The Comic Industry plus Craigslist update

Comic collection sale update: Highest (real) offer so far: $900 - I'm holding out until the end of the week.

This is a good read from Multiversity:

The Comic Industry Talks the Biggest Changes in the Last Five Years, Where the Industry is Headed

It seems we have a consensus: digital is a thing, and it is a friend to print.

Thanks, Comic Book Resources!

There is a very interesting inter-connectivity between the digital format, Kickstarter, the new wave of creator-owned projects (via publishers like Image) and the new rise of self-publishing/print-on-demand opportunities.

All of this is very exciting to me, a comic book reader since 1970. However, the primary challenge remains: how do writers, artists, and publishers get these creative works into the hands of readers, especially the good ol' fashioned paper and staples comic book? In order to avoid boring the hell out of you, I won't go into the distribution situation in the comic book industry right now (there has been plenty of analysis on the bigger, better blogs and sites over the past few years). Basically, if you are not in the front of Diamond's Previews catalog, you'll probably not get your comic ordered by retailers. (Is there room for a new distributor for comics? That's been tried a few times in the past 20 years - failure was the ultimate result.)

So what? You should be able to sell direct to the reader now, right? Go all Shopify and fulfill orders as they come in. How do readers find you? Facebook? Google? Amazon? Pinterest?

Why not?

That's the challenge now.

Plus this: most of the 300+ million people in this country think comics are Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Avengers, tights'n'fights, and that's if they know comics still exist (!). If you're not that, then you've lost most of the built-in audience already.

Plus this: most (good) comic stores and conventions are in metropolitan centers. And some stores and shows are not doing anyone a favor by existing primarily as a fanboy's misogyny club.

Plus this: most comic book readers don't read online comic sites and blogs. See built-in audience.

Plus this: the stigma lives, despite "geek/nerd" becoming "hip/cool". The fact that there is (was?) a Read Comics In Public Day speaks to this notion.

The comic book industry, such as it is, has not been able to bring over new readers commensurate to the level of interest you'd think would exist (due to movies, Big Bang Theory, etc).

So how can publishers, once funded, find new readers for their non-digital output, without preaching to the already over-whelmed and jaded choir?

More to come...

[Full disclosure - I worked for Diamond founder Steve Geppi in the 80's; great guy]

The Tiny Report

A quick note to introduce you to a site I found recently. The Tiny Report is "a comics micro-press resource". I've been straying more and more from the Big Two over the past couple of years, and I find this oft-neglected-by-the-masses sector of the medium to be rather fascinating.

Could this be the craft beer of comics? Yes, I know, small press comics have been around since the late 60's (earlier?). These creators aren't generally found in comic shops, and typically sell the ol' fashioned paper and staples type of comics by whatever means possible (on-line, conventions, etc).

Physical, tangible, handheld art objects made by non-corporate entities? Could be a trend...we'll see...

Also, remember the name Comicro...

The Craigslist post

Holy.
Shit.

It's been almost a month since I last posted to Zombie Cat Bacon?! What's the problem, man? Am I OK? Did I fall down and hit my head? Where the hell have I been? Well, I'll tell you.

I've been right here, staring at this screen. For nearly a month, I've felt paralyzed by something I can't quite define. Instead of working on my myriad projects (one of which you will all find very interesting when I am ready to launch) (I hope), I've been watching TV - Mad Men, Game of Thrones, NHL playoffs, Formula One races, too many others to mention. A strange absence of motivation came over me once the Wisconsin snow started to melt, and I haven't accomplished shit.

Gonna start that new project right after this...

But today is a new day, so here we are.

A recap: Amazon isn't going to work. We all know about Ebay. Local comic conventions? Nope. How about I try the cyber-version of stapling an ad to a telephone pole, Craigslist? Let's try it, shall we?

Here's the listing (also can be found on the Appleton, Madison and Green Bay Craigslist pages plus Chicago):

Huge comic book collection

Catchy title, eh? While I did try it a couple months ago (dramatically different text and a price tag attached) and had zero response, I edited the posting a couple of weeks ago, and have had 18 responses so far, evenly distributed from all five city pages.

