Symbolizing Everything Wrong At DC Comics

[Villano]

Every once in a while, I like to check out the "Has DC Done Something Stupid Today" website, which pokes fun at the dumb ideas and actions that seem to flow nonstop from the company. The most recent one (as of this writing) had to do with DC's upcoming 3D covers for "Villains' Month". It linked to a story on TheOutHousers.com. Here's the full text:

Y'know those 3D covers that DC's putting on all of their September comics? According to Dan Didio, those covers are really expensive to print. How expensive? According to a report from the Comics Beat, DC will take a loss on every cover they print, despite DC raising the prices on all of their September issues to help cover costs.

That's right, the extra dollar you'll be paying for September won't be enough for DC to break even on the costs of printing these comics. I suppose this explains why DC couldn't afford to have artists produce individualized backgrounds for many of the comics and instead chose to photoshop villains onto stock pictures of various DC heroes chained up and bleeding.

Here's my take on the whole debacle. According to DC, 65% of their comics are still being sold for $2.99, which means that readers will be paying an additional 33% for those comics come September, as they can't choose to buy a non-3D cover. And despite that increase, DC will still be losing money for every comic. While it's admirable that DC is choosing not to pass off the entire cost onto readers, it's still a lose-lose for everyone involved.

Maybe some corporate beancounter will smack some sense into DC when they catch wind of this and declare a moratorium on short-sighted gimmicks that can't even make a buck...or they'll tell DC to up the price to $4.99 next time they try it.

It reminds me of the old joke, "We lose money on every sale, but we make up for it in volume."

But, seriously, how is this a good decision? Can anyone explain this to me? It can't be to tap into the collector mentality and sell a lot of 3D issues since they're going to lose more money the more they sell. I suppose they might think that the covers will entice fans to pick up new series they don't normally read and start collecting them. But, will that cover the cost of turning the entire month of September into a loss?

Is there some method to this madness or is it just another sign that Bob Harras is running DC as badly as he did Marvel in the '90s?

 

[Morrus]

Loss leaders are not designed to make short-term money. Loss leaders are also not a new concept; hell, WotC did it with core 3.5 books it didn't make a profit on. Loss leaders are a valid and common tactic which, if you have the capital to eat the short term dip, works.

What's weird is people offering business advice publicly on the web saying that loss leaders are a bad idea like they know better. Well, nothing disappears on the web, so I guess it will always be on record that they said that! As long as they're not going for a corporate job, they should be OK.

Hell, I do it by offering the first installment of all of ENP's adventure paths for free (or cost price, in print). It works.

I don't know why using a loss leader "symbolizes everything wrong at DC comics" though.

 

[Villano]

Loss leaders are not designed to make short-term money. Loss leaders are also not a new concept; hell, WotC did it with core 3.5 books it didn't make a profit on. Loss leaders are a valid and common tactic which, if you have the capital to eat the short term dip, works.

I did say that they might think that the covers will entice fans to pick up new series they don't normally read and start collecting them. The problem to me is that they are increasing the price for the gimmick covers and losing money on that. If they are going for a loss leader, why not just drop the price for a month? That seems to be more of a good will builder than forcing costumers to spend more. I mean, you even point out that you offered things for free or at cost. You didn't increase the price.

Also, these issues aren't part of the normal series. They focus on a villain, so what a new buyer sees and likes in this issue may not be what the actual series is about.

Plus, it's questionable if these gimmicks lead to long term sales. DC had a Zero issue recently. The next issue saw a sales bump, but, after that, it was back to normal.

I don't know why using a loss leader "symbolizes everything wrong at DC comics" though.

Gimmicks over quality. When Bob Harras was at Marvel, he put the focus on editors over writers and pumped out one gimmick cover after another.

Like I said, there may be a reason for it, but is it worth it?

 

[Morrus]

Like I said, there may be a reason for it, but is it worth it?

Well, presumably sales figures and time will tell?

