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Waiting down upon the underworld to smash gangland comes a friend of the Unstuckernment, enemy of criminal. In a serious, all powerful character, a problem to the police, but a crusade of a law. Hello and welcome to Comic Line, I'm Sal. I'm Beth Natchan, this is where we take a topic and then talk about it for a while, from the comic book industry, from the headlines.
And most recently, Comic Salty offered a crazy sale on trade paperbacks, and it caused retailers to lose their freaking minds. How crazy a sale? Things like they were selling Marvel trade paperbacks for a dollar. Oh wow, I guess that's it.
Yes, me either. I only heard about it when people were complaining about it. Wow. Who would complain about that?
Retailers, you sell trade paperbacks for 24 hours a pop. So it had been a month since it first kicked off this from Bleed in Cool article about it. I'll leave the description box down below. We copy you have the link for you fine.
Since it kicked off, digital content is a beer and publisher at Comic Salty sells hundreds of Marvel Comics collections into a form for $0.99 a week after week for the last month, including brand new volumes the same day they were released and before Comic Book stores, doors opened. Oh my god. Including the most recent Jim Starlin book, Thanos, The Infinity Civilines. Wow.
Comic Salty's owner, Amazon also followed sporadically on the Kindle as well. And then I think it was C2E2, but there was a comic book retailers took to the Diamond Retailers Summit at Chicago during C2E2 last week to voice their displeasure with this. They were blaming Marvel for it. They were yelling at the editor in Chief Stevie Sibulski and said basically they should do something about it.
Don't they know how business works? No, they don't. Which is not something about it. I mean, like the horror prices.
And Sibulski to his credit was like, we don't dictate the price of the trade. Yeah, but they pay us. But they pay us. Well, they must be taking a loss on that, obviously.
I guess. He said, well, it depends because like the only guy at the one time, I guess. Well, I would buy the license. See now, if that's the case, then people are writing a complaint, I would say.
Yeah, well, they're trying to pick up the volume. Yeah, I would assume that Marvel would require them to charge for every year. They do. And in fact, the deal was that comicsology paid Marvel to get the same amount that they normally paid per book.
They just then reduced the price. They took a loss. For some reason, promotional. I guess it was not explained.
And then this Wednesday, they did again, and new trade collections and hard coverage of this amount. Again, how did I miss that? I don't know. Did you know about this?
I know. It was like week after week, different books. Yeah. These are collections like The New Spectacular Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man's New Volumes, Spider-Gwen, all the Venom books, like The New Venom series, Venom versus Carnage from our Good Venom episode, Renew Your Vows, The Scarlet Spider, Tons of Wolverine, Deadpool, X-Men books, etc.
The New Vision book from Tonking, Secret Empire was a dollar. Wow. Wow. So that was the discount that was offered by Comixology, and rightfully so, I imagine, retailers were like great.
That's a new screen. And they felt like it was an attack on the comic book retailers. But why take up a Marvel? Because you, okay.
Well, why two-soup-like, one of the runs of the parents. Well, here's the thing. It was only the reason because it was a Marvel specific effort. It was only Marvel trades.
And my guess is, the respect that Marvel was involved in some way. Well, that's not an unreasonable. Maybe they were. It was just Marvel.
That's not a reasonable to jump to that. We'll have to see if maybe in the next couple of months if there's an exact same DC equivalent. But that's like, that's like, you know, an art retail shop getting angry at the internet because they sell art supplies for less money. Absolutely.
Now that's the thing. I know if it's created this day, I'm going to order it online. I don't buy it here! No, that's the thing.
Like, all things create equally. You know, you go where you have the discounts because it's hard on everybody. Like, we're all trying to save a buck. The retailer's response is understandable, but it's also misplaced.
And they felt that they were attacking. Comixology and digital was like attacking them. And undercutting them such that there's no way they could ever compete. So the fundamental problem that retailers have is that Comixology can't do this because even if they're taking a small loss, let's say Marvel charges them $3 or something.
I want to say much more. Right. Whatever it is, it doesn't cost them anything rather than that loss. Whereas a retailer has to physically store this physical book and then take a loss on it to offer a similar sale.
So for them it's hurting them. It can also be for them. Comixology also has a thing where they have to charge the same price for the floppy. They don't get like when the floppy's coming out, when they come out because they will go down to price depending on the publishers.
