INDIE COMIC SHOPS

James VanOsdol at Chicago Weekly’s Journal of Vitriolic Observer blog (JVO) dropped by the Challengers Comics Store in early March and asked store owner Patrick Brower “a few questions about the health of indie comic shops, circa 2010.” Asked about the impact of the economic down-turn in his shop, Brower said:

 

Comic books are the ‘comfort food’ of the entertainment industry: even while everything else is tanking, comics still seem to do okay. They're cheap, disposable and can make you feel good about life and yourself pretty quickly. And once you buy one, you own it. It’s not an experience: it's a product you can use over and over. You can read it again and again. And aren't you worth $3, even on the shittiest of days? Sure you are. Just skip one lousy cup of coffee, and you can have a comic book forever. Now that people are starting to have some money again, they most want to treat themselves to the things they've denied themselves for so long, whatever they may be. What they're not, is comics. People have called comics ‘recession-proof,’ but when the recession is over that's when the comics industry really starts to feel it.”

 

Brower doesn’t think iPad will have much of an impact. “Rich Johnston (BleedingCool.com) as already proclaimed it the first nail in the comic book coffin, but I disagree. First and foremost, all of my tech friends who were anxiously awaiting the announcement were left underwhelmed by the iPad, be it design or lack of function. Call me old-fashioned, or blame it on me being a paper retailer, but I just don't see printed comics going away. I see the digital versions only supplementing the actual, tactile comics. I'm only going with my personal opinion here, but the majority of comic fans read comics because they want to own comics. You don't own a digital copy. You can't put a digital copy on your bookshelf. You're not going to have the same memories of your "first digital comic," as you do with real comics. I applaud the decision of companies such as Marvel releasing their back catalog in digital format, I just don't see iPad comics replacing actual comics.”

 

What about the impact on comic book sales of such movies as “Iron Man”? Brower snorted: “Did you see ‘Iron Man’? Pretty sweet, right? Do you want to see ‘Iron Man 2'? Sure you do. Do you want to read an Iron Man comic book? Well don't feel too bad about saying ‘no’ because you are not alone. ‘Batman’ and ‘Batman Returns’ brought a tremendous amount of new readers into comic book stores. Thousands and thousands. Pretty great, right? Well that was almost the only time the comics market saw that kind of an influx. I could list for you a dozen movies you saw that were originally comic books and while you'd say, ‘I didn't know that was comic book!’ you still wouldn't want to read it. That's just the way it works. Here are a few: A History of Violence, Surrogates, Road to Perdition, Men in Black, Art School Confidential, 300, Persepolis, From Hell, Constantine, Whiteout. And there are many, many more. More every day. But a hot comic book property does not translate into comic book sales for the same character. Iron Man (comic book) sales did not go up when ‘Iron Man’ (the movie) came out. Toy sales did, sure — I even bought some Iron Man action figures for myself — but the comics did not. Part of the reason may be that there was no comic out that looked or read like the movie, but a bigger part of that is that people just don't care. Which is too bad, because the current storyline for Invincible Iron Man is amazing.”