Posted in: Comics | Tagged: boom, boom studios, discover your store tour, morgan perry, retailer guarantee
BOOM! Heads to Philly for "Discover Your Comic Store" Tour, Plans More Dates for Summer
Are you ready to rock?! We said are you ready! Well, you'd better get prepared soon, Philadelphia, because the hottest act in town is coming to your city soon, along with several as-yet unannounced stops in North Carolina, Stop Carolina, California, and Michigan. That's right, of course we are talking about BOOM! Studios' "Discover Your Comic Store" tour, wherein the comic book publisher sends Direct Market representative Morgan Perry to local comic book shops with one mission: to rock.
Wait, sorry, we got that wrong. Perry's mission is actually to "engage with customers and talk face-to-face with store staff to better both identify the opportunities and challenges facing comic shops in 2018." Additionally, Perry will work a four-hour shift behind the counter at each store, selling comics to customers. Okay, that doesn't sound quite as exciting, on the surface, but it's actually a smart idea for a publisher to get in the trenches with comic book retailers in order to gather data about how they can best produce comics that those retailers can sell. Will it be as effective as just rebooting all your comics every year, jacking up orders with incentive variants, or making everything tie into a super-mega-crossover event? That remains to be seen, but it seems promising.
The tour actually kicked off over the weekend with gigs in Maryland and Delaware. Next up is Philly, starting today (Monday, May 7) at Noon at Brave New Worlds at 55 N 2nd St. Dates and shops for June, July, and August have been promised but not yet announced.
Of course, a tour like this wouldn't be complete without merch, and BOOM! is bringing that along too in the form of "exclusive variants and other limited edition merchandise." The visits are free for stores participating in BOOM!'s Retailer Guarantee program, which makes their comics returnable and provides exclusive merch and displays for participating stores.
Stay tuned for future tour date announcements.