Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comic store in your future, Comics, HRL

Comic Store In Your Future – The Lenticular Death Of The Universe

Published Fri, 15 Sep 2017 13:00:34 -0500

Last updated Wed, 15 Jun 2022 16:28:32 -0500

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

Marvel has announced their next month's worth of lenticular covers: sixteen of them for November. Marvel totally blew off retailers who are not ordering the lenticular covers in protest of their order guidelines for the lenticular covers, along with the stores that warned them that the way Marvel was having stores order their lenticular covers was not desirable. Marvel once again has an overly complicated and, at times, too high of a threshold for ordering the regular covers just so we retailers have the option to order the lenticular covers.

This will be Marvel's second month straight with lenticular covers. The new variable will be: will demand from October for the covers carry over into November? If there was demand to start with, that is. Stores will not even know if October's covers will even be a hit yet, and if they want lenticular covers for November, they have to order them this month. Ordering non-returnable product is another form of gambling.

Needless to say, I'm disappointed and confused. It is Marvel's product and they can indeed do what they want with it, but this doesn't seem like a good way to sell product. Having stores not even order your product and other stores angry over the hoops they have to jump through, just because it Marvel's way or nothing at all, seems counterproductive in sales. At least for long-term sales.

DC, by doing business as usual when it comes to their lenticular covers, looks even better to deal with thanks to Marvel.

This time, for November, our order it looks like DC easily gets a majority of our money. Doomsday Clock and Metal give DC a major push, while Marvel's covers for November don't cover as many titles as they did in October.

Come 2018, Marvel better have some high-profile talent and a much better plan than they did for 2017. The jumping ahead with their numbering and lenticular gimmicks will be all used up. Marvel's first issue madness over the years ran that well dry. Maybe, finally, 2018 will be the year Marvel tries for new readers.