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Pete Kilmer has been in the comics retail industry for ten years as a member of Downtown Comics in Indianapolis. Downtown Comics is one of the Midwest's largest comic retailers with over four locations in Indianapolis. All opinions are his own, and they cannot be bought with free swag. Beer and a walk on role on Chuck to steal Sarah from Chuck and I'm bought.

Well, the Amazing Spider-man issue that features Obama is out this week. Man, what a debacle that has turned into for shops that placed their orders awhile ago. Also, the fact that there was ZERO heads up from Marvel indicating that Marvel Head Honcho Joe Quesada was going to do the news rounds and push the book was really irritating. It's because if the shops knew that Quesada was going to appear on the various news programs and that we might want to adjust orders on the book, it would have been VERY helpful. As it is, people are calling shops across the country looking for the book and are being told in many cases that the Obama cover is unavailable until next week when the second print ships.

The other negative is that in order to get the first print Obama cover, the shops had to match their order amount to a previous issue. The problem there is that sales have been slipping on the Amazing Spider-man book (which is too bad, as it's quite good), and that it just doesn't make economic sense to take a chance and overstock on a book that has its sales slipping and to leave books sitting on the racks. Now if someone in Marvel Publicity had a retailer email list and was able to notify us (because let's face it, Diamond Comics isn't going to do it in a timely manner - you can barely get a rep on the phone) a day or two out that this was coming, things might not have been as messed up for retailers. And this isn't the first time this has happened. Back when Captain America (Steve Rogers) was killed, Marvel did the same round of publicity to alert people that something huge was going to happen to an iconic character and stores were caught short-handed with books.

Look, I am a HUGE fan of Marvel Comics. HUGE. And I think Quesada has done a terrific job there since he took over back in 2000. He's made a lot of smart, smart choices in how comics are created and sold (the trade paperback and hardcover revolution can be credited to Marvel Comics.) And Quesada is great at generating publicity for Marvel and is a terrific spokesman for Comics in general. However, it's that small step of notifying the retailers that he is going to be on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and the various news outlets has got to be rectified. Because when Quesada's on TV, books will get sold. If the retailers have time to adjust orders to reflect that, then the public will be much better served. I must say that it is to Marvel's Credit the second print of the Amazing Spider-man issue will be out next week - the day after the Inauguration. Hopefully, Quesada will be on TV to talk about that.

DC has a lot of the Faces of Evil books out this week, if you see FOE after a book title that means it's a Faces of Evil book. Have a great week!

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