Some image books, if you go back and look at like archives of them, they'll be less. When they first come out, it's the same cover price as it would be in a brick and mortar store. Which I've always cried foul at because I'm like, I'm not buying a book. I'm renting a PDF.
No, I got it. Well, I am because of Comixology goes out. They're all... They'll probably give me a download.
They'll probably give me a download. Oh, geez. And I can read them only through their thing though. I can't like change the file type.
Right. I think where Comixology is able to make its money is in their floppy sales because they don't have the same overhead. They have a different type of overhead. You know, keep up the digital store and all that stuff.
But if you are a comic reader and this is funny, I've met plenty of readers who don't know that there's a digital... Me too. Or like new readers, right? But now there's like these dollar sales and people are talking about it.
Like, you know what I mean? Like, oh, Comixology, I'll check this out. Buy a couple of things. Now I have an account.
Maybe I don't want to go to the store one day. Right. You know, like, so this could have been an effort for them to get some publicity and to just bring in new customers. It's true.
I mean, I expect one last. With the trade, how much are they normally just talking? It depends on what they are. Comixology has odd sales.
Sometimes they'll be like, if there's a big event that's written by a particular author, they'll take that author's run and make those discounts. And they'll discount them by... They're still deep. It's not like 10% or 23%.
No, sometimes you see a lot of them like $24 for $8. It's still a discount and it's still a good number, particularly for a newer book. Yeah. And then in that vary, sometimes they'll do it when there's a movie that comes out.
Like a whole bunch of random trades from that or something. About that character. Or not discounted. Right.
Yeah. Well, you mentioned that because Amazon owns Comixology. Oh, really? Yes.
They didn't know that. Now, my guess is that the reason they can take such deep discounts on these numbers and not even negotiate with Marvel. So, yeah, here's your money. We're going to put the books up and they're practically free.
It's because they're subsidized by Amazon. Right. Which is hilarious because it's like, you got the retailers who are angry at Comixology for undercutting them. Comixology is undercutting its own pair of company.
Yeah. Because it's not like Amazon doesn't sell trades. Right. Amazon sells their own books.
Right. Physical books. Yes. They sell more in the long run if they get more people buying the floppies.
Yeah. Comixology. And they will lose from sales of their trades. Absolutely.
I would bet that's what they're doing. I would also think they might be trying to drive, you know, their competition under. They're gigantic companies. Yeah.
Big companies tend to try to drive their competition out of business. It's not like Amazon didn't declare war on borders, on Barnes & Barnes & Barnes. Right. Yeah.
Brick and Water Stores are nothing if not bookstores. Yeah. They sell comic stores. Yeah.
They're bookstores that somehow have continues to survive when all of these have. Well, yes. And it's odd because they're always besieged by problems and flights. Yeah.
And they're not going to provide their books. They're only one distributor. It's a full-on monopoly. There's no protection there.
They are holding to that entirely. So they have a lot of like stringent requirements when it comes to refunding books or to get the very covers that order is insane. Yeah. Obscene numbers in order to qualify to get them.
They're delays on their orders. And of course, like, let's say that there's a blizzard and it really hits this one county, but it doesn't hit this other county. And I live in like between those two counties and I regularly store where the blizzard hit. And your books just go down the store and get a book there.
Or even like, you may have gotten your books. I don't want to make that drive. Yeah. There's a blizzard.
My point is about there's no brand loyalty. Yeah. And there's no store loyalty. Unless you know that owner.
Even if you do, people do care. Some people don't have retailers. And they do, especially give a poll list. And poll lists are some of the ways that retailers try to mitigate some of their losses.
Yes. Social pressure. Yes. And this comes from the problem with those is that it's not like they take your credit card number and then charge you.
Sometimes they do. Okay. But most of the stories that we've gone to, it's not like they do that. It's all on trust.
It's not like they show up and pay. I love the idea. You didn't come this week. I still charged you.
Yeah. Well, they're paying the distributor to send that copy on the promise that you're coming to get it. Right. If you don't.
Now they just have to eat it or find someone else to buy it. That's exactly right. And most people don't. Especially after the fact.
It's an entirely flawed system. Yeah. It's a system that while the rights shouldn't even exist anymore. And now they're complaining that a system that has been working really, really well for the last 10 years is seeking to provide the netheral.
