snap judgments

These two words have sold me more $3.99 issues than any other since I started this job.  Since I started selling.

BLOOD COLOSSUS.

Just… just bask in it for a moment, will you?  Take in the wonder and the glory that is a Blood Colossus.  The name excites the imagination and lays the groundwork for what is to come.  BLOOD COLOSSUS.  Blood, viceral, personal, horrific in some cases.  COLOSSUS, epic, monumental and ancient.  Together, they sell comics.

You see, every time we get copies in of Thor: Reign of Blood in our store, I make them leave and all I have to do is find the right customer at that right moment and say the magic words.  Ears perk, interest piqued, I show them what a blood colossus looks like.  And awe is shared.

I tell them how the Blood Colossus works.  I tell them Thor drives it and 3 out of 7 people will give me a sound of fond familiarity.  THOR!  We know him!  He’s a big norse guy/god of thunder/doesn’t he have a hammer/etc.  I show them the Man himself, laying waste to the dead.  Seeing the Blood Colossus and Thor together makes people want to hold the book.  To take it into their hands and flip on through.  They crave more.

I tell them this is a story.  A ‘single, self contained issue’ full of Norse valor and epic adventure and lore.  I tell them that there are no other comics like it, that it will cause you to sponaniously rock out and wail on a guitar.  It will make you long for the land of the ice and snow.  It will make you feel good.

And that’s the beauty of comics; some can actually elicit an emotional reaction from the reader.  That sometimes, the story can pull you in and leave you different than before you turned that first page.

I kept copies of Thor: Reign of Blood at the front counter and I would wait for just the right moment.  Right when I knew someone wanted to hear a tale.  To see something awesome.  The Blood Colossus.

I have personally sold over 17 copies of this issue alone.  If you haven’t seen the Blood Colossus, go to your local comic shop and pick it up.  Hold it in your hand.  Don’t wait for the trade or borrow a friend’s copy.  Make it your own.  Read the legend and take it home to flip through on a rainy day or a long download online.  Relish the artwork and the crafting of the two tales woven together.  Take that time to really read it, sink it into your bones like the blood of a Blood Colossus.

And when you want more, come back and find me.

When I worked at my first comic shop down in the City of Industry in sunny southern California, I was handed a small pamphlet titled “How to get Women (and other new customers) Into Your Store!”.  Well, something like that at least as that’s the impression that was left to me upon seeing the cover. The actual title might have been worse. I do remember the cover was pink.

Now, back then, this excited me. I was the only real fangirl around the shop that knew her DC from her Marvel and the idea of attracting other girls into the store was just as much of a mystery to me as it was to the people who made this handy little guide. I was disappointed to see less of a ‘how to promote your reading material to a group of people who have been somewhat trained to disregard it’ and more of a ‘how not to run a crappy store’. One of their suggestions was to make sure the store was ‘well lit’ and didn’t smell. Another was to showcase featured books towards the front door to interest people in the covers and artwork. By the time I got to ‘be friendly and approachable to questions’, I was done with the little pink book.

Wasn’t this stuff self-explanatory? Wouldn’t a dimly lit, smelly store with unapproachable staff and hidden product turn off anyone?

I’m lucky to have worked in some fine funnybook establishments. Both my first job and my current employer run pretty kick-ass stores, if I do say so myself. I work at a very inviting and easy to navigate store with an  eye-catching layout and less cardboard boxes, kept ship-shape by helpful and attentive staff. We love comics and so should you.

So how do we attract that ever elusive ‘girl’ market? By getting Minx books? By stocking manga? Can you lure in one type of customer over the other like that?

Now, I purely speak in a snap judgmently fashion here, so take this with a grain of salt, but to be perfectly honest:  NO.  You can’t make a Lifetime channel for comics.  You can’t just stock manga and expect the chicks to roll in.  Mind you, certain types of books attract the female reader more than others but when you really look at it, do you know what’s really selling it?  A GOOD STORY.  That’s right: good writing, aesthetic artwork and some drama will attract ANYONE let alone women.

