LITG Volume 2 #12

Primal · Aug 8, 2005

In this weeks LITG:
DC info (mostly old news), comic industry boom, variant covers and Pat Lee...

LYING IN THE GUTTERS VOLUME 2 COLUMN 12

The veracity of each story is judged by me and given a spotlight - Green is the most reliable, Amber means there's likely an interest involved or the likelihood isn't set and Red means even I can't quite bring myself to believe it.

Lying In The Gutters is for your entertainment. Neither Fair Nor Balanced.

INFINITE BUZZ

Marvel may have won the main buzz at the Chicago panels. But on the convention floor, it was all DC.

One intrepid reader heard Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing Stephanie Fierman launching into a minor tirade about yours truly ("he's not a journalist!"). Nevertheless my wide and varied web of sources throughout the convention (and not just a couple of willing prostitutes with dictaphones, honest) pulled up this collection of treats. No, not even the recent appointment of a Jeff Trojan as a VP can stop all these leaks.

LITG has mentioned "Superman Confidential" and "Batman Confidential" before - well it looks like they're both confirmed as good to go ongoing series. The contents are, well, confidential, but expect to see Geoff Johns on the former.

There's a new "Blue Beetle" book by Keith Giffen on the slates. That news alone gave me an internal tingle that you really don't want to know anything more about.

"Wonder Woman" will be kicking off again from issue 1, but this isn't your dad's reboot. All the Countdown miniseries will get "Infinite Crisis" specials.

I've heard talk of two new ongoing series, "Checkmate" and "Shadowpact." And there's a bunch of new miniseries around. Names being bandied about include "Creeper," "Shazam," "Secret Six," "Ion," "Martian Manhunter," "Spectre" and "OMAC."

One common comment on the convention floor was that if DC had managed to keep Jeph Loeb, instead of signing with Marvel, they'd have got the Joe Madueira team up project as well...

MASSIVE SEPTEMBER

How's your wallet? Is it ready for MASSIVE SEPTEMBER as I've decided to name it. Word from retailers on the Comic Book Industry Alliance is that orders for September's new comics are breaking records all over the place. Now, part of this is the collision of "House Of M" and "Infinity Crisis," but it seems to be spreading wider across the board, a combination of desirable product, a growing and more prominent comics market and - in some cases - the return of variant covers.

This isn't the nineties boom and bust - not yet anyway. A number of these retailers are conservative in their ordering, and this discussion was raised from their questioning of their own order assumptions.

Rory D Root of Comic Relief writes, "It shows strength in the market. With Comic Relief, reorders run over half our sales so it is especially encouraging/daunting."

John Tinkess of Another Dimension sought to reassure himself and others, "Our orders were higher than normal, but our sales have been setting new standards every month so far this year (July was our highest single month ever) so as long as they keep buying we shouldn't have anything to worry about."

Paul Stock of Librairie Astro said, "I looked at the numbers and freaked. If I stretched it just a few hundred, I would have hit 10k on DC. Marvel… was around $7,300."

Robert Scott of Comickaze announced in true comic book guy style, "Biggest order ever. Started out 5% higher at retail than our total retail for this month, which was our best ever.

"Scared the crap out of me and despite seemingly adequate justification for each line item ordered, I still forced myself to cut back on all high $$$ total items that I was fairly certain would be available for reorder, just to calm my nerves."

So we may well see a new comics boom - and one that actually sells. For now at least.

That is, if the comics actually all ship in September of course...

LEE WAY

Pat Lee's interview with Newsarama has been criticised for delivering underarm questions and not holding Lee to account for his recent actions - indeed that it's more of a PR piece than anything else. Well that's just not true. Wizard published the PR piece, and it appears that Newsarama was placed under restrictions when carrying out the Pat Lee interview in question. I may not have agreed to conduct such an interview, but its arguable that half a loaf is better than no bread, Lee's answers expose his actions even if they are not followed on - and that both Matt Brady and Alex Segura Jr. knew that the Newsarama Talkbacks would cover whatever they felt they were unable to.

In such cases, people aren't replying to the article - they are the article. Which means they should all be able to get into comics conventions for free as representatives of the media. Chicago Preview aside, of course.

As to the interview itself, there was one very fun contradiction between

"I was involved in the day-to-day operations of the company much more than I should have been."

and

"I just haven't had any control over it whatsoever. Each of the decisions was made for financial reasons that I've had absolutely no part in shaping."

Lee's comments that he had no ability to help at all in the bankruptcy proceedings, seems to conflict with the bankruptcy trustee's version of events that Pat Lee declined to respond to his many questions over the matter. But I'm sure you'll all have your own favourites.

The Dreamwave trademark has been bought by a new publisher, hoping to launch very soon. They are unconnected with Pat Lee... but may well be Canadian.

COVER STORY

I told you people were taking more interest in variant covers. Both Marvel and DC have opened the box on this particular industry-boom-and-busting practice. And with cover allocation being strictly adhered to, there's been quite a trading market in the rarer variant covers.

Except that adherence has got a lot less sticky in the last month. Variant editions are being offered again to the market under different allocations, after their initial distribution - which is likely to reduce their market-trading price.

Retailers have been able to get free copies of the "New Avengers" variant covers by ordering books like "Tales Of Suspense: Captain America & Iron Man," "Young Guns Sketchbook" or "Marvel Milestones Iron Man" - one for each copy they order. Compared to the prices the variants have been getting on eBay, this is a real bargain which has led, in some cases, to people buying up all the copies they can.

And some people just seem to be able to get their hands on job lots.

Take the eBay seller markfcg from Collector's Universe in NYC. He's selling hundreds of copies of the 1 in 20 variant edition of "New Avengers" 3 (with Wolverine on the cover).

100 copies for $599

50 copies for $299

10 set of 5 copies for $50 each

With others already sold, that's enough variants from ordering around 10,000 copies of the original issue. Or by wiping out the Buy One Get One Free deal single-handedly…
Click to expand...

Source: Comic Book Resources

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LITG Volume 2 #12

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LITG Volume 2 #12

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