Miss me? I had no idea how many of you actually read the newsletter until I didn’t send one for two weeks. Oops. I’ve been busy.

Last week I was in Memphis for the Annual ComicsPro meeting. I met Geof Johns and hung out with the editorial staff from DC, Image, and Dark Horse as well as met a lot of retailers from throughout the country. One of the retailers, Brian Hibbs of Comix Experience has already written a pretty thorough roundup of the events in his Tilting at Windmills column. The only thing I would like to add is the utter disregard that the Marvel staff has shown me every time I’ve met them.

Dan Buckley, President of Marvel Publishing, gave a presentation for dinner one night. In his presentation he spoke of how important the Direct Market (stores like BSI Comics) are to the continued success of Marvel Comics. However, sometimes actions speak louder than words. Mr.’ Buckley talked about Marvel’s digital initiatives, specifically Spider-Woman #1. In case you missed the announcement, Marvel will be releasing Spider-Woman #1 as a motion comic four weeks before the print version. This presents a dilemma for us retailers. If people read it four weeks before it’s released, the general public could 1) Read it, not like it, and not buy it from us, 2) Read it, like it, and not buy it because they’ve already read it, or 3) Read it and buy it. The problem is that we will have finalized our orders for the comic by the time it’s released as a motion comic. If we under-order because we think our customer won’t buy it and then they decide they want it, then we lose sales and the customer, you, miss out on an issue. On the other hand, if we buy it expecting to sell it and our customer reads it four weeks before and decide it’s bad, then we’re stuck with a bunch of paper. Marvel is essentially asking the retailers to take all of the risk on this experiment. I don’t see Digital comics replacing print comics anytime soon, but Digital comics are going to be a part of our future. I just wish Marvel would be more willing to work with the retailers with this new product. As a side note, let us know if you want a copy of Spider-Woman #1 by Bendis and Maleev. We’re just a curious to see how this plays out.