Recently with the influx of Buffy comics (one of Metro’s top sellers!), I was asked to make another display for ‘Girls’ Comics‘, getting my goat as if I had gift-wrapped it for them.  Girls’ Comics?  REALLY NOW?  Thinking about it, I sadly realized that it was a valid sales point.  How many mothers called us a ‘Boys’ Store’ or bee-lined straight for comfort zones?  So I set about making a display that solved the issue and I felt groovy with.  I tried to find books that were engaging, interesting and well-drawn that just so happened to have a female protagonist.  I know, it’s not like women only watch TV shows or movies about women, why should the protagonist matter, but again…. comfort zones.  Next to our display of Buffy and Angel comics is a little rack with a sign that reads: “Real Women, Real Comics”.  Why yes, it is cheesy!  We even have Strangers in Paradise, front and center!  But we also have Whiteout and Queen and Country, Manhunter and She-Hulk, Blue Monday and Nana.  I tried to make it diverse, but what can you do?

Especially when it sells.  I’ve been able to put Manhunter in the hands of a few folks who’d never pick it up and you wouldn’t believe how many guys stand around flipping through She-Hulk (remember kids, this isn’t a library). I can’t say that a primarily female audience is catching on to these books, but the very fact that they’ve been taken from their usual place on the shelves and given a little section of their very own seems to be doing the trick.  Mind you, so does the Movie Themed endcaps on our aisles, so what can you say?

So in the end, what’s all this mean?  I am no feminist blogger; there are so many people who do it bigger and better than I do that I would feel like a moron to dare step into incredibly well covered territory.  All I can say is that a retailer and reader, try not to shoehorn people maybe?  Maybe the quality of the product is the only thing that’s going to sell the book?  Maybe that all of this is pointless?  Be a good store with a great selection and you should have anyone beating a path to your door.

Also, make sure your store is well lit and smells nice.

Okay, so in the month of June to… maybe celebrate the release of the new Incredible Hulk film (which I will eventually get around to talking about here), we got a bunch of big heafty issues with some backup stories and reprints.  Iron Man got two new books, all glossy and keen, all the Hulk got was a rock.  It’s like they had the same prejudices of the movie going public had with “Well, the last one sucked so let’s see if we can just get to 0″.  And before you say it, I know.  Skaar, Son of Hulk is out too and today has the infamous ‘red’ Hulk runnign around, but neither of these are great intro comics for people who thought Edward Norton was keen.  Now, Invincible Iron Man sold out at Metro because… we rule AND that the first issue was rather well paced, interesting and caught people up from the movie to the Way Things Are Now(tm), going light on the Director of SHIELD business and heavy on the Stane v. Stark story.  Skaar, Son of Hulk DOESN’T HAVE THE HULK IN IT.  In fact, I’d be BETTER if it was just called ‘Skaar, Conan in Space’ or ‘Grek Pak’s Interglatactic Tales of Skaar’.  If the Hulk ain’t in the book, it is not a Hulk book.   ‘Red’ Hulk doesn’t count because I have NO IDEA what’s going on with that story outside of an All Star Batman feel of taking on the tropes of Hulkness:  smashing and gamma monsters.  Ehn.

Mind you, Marvel did the same thing with Ang Lee’s movie as the 25-cent issue didn’t have the Hulk in it either and featured unwanted sexual advances (‘Hey, kids!  Like the movie?  Here’s a comic for ya-  oh wait.), but that’s another story.

Right, the ‘specials’:  King Size Hulk and Hulk: Raging Thunder and… the one that came out before both of those, Giant-Sized Incredible Hulk, with the Gary Frank cover.  This is what Marvel brought to the table and, having read each of them, I can’t say I’m impressed.  But yet, I can’t not like them (well, except for the Giant Size, because it was a snooze fest) and let me tell you why.

