At The Counter #5: Gimmick Fatigue & Communication Woes

Welcome back to At The Counter, our regular retailer talk column with Greg Gage, owner of Utah’s best comic book shop (we don’t make the rules, there’s an award and everything!).

This week, Tony and Greg sit down to talk about how quickly one of comics’ biggest trends is starting to cause fatigue, and how a communication breakdown over the Christmas break caused some serious issues. Also, this is going to be our first biweekly edition of the column as we try to keep it more timely!

Tony: Morning Greg! First of all, I do have to say congratulations on your … fifth time winning Best Comic Shop in City Weekly’s Best Of Utah awards.

Greg: Thanks! (Eighth win, actually, but who’s counting…)

Tony: Clearly you are (and maybe your competitors)!

So you and I both are trying to keep a variety of topics for the column, but I just have to jump right into it. Are blind bags the fastest you’ve seen a gimmick implode in the comics industry?

Greg: Well, I don’t think they’ve fully imploded yet, but with the damages from Marvel last week, it may be helping speed toward the end.

Tony: I want to take each issue on its own. First of all, Marvel’s entry into the fad arrived with last week’s Ultimate Endgame and immediately retailers went online to complain. And this isn’t just chatter. Anecdotally, it sounds like a vast majority of blind bag shipments (the number I’ve seen thrown around is 90%) arrived with damages — ranging from minor spine ticks to major creasing. What have you heard and what effect has it had?

Greg: It seems that the general public knows about it, thanks to the internet. Does it matter? Nope. I don’t think so. People are so obsessed with looking for the Robert Downey Jr. unicorn, that I don’t think they care about the actual book.

Tony: How did your shipment look? I know my copy had minor ticks and one minor crease. I mean, not bad, but frustrating to get a book blindly that started at somewhere between a 7-8 grade.

Greg: All of the copies that I saw were damaged. Again, not to the point of being thrown out, but, still. The expectation of buying a blind bag that supposedly hasn’t been handled by anyone since the printer is that they’ll be in great condition.

Tony: In ordinary conditions, I would say that the publisher should be recalling and reprinting these, but Marvel’s been the first to offer original art in their blind bags. From your perspective, would a recall have even been possible?

Greg: Maybe. But, yeah. How do you recall and redraw an original cover? I’d be interested to know if it was the outer slip type cover being put on or the actual blind bag wrapping that did it. I’ve never seen a temporary cover on a blind bag before.

Tony: Another big concern I heard was that so many retailers were just selling them with warnings about the damages, rather than returning them, showing not just Marvel but other publishers that the speculator market is more important than a product that’s done right. Would you say that’s a valid concern?

Greg: I don’t think it’ll matter. There’s a certain percentage of customers that will always be the speculator market. That was something created in the ’90s that has waxed and waned year to year. 

Tony: Now, even without that, both Ultimate Endgame and IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #13 ran into another big issue. Both blind bag releases included open order variants, including the A cover. Why is that an issue?

Greg: Because a lot of people are buying the regular cover, then the blind bag to try and get a limited version of the book. When they open the blind bag and it’s the exact same thing that they just bought, it’s just disappointing. With the price of books these days, paying $5 twice for the same book just isn’t a long term success plan.

Tony: Yeah, I’m glad you got another shipment of the book, otherwise I would have ended up with two Cover A’s. Did it cause any issues at Black Cat?

Greg: The Turtles one didn’t, because they seemed to include more ratio variants. I had some people open up 1 in 15, 1 in 25, even 1 in 50 covers. The Ultimate Endgame seemed to bomb a little harder. Just for fun, I opened 6 of them and didn’t get one single cover that wasn’t a standard, open order book. I don’t even collect the Ultimate line, but even I was disappointed.

Tony: Yeah, I got the Skottie Young cover, which I liked, but I was less than thrilled that it came in the bag.

And last part of the blind bag topic this time around — Dynamite entered the fad with blind bags that included three variants of the same issue. The issue appears to be between their solicitations and the bags arriving in shops, the branding on the bags changed on several of these releases, suddenly making it unclear that one of the three variants for each was a blank “sketch” cover.

It flew under the radar compared to the other two issues, but was this a bad move, shifting the responsibility to the retailer to warn customers that one of the covers was a blank?

Greg: The Dynamite situation is a little different. All of those covers, even the blanks, were exclusive to the blind bags, so it isn’t like you’re going to get a bunch of dupes of what you already bought. I actually liked opening up the Dynamite bags, since I was guaranteed I wouldn’t get something I already have.

Tony: You have your ear to the street better than I do sometimes. What’s the biggest issue — Marvel’s Ultimate Endgame’s bags having extensive damages, Marvel and IDW including open order variants in their bags or a packaging switch-up with Dynamite’s entry to the fad?

Greg: Hard to say. From what I’ve experienced, though, the open order covers and even a huge amount of the regular A covers present in the blind bags are really hurting. As far as the damages are concerned, at least they’re not totally ruined, but, still, not good. At least Dynamite has unique blind bag variants and not just a bunch of standard ones.

Tony: Now backtracking a bit, there were two huge communication issues in December. The first was that Marvel remained completely radio silent about the damaged covers with distributor Penguin Random House finally acknowledging it, but only treating it like any other damaged book — essentially saying strip the cover, ship it at your cost and we’ll refund you. 

Why is this the wrong approach?

Greg: So many ways this was wrong. So, so many ways. Marvel needed to acknowledge the problem, which they failed to do yet again. But, I’m really not surprised. I’ve had no direct contact with them for years now. Random House is a bit more of a shock, but they don’t have very good customer service, either, to be honest. I’m not covering shipping to get a refund. Just not happening, especially when local shops are being nickel-and-dimed half to death right now. 

Tony: Then compounding that, it appears that Lunar Distribution — who distributes for DC Comics among others — shipped the January 7th books a full two weeks early without warning, causing multiple retailers to accidentally and unknowingly break street date on multiple books, particularly DC’s Absolute Batman: Ark M, part of the red hot Absolute line.

Have you seen a distributor do this before, without proper communication?

Greg: I have not! That was an unbelievable situation. Especially on Christmas! Why would you do this to shops? It’s the busiest and most stressful time of the year, not only with sales, but we’re all struggling to get our year end accounting, inventory, et al done. I don’t think it’s too much to say that when we’re shipped comics, we just expect them to be shipped correctly. I honestly think that the higher ups at Lunar took the week off and left it in the hands of warehouse personnel, who have no idea what ships when. That’s my take on it, but, of course, there’s been no communication or explanation, so I guess that’s that.

Tony: What effect have these communication issues had on you and the store?

Greg: It was a nightmare. I have mail order customers that send me lists of books they want, and to have those shipments swapped, it made me look like I didn’t know what I was talking about, saying, “No, that’s not out yet. No, that’s this week, not next week.” and so on.

Tony: Why do you think communication is such a difficult issue to get right?

Greg: My take on it is that Lunar and Penguin wanted all of Diamond’s business, and when Diamond essentially became a criminal organization, stealing inventory and shaking down small businesses, they got it. The problem is, they weren’t ready for what is a huge undertaking. It’s one thing to handle distribution for a few publishers, but something altogether different to take on dozens. But, again, I wouldn’t know, because there’s been … yeah. No communication.

Tony: Yeah, that is just a massive problem. But it is the comics industry. We’re going to have some new problem to deal with next time! And until then…

Black Cat Comics is on the web at https://blackcat-comics.com/ and via all the usual social media channels. If you live in or are visiting the Salt Lake City area, you can visit the store at 2261 Highland Dr, Salt Lake City, UT 84106, or call Greg and his team at (801) 461-4228.