Heidi Macdonald offers yet more evidence that the comic industry just might be… well, if not booming, then at least bubbling nicely:
The optimistic tone struck by [Diamond Distributors' Steve] Geppi was echoed in a panel called “Retail Optimism” in which store owners—Joe Field (Flying Colors Comics, Concord, CA), Carr D’Angelo (Earth-2 Comics, Sherman Oaks, CA), Thomas Gaul (Corner Store Comics, Anaheim, CA), and Calum Johnston (Strange Adventures Bookshop, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)—shared success stories. Field noted that his sales for the first half of 2012 were higher than the last half of 2011. “And the second half tends to be the dominant half,” he said. “It’s an anomaly.”The panel noted that the high quality and diversity of material and growing general interest in comics were fueling the rise in sales. “We run sales reports and not only do I see the per transaction number has changed but, more importantly, we’re seeing traffic increase on a weekly basis,” said D’Angelo. “In our Northridge store we’re having an incredible rise. The number of people buying things each week has gone up. It’s not like this community changed somehow—people found us.”“The pie has gotten bigger,” he concluded.
Everytime I find stories like these, the cynic in me tends to try to find ways to disbelief them or poke holes in their optimism. But perhaps things really are getting better, albeit slowly. After all, if John Jackson Miller says it, it generally means that it’s true…