Both the King Size Hulk and Hulk: Raging Thunder have really light new content.  The stories are short and sweet, in Raging Thunder’s case maybe a little too short and both of them seem really out of place.  Did we really need to know what the Wendigo have been up to?  How much ass does Frank Cho need to draw on a regular basis?  (Answer: a LOT)  These stories, while interesting, are interludes to a larger story at work that was delayed for one reason or another.  If it was to fill in the ‘gaps’ of the main book… again, Wendigo?  how much time as the red Hulk had betweent the end of World War Hulk and now?  Why is She-Hulk still over here instead of getting disbarred and turning disillusioned bounty hunter in her own book?  If it was to entice people into the main story, then welcome to a late and somewhat light on plot title!  Yay?

So we get two short tales and then… THREE REPRINTS.  And this is where my rage turns.  You see, King Size Hulk came with the first appearance of Wolverine which is actually kind of cool.  If you don’t have it, never read it, it’s a neat thing to get for your enjoyment, a little history for your money, plus it had the Hulk in it, which sort of qualifies it for a piggyback in the special.  Sure, you could put a reprint of Hulk #181 in a Wolverine special (of which he has a truckload this summer), but this is a way to give a little showtime to the Hulk, kind of ‘cool by association’.  Believe it or not, there are some people on this Earth that didn’t know that Wolverine first appeared in a non-mutant title and fought the Hulk right out of the bat, so history lessons for everyone.

And then… there was the other reprint: Avengers #83.  Is the Hulk in this book?  NO.  Is She-Hulk maybe in this book?  NO.  Does this book have anything to do with anything Hulk related?  NO.  So why is it in this King Size Hulk?  Because Carla loves the Lady Liberators.  Really, that’s all I could think of because I really really love the Lady Liberators.  I’d be mad at such a waste of a reprint in a Hulk special but it’s like finding a really cute kitten in a three car pile up.  Sure, there’s damage and wreckage and someone should get the licence of the driver that caused it all but ohhhhh, lookit de kitty!  Seriously guys, I feel like apologising because even though I have the issue, I have the Avengers DVD-ROM with this issue, I have the Essential Avengers volume with this issue, I was so happy to have yet ANOTHER COPY to show to customers and friends alike.  Oh Valykrie and the Enchantress!

The second special actually has the same problem.  It’s a rather left-field little tale about Thundra, warrior woman of a female-dominated planet, coming to Earth to fight the Hulk and get some DNA from him so that they could have a baby that would be strong enough to lead when Thundra has to step down from being the Warrior Princess.  Or something.  Yeah, and there’s a lot of fighting and metaphorical juxtapositon and yes, there’s a Femizon/Gamma hybrid girl being all awesome and cool, but…. really?  Who’s been crying out for a Thundra vs. Hulk face off?  I mean, did Marvel get my letters?

Again, this is another issue I should be really mad at.  A weak story that will be forgotten to the annuls of time with the creation of a useless character that some poor fool will dredge back up when his own plots are failing in order to gain a cookie from the Fanboy Faction for his citation of this lost book and, yes, a reprint of Thundra’s first appearance in the Fantastic Four.  Really, this should have been called Thundra: Gamma Rage or something because it’s not a Hulk story.  The Hulk is a means to an end for the Femizons who lead the story with their goal of getting preggers (by the way, it’s through a kiss so everyone look disappointed).  The reprint has nothing to do with the Hulk and once again, he gets the shaft in his own $3.99 special released when his movie hits theaters.

In fact, what’s the real story of Jeph Loeb’s Hulk?  It’s about the Red Hulk which we all know isn’t Banner now.  Skaar, Son of Hulk showed the Green Goliath in the recap but that’s it.  For a movie that did so much to make you like Bruce Banner, that really hit the core of the old and VERY POPULAR TV show, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like it in comic book form outside of back issues and reprint trades.  What a sad, sad state of affairs.

Well, at least I got some reprint presents out of it?  Sorry folks.

Yesterday… I downloaded my first comic online last night, given to me by a friend. Please, Dan Slott, please don’t come and kick my ass.
To be fair, I own the comic in question and didn’t want to hunt down the damned thing and scan it into the computer for an article I wound up not using anyway, soooo…

It wasn’t as awkward as I thought it would be. Still, I used the Essential version I had of the comic (that’s right, I owned it in two formats!) to really read it and then clipped what pics I needed for my point.