Like, I get. Yeah. Put the final mail on the call. Right.
And like a lot of, I've seen a lot of different retailers who are whinging about all the changing wins and the wars that are declared against them. And so, we're very, very specific and open. Retailers that are like any business that is encountering new technologies or new competition we have to reinvent ourselves. And so, yes, the comic book stores that you remember from 20 years ago, there are many of them.
I still see some of them, but every year they go out of business. Every year I see more and more comic book stores going out of business. Right. Yes.
And that is mostly due to the fact that there are a lot of different comic retailers who don't know how to run a business at all, who decided to just create a business to sell their inventory. And they did it in the 90s and they were able to keep their overhead low. Right. There was enough interest.
Yes. And so far they were the victims of another store or digital or whatever explanation you want to offer. And then there's that very small group of people who are like, I've been invented myself. We're not just a comic book store.
We sell, like, I remember seeing my comic book store start to lean away, not away from comics, but start to morph into a card hobby shop. And so, like, when I was much younger, they were talking on cards and magically gathering cards. And things like holding tournaments. And holding tournaments.
And holding tournaments and newer things. That's still the same thing. Yes. But they also, but they then take their space and turn it into a tournament space.
Okay. Or they rent by the hour. Or you'll see the shop that now is selling more toys than ever before. Fun factors.
The statues, since they've upped their game, that's a huge seller for them. Because it's like, it's one thing, and that's a difference. It's one thing to see online. It's one thing to see a person.
You can make a true decision about that. And unfortunately, you have it in your pocket. That was cool. Purchase for 20% less.
Like, when people come in and they look at electronics and then they go, okay, well, I'll go home and buy it. Or I'll buy it right now. Yeah. In front of you.
You know how best buy is all that? There's a little bit of tangent. But they rent space in Best Buy. Too company to showcase their stuff.
That's where showroom. Yeah. People who want to show off their stuff and then sell it from other mechanisms. So we make money either.
I wanted to buy a keyboard and I wanted to buy it now. So I went to the Best Buy. The only keyboard that was available was one brand that had taken up residence for the Best Buy. And that keyboard was like $50.
And I guess I'll just live without a keyboard until it comes to my house purchased on Amazon. That is the new egg or any other competitor. But yeah, renting out space. That's a good point.
And I'd like to go back to it because I was wondering, asking the devil's advocate question, like, how do you combat it? I don't want to live in the world without conical stories. No, I love going to them. And the fact is, the ones that are most successful for me and the ones that actually actively show their back issues.
Because here's the thing, sure you can get those online, but I'm not going to sort through all of the conversations. I want to go through it. And if I'm looking for a run, then I already have it in Floppy's. I want that other single.
There's a little bit of a hunt aspect. I'm finding a key book that you didn't think was going to be in there. And it's worth more. So I can get this key issue of a night when Stacy died for 99 cents sure.
But what I found it. Also think about the exploration portion of it. I'm looking at a bunch of different books and then I come across something that I made. I'm looking for digital floppies.
I'm looking for something specific. I'm not necessarily looking through all of them because there's thousands, but a long box may have thousands, but it's a little more compartmentalized. I also find that newer books are easier to read digitally than older books. I agree.
I know there's something with the printing or the scans that they have of them. It's just not quite as good. And I find it's a little more difficult. I've noticed the coloring either has been updated and it's done slip-shot or they don't update it and it looks bad because it's blown up.
Think about the fact that they scanned this like maybe 10 years ago. I already scanned it once. I'm not scanning it again. It's like a machine, an initiative behind digital restoration of old comics.
If I do see it, I've seen, basically it's a scan of a new print. Usually they had to make another trade of it. And if that's a case, it's usually done, of course it's making a trade on the cheap, but a low is common to none. And I think that, I know we're going to, I know we're going to, I know we're going to get to that.
We'll make sure we do because I want to talk about that. So, because we are going to switch gears so you can bring up that. No, go ahead. So I was going to say, we talked about the issue where digital, I think it is.
I think we can all agree that this commentology discount is an attack on brick and mortar retailers. You know, it's like a mean for it to be. There's only a whole lean over it. Right, I was going to stand over there.
