Wednesday 29 October 2008

An insiders guide to comic/game shop retail, part two

So having spent far longer setting the scene and outlining my background than I had intended let’s get down to the nitty gritty.

Comic shop stock ordering is a strange beast.

Other retail markets work by generating interest - through shows, advertising, sales representatives, promotional tie-ins, etc. They then manufacture product based on projected interest and the cheapest trade off between production run and projected sales. Then they take and fulfill orders on said products. If demand is high they do further production runs as deemed appropriate.

From natural yoghurt to natural pine furniture this is pretty much true. Some industries however, prefer to work solely on pre-orders. Special edition sports cars for example.

Comics now work in a similar way. A process called the Direct Market. More on that shortly. First, where did this system come from?

Prior to the Eighties, comics were primarily bought in the US from newstands, drugstores, local supermarkets, toy stores, etc. Comics were printed based on previous issues’ circulations. Unsold copies could be ‘stripped’ (the front cover removed as proof of the item’s unsold status, the rest of the comic would then be binned) and returned to the publisher for credit. This still goes on for books and magazines in places such as WHSmith or your local newsagent.

This was all handled by local newspaper/magazine distribution companies. It was a good system in many ways - comics were accessible all over the place in the US and the retailers could do so with little risk, but the profit margin was slim, perhaps only 20%.

In the Eighties, Phil Seuling (organizer of the annual New York Comic Art Conventions) approached the big comic publishers and proposed to purchase comic books directly. These books would be sold at a lower unit cost, but would be on non-returnable, ‘firm-sale’ terms.

Seuling’s method expanded and more specialist shops began to follow this route. Soon the publishers were producing material just for the Direct Market - more obscure characters would get their own miniseries for example. By soliciting a book in advance of publishing, the big companies could take pre-orders and then print only what was ordered rather than the risk of printing based on previous circulation figures.

In time, the newstand market declined and the Direct Market grew giving rise to several dedicated Direct Market distributors. I will gloss over the business that went on behind the scenes but ultimately Marvel tried to snag a bigger piece of the pie by signing an exclusive distribution deal with Heroes World, one of the major Direct Market distributors. Heroes World would only carry Marvel books and Marvel Direct Market books could only be purchased through Heroes World.

In response, DC, Dark Horse, Image and many of the smaller comic companies signed similar exclusive deals to Diamond Comic Distributors. Suddenly Direct Market comic shops had to open accounts with two or more different distributors to stock the full range and almost all the smaller Direct Market distributors went bust or were bought out by Diamond including their main rivals at Capitol City Distribution.

Marvel ultimately decided that self distribution through Heroes World (now incorporated into Marvel) wasn’t working and they too signed with Diamond. This effective monopoly remains in place today and was investigated as an antitrust from 1997 to 2000. It was closed with no further action because it was decided that whilst Diamond enjoyed a monopoly on North American Direct Market comic distribution, they did not have a monopoly on book distribution.

Translation, comics are too niche for the U.S. Department of Justice to bother with. Sigh.

In the UK we are also in a Diamond stranglehold. In the Eighties, we had Titan Comic Distribution and Neptune Distribution. Titan grew out of Comic Media Distributors and was part of the same company that opened Forbidden Planet in London in 1978.

Neptune grew too fast and expanded into publishing as Trident Comics. Ultimately the whole company was sold to Diamond.

Soon after, Titan decided to refocus on book publishing and expanding Forbidden Planet into a nationwide chain, so they sold the distribution arm of Titan to Diamond.

And what does this mean for you, the comic shop customer?

Well, because Diamond enjoy a massively dominant market share, they have no need to give great customer service. So deliveries are often late, short, damaged or otherwise rubbish. Retailers can complain but only to a point, knowing that they have no other way to get stock and so have to keep Diamond sweet.

This system is almost worse in the UK, where the shared feeling amongst smaller comic retailers is that because many of the higher up employees at Diamond UK are former employees of Titan, Forbidden Planet gets preferential treatment. Whether this is actually true, or if it is simply a reflection of the fact that the two Forbidden Planet chains probably have the largest accounts with Diamond UK is a matter for debate.

Ultimately it is frustrating. Comic shop owners/managers will receive Previews catalogues in the last week of the current month. They have until about the third week of the following month to draw up orders and place them with Diamond.

