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Walmart and DC Comics From the Mississippi Front Lines

Published Tue, 14 Aug 2018 08:30:54 -0500

Last updated Thu, 16 Aug 2018 05:42:32 -0500

We've been asking people to check in with their local Walmart stores, as to how the rollout of DC Comics Giant anthologies has been received.

Marc Turnage of Mississippi writes to tell us that in his area, "several stores are removing the card/Comic section as of early August".

Clarifying further he writes, "the card section has either been severely reduced (from 20 down to 8ft) or removed altogether. This is the case in five Walmart's visited in both the Jackson, MS and Hattiesburg, MS areas. None had the DC comics, and if they had anything it was just a few feet of Magic or Pokémon cards. Even searched the main book section and there was nothing."

He provided a few images to illustrate.

"You can see the reduced linear feet. The sports and gaming cards that are left have been severely compacted in favor of impulse buys like candy bars and water guns. Not even a spot for the comics. Also, this is a Super WalMart that doesn't have a comic shop within 40 miles. One would think it would be a prime location to have comics since they are not readily available here."

While D Beard writes with his own analysis.

"So here are three reasons why the WalMart program is troubled…

"a. The bins are used for all things comics — three-packs unrelated to the DC initiative, including DC and Marvel three-packs, old issues of DC Showcase from last year… The merchandisers don't know what goes in the bins for the DC initiative and what are comics from old initiatives so they dump all the comics in the bins.

"b. The vertical display component, holding at least ten comics, isn't used. Comics are only dumped flat in the horizontal part.

"c. As a result, the new issues are choked out from the display. At one Walmart visited, only JLA second issue was available. First issues were not restocked. At another, both JLA and Superman second issues were available — but four feet to the left of the display, on a shelf just tall enough for collectible card packs.

"I have no idea why the Showcases are even there — at ten dollars, I regretted buying mine almost immediately. They are dead stock diminishing space for the new comics, As long as the guys paid to keep up the display don't care to even use the cardboard display slots correctly, this program will become "DC's badly distributed comics program" soon."

Which does seem to back up Rod Lamberti's own experiences too…