It may take me a little while getting back up to speed with this, as my TaW muscles have grown a little rusty, and I'm probably less cranky than I used to be because of my wonderful new son, Benjamin. But I'm still probably cranky enough.

TaW is all about advocacy, about righting wrongs, and, above all else, passion and love for working in the comic book industry. Like Quixote I may charge blindly, but my heart is pure.

(I'm also, I'm sure you'll find, full of myself. Whether that's charming or not is up to you.)

I'll be covering a lot of topics here about the industry - some times an assessment of a company's efforts in the Direct Market, other times critiques of current trends - all with the goal of making the comics industry better. I'll try not to blow any smoke up your ass, either.

If you're not in "the industry", I hope this may still prove informative. There's a lot of weird misconceptions about how the Direct Market works floating about the 'net, and I hope that I can help illuminate at least how I see the various pieces fitting together.

For example, we often bandy around Diamond's monthly sales charts as though they are gospel. But they're not; they're often just a fraction of what the ultimate sales might be.

For example, there is newsstand, there are subscriptions, there are book stores, there's direct deals with big generalist chains like Wal-Mart or Costco. There are Europe's sales through Diamond UK. There are other specialty retailer sales, like Slave Labor's success at Hot Topic. There are book club deals and, for smaller publishers, direct sales at conventions. That's not to mention sales through Last Gasp or Cold Cut or FMI.

The point is there's lots of channels through which product flows, and the Direct Market retailers may in fact be buying from many different sources that just aren't visible in the Diamond charts, or even on Bookscan for that matter.

In any event, the Diamond charts are somewhat flawed because they're created on the last calendar day of each month. This means that books shipped late in the month generally won't have any reorders counted towards their final sales.

What you have to understand about Direct Market retailers is we're generally conservative when we order. And that's because we buy non-returnable. If we order too many comics, it is quite literally our ass on the line, and throughout the decades hundreds, if not thousands, of comic shops have gone out of business from the sin of over-ordering.

So, we're extremely slow to support new things, as a collective whole. But when we get going, we can really get going. For proof of this phenomenon, check the unholy tear up the charts that Lee and Loeb's Batman took. ICV2 estimates show 113,061 for issue #608, while # 619 scored 233,775. Of course, heh, those two charts used wholly different methodologies to calculate the figures, but that's exceptional growth either way.

Why the 100,000-ish copy difference? Because the book was supported throughout its life. There were copious reorders available in the first place, and when those sold through, DC went to a second printing, and then did a bumper edition, then the hardcover. While there were undoubtedly weeks that Batman #608 wasn't available from DC, they fought well to keep those to as few weeks as possible.

See, the key number-one thing to remember when you're dealing with the Direct Market retailer is that retailers are the publisher's customer. Books live and die on our commitment, and our ability to bring the book to market. If the retailers have no faith in a project (your Reign of the Zodiac, or your Tsunami books, or your Rocket Comics, or whatever), then those projects won't get any traction in the market - regardless of how good or bad they are, regardless of the talent involved, regardless of almost anything.

Because we buy non-returnable.

This is certainly the "curse" of the Direct Market, but it is also its greatest strength.

Non-returnable means guaranteed sales. When we get reports of the 233,775 copies of Batman #619, that's 233,775 copies that are actually bought and paid for - even if not one of them sells-through at retail. That second part is important as well - just because something has "sold out" doesn't mean it has sold-through. Again, the Direct Market retailer is the one bearing basically all of the risk.

Often in other markets the manufacturer is the one bearing the risk - general wisdom says that on the newsstand copies you have to produce 3-7 copies in order to sell one. That's horrifically wasteful, and makes it insanely difficult for anyone but the best financed players to get into that game. The beauty of the DM is that you have a reasonably low bar to entry. Why? Because the "good" stores, the ones that sell the vast majority of the comics produced, are always on the active lookout for new high-quality work, and will treat you equivalent to the "majors" if they take the chance with you. At Comix Experience, Marvel and Fantagraphics and DC and About Comics and Image and IDW and Dork Storm and Exhibit A and Dark Horse and many many more are all racked side-by-side, equivalent in the presentation made to consumers. In order to "break into" the Direct Market, you only really have to convince a few hundred "key" retailers to carry your work, and those retailers are giving you firm orders that won't be returned.

(One good place to begin researching the "good" stores - though it's just the beginning - is Jeff Mason's "Indy Friendly" store list)

Interestingly, the Direct Market often beats the pants off the bookstore market for virtually anything that's not "manga" or the seldom mentioned "humor" category - umpty-ump years after he stopped the strips, Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes still outsells most other comics, especially the hero stuff, in the bookstores. We see lots of calls to move our industry towards a manga model because of their success in bookstores, why aren't we seeing similar calls to reduce everything to a 4-panel gag format? "Humor" sells better than spandex, after all….

For "Art" comics, the numbers are often even more telling. Chris Ware's Quimby the Mouse was bought at 2645 copies on the day of its release by the Direct Market (and, assumingly, we've reordered more since) according to Newsarama's calculations, yet the last Bookscan report I saw indicated Year-to-Date sales throughout the book channel was 1680 copies. Each of those copies (and all of the other, unsold copies still in that channel) is a risk for the publisher - the 2600 through the DM was not.

So, while it is certainly safe to say that the Direct Market may or may not fully support everything it is offered, it is equally safe to note that without the Direct Market's firm orders, almost no one would have that initial chance of cracking other markets - the risk is too extreme for most publishers. The Direct Market provides the very foundation with which to fund other venues.