For the bigger publishers, these figures are then relayed to them some six weeks before the comics will hit the shelves (known as the FOC or Final Order Cutoff) and print runs are produced accordingly - often with some extra copies to cover restocks, but not always. Retailers can add further guaranteed copies to the order up until a title’s FOC, then after that it’s pot luck based on restocks. Other, smaller companies get their figures almost straight away, allowing the retailers no time to increase their orders.

This means that when you see issue #1 of a comic on the shelves - orders have already been placed for issue #2! And the figures for #3 are about to be sent in, if they haven’t been already. So retailers must place orders for up to the first three issues of a comic without knowing how well issue #1 sells! Many cope with this by ordering say 10 of #1, then cutting it to 5 for #2 and 3 or less for #3, hoping that they can get increases in before the FOC. Remember, a Direct Market retailer who has stock left on the shelves is stuck with them - they usually cannot get a refund.

If every comic enthusiast bought a copy of Previews each month and placed orders based on what they like in that month’s catalogue, retailers would have things a lot easier. But most people seem to forgo Previews these days. Instead they place orders for #1 maybe the week before or pick up #1 then add the rest to their reservation, not realising they may not get issue #2 if luck is against them.

Reservation customers are a blessing though. A customer who wants the same title every month gives a retailer almost guaranteed income and makes it much easier to gauge how popular a title is. If the creative team on a comic changes, retailers can see a massive drop or in turn a large increase in copies required. Difficult when orders were locked between three months or six weeks before the comic’s release date.

It is also disheartening to a retailer when a customer cancels his or her order. The shop has between 2 or 3 months worth of comics on order for that customer that may well be impossible to cancel. Suddenly the shop has instant negative equity moving forward unless someone new picks up those books.

All in all, the Direct Market is a mixed bag. It does give higher profit margins on comics than the magazine distribution model, but it comes at the price of a higher risk and a need to be a little bit cliarvoyant when it comes to placing orders.

I’ve been placing Previews orders myself for almost 3 years consecutively now and whilst I have a better insight into what can happen, you can never get it perfect.

Perhaps if people understand the inner workings of the process, it will be easier to understand why sometimes you have to wait whilst I source your missing issue of Captain Britain #2 from somewhere else!

Wednesday 22 October 2008

An insiders guide to comic/game shop retail, part one

Hmmm, a new feature on my bloggety blog. A look into the lessons learnt - mostly the hard way - from working in and managing comic/gaming shops over the past decade.

First up, my relevant CV.

1996-1997 - part time sales assistant - Spot-On Models & Hobbies, Swindon

2000-2003 - relief manager - Into The Void, Swindon

2004-2005 - assistant manager - Forbidden Planet, Bristol

2006-2007 - manager - Swin City, Swindon

2008-present - proprietor - Proud Lion, Cheltenham

Plus, I’ve been reading comics since I was 6. My first comics were Marvel UK weeklies including Transformers, The Real Ghostbuster, Zoids, etc. Transformers often had a back up strip of something like Action Force/GI Joe, Visionaries and for a while Iron Man - my first and still my favourite Marvel superhero. It was the days of the red and silver centurion armour.

Years later I was hooked into the Batman and X-Men cartoons and I started reading X-Men UK reprints at my friend’s house, plus the Batman Knightfall and Death/Return of Superman graphic novels. Around this time my Granddad bought me a few Batman DC comics from the newsagent, ones with the fat Comag label spoiling the cover.

In the last few years of secondary school, a friend lent me Sandman and Watchmen, changing my perspective completely.

Then as college began, the great Lee Goodheart opened his comic shop in the Rodbourne area of Swindon, near the Designer Outlet Village. I drove Lee mad trying all sorts of US comics and ultimately adding and cancelling many titles over the months - Superman (the horrible new powers storyarc), Iron Man (of course), Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner, nice but it would be some years before the GL Rebirth story hooked me completely) and then the Heroes Reborn event happened.

It was twaddle, but at the time it was a new take on classic characters with great Image art. I loved it. That lead to Heroes Return and a greater appreciation of the proper Marvel Universe, which lead me to realise how naff Heroes Reborn had been really.