But doing this made me once again realize that there is just something about holding a comic in your hands instead of this new fangled media. For the digital fans, I have no idea how you do it; my scanned copy was really well scanned and had all the info I needed, it just wasn’t the same. I own the Avengers and Hulk DVD-Roms that Marvel’s smart enough to put out (wow, I actually own THREE different versions of that comic. My guilt for the download lessens by each moment!) and while they are nice, they are also difficult to navigate and see correctly depending on screen resolution. Marvel’s Digital Comics Online are readable and fix a lot of the above and yet… I poked around there yesterday and still I longed for the paper and ink set. To be able to take my comics with me to lunch and go sit outside. To (*gasp!*) give them away or curl them up and put them in my bag.

There’s a physical element to comics I think that really can’t be denied.

Normally, I drag my feet to the next issue of the Avengers.  It’s not going to be what I want and yet will probably contain some dynamic and exciting info that I’ll kick myself later if I don’t know.

Today, I have an exception.

THIS IS IT FOLKS!

Actual Avengers!  Backstory I understand!  Reasonable and understandable plot!  Mind you, I have been reading New Avengers since it’s start so I know the “Breakout” storyline and can see how this fits into that, once again causing me to pause and ponder a “Secret Invasion – Secret Files” supplimental title for the Big Event, not to mention the usual Bendis trope of “characters all sound the same” but hey.  We’re not looking for perfection here.  I’m just happy to like an issue for once.

So, we start out in Secret Invasion #2, with the Skrull characters and Our Heroes fighting.  There’s a dinosaur, a lot of confusion and then HEY!  Ka-Zar, Shanna and Zabu!  The guys that live in the Savage Land show up to find out what the hell is going on in their backyard.  Spider-Man is there to crack wise, play off the danger and accuse the Savage Land crew of being Skrulls, while Ka-Zar and Shanna are there to give a little backstory.

See, they knew about the Skrulls, oh say, since the New Avengers ‘Breakout’ storyline.  They had done some pretty cool investigating, kicked a lot of butt and figured out that SHIELD and the Avengers had been infiltrated by the Skrulls and are starting some war prep.  So they get a crew together, start to take it to the streets and then New Avengers #6 happens.   We cut back to now where Spider-Man admits he has NO IDEA what was going on with all of that, but thinks there’s a piece of the puzzle missing.  Spider-Sense goes off, Zabu goes “RRRRRRRRRR!” and Captain America shows up to challenge Ka-Zar’s honor.

All in all, nothing all that new, but interestingly told, easy to fit into the scheme of things and high on the action content.  People kick, people punch and there are explosions and Avengers.  I am pleased.

So all you need to know is that SHIELD had a base to mine for Vibranium way back when, Shanna and Ka-Zar are on it and the Avengers are still fighting in the Savage Land.

Wasn’t that fun?

Yesterday I wound up having two straight hours of emergency dental work. I cracked a tooth on Monday and so far, the week hasn’t been kind.

As they were strapping me into the chair and the doctor above me was asking if it was safe, a typical concern popped into my head:

Does Bruce Banner go to the dentist?

Really, now. Does he have just stellar teeth, brushing and flossing with great regularity? Or does he suffer through any discomforts? Because I just can’t imagine a dentist appointment going well for him. Then again, he is a scientist so maybe he can look more clinically at the process and might not have the bone-numbing terror that I get at the dentist’s office. Maybe he’s all business.

Then again, the man is rather touchy (well, classically he’s rather touchy as opposed to know where he’s sort of non-existent). Personally, I think he might last through the numbing, but the sound of a drill going towards your mouth and the smell of burnt tooth might make him angry.

Maybe they just knock him out completely.

