So let me see if I follow this. Next month is DC's Villains Month, when a lot of their lower selling titles will be shelved in favor of shipping multiple issues of the higher selling books, each issue focusing on a specific villain. Originally, these were all going to be 4 bucks, because they had a special 3-D cover, whoo. Which is why I passed on the two I was most interested in, the Dial E one and the Creeper one. Each of those looked to essentially be another issue of the two DC titles I was buying (Dial H and Katana), but I don't care about special covers, and I wasn't willing to shell out the extra buck.
So DC made a big deal that there would be limited numbers of these books, and no second printings or whatever. Now it turns out they underestimated demand, so they're going to ship a few with the 3-D covers, but many of the books stores receive may had 2-D covers, and be only 3 bucks. Which can suck for the stores, since they probably have customers who did care about the special covers that won't get it. Also, it might have been nice to know the cheaper option was available from the start. Like I said, the price made me pass on the two I had mild interest in, but if I could have gotten them for 3 dollars, instead of 4, I'd have done it. I don't know how common a refrain that is, though I've seen at least one other person online make similar statements. Maybe it wouldn't make a difference for the stores. Reading some of Brian Hibbs' work, I think a book has to sell over five copies before the retailer actually makes any sort of profit from it, so one extra copy of a book for me doesn't mean much to them. But I would have appreciated it.
I don't understand the thinking here. I thought I'd read that DC was prepared to take a bath on these special covers, and if so, why not print a lot of them to make certain they have enough? Does DC gain something from the speculator market? I mean, they're selling them at a specific price point regardless of what idiot offers his copy for 20 dollars online, correct? Limiting the amount of product they have to sell doesn't help them that much does it, since it precludes the chance they sell enough to overcome the added cost of the special covers (I assume it's the covers that were going to cost them, maybe it's not).
I'm not angry about the whole thing. Maybe a bit annoyed for the people who own or work at comic book stores that have to deal with this mess. But it doesn't affect me in any real way. It just seems such a strange way to go about things.
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3 comments:
I dunno, I'm a bit cheesed off. I've been buying Aquaman from day one, and it would've been nice to get me "special" cover. it's not a deal-breaker, or anything, I'll be ok with me regular 2D, but I do feel a little jipped.
for DC to say that they didn't expect this level of interest seems just a wee bit disingenuous, to me. if they weren't expecting interest, then why bother with it all in the first place?
they may not have a stake in the collectors' market, but this DOES get us all talking about their product.
joe, I hadn't considered DC operating on the "no such thing as bad publicity" stance, though it wouldn't surprise me. Get people rushing in for the rare 3-D covers, hope they'll buy other stuff?
I still can't understand not printing enough copies, or why they can't print some more. If they have enough time to make copies of the comics with 2-D covers, then all that's missing is more 3-D covers. How long can it possibly take them? Surely they still have a template somewhere.
I guess it could that even with higher than expected orders, they'll still lose money on the process, but they were supposedly willing to lose money on this to begin with, so what's a little more?
The whole situation is just beyond bizarre. Seriously, who is running things over there? They seem quite...aimless.
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