Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. I enjoy comics, but I rarely enjoy going to buy them.10 canon powershot sd890 battery
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I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that.

Good suggestion to hear positive comic book store stories, Randy. That would certainly be a refreshing change.

The second example is far different in that it was an employee being told not to promote a comic. I think an owner is perfectly in his or her rights not to promote a product he/she doesn’t stand behind. Some people rely on their retailer to give them good buying recommendations. Not every customer treats their retailer like the local McDonalds drive-thru worker.

Comic book retailers have a variety of products in their store that are constantly being replenished every Wednesday. Giving a customer a heads up that some of those products are inferior to others is just good salesmenship.

Marketing and Sales experts like Michael Masterson stress honestly and good cutomer service as being two of the keys to building a successful business. Saying to your customer, “Hey, that Spidey book isn’t so hot. You might want to give a different books a shot,” is exactly the type of action that builds long term trust between a sales person and a customer.

I’m not saying that retailers should talk customers out of sales. I’m saying they’re under no obligation to promote a book that sucks. If they choose to eat the cost of a lousy book to keep customers, that’s their business not Tom Brevoorts.

Then again, I live in a town with a half-dozen really good comic shops (and I pride myself on owning one of them), so maybe I’m just spoiled at the notion that there are *good* comic shops out there.

I blame my new wireless keyboard!

Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. I enjoy comics, but I rarely enjoy going to buy them.

What a pantload. Seriously, they’re SELLING COMICS, not making them. I don’t give a damn what my LCS guy likes and doesn’t like, he can keep his trap shut and SELL ME WHAT I WANT.

This retail, I don’t go into a comic shop to hear what the clerk likes. In fact, I want him to avert his eyes and put on some deodorant. And take that thing out of his lip, and stop liking crappy music. Better yet, I want him to not speak to me unless it is to say “Can I help you, sir?” LIKE EVERY OTHER RETAIL CLERK SHOULD and often (but not often enough) does.

You sell comics. I don’t give damn what you think. I don’t ask the clerk at the CVS about the cold medicine, either.

“Amazing Spider-Man” #548 (after finally seeing the Diamond-shorted #547 from last week) was not bad, despite what the retail troll behind the counter was telling customers about it. “You got cancer by touching it,” he told one man buying a copy. “You’ve read it, but now you’ve got eye cancer. It’s like visual AIDS.”

http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=tbp&article=2976

The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy is not an attack so much on the readers of comics but the LCS owner, the type of guy who thinks opening a comic shop would be a good idea and the people he would hire. Always thought CBG should have a sidekick clerk who looked like whatever trend was around at the writing of the episode. One episode Emo, one episode more Gothy, but always the same parroting annoying teenager.

One employee at my LCS always feels the need to mock or question certain purchases (and I do not pull cheesecake stuff) that he does not agree with. I pretty much ignore him and get them anyway. Maybe one day I will mention it to the owner.

Then again, I pretty much ignore the guy. I mean, he plays Magic still so who is he to question…

SRS

Just let it slide away in obscurity so people can forget it quicker. The sooner that happens the sooner the quality of Brand New Day can draw people back in.

(Although Brand New Day still isn’t as good as Ultimate Spider-man: The Greatest Spidey comic ever)

I’m afraid that 95% of superhero comics (if not 100%) would fall under this category.

In the case of “One More Day,” though, the situation stands out as one in which the people involved are unrepentant about producing trash. Straczynski referred to the people involved as not knowing “Fantasy 101” (see, e.g., http://myalternatereality.com/EPOP/NEWSBYTE_files/COMIC/NEWSBYTES-Comic%20Marvel.html?catflag=epop ) in the use of magic. The marriage retcon forces anyone reading old stories to mentally edit/rewrite a story in which the marriage is a plot element. In his Q&A piece on CBR (see http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=12835 ), Quesada minimizes the problems with OMD by comparing it to other notoriously bad storylines, displays a complete lack of understanding about the use of magic in fiction, and comes across as someone who has no sense of having an obligation to produce something good for the customer to buy.

If a plot comparable to OMD had appeared in a story written in a writing workshop, the story would probably have literally been torn to pieces. If all the negative public reaction had been focused on a manufactured product, there probably would have been people fired, for generating bad publicity and hurting the company’s image. But, because AMS is a serial, and there will be people who are unconcerned about the premise for “Brand New Day,” and subsequent stories, they will act as if OMD was never published. From Marvel Editorial’s perspective, it’s probably a perfect example of the end justifying the means. There’s no trade press publication with enough bite to cause injuries, and the fan reaction, however negative, didn’t attain “critical mass.” People seem all to willing to act like children in picking their reading material, and to let the creators act like children in producing it.

SRS