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When I look at things that I react to there are so many. I could comment on DC's new editorial switch up; the firing of the lawyers by DC in relation to the Siegel/Shuster lawsuit for Superman's copyright; Marvel's new heroic age; but this isn't a daily or weekly blog. (Maybe I need one of those . . . ) But my reaction for this month comes from the time of month. A lot of times as I do my column I am busy getting ready to deal with Diamond and monthly orders. So I deal with this thing:
(Well technically that is next month's but you get the idea.)
Now this Previews Catalog came out this week and the previews for it from many comic book companies have been online for several weeks. For those who don't know Previews is the Diamond Distributors catalog for all comic book stores, and other retailers, as well as customers, to use for ordering items from Diamond. Be they comics, books, trade paperbacks, toys, statues, or DVD's.
Oh, for those who don't know Diamond has a monopoly as the only main distributor for every major comic book publisher with exclusive first release deals with everyone from Marvel to IDW to Zenoscope. If you didn't know . . .
So for us comic junkies this is our monthly bible for what we'll want every month. However, how many of us, of you, really use it month to month? When you go to your local comic book store, or order your comics online, do you request a copy of this, or look through the store copy? It's a good question and one I'm not sure about.
If I was to be dollars to doughnuts I'd bet about only 15% to 20% of fans look through Previews and use it to order their comics. Which isn't a lot if you think about the thousands, well maybe millions (probably not), of people who buy comics. Most fans are usually in two categories: those who tell their stores to just pull their books each week no matter what Previews says, and those who just come in and buy what they think looks good, again, no matter what Previews says.
Previews in essence serves an important purpose though, despite how underused it is. It is annoying to go through it, since it isn't a small book (even if it has shrunk this last year by a third), for most people. One thing a lot of customers don't know is their catalog is no different then the ones the retailers get. However, in addition to the catalog, retailers also get the Diamond Dateline every week to update the retailers on changes, and only their order form supplement is different, noting order incentives and retailer cost for some items. So for the retailers it is important . . . kind of.
Most retailers gauge about 90% of their orders by what they have ordered in the past and how sales are. They use either a point of sale system, or records, that show that they ordered say 8 copies of Action Comics 863 and sold 6, meaning they have 2 left over. If this is a trend they may drop their orders down, or plan on keeping it steady to adjust for an additional random copy sold or subscribed to, with one planned for back issue stock. This is a common way for retailers to think, not all, but many small stores work like this. It often doesn't matter what is going on in the issue, it just matters what the numbers say. I would say about 10% of books actually require retailers to read the solicit and adjust based on some big event or creative change.
So who does Previews really serve? Well . . . I know I read it. But I like to know everything that is coming up, and comic fans like me do that. It is a great source of information, and for me really serves as a history lesson for comics publishing. It can be very interesting to leaf through old Previews to see what came out and what didn't, or what was popular now versus then. However, Previews really has some problems.
First, Previews is a huge spoiler system. Sometimes this is good, and for a sales point is really needed, but from a creative standpoint it lets fans perhaps know too much. People knew Superman was dying months before the Superman #75 hit the stands (still didn't stop the issue from selling out).
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