Gun Dog Comics (1988-2001)

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I liked your column, but I think that the people who need to read it probably don’t know how to read words without pictures. ( Except Rick. Rick, don’t do it. Don’t sell the beanies. It’s a slippery slope!)

You want Big Picture? (You can answer any question with “because publishers make more money with the status quo.”)

* Why are comics so damn expensive for the *extremely* limited reading experience?

* Why are there so many line extensions with SPLIT ENDS?!!!

*  Why won’t any publisher dare to play with the concept of the Supermanga  -  a lot of value for a medium price?

* How can Brian make any money selling comics with a 40% margin?

* How can this industry afford a 300 page color catalog when it has shrunk back down to a pre-speculative sales level where we had a b&w catalog half the size?

* How can the industry afford to pay rock-star level talent slave wages and think that sales will take off?

* Why won’t a distributor offer “real world” credit terms to retailers not bold enough to ask for them, but who have a great payment history.?

* If a comic isn’t on my rack, it HAS NO CHANCE of selling. Why aren’t more publishers taking on overshipping/returnability  (oooo! Two issues of transmet. There’s a risk for you.)

* If DCD’s spring flings are “workshops” then why isn’t any work being done? They should have a 30 minute opening “Airing of Grievences’ ( a la Festivus) and then let any one who made money last year teach those who didn’t how they did it.

I learn more at the knee of Rosanski, or you, or Hibbs, or Liebowitz, or (heaven forbid) Milo than from David Vinson (love him, though we do) reading a script that we’re not paying attention to anyhoo. Last time he was a retailer, Valiant was HOT!

Content! Content! Content!

If you, Obi Joe Kenobi, want to convince Rick (and I’m just going to pick on Rick one more second) from going to the dark side, show some numbers. Rick takes $1000 and puts it into BeanieWeanies and turns it 52 times over the next 52 weeks, why not? Rick’s numbers are up, too. Some pretty amazing gains, too, unless he’s yanking my chain. What specific course of action (or product) would you have him invest in?

We’re fighting hand-to-hand combat - the generals are in the trenches alongside us and we’re being overrun by the internet, video games and our industry’s answer to all of this is Bill Tucci’s “Battlebooks!”  or “Chromium covers” or a debate about “street dates” that tells me that it will never happen.

I think some radical changes need to be experimented with. Change the paradigm. Fuck things up.

I’m thinking of closing two stores and reopening them as catalog outlets. Subs-only, pay in advance get x% off.  Open limited days and hours with dramatically reduced prices. If my costs are lower, pass them on to my customers.

Also having CD-rom-esque web-page-like  catalogs of everything that’s available from my suppliers “on-line” in the stores so people can special order merchandise at a kiosk. One of my managers had the idea of putting comics kiosks in record stores in areas where it’s not feasible to have a comics shop.

Just do something, anything to get the ball rolling again. Or just shoot them in the head and get on with my business life.

You can cyberquote me at will, but if it appeared in the Retailer Alliance, I need a “first right of refusal.”

All in the name of discussion,

Rob