Posted in: Batman, Comics, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, X-Men | Tagged: comic shop, comic store in your future

Comic Store In Your Future 2025: What I Liked & What I Really Did Not

Comic Store In Your Future, looking back at 2025: What I liked and what I really did not...

As 2025 is drawing to a close, as a comic retailer, what was the good, what was the bad, and what was the ugly? And what is the Comic Store In Your Future? Absolute Batman #14 had orders over the hundred thousand mark, two hundred thousand even. Absolute Batman #15 hit three hundred thousand. Why do I find this important? For me to make money from selling comics, I need hot, high-selling issues. These bring in cash flow and help offset smaller-selling titles that may cost the store money due to over-ordering, even when ordering in low quantities.

With Absolute Batman hitting such high numbers, I hope this changes the thinking of some publishers. Meaning comics can sell. So often I wonder why a title is being relaunched, especially ones that weren't selling well. I previously wrote about how I felt Marvel had given up on their publishing; their "ongoing" titles were really just limited series. The days of comics having long publishing runs are over in Marvel's eyes. Marvel movies have expanded the popularity of the characters to more people than ever before, although they do not publish comics based on the film that can sell. The Red Hulk, Sam Wilson's Falcon, Thunderbolts, or New Avengers (whichever you would like to call them) did not sell well this year. The Fantastic Four movie did not give a lasting boost in sales to the Fantastic Four title. Granted, the movie could be argued to be somewhat distant from the source material. Spoilers next! When Invisible Woman screams, "Kill her!" and Johnny casually, even jokingly, agrees to do it, they have more villainous lines than the actual villain does.

Marvel has been losing ground as the top publisher recently. My hope is that Marvel will reconsider its approach, accelerate its efforts, and start selling comics. One of the things I didn't like this year is that Magik stopped coming out. Yes, it is coming back next year as a limited series with her brother, making her fans wait for months for her latest adventures and making her fans and the comic shops that could have sold more Magik comics unhappy. What was the rationale for this? We are making money, so let us end it. I just had a customer come in today, saying they are disappointed that the Ultimate line is ending. I joked that if it sells, Marvel apparently will just end it.

Something simple that I have disliked is when foil covers come out, and the bar code used for scanning is on part of the reflective foil surface instead of having a white background, making it difficult to scan the comic when checking out. The laser from the scanner does not like reflective surfaces. It appears somewhat random; some barcodes have a white background, while others do not. I will not get into Marvel's weird pricing for foil covers. The whole printed-with-the-same-cover-price-as-a-non-foil-comic-though-costing-comic-stores-more is very odd—my thanks to all the other publishers that print the correct price when they do foil covers.

I have learned that I am fortunate to have good customers, many of whom are collectors. People who enjoy and collect characters that they enjoy. Characters that do not have a current monthly title, yet my customers want Sgt. Rock, Lady Death, G.I. Combat, Demon, Huntress, Werewolf by Night, Unknown Soldier, and many other overlooked characters that I can sell back issues of. I worry that publishers have driven collectors away. If one wants to collect the various X-Men titles or Batman, there is so much new material being released that a new person may feel it is overwhelming. Most people's wallets can only take so much. Comic conventions often have more non-comic-related vendors than vendors that actually sell comics. When I was younger, it seemed that there were many more people who collected comics and were in the habit of getting a certain character or characters than there are now. The customers I have are pretty good people, friends, even.

I am saddened by what happened with Diamond. After Marvel went to Penguin, I wondered how Diamond would make it. It turns out they wouldn't; they just lasted so long without a peep that something was wrong. Then, starting in November of last year, it was nonstop news about Diamond. Once they had been bought out of bankruptcy, I assumed all the Diamond-related headlines would stop. I was wrong. I had the opportunity to meet some of the Diamond crew at various Diamond Summits in the past. I know I thought it was always a bad idea to have just one comic vendor supply for us when it was just Diamond. To me, it felt like your options were either to deal with Diamond or not sell comics. I believed that comic ordering should be similar to when I order Magic: The Gathering material, where there should be multiple vendors to choose from. Now it is DC Comics, through Lunar, and Marvel Comics, through Penguin. Smaller publishers were left scrambling to find new distributors to carry their content. We still manage to obtain Zenescope comics, although sadly, we are now unable to get Jim Balent's Tarot. I never wanted Diamond to stop dealing with comics.

In 2025, I was still able to write Comic Store In Your Future with Bleeding Cool! That is good. But 2026 looks scary. Layoffs are currently in the news, tariffs have played havoc with pricing, and at one point this year, I thought we would have to stop giving away comic bags and boards for free with every new comic purchase. On top of all that, major road construction is due to start next year in front of the store. That will be a challenge, but every year has challenges. What was my favorite thing about 2025? Despite so many things that have happened over the years, we celebrated 15 years of Rodman Comics. I still get to share and sell the coolest things, comic books. Now the question is, will we be able to celebrate our 20th anniversary? Hope so, it won't be for lack of trying. Happy holidays, everyone!

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!