But in the midst of all that, whilst the heroes were missing, another book started. A quiet book. About some new Heroes. Lee was skeptical. But I thought the Iron Man-like one, Mach-1 looked ace. A human jet fighter. So I picked up there early appearances in the Incredible Hulk and Heroes For Hire and then the issue 1. And at the end of that first issue, Kurt Busiek blew my mind by revealing these new heroes were in fact, The Masters Of Evil. HOLY SHIT!

I have every issue of this title bar the embarassing Fight Bolts story arc. Lets draw a veil over that piss poor idea. I love it. At the heart of T-bolts is a story of redemption. Some of the villains grew to love the acclaim and respect that came as being heroes and welcomed the change of pace form the constant life of lies and evasion that came with being bad guys.

So they struck out to become heroes. A path fraught with disbelief, betrayal and hope. I still love it.

True Believers was eventually sold to the small comics chain Into The Void. The new manager Vince was someone I viewed nervously, I missed Lee. But Vince was good people and eventually I began to work for him covering his days off, the time he’d have to travel for meetings and holiday. It was great.

The Into The Void company eventually fell apart through mismanagement by the overall boss. Vince was messed about quite a lot and had to take a lot of stick from disgruntled customers. And finally Swindon was a town once again without a comic shop.

It was then I realised how much community spirit a good shop brought to a town’s comic fans. There had been shops before True Believers, but I never frequented them. Through True Believers I met one of the best mates I’ve ever had - Dave Cousens. We were in Computing A-Level together, but what got us speaking was me pulling out my TB bag to look at my new comics whilst we waited for our lecturer. Dave lived just round the corner and collected X-Men comics. He saw the bag, it sparked a conversation - the rest is history.

Incidentally, sidebar, Dave got bored of Computing and dropped out after a year though we stayed firends ever since. He used to draw in the margins, excellent sketches that showed the spark of talent. Now he’s a professional illustrator. Check out his stuff at coolsurface.com - magic.

Some years passed, I finished my Media HND, failed to find work and ended up working in the pub trade. Without a comic shop in the town I would travel most weeks to one of the shops in neighbouring towns. Comics Showcase in Oxford. Escape Comics in Reading. Forbidden Planet International in Cardiff. Forbidden Planet in Bristol. American Dream in Bath.

Then one day - whilst in FP in Bristol - I saw a sign for an advert in the store. They wanted an Assistant Manager. I wanted a new challenge. So I went for it, but the deadline was just passed. Boo.

I went home, got on with my job, grew more disillusioned with the spoilt fruits of my educational labour and the seemingly dead-end pub job I had and then finally all that stress destroyed my relationship with my then girlfriend. I didn’t help it. Neither did she. Nor did her pet gerbil.

So miserable and wanting a new start I went ot Bristol for comics and THEY WERE LOOKING FOR AN ASSISTANT MANAGER AGAIN!

I applied once more. Got an interview. Went - wearing new shoes that cut my feet to pieces. I hobbled into that interview room and somehow got a second interview. That was even better, turned out they liked my last CV and were fascinated to meet someone who had worked for Into The Void, the famed black sheep of turn of the century UK comic retail.

I got the job. I moved ot Bristol. I was assistant manager, plus head of DVD and gaming/RPG. The latter became my pet project after my years of playing Hero Quest, Space Crusade, Warhemmer Fantasty/40K, Man O’War, Epic, Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Magic The Gathering, VTES, Rage, Netrunnner, Star Wars and Star Trek CCG, Star Wars RPG, World Of Darkness, Cyberpunk 2020, Car Wars, Robo Rally, Settlers Of Catan, Lunch Money, Fluxx all sorts. It was great fun. Reawakening all my old skills from my time as a teenager working at Spot On.

The rest of the job was awful. The manager was never in, feigning illness, or taking extra paternity leave and when he was finally at work doing half days. Some weeks I had only the Sunday off and a couple of times a week I had to take paperwork like invoices home as I couldn’t do that at work and run the store.

The staff were lazy assholes, all hired through nepotism. Friends of the manager or sons of firends of the manager. It was crap. My falt was nice, but Bristol was a horrible. Dirty, rude and expensive like a council estate troll in a night club.

The worst part was the ethos of the whole company. Get them in. Sell them anything that vaguley approximates what they like. Get them out again. Do it again tomorrow. Don’t take time to get to know their names. Don’t learn what they like, where they work, who their family members are. Don’t form a community bond with these people - just sell them comics and plastic tat and get the highest price out of them. Rinse. Repeat. I hated it.

