Mile High comics not returning to SDCC

[nbr3bagshotrow]

San Diego Comic Con Report #3

Howdy!

I am turning 60 years old next March. I mention that major turning point in my life only because the last time that I did not attend a San Diego Comic-Con, I was 17 years old, and still in high school. Since I graduated, for all 42 years of my adult life, I have committed the heart of each of my summers to my personal obsession with experiencing the joys of the San Diego Comic-Con. I even passed this personal passion on my part on to my four daughters, all of whom spent their entire childhoods delightedly roaming the halls of the various incarnations of this great comics convention.

Sadly, that entire blessed reality may need to end after this year's show closes tomorrow evening. I have not yet found the courage to reach my final decision, but my best estimate is that, at our current rate of sales, we will suffer a loss of $10,000 at this year's show. As much as I like being a part of this wonderful gathering, I simply do not have the money to be able to pay $10,000 out of my own pocket for the privilege of providing the fans here with comic books. After 42 consecutive years in a row, it may finally (at long last...) be time for me to bid San Diego good-bye, forever.

Before I go further, I would encourage those of you who have not yet read my newsletter from yesterday to first read my analysis of some of the seismic changes that have contributed to our loss. The one factor that I would ask that you especially note when you read my first essay is the fact that our entire 7-booth display that we are operating at this year's San Diego convention was first premiered six weeks ago, at the Denver Comic-Con. Despite our having about 20,000 fewer comics available in Denver, and that convention being only three days long (with half the number of attendees as San Diego...), our sales per hour in Denver were double (!) what they are here. That made all the difference, as we turned a reasonable profit in Denver, as opposed to a massive loss in San Diego.

So how could an extremely successful back issue comics booth in Denver become so stunningly unsuccessful in San Diego? Because in Denver we were not being utterly crushed by the very publishers who's goods we sell on a daily basis. In a nutshell, the comics publishers with booths at the San Diego convention have so cleverly exploited the greed and avarice of comics fans through limited edition publications that are only available through their own booths, that there is no longer enough disposable income left in the room to sustain us. A sad state of affairs, but also completely true.

To illustrate my point, I had the leader of one of the major comics publishing houses stop by our booth on the way out the door last evening. This man has been our friend and ally for decades. He was absolutely ebullient yesterday evening in describing the amazing success that they were experiencing in their booth as a result of selling vast quantities of exclusive variants. I felt more than a little embarrassment and shame when I had to rain on his parade, by pointing out to him that the collective effect of his actions (combined with the other publishers and manufacturers at the show...) was devastating our sales. My response was not at all what he expected to hear. But as the validity of what I was expressing became clear, I could see awareness dawning in his eyes.

All of the above having been said, my publisher friend is an extremely astute man, so he quickly understood the unintended consequences of his actions. Given that he was only seeking to cover his own costs of exhibiting in this dreadfully expensive venue, however, he could muster no material reply to my pain. In many regards, that was the most depressing aspect of this entire fiasco. Being obviated by lifelong friends is particularly galling, especially when we it is clear that we are nothing more than collateral damage, in a battle being waged by giants.

So where does this leave us? As much as I hate to admit this, it now seems obvious to me now that we finally have to end a lifetime of exhibiting at San Diego, and instead seek out relatively popular comics conventions in other cities. Especially conventions where our publisher friends choose to not exhibit. Doesn't that thought just drip with irony? Comics publishers have evolved to become toxic to their own retailers. Who would ever have thought that would happen? Even with all my many years of experience, I simply cannot believe that our world has now been so perverted by the mania for exclusive variants, that comics retailers can now only survive in the absence of the very publishers we support. No matter how you look at it, this is a profoundly sad day.

Chuck Rozanski,
President-Mile High Comics, Inc.

July 26, 2014

[nbr3bagshotrow]

San Diego Comic Con Report #2
Howdy!

Every year, I work to compose daily reports from the San Diego Comic-Con International. In those reports I try to provide everyone who reads this newsletter with our own perspective on how this epic comics convention is evolving, and what that might mean for the future of the comics world. I believe that today's newsletter has a particularly disturbing message, which may, or may not, foretell very negative changes for the network of comics retailers who provide most fans with access to their weekly comics. I will let you decide...

I will begin by stating that we are not (at least for now...) succeeding in meeting our minimum financial requirements at this year's San Diego show. In some regards this is not surprising, as we needed to have a steady $1,200 per hour passing through our cash registers during all 41 hours of the convention, simply for us to cover our costs of setting up our seven huge booths. That was such a lofty cash flow requirement that I had significant doubts that we could reach that level, even before we arrived in San Diego. On the other side of the coin, however, we DID exceed that $1,200/hour requirement during the Denver Comic-Con last month, so I had a cautious optimism that we would also succeed here. Especially in light of the fact that our convention inventory was vastly improved during the intervening six weeks between those two shows.

So, what has changed here in San Diego? In a word: exclusives. At the Denver show there were a similar number of comics dealers present as here in San Diego, but almost no publishers and/or toy and game manufacturers. The absence of those publisher and manufacturer booths in Denver may seem a detriment to many fans, but it made all the difference for us. That is because having our most valued suppliers in the same exhibit hall kills our sales. Simply put, the very organizations that we most support are those who can cause us the most harm when they create exclusive products that can only be purchased through their own booths at shows. Not only do they divert revenues into their own pockets, but they also diminish our standing in the fan community by making us appear incomplete.


