by Brian Hibbs

We have all been here before, we have all been here before, we have all been here before…

“Déjà vu” – Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

There once was a hero who probably embodied all that was America.

But in a shocking act of violence he was taken from us, perhaps when we needed him the most.

When the citizens of our country found out, there was a great hew and cry in the media, and the masses swept into our stores to find out if this could indeed be true. Despite the inspiration of this America hero, despite the moral lessons he stood for, a parasitic tide of opportunists decided the best way to honor his memory was to cash in on his death. YES! Their was some honest grief in there, people who truly wanted to see the last days of a hero, but they were matched, or surpassed, by a mass who thought “well, I can profit from this”, as people always profit from tragedy, which drove the frenzy even higher.

It didn’t last, of course, these things never do; and eventually, as we always need them to, our hero returned.

Now, I can’t speak for anyone else, but these days, when I get a copy of Superman #75, it generally goes straight into our 25-cent box.

…

…wait, what did you think I was talking about?

Oh, that!

So, yeah its 14 years later, and this time its Captain America #25. But those of us who are the marathon runners in the funny book business have been here before.

There’s a couple of significant differences this time, of course (there always are), and probably the largest one is that Captain America #25, unlike Superman #75, was actually a fairly compelling read, utilizing the specific strengths of the comic form to tell a human-based story that was reasonably complex. In fact, if there’s a single key difference between the two events, it is that Captain America #25 holds a pretty decent likelihood of creating a new, or reigniting a faded interest in comics. “The Death of Superman” was, in précis, absolutely everything that was wrong about mid-90s comic book storytelling – bombast holding sway over humanity, spectacle and splash ruling over all. “The Death of Captain America”, though it devolved from a series (Civil War) that is a good example of what’s wrong with mid-aughts storytelling – namely the plothammer over the rational through-line of historical character action – specifically transcended its parent in how it was handled.

So that’s really really good, and probably can’t be stated enough – this was work with a great deal of craft, and so, should, increase the chances we get more long-term readers into comics. (there’s other barriers that have sprung up against that, as well, but we’ll get to those later)

Credit should also be given to both Marvel and Diamond for surmounting some of the physical distribution issues involved here. Once the demand was apparent, Marvel moved quickly to get additional stock into the marketplace, and Diamond did some extraordinary steps to make sure the books moved, on a tight schedule, into stores the next week. These are prudent moves, and I’m glad they were taken.

It remains to be seen what the extent of these extra copies really is. Given that orders were still be taken roughly 48 hours after release for more first printings, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that the overprint was at least 100%, if not greater (I’ve more than doubled my initials, for example, and it sounds like they’ll all fill) – though we won’t be able to puzzle it out for a few more weeks when the March charts are released.

It’s weird, I’ve been musing over how to word the next paragraph for like 10 minutes now, and all I’ve really done is convince myself that retailers really do have a “battered wife syndrome” with regards to Marvel. I really want to praise them for overprinting. I want to give them kudos for quickly moving those copies into the system. But every other Diamond-exclusive publisher is already doing these things. Further, those copies would have already been in Diamond’s system, so there wouldn’t have had to be the exceptional rigmarole that was gone through to bring these copies to market.

I really am sincere that I want to praise the strong overprinting and the steps taken, because it’s my perception that the limiting factor in Marvel Supply is the penurious and miserly hand of the Board of Directors, not Marvel Publishing’s management. And I want to encourage such behavior, because the more examples we have of it strongly working, the more likely the right number of copies of Marvel books will make it to the stores in the end. I just wish I didn’t have to, is all.

So, that’s the good. The quality of the comic was very high, more copies are being quickly brought to market, another printing is following hot on the heels.

The bad can be broken down into two measures: Greed, and Trust.

Just as in 1993, the speculators descended down from the heavens. Eager to flip a $3 purchase into $20 or more, there’s not a store in America that can’t tell you a story of someone this week trying to buy out their entire stock, or coming up with some half-ass lie in order to get around quantity restrictions, or something similar.

The difference between now and 1993, is we can see the scope of it a lot clearer on eBay.

