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Comic Store In Your Future: How SDCC Announcements Might Affect Comic Stores

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

This year's comic news coming out of San Diego Comic-Con surprised the heck out of me. In years past, I remember being underwhelmed by the comic news from SDCC. This year, however, there was plenty of comic news that stuck out to me.

The most surprising announcement to me was the if Marvel won't publish a Fantastic Four comic, then DC will. A new book called The Terrifics will featuring Mr. Terrific, Metamorpho, Phantom Girl, and Plastic Man, written by Jeff Lemire with art by Ivan Reis. I would love to have been a fly on the wall to overhear how this came about.

DC staffer: "Well Marvel, now has five or more X Books." DC intern: "Oh yeah, how many Fantastic Four titles do they have?" "None." "Yeah, right." "No, seriously, Marvel is still butthurt over Fox's Fantastic Four movie. The fact Fox has the movie rights for the Fantastic Four really burns up one of their higher-ups." "Really? Wonder what Marvel would say if DC published their own version?" "That would really cause a lot of butthurt, I bet. Hmm…you know, I need to go talk to the higher-ups about a new idea I just had."

Speaking of Fantastic Four movie rights, Doctor Doom the movie is in the works. I would love to finally see a cool Doctor Doom on the big screen.

Flashpoint, the Flash movie announced by Warner Bros. That could be all kinds of coolness. Could the Flash in the Batcave scene be linked to this upcoming movie?

Bleeding Cool's article, The Comics Industry Has An Accessibility Problem, had a few sections that surprised me:

"Comic stores were also a long topic of conversation. Panelists and audience members alike shard their struggles with being able to get to comic stores, with many not having a comic store within a half hour or hour distance. "

I have had many people drive over a half an hour to visit our store. They really wish they had a comic store closer. Not everyone wants to buy off the internet. Then there are people who live right here in town that take the store for granted, such as those that abandon their pull boxes. Human nature can be very odd. Another part of the article struck me:

"Sherif had past experience with being on the judging panel for the Eisners and was stunned by how inaccessible many of the comic stores being nominated were. It was not uncommon to find comic stores boast two floors, but not having a lift to allow disabled customers to reach the second floor."

I was surprised to read it was not uncommon to find comic stores with two floors. In all of Iowa — where I am — I can't think of any store that has two floors. If there is one, I've never heard of it or been to it. That said, I have been to Kansas City and checked out a few of their comic stores. The ones I've been to in Nebraska, zip for two-story comic stores. Along with visiting various comic stores in California, Colorado, Texas, and ones in Florida, I have never been to a two-story comic store.

I know before we first opened, I was told there were laws about retail stores having two floors had to have an elevator, along with retail stores only being allowed on the first level of a building. This meant I could open my store on the first level of a commercial property, but not on any of the other levels. This only applied to one location I was looking at. Thankfully, I didn't choose that space, since the building was demolished a year or two after I looked into renting there. If these rules that I was told about are state law or just city law, I do not know. I'm not 100% sure whether these rules exist at all, since it was just one person who told me this. Regardless, I ended opening up at a strip mall that is just one level.

Are there a lot of comic stores out there with multiple levels? Feel free to list some in the comments. Well, back to Comic-Con news:

Frank Miller to write Superman Year One. Hopefully, after this announcement, he doesn't try to distance himself from the project like he did with the last Dark Knight Returns. John Romita Jr. will be the artist, and the book will be a 100-page graphic novel. I do like the fact that after it comes out, it'll be done — meaning I don't have to worry about delays. Delays here in store hurt Dark Knight III sales. All-Star Batman was filled with delays and they never ended the story, sadly. That said, it's possible Miller wasn't at fault.

Marvel didn't seem to make many major announcements at SDCC. Talking about the Mojoworld crossover for the X books didn't do much for me — already knew about it. I like Longshot and Mojo, but don't see them being a major source of excitement for the books. I don't see the average reading going, "Oh, my! Longshot is back! I have to have it!" I would love to be wrong, though.

This paragraph from Joe Glass's article Bringing Back Longshot, And More From The Marvel ResurrXion Panel At San Diego Comic-Con pretty much sums up Marvel to me at SDCC:

"On to All New Wolverine, which they rave about but don't discuss much. The Cable and the Legacy story Newer Mutants comes up, and the panel again just discusses how excited they are about the solicited series. Then Old Man Logan is brought up for a quick rave, but no real info."

For me, the "no real info" bit felt like a lot of what Marvel had to offer at SDCC. Hopefully, as rumored, Marvel is waiting for 2018 to make some excitement in the industry and they've got something big to announce yet.

So, those are the things I found interesting from SDCC this year, though I might have missed something. Ultimately, I was glad to be pleasantly surprised by some of the announcements. What did you find most interesting? Feel free to discuss.

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