I've had some hilarious lowball offers ($1-$300), some decent offers ($400-$600), and one big time tease offer of $1500. After not responding to my enthusiastic emails for over a week, Mister $1500 finally wrote back and stated he had bought a large toy collection, and was short of cash.

It's OK, dude, I can wait.

I was informed (over and over) by helpful Craigslist folk that my collection was worthless and unless I had a massive bulk collection of Silver Age gems, I was wasting everyone's time (I wasn't going door-to-door; it's a Craigslist post, fer cryin' out loud). Yes, I know, the first step to really lowballing someone is to make them feel like their carefully curated and preserved collection of whatevers is really a giant pile of landfill.

I've been thinking about specific comics in my basement. I'd say I really enjoyed about 80% of them. Here are a few of the titles (most of these are complete runs and from the 80's):
Airboy
Animal Man
Books of Magic
Grendel
Grimjack
Dreadstar
Nexus
The Authority
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Liberty Meadows
Madman
Hitman
Rocketeer
Omaha the Cat Dancer
Zot

Most of the above could be considered very good to excellent reads, maybe not classics of the form but still, good stuff. So what's collectible anyway? And why? I don't think scarcity has as much to do with it as we think - it could be more of a "branding" issue. I really don't know. But that is something I'm going to try to figure out.

After I stare at this cover for a while...

Links:
Star Wars cast announced!

Godzilla vs. Rodan (I think) - new Asian trailer

What do you make? In defense of teachers

The Green Bay "comic convention"

So I went to a "comic convention" in Green Bay last weekend. That's what it was called. Actually what it was was a very depressing look at the state of local comic collectors and collecting.

Situated in a typical hotel conference room, there were about eight or nine dealers, each trying to unload about 20-40 long boxes of stuff. Each dealer also had a backrack of "collectible" comics (Silver age, Byrne X-Men, variant covers, etc). Each dealer was basically the same as the others, with old stained boxes, tons (literally?) of unwanted crap they haul from show to show, every weekend.

I can only assume this is standard transport procedure

I spoke to each dealer over the course of an hour, peeked in few boxes, and left. In tears. Well, not outwardly, but I was very sad on the inside, I can tell you. For the entire time I was there, there were about 20 non-dealer people (all guys, natch) clawing through boxes, looking for that missing copy of X-Factor (been there, man). The was an old guy they called the Professor, tall but hunched over by age (probably from hauling long boxes), in a long black coat, pulling out the most random collection of stuff: Richie Rich, Spawn, old tattered Gold Keys, JLA from the early 2000's - all from the same two or three boxes.

Comics!

There was another guy here with Wolverine hair, and I don't think he was cosplaying. I saw a denim jacket completely covered in comic book logos - dude was in his mid-30's. And the usual collection of stinky man-children. Of course, not one kid or anyone under the age of thirty. Or a female, except for the very bored wives of the dealers.

I am not overtly criticizing anyone's hygiene or fashion sense, but it was the same circle jerk I've seen for the past 30 years. The same insular, myopic clowns you see everywhere in comic shops and at (real) conventions. I like comic book people. I'm one of them. But I'm tired of the stereotype reasserting itself every chance it gets. Maybe I'm just grumpy.

More importantly (and more in line with the jist of this post), most of the cash exchanged was between the dealers. They were buying each others overstock in order to get ready for the next show.

So why the metaphysical tears? There is no market for comics like this (at least not in Green Bay on a Saturday in March). And the comics I own and love are unloved by 99.9% of the North American population. As I spoke to each dealer about my well curated, properly stored, super fancy comic book collection, I received grunts and near-ridicule about my aspirations to sell my stuff. "It's not really worth anything" was the standard reply. But that's what they are selling. So they're effectively telling me their stuff isn't worth anything either. Yet here we are. At a comic book convention in Green Bay in March.

Hello, Craigslist!

The back issue problem

Earlier today, Brian Hibbs, owner of two stores out west, posted an interesting overview of the challenge he is facing with his newly acquired back issues on Comic Book Resources. 300 long boxes/75,000 comics. I'd bet there are basements and storage lockers throughout North America that are full of collections like that. Maybe not that size, probably more like mine (4500-5000 comics).