Spot On, True Believers, Into The Void - in all these shops I’d been allowed to befriend people, socialise with them and ultimately serve them better ensuring everyone was happier. FP wanted to strip mine the comic/gaming community for all they were worth.

Eventually I snapped, and the guys at the pub threw me a lifeline. I came home, went back to the pub job and felt thoroughly miserable. For a year.

Then I snapped again.

A few weeks later i ran into Vince in the graphic novel section of Borders. He and a business partner were opening a shop, would I like to work for them?

I feel the scars of Swin City are still too raw to lay bare here, put I bored blood, sweat and tears into opening that shop and fought to become the full time manager. I loved that job for six months, hated it for 12, and finally left to start Proud Lion in December 2007.

On March 22nd 2008 - Easter Saturday no less - I opened my own shop.

Which is quite frankly the scariest hardest thing I’ve ever done.

More on all of that next time.

Thursday 9 October 2008

Methadone Autoignition

So I walked home from the shop after a day of highs and LOWS intending to write a complicated and heartfelt blog about recent events and a comparison to the deleted blog post I drafted recently.

Instead, I’ve realised I don’t see the point.

I do want to talk/get drunk/find some release with some friends but this doesn’t feel appropriate.

What I will say is that I’m fed up of feeling used. That’s seems to be a lifelong malady.

I’m also sick of being constantly afraid. This economic crisis is a horrible time for a new small business owner. Sleep is alien to me now.

The title of this blog was randomly generated using some random site I found. Seems appropriate.

The substitution of drugs for my normal emotional response is very appealing right now.

The MI:13 - Heroclix style!

Geeky blog time!

It’s no secret to those that know me that I am thoroughly enjoying Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk’s work on Captain Britain & MI:13.

It’s also no secret that I have never, ever enjoyed a game of Heroclix whenever I’ve tried it over the last few years. But last sunday, Rich managed the unthinkable and hosted a game at Reep’s that was bloody good fun. Perfect end of weekend fodder - AND I DIDN’T END UP LOST IN TIME AND SPACE! Long story…

I enjoyed it so much that I decided to put together the core lineup of Captain Britain and co in Clix form. I popped on eBay and quickly found a lovely seller in Canada (whiteschatzi) who had Captain Britain, Pete Wisdom (one of my favourites) and Black Knight.

So I snapped them up, plus Union Jack (not in the coreline up but after recent events ALL British heroes are now formally part of MI: 13 so the book will see various folks called to aid as required, reminiscent of Global Frequency - also Joe Chapman is a great character when written well!).

I also want to put the Thunderbolts together in both original and current line ups, but with the cost of certain Clix that will be a longer term effort, but whiteschatzi did have Mach-4 so I had to snag him - Abe is equally one of my favourite characters. I miss him actually. And the Fixer. I’d love ot pitch a book to Marvel starring those two. I have ideas, but would it sell to anyone but me? Ah well…

As the shipping costs were $8 for up to six miniatures, I felt I should get one more. So I did, but that’s a surprise. A very funny surprise! ;)

So along with the Iron Man from FCBD 2008, I now have a few Clix! Marvellous. So to speak. If I continue to enjoy myself, I will pick up the T-bolts as discussed (Citizen V/Baron Zemo, Moonstone, Songbird, Mach-V, Atlas, Techno/Fixer and Jolt, plus a Hawkeye to replace Zemo for when they’re going straight, and then Green Goblin, Venom, Bullseye, Songbird, Moonstone, Swordsman and Radioactive Man for the new post-Civil War team).

I also want to get a legion of Iron Man armours to represent Tony using Extremis powers as he has a few times, plus the Green Lantern Corps ready for Blackest Night. Great fun.

Plus we have Monsterpocalypse to sink our teeth into!

Fuck all the other rubbish in my life, at least i have some things to look forward to!

Tuesday 7 October 2008

Humourous Homophobia aka from Hobo to Homo

Feeling tired and a bit poo, but this did make me chuckle. Taken from Live At The Apollo with Jimmy Carr and Alan Carr.

“I’m Jimmy Carr and we have Alan Carr on the show later on. How about that? I keep getting mistaken for Alan Carr, so what i’ve done is, I’ve stopped sucking men off. Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m a very gay-friendly act. I was asked last year to judge Mr Gay UK. I said, “No problem at all. It’s against nature and against God. He’s going to hell.“

Man, it made my laugh. Then cough and splutter and look around for a cuppa tea.