I know if it is, but I think it could be. You put a guy in an office, I'm like, yes. Yeah, exactly. I absolutely think I'm done.
I was like, okay, we destroyed Brentano's now. But like, hey, all right, let's see, there's a difference between them going after borders and bonds and double. They're two large companies, right? There's only two of them though.
Right, but like, I mean, there were just two of them. They were all over the place. But there's only two companies. Yes, it's my point.
Well, there's hundreds of comic books. Just one of those companies. They went after every bookstore. You didn't hear about it because you didn't know the name of a bookstore and, you know, we talk in books.
Yes, true. They went out of business just the same as borders. But there are no large comic bookstores. Like a chain.
There are chains, but they're not like, there's no mile head comics in New Jersey on the East Coast. Well, what I was thinking was that, like, for them, yes, like, the other small brick and mortars when they went after bookstores were just kind of like collateral damage because they were going after two larger companies. One of which somehow made it out. Yeah, they adapted.
They adapted. Yeah. I don't know how it looks exactly the same as it did ten years ago, but they also the online. They've been online in Starbucks in there.
Starbucks in every once and over. It's one of an experience going there. Which is what the success of the whole world is. It also, I think it also, they probably make a lot of money in terms of people who definitely need a book right now or gift.
And also in the kids section. Because you bring a kid there, you're not leaving without buying that kid a book. Not only that, but there's a Barnes and Noble where we live. And that Barnes and Noble and all of them have, I remember a good ten years ago, they really upped their DDT section.
And now, it's toys games. Like, all the same shit I could get at a game stop that aren't video games. I could probably get it if Barnes and Noble. Well, that's actually another conversation.
But in terms of like the comic book companies, or comic bookstores, it's just weird that they would suddenly declare war on indie games. And they would declare war on individual tiny stores. That's kind of hard. I think it's more, I would argue that Amazon did declare war on the Monopops stores.
Not directly, but as a group, it was more like, I'm taking all of the comic books. Wherever they shop, if they're buying physical books, I'm taking them. But only now, we'll see if it's worth saying, I'm looking back at time at borders and all the books, regular bookstores. You could interpret that as they were waging war on Monopops stores.
Jeff Bezos didn't know about Granny's book card, but he did know that he was destroying the business of anonymous books. And he could basically say, I'm taking the corner class of item that you buy in the store, I'm taking it here. And you could look at this, the same way for it. They are consciously knowing that there are going to be customers who are going somewhere else who they want to come here.
And then you also have the customers who simply don't have access to a comic book store. And that's not even just because it went out of business. They just look at an area where they don't have them. Or it's like a 10 mile drive.
They don't have the gas money or the time to dedicate to it, because comic bookstores have odd hours. They're not opening when I'm done with work. So I mean, that out of itself, you can't blame people like that. What am I going to do?
What am I going to do? What am I going to do? Also, I'm not going to order my floppy. I don't know about necessity about comics.
Some of them don't. And some people still want a floppy. They still want a copy of a book. Yeah, collectors or just people who like the tangibility of a comic, or the portability.
I've noticed we're also not addressing the fact that the comic book industry, and by extension, the comic book retail audience, people who are buying comic books, is comparatively significantly small when it comes to the book buying groups. And then the comic book buying group. We're talking about we're dealing in numbers that are like maybe $10 million. We're not talking about the millions, the many millions, the hundreds.
I don't see Jeff Bezos being like, I know, but I do see this being a water testing moment where it's like, but what if the comic book industry could be a tens of millions of dollars in the industry? What if we did expand enough where now we've reduced the amount of searching for comic bookstores. We've made it accessible to the point where I mean, there's a comic, I used to think that the comic's only available on tablets, but you also get your phone much earlier than you could. But like the bigger your phones, the more readable your comic books are, you can literally bring your comics anywhere you want.
You don't have to have a clunky tablet, and you can download them directly to the tablets, you can actually have to be a connected one. Yeah, like if I'm at home, I'll work or whatever, I'll download a bunch of comics and I just have to read them wherever. Yes, I mean, actually. Yeah, the versatility is key.
And so maybe making it like, so if you ever wanted to read a comic book, there's no excuse not to now, because you could just literally buy it at any point, they're dirt cheap. They look great, and they work on any device you own. You monitor your television, you can cast comics, you can... You can't go to the TV untapped audience.
