As Markus mentioned, I was speaking specifically to event-driven superhero comics there, I suppose I could have been more clear. We watch our stocking levels pretty closely for the superhero stuff, and month-in, month-out, it sells about the same. The only time things really change is when there IS a huge buzz book, which means if we got caught short, chances are everyone did, and so the demand will ensure more are made available. I don’t really ever expend second printings of anything from non-Marvel, non-DC publishers.

As for your larger point about the direct market retail base cutting their orders to the bone to take advantage of ‘just in time’ reorders? Yes, you’re absolutely correct. Most DM retailers are, frustratingly, taking inventory positions on almost nothing. Order one for the shelf, reorder when it sells out. As a publisher who needs high initial orders to justify a large print bill, that behaviour is maddening. I don’t have a solution though.

I share your apathy toward corporate superhero books, but something smells fishy about the logic of this statement. Don’t many retailers take precisely this attitude toward indie comics?

As for the books not being for resale? News to me. I know that we weren’t supposed to sell them before their street date (and unlike the folks in Alan’s description, we didn’t) but I can’t remember ever being told that the bunches of comics we received through the first look, identical to regular product, couldn’t be sold… Hmm.

We never received anything stickered from Marvel, but like I said, our participation was really spotty in their part of the program.

As for piracy? Dude, you can download every comic in last week’s Marvel first look if you look around. It’s… it’s really annoying that Marvel approached us with the stick on this one and it’s pretty clear that the books are gonna show up online… or in this case, on the AP newswire… whether we did anything or not.

- Christopher

I note that on his blog, Alan refers to having purchased First Looks books from a retailer years ago, and you mention that with the now-defunct DC program, you’d at least get some cheap product to sell. If memory serves from my dealings with retailers, I believe the First Looks/Sneak Peeks were earmarked by the publishers as specifically not for resale (a la promotional copy of a CD release). For a while there, one of the publishers (Marvel, I think) even stickered some First Look books as being “not for resale.”

I’m not taking issue with the practice of selling “not for sale” products. It’s ridiculous of publishers to expect that when it comes to products they’ve helped to market as “collectibles.”

It’s also worthy of note that Marvel did offer digital, online previews of many upcoming releases through Diamond’s retailer website. I don’t know if this practice continues today; perhaps it was discontinued given concerns over piracy.