Convention report- WWLA

It is well documented that LA is a soft retail market when it comes to comic books. Not only is SoCal filled with comic book shops, a bevy of creator store signings, everyone's local Starbucks' is filled with B-list actors, but there's also a ton of comicshows happening ALL the time. From a twice a week show in Pomona, to a monthly convention at the Shrine, to San Diego-the biggest show in North America if not the world just 2 hours down the road. This is a VERY jaded audience, we got a little bit of everything this Wiz Show has to offer on a regular basis. With that said, Jay Company had a pretty decent show- Show exclusives sold BIG TIME. The key table books sold big. Hardcovers were a little on the soft side, but we grinded it out with bargain books of overstock to maintain our grosses. Basically we sold what SHOULD sell. It's just the extra books, such as low end wall books, or the random book to complete your run wasn't there like in other cities. Good thing volume and being in our home city more than made up for it…

My name is Jimmy Jay, and I’m a retailer with sales that are based primarily through mail order and the large national comic conventions. This Blog column covers many of the trends found at this year’s summer shows, primarily the San Diego Comic Con International and the Wizard World Chicago.

In the previous columns, the point is made that conventions mark the beginning of trends or solidify the status quo. Examples were given over the last two years included the sales launch of All Star Batman & Robin (2005) and the onslaught of Civil War ties ins (2006). In both of these cases, both DC and Marvel coincided the release dates of their marquee projects with the summer conventions to maximize exposure and create a wildfire, word of mouth campaign for their respective books.

It also should be noted however, that the summer conventions also can mark the tail end of trends as well. Let me explain.

A convention retail booth is extremely limited in space, with high overhead. It cost THOUSANDS of dollars to set up and display at these shows. For instance, at the San Diego Comic Con, a single 10’x10’ area runs $3,200 if paid a full year in ADVANCE of the show. Premium placement such as corners and additional joining booths can run the tab up significantly, again in the thousands. Not to mention some necessities such as additional tables and fixtures, drayage, and transportation. Then add the cost of labor, hotels & housing, and meals.

And then there’s the cost of product.

I mention all of this not to gain sympathy for the retailers at these shows, or to give guilt for the con goers who insist on additional discounts or get nasty in their haggling. Instead, I mention all of this in the context of sales trends.

Retailers have a VERY limited amount of space. If product doesn’t have a high velocity of units moved, then it becomes much too costly to display. Retailers then have to become conscious of what really is worth those precious inches on the table, or that bit on back wall racks. The heat that surrounds projects, titles, and creators therefore is magnified.

During the 2006 Convention season, a trend that slowed significantly from last year is DC’s incredible sales moment from 2005.

To place things in context, for JayCompanyComics.com at the 2005 shows, our DC section on the front tables bullied out products from both Marvel Comics and the independents. Superman Batman titles, with both the Jim Lee “For Tomorrow” and “Hush” were the backbone, and books such as Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern and Teen Titans were constants. During last year’s season there was a significant build up on the upcoming CRISIS books, seemingly everything was stickered “Crisis Key” or “Crisis Tie In”. OMAC, Villains United, Rann Thanagar, Day of Vengeance were in demand as well as the other SACRIFICE parts like Wonder Woman and Action. Identity Crisis with its follow-up in the JLA still warranted premium table placement, and the JSA CLASSIFIED started wiggling more and more space. Popular back issues included the JLA #166-#168, various DC Comics Presents with Power Girl and Earth2 Superboy, and quite naturally the original Crisis series.

DC Comics jammed the racks with pieces of the Crisis puzzle, but seemingly peaked after the con season near the end of 2005 and early 2006. This was from a combination of things. Brick and mortar stores were able to gage more accurate reader numbers. Collectors were already feeling fatigued, spread thin on the amount of titles to pick up. And the talent on all these spin offs wasn’t as strong as the previous year, with many of the books featuring rotating tag team of artists to complete the titles in time.

More significantly DC was building towards the apex of the new INFINITE CRISIS. Readers responded, picked it up, along with the variant covers, and by the end were ready to move on. The follow-up marketing like One Year Later was overwhelming in some ways to collectors and proved a jumping off point to many of the titles. Second and third tier characters and mini events such as more Green Lantern titles, more OMAC, or “Battle for Bludhaven” storylines were no longer essential.

For the 2006 convention season, this meant that JayCompanyComics.com as well as other retailers on the circuit scaled back the amount of DC carried and displayed in prime time location at our booths. Fans had new items, NON-DC items, on their want list. Convention retailers become a reflection of the consumers.