Okay, so bear with me on this one. I’m actually not into Harry Potter in the slightest (I’m one of those jerks who shouts they read it first when it was called THE BOOKS OF MAGIC!), but their fandom is absolutely amazng. The people who adore these books have produced some of the most inspiring and downright horrifying tales in the history of people who take fantasy too far. It’s great to watch, especially if you don’t have any emotional investment in it (which is why I’ll start throwing chairs if we don’t get the REAL Black Bolt back to the Marvel Universe).

So, quick quick version: a fan of the Harry Potter series sets up a website called the ‘Harry Potter Lexicon’ that puts all the information from the books in order. People love it and info geeks go wild; even the author JK Rowling thinks the whole thing is pretty faboo becase she gives them a shoutout for being so thorough with her information. All is well and the fan who runs the place (with the help of a few volunteers and other writers) thinks he’s got a little crown on his head and is full of pride.

A lot of pride, since he wants to publish the site as an official book. Not only is this a little odd since some of the material isn’t his as it was written by other authors, but… let’s face facts: when asked by JK Rowling if he could, she said no. That’s it, right?

Nope! Yesterday it all went to court in a big show of who has the right to the material, who’s being unfair and who’s just out for cash. Thanks to Fandom Wank for keeping me updated on this whole affair; contributor ‘cleolinda’ has brought the wise face of Galadriel to the lawsuit which makes it doubly classy.
There’s been everything from pie charts to snarky comments from the plaintiff and, despite her tearful admittance that this whole affair is effecting her writing, I can see how this should have been an open-and-shut case. No matter how you jazz it up, taking someone else’s info and arranging it alphabetically doesn’t make it yours. It’s great that he did that and I’m sure without this legal nonsense the author might have given a nod his way (technically, she already did!), but selling it is a whole other matter.

So, fair internet info geeks, let this be a lesson. While we hail you for giving us an online version of the Handbook to the Marvel Universe, or a comprehensive look at Hulk villains (to say the least), don’t publish these things and call it your own?

BONUS! Diane Duane gives us our own JKR vs. RDR lawsuit widget! Be kept up to date on how serious you can take the words “Lord Voldemort”!

John Cho is hitting the press junkets for Harold and Kumar II: the Wrath of NPH, but of course thoughts will turn to that Other Movie he’s going, oh yeah: STAR TREK. Our new Sulu told Access Hollywood that our Fu is stronger:

I kind of became became a Star Trek fan because it was on late and I would catch it on re-runs. It is something I appreciated more every year because it is a very mature show. It is a very thoughtful and meditative show. Whereas when I was a kid it was much easier to love something like [Star Wars] right off the bat, with the light sabers and stuff. Star Trek is much more mature than that.
-from trekmovie.com

Aw yeah.

Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker leave the Immortal Iron Fist in the hands of Duane Swierczynski.
Now, on one hand, this shouldn’t be that big of a threat to the guy buying comics.  Brubaker and Fraction get right to it when asked about what it was that made Danny Rand’s adventures such a big hit and that’s getting to the core of the character.  Kung-Fu Billionaire is a brilliant place to start and as long the stories are kept to the heart of the matter, everything else follows through.   Iron Fist is such an essentially cool character, the tone of the stories that Brubaker and Fraction have told is dead solid, this is a very easy pattern for someone else to follow.  They talk about being blessed with a great editor, Warren Simons, and how he had gone to bat with Marvel for these great stories and if he’s that much of a believer in a pulp martial arts bonanza, there is more than enough hope that he won’t let the book go to a monkey with a pen.  Brubaker and Fraction recommended Swierczynski personally for the job!  This is good, right?  Right?

Yeah.

I know, it’s hard to think about the book doing half as good as it did under the rather surprising genius of the current creative team.  Swierczynski comes off in the article like a generic Marvel parrot, saying nothing but platitudes and ‘what he said’s.  I get no strength from the man; despite his rather good Punchisher: War Journal one-shot, you can’t say Cable’s been anything but underwhelming.  And when it’s Cable with a baby strapped to his chest, underwhelming is a pretty good choice of words.