It does appear that the overwhelming majority of brick & mortar retailers actually did the right thing this time out – they sold their copies, at cover price, limiting consumers to single or double copies in an effort to satisfy as many people as possible. And this is one of the great signs that it isn’t “the 90s all over again”, where many stores pulled their shelf copies and tried to milk their existing customers for every penny they were worth. The retail market has grown up, at least to the point where we recognize that a sale today should lead to a sale tomorrow, and the next week, and so unto the end of time, and that one gets those kinds of sales by making the customer happy, rather than fleecing them for every penny you can get.

Still, there were unethical asshats and scumtards who seem to believe that a little blood on the crops is good news for their fields, and that the best way to deal with any product shortage is to milk it and rape purchasers – especially new purchasers who may not even have the ability to know any better. I do not have charitable feelings towards these individuals, but, of course, they couldn’t give a damn of my opinion, I’m sure, and they’re “laughing all the way to the bank”. Good for them and all, but there’s a special place awaiting them in hell, in my opinion.

The simple reality is that anyone who has been in retailing back issue for any amount of time knows that “Hot” comics virtually never keep their prices over anything resembling a long-term.  And, so, selling something as though it has a “collectible” value at a price it can not possibly sustain, let alone maintain, is an ethically immoral and repugnant act.

Interestingly, I don’t have any real ire for the non-comics professional leeches who go around cities looking to score copies they can flip – at least these guys are working for their hustle, probably at a lower hourly rate than any kind of a real job, at least. But for a store to do that? Wow, talk about scummy.

Human behavior is, of course, not Marvel’s fault. However, I do wish that they had had the plans and communication in place to have let the market know earlier that more copies were available, and what kind of time frame we were talking about. From the retailer’s side of the table, Captain America #25 was gone solely to backorder several days before it even shipped. That usually means “fat chance, Charlie”. It took most of the day for the word to get around that this time it meant “No, really, place the backorder, man”, but, even then the official communication would be that we were looking at least two weeks before copies could come because Diamond simply didn’t physically have the books to make it happen any faster. Took another day for that to happen. This, I believe, compounded the speculation frenzy because the retail accounts had either bad or incomplete information to give to the curious and casual reader. If there had been enough correct information about availability, it might have mitigated some circumstances of consumers paying 8-10x cover price. Not all of them, maybe not even most of them, but some, and that would have been a moral victory.

Finally, we come to Trust, and this is the part of this that really bothers me the most: our suppliers don’t feel they can trust us enough to make a proper informed judgment of our stocking levels.

Let me be perfectly clear about a couple of things: its not just a Marvel problem, DC has certainly done it as well (most recently on the first month of Countdown, where they wouldn’t even officially confirm the series existed until the day Previews shipped). Further, I do really understand how much the impact of the internet has upon the ability to keep a “secret”.

On the other hand, I’m pretty largely unconvinced there’s a need for secrets when it comes to things like this. It was absolutely common knowledge when Superman died that it was going to happen, yet, even among comic fans, there was an enormous desire amongst the readership to see the execution of the story.

Here’s the difference between that and this: for Captain America #25, it’s not just that I didn’t have enough copies to meet demand from the waves of media interest. That’s pretty much a given, but nothing that could be planned for in any case. No, I think that the more fundamental problem is that I didn’t order enough copies to meet demand from regular readers who might be interested in the event. Even without the media frenzy, I think the book would have swiftly sold-through at retail, nationwide, regardless. Not in a day, no, but before the end of the weekend most certainly.

I don’t like telling customers “no”. I don’t even really like telling customers “Yes… but not today”.

Yes, indeed, we were told, in some venues (though certainly not ones available to the totality of comic book retailers), by means of personal assurances that we should order lots. And that’s always appreciated. But without the “why” attached to it, it’s virtually impossible to tell the difference between “lots” and “Lots” and “LOTS!”, if you see what I mean?

