer.

KHuxford–I’m not in any way supporting “Cable”’s ignorant attitude here, but Marvel PR Guy David Gabriel did in fact tell many retailers that CA #25 would be huge and should be ordered in greater than usual quantities as a result. Whether that actually led to increased orders, I don’t know–the impression I’ve received (and it is just an impression) is that, in these “internet breaking in half” days, many required (and asked for, and I don’t think received) more info to convince them to risk higher orders on non-returnable material.

That said, it would’ve been nice for retailers to see Marvel supporting its hype by taking some or all of the moves you suggested in regards to overshipping and returnability. I know when my LCS attempted to reorder the issue yesterday afternoon at 2:00 pm or so MST the Diamond site listed it as on backorder. This particular store found itself quickly running out of stock, and it actually *had* ordered more shelf copies than usual to begin with–whether that decision was based on Gabriel’s recommendation, the Civil War connection, the anniversary issue number, or other factors I do not know.

Andrew

Andrew,
I agree that it is an “apples & oranges” question, but I do know that I’m trusted to get my copies of HP7 a week or so beforehand and not sell them out of the back of a van in an alley, but I’m not trusted to be told in a retailer specific email, or a phone call from a Marvel sales rep, that Cap #25 will be CNN-big. Frankly, it almost doesn’t matter what happens in the issue, if someone from Marvel had called or emailed and said the issue would be this big, I would’ve upped my orders even more. Hell, I ordered more copies of #25 than I did when it was Civil War tie (with the trade dress and everything). I felt that was more than generous, and with the cry wolf super hype mentality that Marvel has been showing, I felt that was enough. I was wrong, but because I wasn’t given enough information.

I remember the Armageddon fiasco, but like I said, you don’t have to say “Cap dies.” Say, as one other reader mentioned, this will be as big as Spider-man unmasking and you’ve got my attention.

Andrew Foley posted:
“I believe the “retailers will spoil Big Events” meme goes back to DC’s ARMAGEDDON 2001 event in 1991, when someone leaked that Monarch’s identity was Captain Atom fairly early on, “forcing” DC to change the character’s identity and the end of the story in midstream in order to retain the surprise.”
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Nope. Nobody ‘forced’ DC to change anything. The story was written in a way that made it easy to figure out who Monarch was. Somebody did, and others agreed. DC panicked and changed the story, making it a lesser story in the process.