Exactly. And let's find out if there is one by making arguably the number one recognizable comic company out there, because it's going to be pretty warm here right now. And just use them as a testing ground to see the potential. Make all these comics that are huge and very expensive and numerous and have lots of pages, dirt cheap.
But that's where people that already know of comicsology. Well, hopefully they'll also know for Amazon. Well, that's what I'm thinking. I'm wondering if they're reaching out to Amazon Prime members or people that have a subscription.
I don't know. They're already paying for stuff to be like, hey, go on comicsology. You pay us for Prime. Now you get like two or three for you.
I have not seen a Prime deal with the comicsology. No, but they did use to do because some of the trades before they bought the comicsology, they had digitally. So if you had Prime, you had the whole Kindle library. You can download a trade through that.
I don't know what happened to that after the comicsology acquisition. No, I don't. What was the comicsology? Amazon got comes out within the last year or so.
See, to me, definitely not a coincidence that they're doing this. Because really, what are they doing? They're adapting tactics that Amazon already used. You don't even have to think of anything.
The idea already existed to heavily discount random items. That's only to grab that right now. We have to get the people to have it and go into comicsology. Now it's just that they're not actually buying a physical thing.
It's also a great way to circumvent the diamond problem. Maybe it is an Amazon tactic. Maybe it is an Amazon directive to corner the comics. Or suggestion.
Or memo. It strongly suggests a more line on directive. Maybe Gervisos is just a giant comic book thing. It's like, oh no, not by the market.
It's not fair. It could be like he's like, okay, well, diamond controls the physicals, but comicsology controls the digital. And so as such, let's make everybody just want digital more. And then when diamond inevitably falls, we'll acquire that too.
And then we'll have all the money both. Yeah, and then Amazon becomes the number one comic book distributor. Which would be something to fear, I think. Because any time you have one company right now, everybody knows.
Yeah, I guess they're different. The only thing we'd miss are these crazy discounted comicology sales. Right, but that's good for consumers, right? Because they are competing.
You don't want to be too successful. Because as long as they have to fight with each other, we get deals. But it's barely competing. They're underselling them so much.
There is no concept. Right. And that's the fear. And that's the legitimate part of the point I think.
I wonder if the whole, if you buy a physical comic, you get the digital download link. That kind of going away is in some way connected to comicsology's like branching out. Because Marvel has their own thing, which is Marvel's limit. You pay subscription fee, you access their digital libraries.
So does comicsology? Well, yeah. Comicsology is a special unlimited style thing. Or you pay like a monthly...
Is it that same price? I don't know. Because that would be interesting if you're paying for just Marvel, or you pay the same price and get everything. Right, but it depends because they can switch out what's involved with it.
And sometimes you also get discounts on things. Like I noticed just recently when I was browsing, actually this last Wednesday. Yesterday, last week for you people watching. That like they were under me some of the books I was looking at.
I said like, you know, whatever the name of it is like say 15%, say 10%. Like if I had that, I'd save money on each individual issue I bought. Oh. That could be their way of undercutting the problem where like they have to charge the same amount as the working order.
But you're still charting, like you know, like if you were buying a lot digitally, it might end up helping you in the long run for pay that monthly fee. But that's fine. You just like do the math on that one. But anyway, but the Marvel thing, that would make, that makes me think even less that like Marvel had anything to do with this.
They had their own service. Right. They're like, actually we're hurting too. Like we don't give away our trades for nothing.
You know, that said, you do get access to their like huge library. But like we said, it's not everything. Well, not only is it not everything, but like the older books don't look as good digitally. So like what am I really paying for?
Unless I'm trying to catch back up on the last 15 to 20 years of comics, which is like it looks okay. Yeah. Where do you guys see this going? Uh, it's it looks, it looks, it looks grim.
It looks grim. It does look grim. It's for retail. It's for retail.
It's for retail. It's for frigging orders that don't adapt because you before mentioned the handful. I was going to say, so what have you mentioned GameStop? Yeah.
And how like, for relevant, they've become exempt. Most GameStops have partnered up with ThinkGeek. And so where like we have one ThinkGeek store that I know of and it's like actually over in New York. Yeah, to drive out.