To provide additional characteristics of the show, convention retailers, while in competition with each other, form a “sewing circle” network of sorts. If something is selling, it becomes a point of boasting. If books are faltering, then those that stink like day old produce are called out for their poor performance. At conventions, retailers echo that buzz on the floor. Loudly.

Again.

And Again.

By the set-up days of Wizard World Chicago, before the halls even opened to the public, the word of DC’s latest crop of books were slowing was everywhere. The major upswing of 2005 was now unofficially over.

I type this example knowing some bit of controversy may surround these observations at the conventions. In San Diego, Justice League of America #0 sold HUNDREDS of copies in the four and a half days. Ditto with Wonder Woman #1. Our stacks of Infinite Crisis shrank by the end of the show. Kubert/Morrison Batman was more than solid when released before Chicago. Further, Superman Batman #26 was a top seller at both conventions, and even hotter at Wizard World as fans rallied to Sam Loeb’s issue and “the 26”. Prices peaked at $10 per issue on the floor, with the complete signed editions hitting as much as $900 in the charity auction.
The pendulum swing of perception is quite fickle. Last summer, many of the same convention retailers grieved over Marvel sales. For some, House of M wasn’t the commercial blockbuster they had hoped. For Marvel, during the summer conventions, X-Men spin off mini series such as Phoenix Endsong, and X-23 had run their course and the momentum of the Ultimate titles was down from previous seasons. The consistent titles from the House of Ideas rested in the nearly one year old titles of New Avengers and Astonishing X-Men.

In contrast, during the 2006 summer season, Marvel got the buzz of the consumers and retailers alike. Everything and anything with the Civil War logo was difficult to keep in stock. The key icons were rejuvenated based on the early Spider-Man 3 movie trailers, a bold storyline in Planet Hulk, and more of Wolverine’s past in Origins. B-List characters such as Moon Knight, the Eternals, and even Ms. Marvel got a sales bump due to the creators involved, and timely marketing. Ironically, these same trends favored DC just the season before with the impending mega crossover, the Superman movie trailer, and big moves for the All Star titles, and focus on the library of DC characters- from Zatana to Blue Beetle, to Spectre, etc. Marvel has answered last year’s criticism with similar plan, and similar results. All indication is that the heat is on Marvel at this juncture.

Furthering the notion that DC’s talent base isn’t as strong as Marvel’s at this moment is more of a perception than anything. Anytime Grant Morrison, Jim Lee, Frank Quitely, The Kuberts, Frank Miller, Geoff Johns, Brad Metzler, Alex Ross, Ed Benes, et al are coming to play, there are always quality comics being produced. DC should market the star system that they currently have in order to capitalize on the investment they have committed in these talented creators.

DC certainly had its successes at these shows. The perception however was that the momentum of DC has slowed. While individual books are getting widespread acceptance, the line however is not selling at the premium pace of 2005.

I got home from the Wizard World Chicago show about 2 weeks ago, and have been in “recovery” mode ever since. With traditionally two biggest conventions of the year only a week and a half apart, let alone half a country apart, it was a difficult task to display at both the San Diego Comic Con and the Chicago shows. JayCompanyComics.com did it anyways… it’s just talking a few days to catch up and bounce back to our everyday activities…

In the days since getting back, I have been consuming all types of convention reports from both shows. From the breakdowns of the publisher panels, to Fan Reviews, to artist alley accounts, to message boards, to gossip columns, to editorials- seeking a totality of the complete convention experience. I scoured the net seeking all divergent outlooks. One thing I thought was missing was a report from the convention retail point of view. Hopefully this column should fill that void.

In an earlier column, I wrote that conventions were key to the comic industry because the con floor generates buzz on projects. The floor marks the beginning of trends, the end of trends, and the confirmation of trends.

If this is true than MARVEL COMICS was hands down the big winner of this season with their onslaught of CIVIL WAR books. To put things in perspective, it is estimated that several THOUSANDS of each of Civil War issues #1, #2, and #3 were sold by a half of dozen retailers on the San Diego floor. And this number might be a mere fraction of the amount of books moved when compared the size of the San Diego show floor, and the number of comic retailers in the hall. The majority of these Civil War books sold to people who don’t make the familiar pilgrimage to the Wednesday storefront. Some of these people were people who have been away from the hobby since the boom years of the 90s. Some of the people were attending the convention for its pop culture flavor rather than the funny books. Regardless, “Civil War” as a concept had to be explained to this crowd. And it was indeed explained AND talked about, not only from retailers collecting the cash, but more importantly the WORD OF MOUTH from other consumers. One person would look at the stack of books, and several others shopping at the table would chip in- “that’s my favorite book right now”. It was cool to check out the big Marvel Event, and pass on that approval.

