Editorial: Cassandra Complex - The Waiting & The Winsome

Now everyone seems to be waiting for the trade, and it looks like the industry is well on its way from the comic shop to the book shop. Antony Johnston looks at how the landscape is changing.
31 October 2003

WE'RE GONNA BRAVE THE STORM TOGETHER

Seems pre-ordering is going out of style.

While it may be true to say that the comic industry is going through a period of flux, it's also become somewhat of a cliché. People have been saying it for the last four or five years, so surely it's just an illusion, right? This is just how the industry is.

And sure, every industry goes through change. All artforms must adapt and evolve to survive. But I reckon we're getting to the end of this particular change, and it's one that many people have been predicting for a while, now.

I am of course talking about the shift to a graphic novel market.

Not a market where graphic novels are the only thing published; that would be just as terrible as there being no graphic novels at all. Rather, a market where graphic novels are the predominant medium; where more people want graphic novels than want series of single issues.

Like I said, this is hardly a new subject. But something struck me recently that made me think perhaps we're at last cresting the hill, and the end is now in sight. This is purely anecdotal, of course, based on talking to people I know, and following online discussions, but even so:

Fewer and fewer people are bothering to pre-order, especially when it comes to new series.

What's become known as the "wait for the trade mentality" is fast gaining ground among comic readers. More and more people are taking a qualitative attitude toward collections of series; the feeling that if a series really is that good, it'll be released as a collected graphic novel eventually, and until then they can wait. And if it's never collected, well then it can't have been that good to start with, can it?

This is exacerbated by the sheer amount of graphic novels now available; I'm reasonably picky in my choice of reading, and even I can very easily find at least one book I'd like to buy every week. And so can any reasonably broad-minded reader. If a collection of a particular series never materialises, they'll just move on. They're not going to gnash their teeth over the often-unfathomable business decisions of comic publishers - if Publisher A doesn't want their money, there are plenty of other publishers who do, and who have published graphic novels to prove it.

This broad and rapid expansion of the available material is having another significant effect on comic stores. It attracts a more diverse clientele, but it also forces the stores to stock shallow.

Every good store naturally wants to stock as wide and diverse a range of comics as possible. And every casual shopper naturally expects to be able to walk into any comic store and buy whatever they want. Regardless of how old, new, popular, panned, expensive, cheap, hot or not it is. But out in the real world, that's never going to happen. There are just too many books.

(I talked about the "glut" problem almost two years ago, and it's done nothing but intensify in the intervening time. The main difference between today and my doom-laden prediction is that there actually are more good books out there than bad ones. Amazing, I know.)

The big obstacle, as in any commercial endeavour, is money. The filthy, filthy lucre. No store has an unlimited budget, and no customer has bottomless pockets. Both are being forced to become more picky about what they buy, because it's a rich man indeed who can actually buy a copy of every comic and graphic novel released in a given week.

But the stores still have to try and keep everyone happy, and that means using their shelf space more efficiently. It means that those five copies of [insert your choice of graphic novel here], of which the retailer might only sell one a month, are taking up valuable space that could be taken up with five different graphic novels that might all sell one a month.

The evidence seems to bear out that reader's aren't fibbing; they really are "waiting for the trade", and they are buying them. But in the eyes of a reader, a graphic novel will always be there at the local store. There's no rush to buy it. They will eventually, sure, but neither publishers nor retailers can continue to rely on customers buying graphic novels the minute they are released.

So more and more retailers are adopting what some call the "mile wide, inch deep" philosophy. The aim here is to stock as many different titles as possible, but not in huge numbers. For anything other than new releases, there should be just one copy on the shelves. And when that copy is bought, quick! Order another copy.

What the publishers see from this is a new pattern; instead of high pre-orders and minimal re-orders, they see low pre-orders but steady re-orders. They sell the same amount of copies, but over a longer period of time. And that's not good for their short-term cashflow.

This, then, is the time of Suck It Up. More and more readers are turning to graphic novels as their format of choice. More and more retailers are striving to increase their breadth and depth of product. And all of this at the cost of high pre-order numbers.

Publishers large and small must adapt to a long-term market, and that means putting out collections of a book even though the single issues may not have had great sales. Some will still fail, and some will succeed against the odds. Most of them will be no more or less successful than if they'd been released as issues.

But eventually, at the end of this particular bumpy road, graphic novels will dominate comic stores. And maybe we'll look back and laugh.

YOU CAN'T SEE EVERY CARD

Back in autumn of 2000 I was on a plane to New York, and for lack of something better to do, spent some time watching Virgin Atlantic's own MTV-like stations. One of them was playing a song I'd never heard before, a dance number with a female singer. The song was catchy, the singer had the voice of an angel, and to cap it off she sang in an English accent, which always suckers me in - blame Depeche Mode and Kate Bush...

Turned out the song was 'Groovejet', the singer was Sophie Ellis-Bextor and three years later I've got her second solo album, SHOOT FROM THE HIP, on repeat as I write this column.

I'm not quite sure why some reviewers are labelling this as Sophie's "return to Indie," because to me is still sounds distinctly disco (not to mention devilishly danceable, true believers...) but there's definitely a sense that she has less to prove this time around, which makes for a more reflective and less petulant collection of songs. Thankfully, like her debut READ MY LIPS, it still has the occasional hard edge. Well worth a spin.

Antony Johnston is the author of JULIUS, SPOOKED and THE LONG HAUL. His new ongoing series WASTELAND begins in July 2006.

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