The Comics Rack

I Wanna Buy a Comic Book!

   At the time I'm writing this, I've just returned from a 2 week vacation that took us from Southern California to a week's stay on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington (for those of you who want more specifics, let's just say that we left from near Los Angeles and ended up across the water from Victoria, Canada) and back via our new Honda CRV (don't get me started on gas prices). One of the things I like to do when we travel is to visit local comic stores and book stores, not only to see what items can be found, but also to talk with retailers about books and comics (most book dealers up north seem to be collectors at heart). I ran across a disturbing trend this time around, however, and think that it may not only be indicative of the future, but also demonstrates how a little creative bookkeeping can make things look much better than they really are.
   In most of our trips in the past, it has been easy to find at least one comic shop in each of the larger cities we stop in on our travels. This time around, we found none. That's right...none, zero, zilch! And it's not as if we are staying out in the boondocks. No, we stayed in Stockton, CA, Klamath Falls, OR and cities of that size (I will point out that we stayed in a suburb of Portland with no time to check out the city and skirted around Seattle). In fact, Stockton doesn't even have a used book store within its environs!
   Once we reached our destination in Washington, things were not much better. We stayed in a tiny town called Discovery Bay, which mainly boasts our condo complex as the largest local industry. About 20 minutes to the West is Port Townsend. To the East, about another 25-30 minutes is Sequim and, another 20-30 minutes beyond, is Port Angeles, the largest city in the area. Yet, out of this area, all of which is accessible via Route 101, there is only one comic store in Port Angeles: a store we failed to find. So, in an area that covers around 50-60 miles along Rt. 101, there is (or was) only one comic store during a time that we are hearing about how comic books are doing better.
   What got me to thinking about all this was (besides my disappointment in not finding any comic shops) was a link in the email edition of CBGXTRA that was in my inbox upon my return. An article found through the link, "Industry up 12% during first half of 2006," tries to paint in glowing terms how comic sales are better this year than 2005 and how the publishers, distributors and stores anticipate a banner year. Is this really the case? Well, yes, but, it seems that the comic industry is using the same creative number crunching that Hollywood has been using for years.
   The increase of 12% is the total dollar amount of comic product sold and not an increase in the actual number of comics sold. No, if one carefully reads the article, it seems that the retailer orders of the Top 300 comics books from Diamond's listings are down 1% from last year, although actual sales were up 8% (figure that one out). Trade collections and hardcovers were also off a percentage or two from last year, and this is with the price increases from both Marvel and DC and the outrageous price of many of the DC hardcovers. Also mentioned in the article, however, is that the average price of a comic book went from $3.15 in 2005 to $3.28 in the same period of 2006. This would mean that orders were down, but the price went up, something that I think is getting overlooked.
   Let's face it, if comics cost more, but are selling fewer, than the dollar amount may look bright and cheery, but the actual number of readers is fewer; much like Hollywood proclaiming that a film had the biggest opening ever, even though the cost of a movie ticket is at an all time high (and you notice that these movie reports never tell us how many tickets were sold?). Similarly, there are fewer comic stores than there used to be (I offer my trip as evidence) and if you can't find a comic store, you won't be buying as many comics or you may not be buying any comics at all. So, what I'm going to suggest here is that this 12% increase is very deceptive. I firmly believe there are fewer comic readers than, say, 10 years ago and it is the higher cost of the product that makes things look good on paper. I think the comic industry is in a continuing downward spiral when it comes to comics, caused by the high cost of the product coupled with the fact that fewer people are reading for pleasure (a problem seen in the book publishing industry). Fewer stores are available and, although sales via the Internet are strong, I don't think that the comic store, as we know it, will last much longer if sales continue to slip.
   And, without the comic store, will the end of comics be very far behind?