And like the palisades, Park Mall or whatever it is. But now I can just go to a GameStop. I can check out some of the ThinkGeek products there. I have actually got more ThinkGeek products from there than I would have online because I can see them.
And they're about the same price. Or they're at the same price. Or they're on clearance. Yes.
A lot of the Kifengi stuff had been over the last month or so at GameStop. Yeah. I got a sweet snack bowl for a dollar. It was worth every penny.
Yeah. Yeah. Ken confirmed. Yes.
It's great. So good. For you to me, they adapted. And I was on destroying us.
Right. And it's like so by the way. Because your trade in policy sucks. Well it's not.
And your games are garbage. It's very true. But like especially when Amazon was able to start taking pre-orders on games, which first of all don't pre-order games. But secondly when Amazon started taking pre-orders and you get it shit to your house the day it came out.
Oh yeah. It was just like a pick of games. I didn't even get out of my house. Yes.
I put it on my own. I put it on my own machine. Technically you can. Well I don't know if they can.
I have purchased things for the PlayStation store because digitally they only available digitally from work. And then like told it to download to my system. So when I come home and say oh. I was like oh.
That's great. I looked at this connector and she was like no I'll just turn it on to download it. And I'll do the updates too. So the one you get home is like waiting for you.
I'm like oh. I'll be pet. I left to make it. I'll just play it.
But anyway. Yeah. But again you see like adaptation. And like if comic book brick and mortars were a chain it would be easier to make a brand deal like that.
That's the problem. Like if Midtown Comics was the only comic book store that existed like in the court. Or like across the US. They could have done a whole deal with thinking.
Yes. And you go there and be like this is my nerd pop culture headquarters. And you would know when you go to the comic store you know what you're getting. Yes.
Because the franchise. As opposed to any individual brick and mortar where it could be great or bright. And unfortunately it's not best by their not game. So I don't know what you're getting.
But I do like the idea of the independent owner. I like the idea of someone owning their own business. Well with the franchises they kind of do. Yeah.
They get subcontract. Well they do. But they also have mandates where they're not allowed to do certain things. Yes.
And the individual comic book store can suddenly like I'm going to have a Cube sale. Yeah. Like what if we did franchise out and suddenly we lose that like those dollar bins that I really would probably would. I mean that the thing that happened to look.
Mama public trunks don't exist. Right. And it's more or much longer. Right.
Well arguably they might be in trouble too. Somehow Radio Shack still exists. Not around here. Oh but like there's still stores.
Again there are other franchise. But like again the mom and pop ones they didn't survive and they couldn't survive. Right. I don't think that comic store is sad to lose those businesses but it also seems to be inevitable.
So if they want to exist in any form some sort of like franchise type or you know national brand. Yeah. Yeah. My comic stores are only 40 years old.
Right. Oh. And that would be interesting if like one comic book person or whatever decided to start buying up stores and turning them into something like that offering the opportunity to manage the store. Yeah.
We got to get our stuff together. Right. Like the retailers should the retailers summit have instead of throwing tomatoes at the energy of a marvel. You get together and start talking about how you're going to survive.
Yeah. And like I know that every comic store in every region has their own little private conversations particularly in our neck of the woods. Yeah. All the comic stores talk to each other and they all help each other out with their inventory.
Not their comic book availability but sometimes they're like how many copies do you get. Right. I didn't anticipate the draw of this book. Can you help me out?
I couldn't afford to order as many bags or boards. They help each other out and they trade and do favors for each other and whatnot because they know that like they're dealing in the tens of thousands of dollars and out of the millions and so like. But it's a harder system at that point. Sometimes.
I mean like sometimes it's like for money and sometimes it's for like favors or sometimes it's more inventory but they do. They're practically part of a like a comic book retailers human as it is. It's more like an honorary brotherhood that is secretly trying to put it out of this anyway because why would I ever help my enemy. Right.
It's because you don't make enough money to stay in your business as it is. Right. Who of you are stronger than the wall? Yeah.
That's right. And so maybe the franchise is the way to go but you need more formal. I was going to say think you should just do it. Yeah.
I think you just buy all the comic stores or the ones that are worth a damn. Yeah. The ones that they go around the evaluate and the other ones die. Because the fact is like you can't like pass a legislation that's like all comic books do work the only by this one company.