Reading the comments to the interview, a lot of people look to be jumping ship.  I know I’m going to get to work tomorrow with quite a few wails and moans of woe, and that’s just from the staff.  We at Metro adore and revere Iron Fist.  Anytime a customer hasn’t heard of the kung-fu goodness, I have to go run and grab the trade an show them that last panel from the last issue where two people kick each other so hard a building explodes.  It’s another sale the moment the enthusiasm passes from us to the customer and boy, our enthusiasm is boundless.

Funny story:  I got to see Matt Fraction at WizardWorld LA this year.  In fact, he was the first thing I saw when I went into the dealer’s room; with my jaw on the floor, I slipped up to the table he was going to be signing at and proceeded to gush.  I told him how well Casanova sells at the store and how Metro loves Iron Fist and he was a very pleasant and humble man with carefully crafted ‘bed head’.  I’d been sent down to the con with a few of our bitchin’ store T-Shirts to give to store heroes and strangely wasn’t expecting Mr. Fraction as the T-Shirts were L and XL…  but I did have my store shirt.  I planned on wearing it once I got to the con and had forgotten to change into it, but there was a size Medium and there was Our Hero, so I gave him mine and might have gibbered on about the cat hair on it.   He was very nice and accepted my employee shirt and gave me his card and man, I was all professional and cool … until I realized I wouldn’t have a shirt to wear at the store next week.

Anyhow, back to the matter at hand:  Iron Fist.

I can’t say that I have all that much enthusiasm for the new writer; the new artist, Travel Foreman, on the other hand looks really different and I think he could pull it off.   Mind you, Aja’s a hard act to follow, so best of luck there.  In fact, best of luck to all of them.

They are going to need it.

The above phrase should have been taken down in a statement to the police on why I had to strange a woman who came into the store with her young daughter and son.  You think this kind of thing wouldn’t happen; I’m fairly obviously a female behind the counter of a comic shop and so therefore, any arguement that comics are “just for boys” seems retarded.  But as I approached this woman holding on to her daughter’s hand as if she were going to be pursesnatched, I was perfecly polite to ask her if she needed any help.

We got a good customer service thang going on at Metro, or at least we give it the old college try.  Some people jump back in fear, some give me a condescending look and others are just silent as they point to their curious child making a mess of our action figure selection and explain that “Oh no, we’re with him.”  And that’s okay.  I can’t make you be interested in what your child likes and after 7 long years of working at my comic shop, I’ve come to terms with that.  I can go over to that small child and normally find a great conversation on how awesome Batman is and who that action figure is and might actually come away with a good sale from time to time.

But what I can’t understand, and don’t even want to, is disparaging the store IN FRONT OF ME.  When I asked this woman if she needed help finding anything, she begged off any comment explaining that she and the little girl would be going to Old Navy across the street and were giving her son ‘equal time’.  She could have even stopped here and we’d be cool!  What elementary school aged little boy wants to hang out with his mom while she and his sister look at t-shirts and other boring clothing things?  That’s awful kind of them to try and get him a book so he can be entertained, right?

But no.

This woman went on to say with a smirk that he needed time in a, and I quote, “ugly boys’s store”.

Now, I know you can think of your own witty retort, but at the time, I was struck dumb by her … dumbness.  Was she really trying to tell me that this store, my store, was ugly and for boys only?  She didn’t just call her son ‘ugly’ in front of me?  Was this bitch for real?  I repeated her words and she didn’t back down, realizing how far her foot had gone into her mouth, but tried to get me on her side by adding, “Well, you know…”

No, lady, I don’t!  I don’t know!  AUGH!

Still aghast, I choked out something about how comics promote literacy and have a wide variety of stories to tell and how there are Classics Illustrated based on major works of literature. “Well, it sounds like you read a lot when there’s no one here,” she cheekily replied and steered her daughter from the counter.

I left them alone.  When they left, I said thank you and turned to my fellow co-worker and we took a moment.  I thought I was going to burst a blood vessel.

So remember folks:  there are people who think comics are just for kids.  There are people that think comics are just for adults.  And then there are those who would rather be assigned on what to think and what to read purely based on gender.