I have too much vacation time so I took off early today and went to my local comic book store. It’s amazing that the same store used to make its money on new release comics but that was a number of years ago. Now it is the smallest section with Manga, tabletop, and back issues being much more in demand.
I tend to buy back issue comics and now try to support the stuff from those who don’t hate their customers like Eric July, Shad, Razorfist, Drinker, and now manga since they have this odd concept of writing stories people want to read.
I can understand trying to expand your market but at some point they had to have realized that the massive female audience they wanted just didn’t exist. And they didn’t take into account that ever since MCU popularity people love the idea of comic books but don’t actually read them so those polls they like to tour are meaningless. Similar to those polls showing that women make up half of all gamers but when you break it down it shows what you would expect regarding the games that generally appeal to men and women.
On the bright side I picked up the first appearance of She-Hulk. Now if only they had adapted the Byrne run instead of making a show to specifically piss of actual fans
They never really catered to the “massive female audience” either. If they had, all of the comics would resemble Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey. The truth is that most new comic books are catering to leftism. Leftist creators claim to promote women, minorities, etc. because this makes the product unassailable by “good people”. That’s how leftists have always propagated their failed and murderous ideologies - via deception and preying upon the sympathies of well-meaning people.
But leftists are subversives who only care about destroying existing properties as a means to harm non-leftists. Once the IP or community or industry has been successfully ruined, leftists just move on to the next target. They don’t stick around to financially support the things that were desecrated to please them. Because the desecration was the only thing that mattered to them.
That’s true. I do remember when they droned on and on about getting more women into the hobby but pushing leftist nonsense does seem to be the overriding theme
There’s a high degree of symbiosis at play. Leftists push feminism as cover for communism, and feminists are happy to go along with the con because they accrue very real influence and power along the way. The overriding goal for both overlapping groups is the destruction of western patriarchal/masculine civilization. When the pillars eventually fall, the coalition of fringe weirdos will quickly be at each others’ throats.
Exactly. How anyone can deny the destruction of what came before is beyond me
And good point, they could’ve just made a Twilight type comic for women.
My local longstanding CBS closed down about a decade ago. Then, most of their remaining inventory got bought by a nice couple who wanted turn their hobby into business. They even made a statement against BLM during the Floyd riots and in favor of national unity, very unusual for a CA business. Sadly, the business didn't survive the COVID lockdowns and they ended up selling everything to a wholesaler.
Most of the other CBS here have comics in the business name, but are 40% board/tabletop games, 40% TCGs, 15% manga, 5% comics. Most of the comics displayed are new releases, and if you want any back issues, you either need to go to a backroom or request a catalog so they can pull it from their warehouse/storage unit at a later date.
That is unusual to speak out against blm!
Ehhh...
The most amazing transition for local game & comic store was in 2017, the year Privateer Press decided to shoot itself in the foot and go from commanding multiple whole shelves for warmahordes to being unceremoniously dumped in the discount bin.
Warmahordes? Is that Warhammer related? What did Privateer Press do?
.........
When Warmachine Mk 3 dropped, it became apparent that they'd done very little playtesting and that it was structured around rigid forcecomps clearly intended to sell more material.
As feedback started to roll in, they fired their entire community support team, and then pulled all convention appearances.
Then they started direct selling figures lootbox style at a discount, which swamped eBay with product below msrp, infuriating store owners.
Thanks. Wow, I wonder what they were thinking
Honestly seems to be a trend for them. I've only been in the tabletop sphere for a while and they're continuing fuckups are just fascinating. They just dropped a new edition for their game (mk4) where they binned the rules for 75% of the old models, stopped production for them and are trying to sell $200 3d printed only model sets instead for it.
The market is so crashed with all the players and stores inundating it, you can pick up stuff insanely cheap. I really feel bad for these ebay sellers sometimes when I make $1 bids and no one even attempts to outbid me.
Remember when there were girl comics that actually catered to...you know, girls? It was a small but loyal audience. That was okay, it still made money and comics didn't have to adapt to please crazy people. In fact, comics survived because they refused to bow before the crazies.
The so-called collectors markets of the 80s and 90s really fucked up everything. It made the publishers think their dime store shit was foie gras and decided that everything suddenly had to make a billion dollars. Everything that wasn't constantly selling out was being cut left and right. Music industry did the same thing, but there was no collectors market creating an artificial demand to raise prices like with comics, toys, and sports memorabilia.
They were the Archie rivals of the regular comics. Betty didn't see that coming.
Puns???
It's poor jokes, but I'm not Rich Rich.
Yep. In the back issue section they have romance comics or other old ones that specifically catered to girls. They could’ve easily brought those back or do like manga.
I'm suddenly remembering the last years of Hastings. I seriously loved that store. Free Comic Book day would be 6 comics each person, so you brought friends and had the entire list to read. They had everything I could ever want. Then it went under.
Now I'm watching comic shops and GameStop following the same. It's really sad, because it's like a fruit at its best right before it turns to mush and falls off the tree.