This radically increased our costs to carry DC’s line of periodicals, both in labor as well as shipping, with absolutely no upside for our operation: working harder in a pandemic for less money is not a formula for success. The bigger problems stemmed from DC upending their longtime distribution partnership with Diamond and moving to Lunar, a new and unprepared vendor. Hibbs: Diamond’s shutdown was roughly contemporaneous to our local government lockdown requirements, so it was “fine” to not have new comics coming in and generating new expenses without concurrent sales.
What did it take for your store to survive the pandemic, the temporary shutdown of Diamond Distribution, and DC’s decision to leave Diamond and set up new distribution vendors?
Comic book collector shop distance series#
I really cannot emphasize how big a fervor for the category has resulted from fans staying at home and digesting anime series after series being aired on Netflix, Crunchyroll, and other services. But the number one sales accelerator over the last year-around here-has been manga- and anime-related merchandise sales. All of this leads to greater sell-through on titles across the board. Also, speculation has risen dramatically. The popularity of comics for younger readers has not abated.Īyers: A reduction in sales of single-issue periodical titles has led to a narrowing of the focus and scope of titles we order. Moss: The type of items the Strand sells has not drastically changed since March 2020, but unfortunately we sell far less of all of it. Our stores were closed for several months, but our online sales were healthy. Ray: Comics-wise, the biggest category to blow up has unquestionably been manga-or, as most of the people looking for manga erroneously refer to it, “the anime”-or anything that’s a cartoon and has 50-plus volumes that are impossible to stock or, now, even reorder.Ĭhase: We continued to see manga and kids’ graphic novels sell well. And collecting continues to fuel a lot of business in the direct market. Vaughan’s Saga volumes one through three from us two years ago came back for the other six books. People were binge reading, so someone who bought Brian K. People have more time to read, and they want that break from their screens. Those are the two biggest moneymakers for us.ĭ’Angelo: Back issues of comic book periodicals continue to be strong. Godfrey: We’ve seen a huge upswing in two specific areas: manga and back issues of periodical comics. What books, categories, and merchandise sold well in 2020, and what’s selling well in the first quarter of 2021? Liz Mason, the general manager of Quimby’s Books in Chicago and Carson Moss, a buyer at the Strand Bookstore in New York City. This year’s participants were Benn Ray, a co-owner of Atomic Books in Baltimore Doug Chase, a buyer at Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Ore. The survey also includes representatives from general trade bookstores that maintain large graphic novel sections. These stores sell a mix of traditional periodical comic books (generally superhero comics) and prose books and graphic novels. that buy mostly nonreturnable product at wholesale prices from Diamond Comics Distributors, the largest North American comics distributor. The direct market is a network of about 2,000 independent comics shops in the U.S. Jeff Ayers, the general manager of Forbidden Planet in New York City and Patrick Godfrey, a co-owner of Velocity Comics in Richmond, Va. This year, we talked with four retailers from comic book shops that rely on direct market distribution for at least 30%–60% of their stock: Brian Hibbs, the owner of Comix Experience in San Francisco Carr D’Angelo, the owner of Earth 2 in Sherman Oaks, Calif. Comics shops, in particular, faced a changed distribution landscape for DC titles online selling was critical to most stores and, looking ahead, comics retailers are cautiously optimistic as more people are being vaccinated and local lockdown restrictions have begun to ease. This year’s respondents said they’re seeing accelerating demand for manga, continuing popularity of kids’ and YA graphic novels, and lively interest in a wide range of backlist titles. We wanted to hear what they had to do to survive, what kinds of support they received, what their customers wanted to buy, and their projections for the year to come. In 2021, on the anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of a global pandemic, we wanted to touch base with the retailers who participated in our 2020 survey. But the pandemic wreaked havoc on the comics shop market and the broader book retailing landscape in 2020, and the retailers who responded to our survey said they spent the past year just struggling to stay afloat. P W’s annual comics retailer survey is an informal and anecdotal report on sales during the previous holiday season, as well as an inquiry into business trends for the coming year.
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