At the time of initial orders we were given literally zero information: “Classified: Access Denied” or whatever. By the time we first had to place our FOC orders (Final Cut Off date), we still hadn’t received the “unclassified” solicits; including notice of the 50/50 cover. Even if we had, looking at that solicit (“Leaping from the final pages of Civil War, this is the *only place* readers can find out what happens next in the life of CAPTAIN AMERICA!”), and the piece of art they ran (the McGuinness variant), I’d certainly conclude that they’re not killing Cap – I don’t usually assume that “what happens next in the life of” means “Nothing! He’s dead!”, after all.

Another thing to consider is that the news cycle being what it is, the first that many retailers on the West Coast heard of this was when the phone calls started coming, before UPS had even shown up with their books yet.

So, what I think the question really should be is: is the desire for some media attention and “exclusive” stories worth having several thousand independent comic shop owners who are buying non-returnable have little, poor, or deceptive information? For myself, no, absolutely not.

Why? Because if it had turned out that Anna Nichol’s autopsy showed she was carrying Britney Spears’ baby at the time of her death, and the Cap story didn’t get spread coast-to-coast, didn’t appear outside of one story in one NY newspaper, we still wouldn’t have had enough copies to meet the demand for the actual content. That we can all go “Whew! Hurray for slow news days!” and “Yay, it worked!” is all terrific, but it was a poor chance to take for all of the rest of us, in my opinion.

Finally, I think there’s some very real concern about Wizard magazine having advance knowledge of this event (and, as a print magazine, clearly they had to have that information weeks ago), and it either accidentally, or very much on purpose leaking to their sales arm, and their affiliated retail stores, giving them a clear market advantage.

For myself, giving an opinion as an individual, I believe that Wizard did engage in “insider trading”. I believe this because of the sheer scope of the eBay listings (all since taken down, by the way, once the story got out), and because there is a long history of anecdotal stories from the Valiant and early Image days of Wizard where they engaged in such practices in their local regional market of upstate New York. Having a circumstance where one source is the disproportionately largest disseminator of information (to the point where Wizard can “make” the news), where that source is also one of the most widely used “price guides” (and therefore can “set” the prices for an individual item), where that source also has arms that deal in direct consumer sales, as well as conventions and their “exclusive” manufactured goods, then I think that can not help but be a recipe for trouble.

[Parenthetically, if a new-to-comics person heard about Cap and decided to go to Marvel’s web-site, I suspect the page they’d land on would be this one given how it’s loaded on the front page. Marvel.com’s front page has a link to the Comic Shop Locater Service, but the interior ones don’t. They do, however, have outside advertising, including Google adwords. Obviously, what’s currently displayed there could change by the time this sees print on Friday, but at the moment (and for the last 5 days, at least) what is in that adwords box is “Captain America #25 Here. Captain America Dead in Issue #25. History Making Comic Book In Stock” advertisement that takes you to a page offering to sell it to you for $29.99. The company doing so? ToyWiz, a Shamus brother company.]

[I generally question the wisdom of a publisher’s website containing unvetted outside advertising; I specifically question the wisdom of Marvel ever leading a potentially new customer from Marvel’s website to any site that is selling their books for more than MSRP.]

Wizard is not doing anything, that I am aware of, that is illegal. The comics aftermarket isn’t a regulated one. However, I believe it is deeply unethical to report on news and prices while at the same time selling items that can capitalize on that news and those prices.

If information wasn’t hoarded, protected deeply as an important secret, there’s far less chance of individuals “leaking” it to the advantage of one party or another. To me, as a guy who sells comics and stories for a living, knowing months ago that Cap was going to die would have helped me sell more comics, not less. Because it’s not the action itself that’s the important thing, it is the execution of that action. That’s what people are buying.

Trust us to do our jobs, I say – give us the tools to create the excitement, to stock our stores properly.

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Brian Hibbs has owned and operated Comix Experience in San Francisco since 1989. Feel free to e-mail him with any comments. You can purchase a collection of the first one hundred Tilting at Windmills (originally serialized in Comics Retailer magazine) from IDW Publishing. An index of Tilting at Windmills on Newsarama can be found right here.

The views and opinions expressed in this column represent those of Brian Hibbs, and not necessarily Newsarama.com, LLC