Doom, gloom: The third quarter of 2010 was a bad quarter for comics sales in the direct market, according to ICv2.com, which knows such things. At The Beat, Heidi MacDonald has a round-up of what some folks are saying about the numbers, the most interesting bit of which (I thought) came from retailer Glen Soustek, who notes there’s a good chance these numbers may reflect retailers ceasing to chase the variants some comics publisher’s use to pump up their numbers, and that of course graphic novel sales are down, since there are other, in some ways better channels through which to get graphic novels than the direct market.
What if…E.C. Segar drew Giant-Sixe X-Men #1 instead of Dave Cockrum?: That woulda been a swell issue of What If…?, huh? Ben Towle draws the eighties X-Men in the style of Segar, and though I’ve seen the link a few places already, I saw it at Dirk Deppey’s joint first, so he gets the link.
“99 Problems But a Cape Ain’t One”: Andy Khouri takes a look at The 99, a cartoon and comic book series based in Islamic culture and faith, and the depressingly predictable reaction it’s recevied in the U.S. so far, mostly sight unseen. Given that the heroes are set to team-up with the JLA in a DC Comics-published series starting next week, it’s kinda hard to believe anyone would get too worked up about some subversive element to the characters. Safe (sometimes way too safe), 75-year-old corporate-owned comic book publisher DC putting Superman on a cover with The 99 is about as good an endorsement of the wholesomeness and un-anti-American sentiments of the endeavor as anyone could expect, short of the founding fathers rising from their graves to pass out copies of The 99 comics to school children, or a talking bald eagle swooping into your living room and DVR-ing episodes of the cartoon for you.
Oh, uh…: MTV’s Splash Page has some art from the upcoming Green Lantern movie showing what the planet Oa will look like. Looks pretty Star Wars-y to me, which is probably a good sign.
October 22nd, 2010 at 1:51 pm
That retailer makes a lot of sense. With the economy the way it has been for awhile now, retailers have probably noticed that they don’t have as many people making an impulse buy to get the $10-20 copy of a new floppy variant and maybe a few less people committing to variants on their pull.
And, yeah, that same economy might be pushing more tradepaperback orders through book store distributors that offer returnable product rather than Diamond, even in cases where they might be swapping some potential profit for protection from losses.
January 17th, 2011 at 4:26 pm
My good friend and I were fighting about a problem identical to this! Now I know that I appeared to be correct. Thanks for the information and facts you published.
January 17th, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Mouse – An advanced input device to make computer errors easier to generate.