QUESTION: How/Why You Buy Comics

[BobBretall]

John & I were wondering what your primary mechanism(s) are for buying comics. Everyone has their own unique thought processes on what they buy & why they buy, we'd like to understand what makes you tick.

Feel free to answer as much or as little of the following (we'd appreciate as much as possbile, and feel free to add in your own thoughts & choices if we missed something):

* Do you pre-order?
- From a mail order service (DCBS, Sci-Fi Genre, etc)
- Pull List at a comic shop

* Do you buy stuff "off the rack"?

* What do you primarily buy/collect?
- Just what strikes you?
- Buy/Collect titles?
- Buy/Collect characters?
- Buy/collect by creative team

* Do you prefer primarily
- Print Comics
- Digital
- Collected Editions

* Do you limit what you buy based on
- Budget
- Time you have to read the stuff
- Space needed to store the stuff!

* Do you get comics:
- Just to read
- You like to collect
- Both!

* If you miss an issue do you:
- Look for it as a back issue
- Skip it & that's OK
- Stop getting the series

* What turns you on or off to titles?
- Turn ons (Guest stars, cross-overs, etc)
- Turn offs (Double-shipping, cross overs, $3.99 price, etc)

* What do you think about variant covers?
- I don't care one way or the other
- I love 'em! Who needs the insides of a comic, a cool cover is where it's at!
- They are the Devil's work & marketing people are demons tempting our mortal collector's souls.

* What do you think of Crossovers?
- Do you buy the other titles?
- Skip them entirely?
- Drop the titles you were reading that were on the fence about that tie into the event?

* How do Events affect your buying?
- Buy the main series?
- Buy it all?
- Drop the titles you were reading that were on the fence about that tie into the event?

[BobBretall]

Bob's answers:

* Do you pre-order?
- Yes, from DCBS
- I also have a small Pull List at a comic shop, mostly so I can choose the variant covers of Warlord of Mars I prefer and pick up variant covers of Spider-Man books.

* Do you buy stuff "off the rack"?
- I do browse the LCS & pick up stray titles that strike me as interesting each week

* What do you primarily buy/collect?
* I collect titles based on a combination of character & creative team

* Do you prefer primarily
- Print Comics
- I dabble in digital & collected editions, but my heart is with the floppies.

* Do you limit what you buy based on
- Time I have to read the stuff (why I cut back from 185 to 100)
- I also stopped getting books "just because I've always gotten them" & try to get stuff because I really really like the books.

* Do you get comics:
To read & collect, I like both aspects!

* If you miss an issue do you:
- Look for it as a back issue

* What turns you on or off to titles?
- Turn ons: Guest stars(Spider-Man), writers & artists I like, unique story concepts, cool/different art styles

- Turn offs: Double-shipping, cross-overs, $3.99 price, over-used characters/concepts, writers & artists I have a track record of not caring for.

* What do you think about variant covers?
- I must admit that I love collecting Spider-Man variants, but draw the line at paying big bucks for the 1:50, 1:100, etc. variants
- I'd be happy if they stopped doing them altogether, though.

* What do you think of Crossovers?
It depends on the crossover, how it "feels" to me, and how many of the books I was getting in the 1st place.
For "The Night of the Owls" I pretty much ignored the crossover & got the books I was normally getting.
For "The Culling" & "House of "H'El" I actually dropped books I was kind of on the fence about because of the crossover, option out of the whole thing.
For the "Rise of the Third Army" I added Red Lanterns back onto my pull, since I was getting the other 3 titles & am interested in this crossover.

* How do Events affect your buying?
For the most part I buy the main series if I'm interested in the event. I did this on Fear Itself, I got the main series & skipped all the ancillary series & titles except for the books I was getting anyway.
For AvX, I skipped the whole thing since I had dropped both the Avengers & X-Men franchises. I'm not getting anything associated with this one.

[JohnMayo]

This thread might make a bit more sense once the Mayo Report: 2012-08 Comics episode goes up next week. We talk about this at the end of that episode.

[fudd71]

I am most interested to hear the conversation that brought this up, plus the Mayo Reports are always good episodes. On to the Questions:

Do you pre order?
NO!! The whole concept as it currently exists in the comic market is completely ludicrous. Comic books are neither custom made nor durable goods they are “cheap” disposable entertainment. The idea of paying months in advance for such a disposable good is insane, and no other producer of such goods expects their customers to do so. This problem is compounded by prevalent delays, to ask consumers to prepay for something that you can’t even consistently deliver on time is insulting. I have bought my comics from the same store for over a decade, so while I don’t have an official pull list the store does set aside things they have good reason to believe I would want. I also try to avoid solicits or previews. I love serialized stories, and want to enjoy new issues as they come not be told what to expect in advance.

Do you buy “off the rack”?
Based on my above answer you could say I buy all my books “off the rack”, but I do stick to the same titles month over month, I don’t do a lot of title hopping.