The Direct Market democratizes creativity to a remarkable degree. Try "breaking into" film or TV or music or, hell, even prose and you'll see just how simple and direct the comic book industry makes things. There's even the Xeric Foundation, which gives cash grants to self-publishers to get established, and generally guarantees you national distribution through Diamond with your own special icon.

Does the Direct Market have its flaws? Oh, by all means. Most of them are obvious - we've become largely inbred and insular as an audience; largely as a result of the disproportionate way that Wednesday new comics day sales dominates the economic engine of most stores. But even this is beginning to change as time rolls forward. Still, probably the largest thing "holding us back" is the natural (and, mind you, absolutely correct) fiscal conservatism of the retailer to the new.

Every publisher reacts to it a little differently. Some, for example, are trying to eliminate the periodical comic from their mix as much as they can, preferring to issue "permanent" editions as a GN. This, I think, is probably a mistake, because frontlist drives backlist, especially as the sea of choices expands. Creators need constant visibility and "market presence" in order to develop as their own "brand". We'll talk more about this one in a future column, I promise, because I think that the rush towards "books-only" is a dangerous course for us to take.

Then we have the really forward looking ones who use tools like overshipping to move that needle. See, publishers have the lowest costs of anyone in the chain. That $2.95 comic, in terms of actual printing costs, costs mere nickels to manufacture. Sending a retailer an extra five copies above their order might be, say, 50 cents in printing costs to the publisher, while the cost to the retailer of ordering those five extra copies might be $7.50. Smart publishers recognize this reality, and use their buying strength to get more copies into the system. Whether that's straight-up returnable overshipping from Image, or support-me-and-I'll-support-you concepts like Alternative's "Buy 10, get 10 free" type of deals, to DC's "Share the Risk" program, he with the lowest cost has the least risk when getting copies to market.

And then we have Marvel, where they have an official policy of not over-printing, using the stick, rather than the carrot to get retailers over the conservatism.

Normally I'd consider this a dead subject, but Marvel has had enough recent management changes that I think it is worth revisiting this topic - does no-overprint work?

Frankly, I have to say no. In fact, I think it has exactly the opposite effect: cutting potential new customers away from books at the time that they have the peak of interest.

Y'know, Marvel under Joe Quesada has primarily been an enormous editorial boom - the quality of the entire Marvel line is up across-the-board, and they have a lot of A-level talent doing A-level work. While there have been a few missteps, by and large I think history will be very favorable to the work produced by Marvel in the last 4 years.

So why is it, then, that Marvel isn't making the attempt to match supply to the demand it is able to generate? Book after book after book is effectively under-printed, and if you're not a hardcore regular Direct Market customer, you're largely cut off from buying books you hear about. This is no way to grow sales.

Now, Marvel is publicly traded, so their SEC filings are public information. And these filings show good growth in publishing - what looks like 27% on the quarter, YTD. But where is this growth coming from? That is to say, is that growth coming from gaining new readers, or is that growth coming from expansion of line-size, prices hikes and increasing publication frequency? I believe it is mostly the latter.

It's really hard to establish much with the limited numbers that we have - as I noted above, the very way the Diamond charts are calculated changed in March '03, so trying to draw inferences from before then is like comparing apples to sardines. So, I went to the "Statement of Ownership" figures that Marvel must file to comply with 2nd-class mailing requirements. "No Overprint" began in April of 2001, so I decided to compare SoO figures from 2000 to those just appearing in December of 2003. The 2000 figures are from Krause's Standard Catalog of Comic Books; I collected the 2003 figures myself.

One problem is gaps in data - comparing 2000 to 2003 figures are limited because not all titles ran the SoO. It's a fairly limited data pool, but it should give some absolute numbers that were theoretically calculated in the same fashion.

Here's what the chart looks like:

As you can see, while they've had a couple of winners (Cap, DD, Hulk, and Amazing), everything else has seen a drop. X-Men sales have dropped about 20% since the implementation of "No Overprint". Wolverine has a 3% drop, despite being rebooted with a new #1 in 2003! Even Amazing Spider-Man's 8% gain looks pretty darn anemic given that J. Michael Straczynski is the writer, and the sad state of Spidey before he came on board.

(The figure for Ultimate Spider-Man in 2000 is so high, I think, because these figures represent the "average" for the year, and, apparently, over 1 million copies of #1 [and #2?] were distributed.)

While these numbers aren't exactly "proof" of anything, they do match the trends I've been observing in the apples/sardine comparisons in the ICV2 charts, as well as my own anecdotal experience. It is very difficult to increase readership when the early parts of the story aren't available.

How does a returning reader feel when they find out that they can't get the first part of Neil Gaiman's 1602, or Avengers/JLA? For the most part, these become lost sales for the life of the series, and, sometimes, for that return to comics in general.

"But, hold on," you exclaim, "they'll just get it when it comes out in trade!" And, sure, that's always possible, but the single best time to reach a new reader is when something is new. Your chances of success drop off severely if you're not striking when the customer is there, cash in hand, wanting to buy.

I think Marvel's reliance on "No Overprint" as a strategy has not only slowed the growth of the company itself, but the growth of the entire comics market, Direct or not. It is key to match supply to the demand.

The Direct Market is back on a cycle of growth, for the most part, and if we want to accelerate it, it's time for Marvel to get back into the supply game.

Brian Hibbs has owned Comix Experience in San Francisco since 1989. Feel free to e-mail him at brian@comixexperience.com if you have any comment. A collection of the first one hundred Tilting at Windmills can also be purchased from IDW Publishing.