 

[sabrinathecat]

Yeah, gimmicks over substance is what got me out of comics entirely. Maximum Carnage was an interesting way to resolve a pickle that the Spider-man series were in. Maximum Clonage was an incredibly stupid gimmick to build a massive cross-series story that wasn't well written or logical. I didn't just stop collecting Spider-man at that point--I stopped collecting everything.

 

[Umbran]

Also, if they're doing the art at least partially digitally to begin with, "photoshopping" the covers ceases to be a valid criticism.

 

[Villano]

DC seems to have really dropped the ball on this. Back when this gimmick was announced, DC was urging stores to get their orders in before the cut off date so that they can be sure to get all their comics. Then there were rumblings that DC was only going to fulfill 60% of their orders. It turns out that the 3D process took so long that DC had to give a print order before the retailer orders came in.

DC said that they were going to make up the difference with regular covers of those titles. However, from what I understand, they told retailers they would have to specifically order them. Considering stores didn't know how many 3D versions they were getting, that was going to be difficult to say the least.

Now, according to Bleeding Cool, it's all gone sideways:

As Diamond and DC Comics close for the weekend, retailers are now being told exactly how many of the Villains Month 3D Cover titles they will be receiving. And they're not happy.

In some cases, I've been told of retailers getting 5% of the amount of a title they received, while on other titles, getting the full 100%.

The worst allocated I'm being told include First Born, Count Vertigo and Joker's Daughter, but there seem to be major allocations across the board. The ones that seem to have escaped allocation are Riddler, Lex Luthor, Zod and Cyborg Superman, but this again will vary from retailer to retailer. One tells me that they will receive 100% of their Teen Titans #23.2 Deathstroke #1, another will only get 7% of their orders. It seems rather than allocating based on retailers initial orders, they have been allocated based on usual retailers' orders for the matched title - rather than the title it is now. So that Justice League #23.3 Dial E #1 is matched to a percentage of usual Justice League numbers based on how Dial H usually performs in a store. Originally the Justice League title and similar on other titles was intended to increase orders on the books, now it seems to be irrelevent to the numbers of the 3D cover that DC will provide to retailers.

It's going to be a massacre out there...

UPDATE: One store? Getting 99.55% of their orders. There seems no rhyme nor reason...

I bolded the weirdest section. Justice League #23.3 Dial E #1 is considered part of the Justice League title, but is going to be allocated based on a store's past orders of Dial H. To put it in perspective, JL is one of DC top selling books and Dial H is one of the worst (IIRC, it's already been cancelled). So, not only won't a store be getting what they ordered, they won't even be getting enough to cover the people who normally get JL.

Just some comments on messageboards from store owners:

I'm a retailer, we are getting right royally boned. The allocations made will not cover my regular comic subscribers. I will be short at least 300 comics and have to work out who gets what.

(Justice League Dial E) is part of the Justice League subscription series (Some of the supplied back end data), but the allocation appears to getting made on my previous orders for Dial H. So my Justice League customers were going to buy it pretty much for the 3D cover. Whether that is right or wrong is irrelevant to this argument. If it was advertised as a Dial H comic, then my allocation is easy. As it is, I've got 50 Justice League customers expecting 4 Justice League titles with a 3D covers in September who aren't going to get this. If the comic isn't a Justice League comic, then why have DC called it a Justice League comic? Why didn't they call it a Dial H comic?

of the 52 3-D @DCComics covers there are 14 that I can't even cover SUBSCRIBER club on! One issue is 80 copies short!

i ordered 200 harley quinns on initial and i am getting 20!!!

But, as was pointed out, some stores are getting the full 100% of their orders. People are speculating that the really big stores like Midtown and Mile High are probably going to get their full orders and I wouldn't doubt that.

What's funny is that this was supposed to be special comics with 3D covers, not 3D variants to go along with the regular covers. But now, with some titles, the 2D replacement covers are going to exceed the 3D "regular" covers making the 3D essentially variant covers anyway.