No. Like you have to go and buy key school. You have to go and interview whole like you know conversations and all that. Yeah.
The fact is. Okay. I was going to say I'd love it if someone complains like but that's a comic book. Right.
Diamond already has that. Like yeah. Maybe we should also point that out. Like that would be a problem.
Like a monopoly on comic books. I don't think they'd all sell. No. No.
It wouldn't be a really nice audience. Or they wouldn't go after all of them. So it's still not a monopoly. No it's true.
Like the bad ones. The ones that you avoid or that you've like never heard of. I mean sorry. There's some who even heard of it are great.
But like the ones that you know to avoid they're not going to get picked up. Or if they are they're only going to get picked up so they can be good and turned into like into into like into puc culture shops. Yeah. And there's no mechanism to stop it from happening because best wise the only national plus must be telling that.
Yeah. You know Barnes and Noble is the only national. And there's a books a million and it's trying to gain speed. But there you go.
So there's a little one. There's a little one. The same thing could easily happen. Oh yeah.
For comic books. In the books a million they sell floppies. Yes. Oh yeah.
By the way they can't give them away. It was just at the books a million the other day. In their clearance section all their independent floppies are a dollar. And they're just in a shoebox on the floor.
And we've lost her. Yeah. It's come back. Yeah.
They're a dollar. The books a million where everything is at least 25% more than you can get anywhere else. Sorry books a million. It's true.
Now. I'm not saying that for your loyalty. I don't think any of us are saying that we want to see them going and say we want to see them going out of it so we want to see them being franchise because we know that can ruin it. But it's just years of thought.
Yeah. We want to see you survive itself. Yes. The source though, the retailers should truly, in my opinion, be angry at the publishers for the cost of trade paperback.
Yes. Because whatever it is that they're charging them. That cover price. It's outrageous.
It's ridiculous. And it depends on the publisher because again, it's a million times beforehand you'll get an image trade most of them are $10 or $15. They're totally worth it to me. Yeah.
No, and like really what it is for them is like you know that like images kind of taking a little bit of a hit if you didn't buy it in the Floppy's yeah, it's gonna it usually there between I was like four to five Maybe six issues that are in there right those issues are usually about three or four dollars right even if you had four of them in there $12 that's the cost of it That's kind of what they're selling it for if not less than that especially for a first volume It's usually about ten dollars, but image understood that they're like are you missing in floppies? You were never gonna buy it in floppies, right? I'll let I care. Yeah, that's just give me money I'm not gonna get that money right get some money right, but I can attract a price point exactly But retailers know they can't unfortunately make their money off of independent trades because aren't enough independent readers And the big two don't care like for the same amount of issues They're gonna cost you you're gonna charge you anywhere between like 18 and 25 dollars the fact is Comixology sales are hurting brick and mortar stores sure, but I'd like to know the numbers I need to know how many people are subscribing to Comixology and how and what the sales figures are like at read like across the board of retailers Oh every single complex or in the United States and then find out what their numbers are over a working Let's say six months and then go to comments I was like I give you your sales figures next We think never will and of course all relative based on like region demographic income level, you know availability You know, it's so it's impossible to decipher and in fact there's no way to really truly determine whether or not it's actually doing what we're saying It would be amazing to see this be coming independent stuff, right?
Yeah, like how all those things are like no It would be hard look at Apple Apple never talks about their numbers. No why it's a decision Yes, it's a strategic decision because people their competitors will look at the term like how far can you push it? Yeah, how far can you push this one? Oh, it's cutting Then they could plan around it.
They don't want to be able to plan. No, sir I still submit that the Comixology Marvel one dollar trade sale is a fact finding endeavor It has nothing to do with like bringing in new readers or raising awareness of Marvel or anything like that I think it is just for them to see how many people they can pull in to the digital market and to the comic book reading market Well, I'd like to see also of what future of what future of dominating the comic book So what do they do with the information? Oh, they go. They go well the Comixology normally because they have their figures Comixology normally sells this many trades do the Marvel thing or this many Marvel trades Due to the sale or this many Marvel trades and this many trades in general based on the sale figures of the Marvel one dollar trade We actually wound up tripling the amount it means that there is actually Thing whereas comic book fans and collectors who go to a store might buy three or four copies the same book to collect I'm not buying more than one copy of a digital car.
