Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comic store in your future, Comics, entertainment, guardians of the galaxy, marvel

Comic Store In Your Future – I Went To Dinner With Dan DiDio And All I Got Were These Cool Comics

Published Thu, 04 May 2017 13:30:02 -0500

Last updated Wed, 15 Jun 2022 16:25:06 -0500

Rod Lamberti of Rodman Comics, writes weekly for Bleeding Cool. Find previous columns here.

I was recently invited to dinner with Dan DiDio in Kansas City and went. I had never met him and figured I should. I drove down from Iowa. Thought I was going to be late, since there were three different wrecks tying up traffic. The rain was pretty bad at times. Made it with five minutes to spare and no speeding ticket.

I met other retailers while there. After introducing myself and where my store is, often the question would be "Ankeny?" Yes, no one has heard of Ankeny.

I remembered the owner of B-Pop Comics in Kansas City from previous visits while visiting family. I would often splurge at his store. I was talking with Brandon Adamson, the general manager of Fantasy Books INC in Saint Louis, when we were told dinner was ready. While we were being seated, we were lucky enough to have Dan DiDio sit with us. To my left was Mathew Kreger, owner of Boom Comics in Topeka, Kansas and another shop in Lawrence, Kansas. Very good group.

I know Dan gets creamed online a lot. He's not running DC right. Dan sucks. #FireDiDio. And so on. To be quite honest, I thought he was a very upstanding person. And a heck of a professional.

We brought up all kinds of topics. I did ask a lot of questions. I actually wanted to know Dan better; DC Comics is a big chunk of my comic sales. We brought up Marvel Comics, and he took the high road every time. Never said anything negative about them. I was impressed that with all the pot shots Marvel takes at DC, he would turn the other cheek.

I also learned that Dan is a big supporter of keeping the cover price of comics down. The comics coming out with the big-name artists, the upcoming Dark Matter comics going for $2.99? That's what he wanted.

He had nothing but high praise for Scott Snyder, Jim Lee, and the others working on Dark Matter. His enthusiasm for Dark Matter was obvious. Said he wants the new characters to be around for a long time to come.

Talked about Rebirth. High praise for all involved. Lots of high praise for Geoff Johns.

I asked him who his favorite characters are who aren't currently in a regular book. He said he likes them all. Would love to have a Metal Men book out. The Legion of Superheroes is another book he likes and wants in publication. They're working on it.

Dan sat with us roughly for two hours and never seemed tired or annoyed with any of our questions. He pays attention and puts a lot of consideration into his work. Mathew's girlfriend even told him how impressed she was with how much thought he puts into DC Comics.

Dan seems comfortable with the comic market right now. Says there's no crash going on. I brought up the fact that I was a little worried, as two stores in central Iowa were closing — one had been open almost as long as I have (over six years). I found out about that right as my lease was being negotiated. I won't lie — it makes me a little gun-shy to re-sign the lease. Things are going really well at my store, but this business can be a rollercoaster. Lots of highs and lows. After talking with Dan, I felt much more comfortable. DC has a plan. A direction. He knows they've made mistakes and fumbles in the past, and he admitted it. I liked that.

"DC is doing good now," I said at one point. He laughed and said "now." "Yes," I replied. "Sadly, things can change so quickly."

I also thanked him for not going overboard with the spinoff titles. I mentioned that Harley Quinn is currently the most popular character at my store and has been for a while. Her fans seem able to handle one bi-monthly book and her twice-weekly book. I also said I thought the twice-weekly format was a good idea. One Flash title is good. A twice-weekly Flash title is fine. But two Flash titles? I don't think that would work nearly as well.

Free Comic Book Day was talked about. I brought up last year's DC Superhero Girls release. Parents loved it as a free comic, but there were only a handful of books following it up that year. Dan asked what we thought about the Wonder Woman reprint. We basically said we thought a new book with new material would be better. I agreed, and said at least the Wonder Woman reprint is more recent than the New Suicide Squad reprint was from 2015. I remember thinking when Jim Lee did the Trinity War book for Free Comic Book Day: "Man, how many of these could I have sold?"

I made sure to ask when the official first Watchmen appearance in the main DC books is going to be. He smiled and easily batted that question away. I tried.

My only regret is that I didn't get to talk more with Jim Sokolowski and Adam Philips of DC Comics. I knew it would be after two in the morning when I got back home, and I was too cheap to get a hotel room for the night.

If I'm ever invited again and it's within driving distance (and the sky isn't falling), I would be more than happy to go.