LYING IN THE GUTTERS - MAGIC WORDS - Comic Book Resources
Posted by Chris Mosby on 30th March 2007
Can’t say that any of this surprises me.
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MAGIC WORDS
LITG
has been covering what some have called the insider trading scandal of
comics - the mass purchase and eBay flipping of “Captain America” #25
by WizardUniverse.com, based on information made available to Wizard
Magazine that was withheld from rival retailers.
Last week I spoke to
Wizard Entertainment’s Director of Corporate Communications, Drew
Seldin on the phone. Drew wanted to make it clear that Wizard was one
company and didn’t have any walls within its organisation regarding
sensitive information - that all departments “rely on each other and
work together as one unit.” So, yes, the online store orders were based
on information received by the magazine and this was “never a back room
deal, the information was definitely talked about. We knew there would
be demand for the books that retailers wouldn’t be able to match, we
wanted to make the books available.”
I pointed out that this
sounded like insider trading, working with information unavailable to
the rest of the market, it wasn’t as if Wizard were just selling the
books for cover price and, on eBay, there were no shortage of $50 book
eBay sellers.
Drew took the point,
told me that the reaction was an unexpected one for Wizard. “Although
we’re in business to put out a great product to make money, we’re not
out to upset anybody” Drew told me. “We’ve been listening to the
reaction of fans and retailers.” This was the reason behind Wizard’s
decision to end all its Captain America eBay auctions early. So what
happens next time, if say, the Hulk dies? Drew was guarded as to actual
details but told me, “We want to work closely with Marvel, with any
publishers, as the whole company, we want to work for the good of the
industry.”
Of course, one other fly in the ointment is the Newsarama interview
with Ethan Sacks, the NY Daily News journalist who broke the Cap 25
story, where he says “I had done the interviews with Quesada, Simon,
Brubaker and a comic book store owner over the previous two weeks.”
From the NY Daily News
article, “I was shocked. I was not expecting it,” said Gerry Gladston,
co-owner of Midtown Comics in Manhattan. “I’d rather they didn’t kill
him - but it’s going to mean great sales.”
Giving Midtown plenty of time to up their orders?
Midtown represenatives
tell me, “Midtown Comics was notified by the Daily News briefly before
the story broke, but well after the order cutoff date. We had already
‘gambled’ and ordered heavily thanks to David Gabriel’s hints in the
Marvel Mailer (#36 to be exact) that Cap 25 would be a very important
issue. We actually ordered less then what we did on Civil War #1. After
the interview with Ethan, we were satisfied with out initial order.“Midtown Comics sold
out of the book in a little over a day, even with a 1 copy per customer
restriction. We sold out of the reorder received the following week in
two days. But every copy was sold at cover price.
“This book has been
great for us and great for the industry, even though clearly no one had
enough. We look forward to continued strong sales on all the follow up
books.”
That autopsy issue can’t come soon enough!
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