Sure So the sale figures are more accurate and you can say well if we've tripled the amount of readers now We know or triple money the buyers now We know or we can assume that there's triple the audience that we can sell to and we get their attention based on these sales So now when we do it for DC We can see if it's infinity war effect or if it's a brand loyalty or if it's an awareness or if it works across the board And then that's the case then we can dominate both markets of both Publishers and then do it again and then find out how much the whole pie is worth and then you know sweep in and just like and just cancel the the the the only reason why digital books cost the same amount as a physical book is because they are being nice Well, I assume isn't that from the publisher. I don't know if they have to do that I don't know if it's because when Comixology first came on the scene retail was immediately crossfouled right They were like oh, they'll never come here because to betray the fallacy of having a retail store. So no one wants one It's like right they was gonna have a confidence. They have a common sense that people want physical Yeah, they already was starting to yell about it and they hadn't even come on the scene yet I remember this because I was there with your comic on when kind of salty opened And I know president the company about what they're doing and I was like, I don't know it's gonna work so anyway, the fact is like Retail is already complaining about it back then and they never have confidence in it then and like so yeah Like do you think that at that time because they sold so much merchandise for Marvel and DC that they were able to get more On DC to yes come to an agreement.
Oh, yeah, exactly like okay. Okay. We don't want to piss off people who sell so many of our books So we're gonna force yes console. Do you do exactly what happens to such a degree that Comixology was forced or felt forced or compelled to create a comic book Retailer system.
Yeah, where if you were a comic book retailer, you could create a store from through Comixology there by creating a fifth middleman in your in your system from comic book creator to to to customer where like I get a little bit of this If I sell through the comment all the store that's dead Of course it is They had a small window time where they did it then they closed the window and then every retail that goes there Just close it and destroy it and the evidence of existing like I wonder I actually haven't even checked if it's still in business I know I got it's not because they didn't have to do that And so if they find out oh I can actually sell triple the amount of comments I can actually make it so that the number one selling comic book this month or this week isn't 125 copies or 35,000 copies. It's 425,000 copies like oh shit now the comic book industry DC Marvel. They're like shit But we're gonna work if you can triple our audience. Yeah, then it will let you destroy the Yeah, I have ideas to why it's only Marvel and I think it's because of how Comixology of painful licenses for the books that they get it's a possibility that since they're different companies that they're getting a Like a solid rate from Marvel to get all their books, right?
And they're getting a percentage that gets kicked back to DC or certain prices for certain things Yeah, which is why it's probably easier for them to be like no all Marvel Yeah, I was gonna say it probably has to do with fact that Marvel just had back-to-back movies. Yeah Yeah, so we saw the sale happen what two months ago black Panther. Yeah, and now and now in Fitti Wars coming out Yeah, I'm not gonna do special DC sale dead pools coming out like literally like this is a strategic like decision based on what is going to be Talked about the most in the like every day pop culture Yeah, it's just as we can get confirmation when the next big Disney movie comes out if they yeah They do that would argue strongly for that. Yeah, so yeah, let's find out.
Yeah, let's let me say that's your fault I Want to see I think DC universe movies are dead I think that's like I'll come in to Sam and then I and I think maybe suicide sweatsuit But like every after that it's it's anyone's game and Comatology would not be smart if they hung their hat on their pricing initiatives based on those movies Sure, but if they're just sitting waiting for the opportunity to do this thing What order premiere of the teen Titans show right something maybe Interesting if they just counted both to see like all right one right now. There's a big push for Marvel. Yeah, even if we discount DC I wouldn't I wouldn't do that only because they couldn't do a sample size like then it's like now I don't actually know how big the only Buzz and they're and everyone's so busy buying Marvel trades that like they even knows the DC sale or like people were just like well Yeah, maybe they will be a DC sale. Oh, it's later.
I'm not a guy DC right now. Yeah, so I would do that I would sit if I was a DC fan and just Sit on it and wait for them to discount those those yeah, it doesn't look good for retailers No, no and like the hot to find a way to adapt and there's no easy way to do it So it's like and now they're going against Amazon So let's go in the comments section down below. What is the future of comic book retail? Let's know the comments down below look forward to continue the conversation there We'll see you guys next time another episode of comic line.
I'm Sal. I'm