Dave Sim quotes:
“Principles of Comic Store Reality.
1) Successful comic books immediately go up in dollar value in the aftermarket
2) The most successful comic books continue to go up in value in the aftermarket while less successful comic books level off or decline in value
3) Fewer and fewer comic books are in either category these days
4) Virtually all comic books in either category are from Marvel (and, as Mr. Boyle puts it, DC to a lesser degree)” *
“I had been hearing a lot about incentive editions of comic books: basically if a retailer orders x number of copies of a new comic book, they get one limited edition copy of the same comic book with a different cover—essentially a rare collectible. Now, automatically most people are going to shut down having read that. That isn’t a luxury I have, given that I have to figure out how to break what I see as a monolithic, largely unassailable and completely understandable indifference to independent comics in today’s market. Just putting my secret project out there and hoping for the best falls under the heading of Wishful Thinking. To me, it makes more sense to deal with Reality. And, right now, a Comic Store Reality is incentive editions of “hot” comics.” *
“But it doesn’t work for independents or, at least, the track record for independents isn’t nearly as good because there isn’t built-in cachet—or the perception of built-in cachet—in order to get store owners to risk investment capital in ordering what they see as “too many copies”. The key is that the incentive book has to go up in value immediately in order to offset even the possibility of losing money “over-ordering” books.” *
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