Marvel Comics fortified their heavy release schedule the week of the SD Con with a plethora of Civil War tie ins led by Civil War X-Men #1, some short print variants like the CW#3 Thor Variant, and number of high profile second print “variants” such as the Civil War #2 unmasked, Amazing Spider-Man, Wolverine, New Avengers Illuminati, She-Hulk, and more. For fans at the show, now it became relatively easy to pick up any of the pieces of the greater story. Everything was in print, and in stock for the convention.

Other notable books to come out with this year’s San Diego show was the DC jam book of Justice League of America #0; the follow-up issue to FLASH. Both these DC offerings, along with a recent Wonder Woman #1 went a long way to promote new series to fans, planting seeds of a hopeful return to subsequent issues.

Both Marvel and DC seem to be realizing the impact of releasing their BIG GUNS books in conjunction with the large comic conventions. Last year, All Star Batman & Robin was the big winner on the floor of the San Diego Con, playing with familiar aspects of the crowd. The Batman Icon is arguably the most recognized in all of comics. Batman Begins was a solid favorite to the movie crowd that summer. Dark Knight visionary, Frank Miller returned to the driver’s seat. And San Diego’s own native son, Jim Lee, was safely on the property that rejuvenated his career with HUSH. Folks attending the San Diego Con were familiar with one or more of these aspects, thus THOUSANDS of books again moved, with regular and variant issues scooped up. Whereas, the 2006 season was a confirmation of the heat index of Civil War, 2005 was interesting in that the All Star brand was launched with strength. It could be argued that buzz on the floor during that one single week gave a lot of juice to the imprint carrying the title into high sales for nearly a year.

Given these sales trends it seems as if the Big Two Publishers are using the grand stage of the show- with its national media exposure and monstrous attendance, to take advantage of another sales push. With this potential outreach to new fans, and the energy generated with word of mouth, it should come to little surprise that I think both Marvel and DC should take a very close look at linking some of their sales behemoths to these shows. It’s good for both the short term and long term growth of the industry. Bigger orders with regard to the calendar, and potentially new weekly consumers hooked on the most commercial, highest profile projects.

My name is Jimmy Jay and I have been a comic book retailer for 11+ years with my family business, JAYCOMPANYCOMICS.com. What sets me apart from some of the other retail perspectives you may get from reading Newsarama, the Pulse and the other comic sites is that the sales for our company do not result from a single, "mom and pop" brick and mortar location. Instead Jay Company actively ventures to where the comic buyers are. We do this by offering an extensive website, but also by setting up at the larger national comic book conventions.

JayCompanyComics.com is the largest "new" book dealer on the convention circuit. We set up at all four of the Wizard World
Conventions, regional shows such as the Emerald City Con in Seattle, mid-size venues like the San Francisco WonderCon, and the grand daddy of them all- Comic Con International San Diego. Chances are, if you've gone to any of these shows in the since the mid 90s, you were greeted by my brother or me. You might have even picked up a few books from us along the way, books that you might have thought were next to impossible to get.

Comic Book Conventions are essential to the retail community- and this isn't necessarily in the form of the panels, advanced announcements of future projects, exclusive artist signings, or the swag given away by booth babes at the show. All of that is great- but a major key to the convention show floor is the actual buzz generated by certain projects. Grass Roots Heat. It's contagious, and when publishers use this to its advantage, it can extend shelf life to projects to creating sales spikes for future issues. Conventions are valuable because they can be a true litmus test for consumer trends, both their start, and the end.

In the time when we first started going to the cons professionally, we saw the advent of the Bad Girls Books, the rise and fall of the 90s B&W indy, the shift toward the Dark Dollar Image, the pop of the Cliffhanger video game era, Marvel Knights transforming into Quemas, fuzzy 80s nostalgia and its subsequent backlash, Ultimization, the commercial superpackages that HUSH ushered, Mega Crossovers& Mega headaches of Didio's DC, and now Marvel's crack back with CIVIL WAR.

What did this year's Conventions bring?
This will be explored in a series of journal entries over the next few weeks. These reports will compare and contrast both the Wizard World Chicago, and the Comic Con International San Diego, both which took place within 10 days of each other, yet represent completely different perspectives. Hopefully, this extra set of eyes on the Comic Market will prove enlightening if not entertaining, in exploring of where this industry
is headed.