When owners of collections like these retire/die or just decide to liquidate, the market will be flooded (moreso) with literally tons of unwanted unreadable and worthless comics. There appears to be no interest in the younger generations to "collect", and I'm not just talking about comics. Have you met many kids with baseball cards lately? What about stamps or coins? My son is nine and he has hundreds of Hot Wheels (including some of mine - love those Redlines), but is he a collector? No, he just acquired them, thanks to Santa, birthdays and trips to Target with Mom.

My basement

So if the younger folk don't wanna hoard, whatever will we do? I can't imagine we're going to return to the days of hockey cards in bike spokes and spinner racks in the five'n'dime. There are millions of comics floating around the existing (and shrinking) back issue dealer market that aren't ever going to find their way into the hands of new and younger readers.

No I can't imagine THAT either

I sold my Marvels a couple of years ago and bought a new car with the proceeds (just a Kia Soul, take it easy). There were a LOT of them in complete runs and most of them were pre-1990 ('72-'87 primarily). What I have left is the other stuff - Image, Dark Horse, DC, Eclipse, etc - and I don't see it finding a home anytime soon. I could probably dump them off on a wholesaler for a dime a piece.

I could, but I don't want to. They're worth more to me than that, and I'm not talking about their value on the back issue market (such as it is).

What are you doing with yours?

Not the solution I'm looking for

The Amazon effect part 2

Ok, so maybe Amazon isn't the way to go. Things have changed since the New Year and it is much more difficult to sell or list comics entertainment collectibles or collectible books. Check this link out:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.blah blah blah

Or don't...anyway, what they eventually say is that you must be an approved seller and you can only list one at a time (no runs or sets). Plus most of the info on Amazon Services seller central is not comic book specific, but geared more toward collectible books.

Here's the list of questions I posted a couple of weeks ago:

• Do I set pricing? In other words, do I have to send a spreadsheet with prices for over 5000 individual issues?
• Yes, I do, and yes I do
• Can I sell runs or sets?
• Nope
• If they set pricing, do they factor the condition into the price? (no I don't have any CGC thingies and won't ever. Ugh.)
• They would prefer I use CGC - they even offer direct access with a discount
• Is there a comic book issue template for uniformity of listing? (there doesn't appear to be when you search on the site)
• Nope
• How long will they hold stuff in inventory? (Will they keep Animal Man #42 in perpetuity?)
• They'll hold it as long as you want as long you pay their warehousing fees
• And of course, the cost of doing business with Amazon (which frankly is not a major concern, as long as I get mine)
• Big huge percentage for Amazon

Now, I am not knocking Amazon. They can run their business anyway they see fit. They just haven't really taken advantage of the fact that Ebay is vulnerable and people are looking for an option.

So now what? Craigslist? I don't know. Has anyone had any luck getting anything other than laughably low offers for your stuff? Yeah, yeah, free market, etc. I know how it all works. I just don't to be bothered dealing with guys who want to give me $10 a long box. There's a full run of Nexus in there dammit!

Maybe I'll get a table at the upcoming comic show...that should be interesting.

The Amazon effect

Just a quick one today, and I'm not even trying here. This is a post from a very interesting entrepreneur and blogger, Steve Chau. I had been writing about my idea of using Amazon to sell my comics, instead of taking the usual Ebay route. Steve has some thoughts on Fulfillment by Amazon that I think are worth reading for anyone interested in online selling, or e-commerce in general:

How Amazon Is Changing Ecommerce And What Your Online Store Must Do To Succeed

Commenter Aaron wrote a response to my question from my post last week (now since deleted for some reason), and while I have not listed anything on Amazon yet, I have been thinking about the best possible strategy. Aaron mentioned that the warehousing costs and the Amazon cut of my action will be too steep to make the whole idea worthwhile. Not sure about that yet, but I do think cherry picking a few choice issues will help me further test the system.

like this!

Feel free to comment on the above article and on your selling experiences in the online world. Thanks for reading and we'll talk soon.