It’s on iPlayer for a while if you fancy it -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b008bb38/

Saturday 4 October 2008

Blog Noir

Today's blog is a noir-stylised fictional retelling of events. No offence is intended.

The cold had settled into the town like a tramp in a cardboard box. I’d forgotten my coat, so pulled my shirt closer around me. The office was like ice, the kind of ice that settles on your heart and never thaws. My contacts were running late, all of them. Frustrated, I stepped out into the evening air and winced. The reassuring clack of the dead bolts assured me the office was secure and I set in search of warmer surroundings.

The bar wasn’t much warmer. Clearly the cheaper prices meant cheaper heating. It made sense. I have no heating to speak of so I’m hardly one to talk. I walked to the bar, passing the usual degenerate scum and make-believe common people. In the corner, a man counted his fingers.

The bar itself had a coating of todays slops and the regulars’ dribble. I decided to make this my only trip. I order two whiskeys and retired to a quiet annex by the radiator. It was cold.

Ensuring all the exits were covered I settled in and waited. My phone barked like a day-old puppy with delusions of grandeur. It was Sadler and his new moll, Kate. I knew were I stood with Sadler. Preferably not back and to the left. But Kate was an unknown quantity. Most women treat me like a cockroach in bad trainers till they get to know me.

Then they leave.

Kate was different. She seemed warm and sincere, there was a sense of fun about her that I didn’t trust. This job makes you cynical.

They ordered coffee and gin - not together. We made small talk and reminisced about an older case. Sadler had clued Kate in and she had some sharp observations. Our mutual friend Seaweed was joining us tonight and our last outing had been decidedly eventful.

Seaweed was military, but did some work with us on the side. His style was a curious blend of unsubtle and downright stupid that had an unnerving knack for getting the job done. Though not always the job that you wanted done.

My reverie was broken by the arrival of Husky Huskinson and the beautiful Jenny-Lynn. Our party was almost complete. Usually I work alone, but certain situations require a less discreet approach.

Husky Huskinson is the kind of man you want on your side. A solid dog of a man, with a reputation for never backing down. If shit was gonna go down, I usually turned to him.

Jenny-Lynn was an enigma wrapped mystery. And it was the kind of wrapper a man’s eye would never get tired of. I knew her better than most others, and still felt that I knew very little. She always brightened the night and her presence kept Seaweed off-balance. It gave us an edge over him that could be useful should he step out of line.

Seaweed arrived shortly after. Banter was exchanged and then we headed back into the unwelcoming night to meet the Chinese.

The meet went as could be expected. Messy and ultimately disappointing, like a tub of cottage cheese. But we got out with no casualties and moved onto our only other lead. The 2 Pigs.

The place smelt of sweat and disappointment. We bought a round of drinks and settled into observe the scene. A horrific odour like burnt hair on a turd crossed the room. The smoking ban was not being kind to places like this. Husky and I retired to the courtyard so he could smoke and I could brief him on another case. This one was a delicate situation and I needed his direct perspective.

Sadler and Kate did their best to blend in, making contact with a few of Kate’s contacts under the guise of shoeing off Kate’s new ink - a stunning double rose tattoo across her back. It was an effective ruse and they quickly cased the joint.

In their absence, the friction between Jenny-Lynn and Seaweed escalated. It was clear we’d get nothing constructive from tonight. I touched base with some other contacts and resolved to call it a night. Husky and J-L had to make the journey back to Swindon and I had to be in the office early tomorrow. We slipt into the night and left the others to deal with Seaweed’s increasing beligerence. It wouldn’t make me popular with Kate and Sadler, but the night was effectively a bust.

We stopped by the office and I retrieved a few files, maybe I could make some headway before I got some shuteye.

Cheltenham had been a harsh mistress that night, cold and unforgiving. Rays of sunshine crept into my life in the small hours of the morning, but when you’ve been walking these streets - both here and elsewhere - as long as I have, you learn that life is what happens while you’re making plans.

Even the most proactive among us, is truly only reacting to a grander scheme. Forces of nature, acts of God and the mistakes of men can change your destiny forever. If you find a safe port in the storms, be grateful.

I think maybe I am.