COMICBOOKMAN SEZ: Every week there’s at least one instance of a recurring problem my customers have which I am helpless to fix but has a very easy solution to it. As we head into our eleven hundredth week at the store, I long ago slipped into the resignation/acceptance stage concerning this problem. Why? Allow me to spin an illustrative real life, actually happened “Tales of the Comicbookman” story to explain.

Thursday I’m sitting on the floor in front of the Vertigo/Superman wall working on post FCBD clean up and inventory of that wall. As I’m deciding which Vertigo series to retire and which to keep in circulation, one of my regular customers tracks me down and asks, “I’m looking for the latest issue of Astro City, do you still have it?” “The one with the monkey on the cover?” I sez. “Yup” he sez. To be clear, he’s looking for Astro City #23 which shipped on 051315, making it one of last week's books which would be back where I was. I know this particular issue’s not here because it sold out of it last week and I’m organizing the wall that Astro City lives on right that very moment. Still, one tries to be helpful. “Is it up there?” he asks, pointing to the top of the wall. He looks, “Nope” adding “You had it last Tuesday but couldn’t buy it.” This is a reference to the book's Wednesday street date which I have to observe on Tuesdays once the book goes up when we’re setting up for “New Comic Wednesday” (another story in itself for another day). Continuing, I tell him, “Looks like it’s sold out, I’ll do a reorder but it will take two to three weeks to come in.” He sez, “That’s okay”. A dejected Casey walks off the field; there will be no joy in Mudville today.

There are a couple of solutions to this problem. The first being that the Comic Book Store doesn’t sell out of the book you want before you show up to buy it. In a perfect world this wouldn’t be a problem but none of us lives in that reality, even here at Alternate Reality. Stuff happens, books sell out. It’s not like we don’t obsessively keep track of sales/inventory, but a book that sells twenty copies a month will sometimes sell out at that benchmark for no discernible reason. It’s not a “key” issue and there isn’t a talent change. It’s just more people show up for it that month (presumably from other stores) than other months and we sell out. It’s tragic, it’s unpredictable and it happens more often than we would like (because it means someone's going to miss an issue) but we preserver.

There’s also the solution of coming back for the book which you know is here. Somewhere in that then unknown window between when I can legally sell it to you (7:00am Wednesday) and when I actually do sell out of it. In this instance, that was a four to five day window since I’m pretty sure I still had a copy of Astro City #23 on the New Comic Rack into late last weekend. Again, we keep track of our sales for ordering but stuff happens. And in this instance, the famous last words I hear from some folks is, "I know it's here, I'll get it next time". This always perplexes me because I have no idea how long I will have something available for sale, so how can they be sure? Five minutes after you walk out the door someone could come in and buy that last issue. I can't predict the future and I'm at a loss for how others can be so sure they can.

The third and final solution is the one that is always available to any customer at anytime. Usually folks exercise this option after they realize, for whatever reason, the previous two options just aren’t going to happen for them. Of course what I’m referring to is SUBSCRIBING to the book through the store. It’s the "easy fix" I alluded to at the top and it’s also the fix I have long ago slipped into the resigned acceptance of never happening with most of my patrons. A couple of recent examples to illustrate.

All last year, the word went out that Star Wars was moving from Dark Horse to Marvel. I kept telling weekly readers of the various DH Star Wars titles that they might want to subscribe before the change over. “I’ll think about it,” was the common response I’d get. Then, Star Wars #1 comes out, sells out and those same folks are gobsmacked that there are no first prints of #1 left for them. Ditto for #2, and then Darth Vader #1 and on and on. Star Wars fans finally broke down and started subscribing to Marvel’s Star Wars titles this year around the time first and second prints of Star Wars Darth Vader #1 and #2, not came out, but sold out.

We are currently going through exactly the same thing with the Secret Wars event. Folks will begin subscribing to the Secret Wars family of titles sometime around issue #3 after the first and second issues of the various titles have had a chance to disappear off the racks. I understand not wanting to commit to unknown titles like “Deadpool’s Secret-Secret Wars” or “A-Force” but not to the core “Secret Wars” mini series? Folks who have bought every other Marvel Event series over the last decade (after procrastinating on the first few issues) want to wait to see if this one is the stinker. Really? They destroyed the Marvel Universe and the Ultimate Universe in the first issue - how deep does the story have to go before you can commit to just the core series?

So to the customer who has been buying Astro City since it started at Image, to the Star Wars fans that had a year’s notice, to the folks who think Secret Wars might be the hidden stinker in Marvel’s pantheon of events, I say this: Take a chance. Make a commitment. Go out on a limb and subscribe to that one book you know you’re going to want. It’s easy, just walk up to the counter and tell us-we’ll take it from there. Help us to help you, because after eleven hundred weeks of asking, we’re pretty much leaving it up to you.
 

We order 99.9% of the comics PREVIEWS solicits. Keep that in mind as you read the numbers below; they not only break down our week, but they're also a good representation of the week in comics nationwide.
New Comic Wednesday for the fourth and final shipping week of May sees IDW and DC flipping their positions from last week. Retaking 1st Place is DC with thirty one titles, well ahead of 2nd Place IDW with twenty-six titles. Ditto for 3rd and 4th Place this week as Image and Marvel flip their positions from 052015. This week, Image takes 3rd Place with twenty two titles and Marvel lands in 4th Place with eighteen. Bringing up the rear in 5th Place, and tying with Marvel for SKU's shipped, is Avatar also with eighteen titles. The big news with this week's standings comes from the Indy titles. As mentioned at the top this is the "final shipping week for May" and the final week of any month is usually the dumping ground for publishers looking to clear out their account books, thus getting their actual comic books out the door, before the calendar runs out. Up twenty three books from last week are the Indy totals with seventy nine titles shipping. Parsing through those totals, we find Dark Horse in 6th Place with twelve titles while both Action Lab and Archie in 7th Place with eight titles each. This Wednesday, you'll find an overall total of twenty five different publishers on the racks contributing to this weeks total of 194 comics.