Exclusive crowds.
Before I go any further, let me stress that the detrimental effects of exclusives at San Diego is not a new phenomena. Ever since I helped to create the Wednesday evening Preview Night over a decade ago, the bigger booths have had great freebies and exclusive toys available on that first evening of the show. What has now changed is both the breadth, and the scale, of those exclusive products. No longer are exclusives limited to just a few booths, or only to Wednesday evening. We are now seeing all of the major comics publishers, and every single toy and game company, creating limited edition products that they deny us. This aversion to helping comics retailers has become so agregious and pernicious that I heard from my fellow dealers that some publisher and manufacturer booths were refusing to even allow anyone wearing a dealer's badge to stand in line. That is beyond ridiculous.

All of the above having been said, I could live with the realities of this new world order if the effects were not dovetailing with restrictive actions in the part if the convention. To explain, it became far more difficult this year to obtain a four-day pass to the show. As a result, we are seeing a slightly increased influx of new potential buyers each morning, each bearing a fresh one-day pass. While that would normally result in some measure in increased potential for sales at all booths, social networking has made knowledge of available publisher and manufacturer exclusives widely known. As a direct result, new attendees to the show are now manifesting the exact same behavior as what was once limited to Wednesday evening. They rush in the door, and immediately head to our suppliers to purchase those very goods we cannot offer them. Each exclusives line can then take upwards of an hour to traverse, which really cuts into an attendee's 10-hour day.

But wait, this already ugly situation gets even worse. If the motivation for these thousands of exclusives buyers were only to add unique items into their own collections, I could at least somewhat rationalize this entire fiasco. The reality, however, is that this process is now all about turning a quick profit on eBay. If you were to look right now, you would see that all of the hundreds of SDCC exclusives are available online right now, but at vastly increased prices. The trick for most of these very canny exclusives buyers has become that they want to either buy limited editions up before the supply is exhausted, or to get the more common editions sold before potential competitors have the chance to list the same items against them.


Lines for exclusives.
Making these speculators already complicated task much more difficult, however, is that most suppliers with booths at the show have dramatically increased their production runs, but sometimes without revealing the extent of those increases. As a result, the lucky few who are able to score rare exclusives early in the show have a much greater likelihood of potential gain. This means that wednesday evening and Thursday tickets are now far more in demand. This has perverted the process to such a degree that a significant number of "fans" now attend the San Diego convention only to turn a quick profit. Gack...

I will close today's newsletter by projecting this very ugly exclusives overlay upon the entire comics industry. If comics publishers are willing to block our access to their exclusive products here at San Diego, what prevents them from excluding certain items from comics shops, and making them available only through their own in-house fulfillment services? This is already happening to some extent, but I fear that the floodgates of publisher exclusives are about to open. The comics retailing community has no more defense against this debilitating behavior, than we exhibitors at San Diego. Sadly, with our ability to provide a full range of comics now upon us, the apocalypse of the Direct Market may finally be here. And it will be our supposed friends and allies who deliver the killing blow. I wish it were otherwise, but this is far from the first time that short-sightedness and greed have wrecked a beautiful thing...

Chuck Rozanski,
President - Mile High Comics, Inc.
July 25, 2014

[Simplyrob]

Whoa. One of my friends had a booth at SDCC for years and usually made solid money. He quit going after almost 20 straight years, that was about 2 years back. I'm surprised there are still comics at that show. Thankfully there's a show every weekend somewhere in this country.

[carlito1978]

interesting read but not surprising. i would think that for these big shows buying actual comic books is not top of mind for most people attending.

[ReplicantSavior]

Is Mile High Comics still the biggest comic retailer? I think they were once. This is surprising as they release exclusives. And perhaps I just missed it but I didn't see any Marvel, DC, or other publisher exclusive comics that I wanted. Is it reasonable to expect a publisher to give retailers exclusives when the publisher is at the convention? Seeing as the cost would most likely be cheaper at the publisher's booth.

Originally Posted by carlito1978

interesting read but not surprising. i would think that for these big shows buying actual comic books is not top of mind for most people attending.

I thought big shows are good places to get older comics. I don't know how people lug statues, posters, and whatever else around those conventions all day. Especially with the lines that I've seen in SDCC pics. Do they go back to their car all the time? Seems crazy.

[Vince-Vell]

actually smaller shows are better to get comics then the big shows. Even NYCC has scaled back comics as well, mostly just golden, silver high end books with maybe 2 guys selling current books for a dollar or so.

Its cause the big shows are expensive to rent a table, hotel room, food, lug all the comics etc.. Where as smaller shows your not dropping tons of cash on tables.

[risingstar]

Wow. That is some story. I hadn't realized people were that much into variants. I thought the fanbase had come to realize how practically useless and overpriced they were over 20 years ago. Anyone want my variant silver foil Ultraforce #5?

[ReplicantSavior]

Originally Posted by risingstar

Wow. That is some story. I hadn't realized people were that much into variants. I thought the fanbase had come to realize how practically useless and overpriced they were over 20 years ago. Anyone want my variant silver foil Ultraforce #5?

The bad variants I think people stopped getting. Some of those still show up at conventions. I remember Top Cow having a lot of those. But there are still good variants. That recent Adam Hughes Harley Quinn #1 was a good one. Mile High Comics had a few recent J Scott Campbell variants too.

[CKinSD]

over the years this has been the case for most vendors of comics at
SDCC. i know quite a few that used to get 6 booths and have great displays and almost anything you could need but now have dropped to one or two booths or have decided to no longer do the SDCC monster. It is NOT a comic convention any longer. it is a convention for multi-media. Chuck was always there though and is one of the big names in LCS stores still.

[joefixit2]

Anyone know how much SDCC was charging per single table?