InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I'm on repeat!"

04nbod (04nbod) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-09-09 18:31:00

DC restructured
DC Entertainment is born. Diane Nelson in charge. Paul Levitz continues as consultant and writer (because diane nelson doesn't know a thing about DC probably) http://www.newsarama.com/comics/090909-DC-Restructuring.html

EDIT:Paul Levitz will write Adventure Comics with the Legion of Super-heroes http://www.newsarama.com/comics/090909-levitz-statement.html

legality (first thing off my hard drive IDK)

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	arbre_rieur 2009-09-10 02:35 am UTC (link)
	That Hellcat TPB you linked to is, of course, a direct market-only book, and therefore the exception, not the rule. Direct market-only trades make up only a very small percentage of Marvel's trades and, as far as I know, none of DC's. Everything else is not direct-market only and can indeed be found at the likes of Amazon and B&N. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	arbre_rieur 2009-09-10 02:37 am UTC (link)
	And in physical bookstores too, for that matter. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	blakeyrat 2009-09-10 02:56 am UTC (link)
	Well, then I guess the problem is that I have no idea what any of that means. All I know is there's a book, it has an ISBN, and I can't buy it. Whatever the reason, that strikes me as terrible business. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

arbre_rieur
2009-09-10 03:21 am UTC (link)

Direct market-only basically means it's only available in comic book stores. I have no idea why Marvel does it myself, but they only do it to a small handful of books.

Still, my point is that it's a book that's the exception, not the rule. To make the generalization from it that you can't find comics online at three dozen different retailers is simply erroneous. Pretty much ever bookstore chain location I visit these days has its own graphic novels section. And you specifically mention both the Big Two, but like I said, unless I'm mistaken, none of DC's trades are direct market-only. Try to name one that isn't listed on Amazon.

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blakeyrat
2009-09-10 03:30 am UTC (link)

Well, it's a horrible business idea because that's one book that I actually intended to purchase, and went looking for. After I couldn't find it *anywhere* I just assumed that was typical for all comics. I apologize for over-reacting, but... I had absolutely no reason to believe that that book was not typical.

The fact that ANY publisher would (apparently) publish a book that they don't actually want people to buy boggles the mind.

And coming from the perspective of an extremely casual (i.e. pretty much only read this site, never been in a comic book store, don't even know where one is) comic reader, the fact that comic fans just assume I know terms like "market only" and such is extremely off-putting.

(I'm not exactly accusing you of this, or trying to be mean, just noting that it's really, really weird and doesn't exist in any other industry I've ever dealt with. You don't need to learn little quirks of how, say, Sony Music distributes CDs to buy the disk. You like the music, you buy it. Boom, end of story.)

Thanks.

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arbre_rieur
2009-09-10 05:17 am UTC (link)

I apologize if I came off too strident. It's just that I can remember how back when I was a kid (I'm 24 now), trades (collections of the stories in the monthly comic magazines) were something that barely existed. And now I can walk into my local Borders and not only find trades but find enough to fill out their own section of the store. So it bothers me when people talk as if Marvel and DC aren't making humongous inroads in their distribution, because they have and are.

You have to understand that, ten years ago, if someone suggested that a Hellcat trade like the one you linked to would even *exist*, people would have been laughing. The idea that those stories would even be collected at all would have been be preposterous. The fact that I can now walk into Borders and find books starring as relatively obscure a character as Metamorpho the Element Man (to pick a random example) is simply amazing.

(I'm not exactly accusing you of this, or trying to be mean, just noting that it's really, really weird and doesn't exist in any other industry I've ever dealt with.

Er, you made a sweeping pronouncement on the state of modern comics distribution. Given that, was it that much of a leap for me to assume you were thoroughly knowledgeable about the subject?

You don't need to learn little quirks of how, say, Sony Music distributes CDs to buy the disk. You like the music, you buy it. Boom, end of story.

Well, I really don't want to defend Marvel's practice of selling certain books only in the direct market. I don't understand it myself. I just want to put it in perspective: Books like Hellcat are a pinprick in comparison to the many, many that can easily be found online or in bookstores.

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blakeyrat
2009-09-10 02:00 pm UTC (link)

The problem is that I don't go into book stores. I don't even know where to find a Borders... (might be one in Woodinville?) I switched to Amazon for books like 10 years ago now. I don't know, and/or care, what Borders carries. And a comic book shop... I'm not entirely sure I've even ever *seen* a comic book shop around where I live!

This is the year 2009, I buy everything online, except clothes. And I have many friends who buy clothes online, too. Maybe it's a geographical thing, here in the Seattle area I know far more people who buy things online than go to stores. (Except Costco, perhaps.)

I'd also like to point out that if Marvel is going to print a book and then not bother to sell it to the public, it might as well not exist. That's actually worse, it's like teasing consumers into thinking they could buy it, then BAM you can't-- SUCKER!

Oh well.

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arbre_rieur
2009-09-10 07:23 pm UTC (link)

Sorry if I wasn't clear. All that stuff I was talking about available at Borders is also available from online bookstores like Amazon. A person who types in "spider-man" as his search word, for example, is going to see this: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=spider-man&x=20&y=13.

I get your point about the Hellcat book, though. From what I understand, Marvel releases certain books only in comic book stores if they sold very badly in monthly magazine format (as was the case with Hellcat). I'm guessing the thinking is that it wouldn't generate sufficient profit to be worth the effort of making more widely available, that almost all the sales will be coming from the niche audience of die-hard comic book fans. But I really don't know. Not trying to defend their decision; just providing additional info in case you're wondering.

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