Posted in: Boom, Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News | Tagged: brzrkr, Slow Burn, Space Between, Zawa

Even Returnability Can't Prevent Boom Studios' Sell Outs

Boom Studios is credited (by Bleeding Cool and others) with pioneering and popularizing a widespread affidavit returnability for retailers.

Boom Studios is credited (by Bleeding Cool and others) with pioneering and popularizing a widespread affidavit returnability for retailers through their Boom Guarantee programme, which debuted in 2017. The program quickly became incredibly popular among comic stores, with retailer organization ComicsPRO dubbing (and Boom quickly adopting) it "the gold standard."

Boom used their Guarantee programme to grow their presence and sales in comic stores steadily, leading to numerous success stories, including Kieron Gillen & Dan Mora's Once & Future and James Tynion & Werther Dell'Edera's Something Is Killing The Children. Other publishers experimented with similar returnable models in the wake of Boom's success.

How it works is this. The direct market is based on non-returnability, with publishers giving a greater discount than they gave to newsstands or bookstores, with the guarantee that they are firm orders and won't have to send returns. However, this can lead to a conservative market not wanting to take risks on a new comic book, ordering fewer than they otherwise might have, and leading to sellouts, second printing and inefficiency if they had ordered enough to meet demand in the first place. But who wants to take that risk? Offering returnability as a promotional device can help retailers take more confident stances on new titles – but there are other costs involved. Returnability usually means returning the comics, which means collection, shipping, accountability and then what to do with the comics. Traditionally retailers and distributors would accept stripped covers, the covers ripped off the comics, shipped, counted and credit given, but it was still inefficient, and the time and labour spent could put some retailers off doing it at all. Also, destroying comics is a horrible thing to make comic retailers do. And also led to a market for coverless comics. So Boom innovated the idea of just… trusting retailers to say what they had sold, crediting them for what they hadn't, and moving on.

Then in 2020, in the wake of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, and again led by Boom, virtually every major publisher extended line-wide affidavit returnability to support comic stores. Over time, publishers scaled back on returnability, and by the beginning of this year, the majority of major publishers were offering little returnability… or none at all. From what I've heard, the main reason for this is that publishers stopped seeing meaningful increases in orders when they made titles returnable… and worse yet, were not seeing the comics that stores ordered enough to sell through, even on these terms.

Vault Comics' decision to make a number of their titles absolutely free to retailers was a desperate attempt to try and get retailers to order enough copies of a first issue. And it seems to have worked, but it also denies publishers and creators. of the payday that a first-issue launch can elicit.

Boom, on the other hand, started the year by announcing they would be increasing the amount of comics and collections they were making returnable through the Guarantee program in 2023. This makes sense, given that when retailers are asked what motivates them to support new releases, the most consistent response is returnability. And Boom has made good on their promise over the last six months offering returnability on all of their new launch titles, most subsequent issues, and numerous collections to the tune of nearly 60 comics and collections.

So why is it that despite offering returnability to retailers, Boom launches are also consistently selling out and going back to press? In the last few weeks, I counted the start of the Power Rangers event Darkest Hour, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #111, the new Firefly: The Fall Guys #1, and The Hunt Of The Skinwalker #1 by Zac Thompson and Valeria Burzo, all releasing second printings while in that same time period Ram V & Felipe Andrade's Rare Flavours #1 sold out twice along with Ranger Academy #1. Most of these titles had buzz leading into their release with either the creative community, critics, or fans (or all three) talking them up on social media, but in a crowded market and increasingly complex business, perhaps retailers aren't able to keep track of those increases in demand.

One answer might be that Boom doesn't offer returnability to everyone automatically. Retailers have to be part of the Boom Guarantee programme to unlock returnability. The programme is free but still requires engagement on the part of the store to participate. So it could be the stores that aren't taking advantage of returnability that are coming up short. And it takes a month or more for publishers to get second printings back into the hands of retailers, by which point the immediate demand may have lessened.

Additionally, as I understand it, Boom's average return rate is quite low, about half of the comic and book industry standard of 25-30%. That might be an indication that even some of the retailers who take advantage of returnability aren't bringing in enough copies to meet demand. Perhaps more stores should be taking advantage of Boom's generosity. It certainly worked out well for everyone with series like BRZRKR, House of Slaughter, and Grim over the last couple of years.

In the past, when faced with such issues, Bill Jemas at Marvel, and Eric Stephenson at Image Comics, just stopped all second printings altogether in an effort to nudge retailers into ordering enough in the first place. But it didn't last long.

So what's next? My prediction is that Boom will be announcing second printings for their two upcoming creator-owned launches, Slow Burn by Ollie Masters and Pierluigi Minotti, out on October 25th, and The Space Between by Corinna Bechko and Danny Luckert, in stores on November 1st… even though both were returnable.

But perhaps retailers will prove me wrong on Michael Dialynas' Zawa + The Belly Of The Beast #1 and Keanu Reeves' BRZRKR: Fallen Empire #1 by Mattson Tomlin and Rebekah Isaacs, both of which FOC today. But I doubt it…

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