What format do you prefer primarily?
Print single issues. If I am convinced a series in really good and I need to read it (as happened with Fables and Walking Dead), I buy as many back issues as I can readily find (usually 6-10 months’ worth) and then buy the earlier trades to the point I have issues. I then continue buying the issues. I have bought a few digital comics if my shop was sold out of an issue, but in all those cases I have subsequently obtained the print version.

Do you get comics to read or collect?
Both, I read everything I buy and most things I reread a few months later as well. I do also keep all my comics. But I’m a bit of a pack rat anyway. Holes in comic runs do drive me nuts however.

What do you limit what you buy based on?
Not much, I suppose what I have time to read, but I’m not close to maxing that out. I average 15-20 books a week on the purchase side, but read 5-7 books a day. So I usually spend part of the weekend and first part of the week rereading issues from my collection.

What do you do if you miss an issue?
Track down the back issue, as stated above I will buy the digital comic to read the story but still track down the print issue.

What turns you on off a title?
I’m a character guy, I love my superheroes, and the same ones I know and have always known. Publishers that are disrespectful of their customers are a big turn off for me. This is why I don’t read Spider-man anymore, one of my all-time favorite characters. Between the $3.99 prices at Marvel, especially when Bendis said “people want to pay $3.99” and Tom Breevorts regular stupid and insulting comments about fans and other publishers I feel like that publisher simply doesn’t respect their customers. Books or publishers that consistently have large delays are also a big turn off, I would rather have a fill-in issue that keeps the books coming out monthly then wait on some prim donna creator who doesn’t think enough of his customers to put out books on a regular basis.

What do you think about variant covers?
I have no interest at all in variants.

[torchsong]

* Do you pre-order?
- From a mail order service (DCBS, Sci-Fi Genre, etc)
Yes. It's safe to say without something like DCBS I wouldn't be continuing with this hobby/pasttime to the level I am now. I will always read comics, but thanks to places like DCBS I can afford to read a wider variety of them.

* Do you buy stuff "off the rack"?
Yes. One of the great side-effects of using a discount service like DCBS is that I have more "in pocket" money to buy from my LCS.

* What do you primarily buy/collect?
- Just what strikes you?
- Buy/Collect titles?
- Buy/Collect characters?
- Buy/collect by creative team
- All of the Above
It's really a combination of all these things, so I added in an "All of The Above". I will buy anything with Supergirl in it (and have since the mid to late 70s), but I also love all things Alpha Flight. If Keith Giffen's had a hand in it, I'm likely to check it out. Finally, pretty much any indie book I buy is based on a "Hey, that looks cool!" vibe. So that covers pretty much all the options there, with no one area being the most prevalent.

* Do you prefer primarily
- Collected Editions
I love single issues, and I love digital reading as well. The older I get, though, it's become trades or bust, to the point where I'll double-dip - particularly with buying single issues digitally then springing for the trade. Easier to carry around, don't have to worry about condition or "decrease in value", and looks great on a shelf.

* Do you limit what you buy based on
- Budget
I try and set a budget and still manage to blow through it every time. There's so much I want to read that time is definitely also a factor, but the sad truth is this hobby is an expensive one if you're not careful.

* Do you get comics:
- Just to read
I read 'em. I can appreciate someone getting a rare near-mint or mint golden age book, but that's not for me. I'm sure there are a few "grail" books out there I wouldn't mind just having for the fun of it, but it's all about reading the story within for me.

* If you miss an issue do you:
- Look for it as a back issue
Digital is going to make this sooo much easier for many titles. I recently switched to subscription on Aquaman and Wonder Woman, so there's a chance I'll miss one issue while it starts up and I let my DCBS order lag. It's good to know I can just hop over to the DC app to see what I missed. Sure, there'll be a missing issue in my run, but going to back to the previous question that won't really bug me, and if it did, that's what the eventual 50 cent bin is for.

* What turns you on or off to titles?
- Turn ons - Great artwork, compelling storylines that just happen (ie. not "An Event So Big It'll Change Everything!"), good characters I can either believe in or admire, and yes, I'll own up to it, the occasional slice of cheesecake.
- Turn offs - Typos in major publisher's books. I can forgive it from the indie and self-publishing crowd (I've had 'em in my own books and I hate them!), but the Big Two, Image, etc...if you're going to tout yourself as the standard by which we all should aspire to...hire a damn proofreader!

* What do you think about variant covers?
- They are the Devil's work & marketing people are demons tempting our mortal collector's souls.
I don't bother with them, but I can see why people like them. The only reason I put them down as "the Devil's Work" is that the culture they've created has taken the emphasis off the story itself sometimes. Good lord, even the My Little Pony book is coming out with SIX variant covers. I understand marketing, and I'm not against anyone making an honest dollar, but the climate the variant cover people created just scares me sometimes.

[BobBretall]

Do you pre order?
NO!! The whole concept as it currently exists in the comic market is completely ludicrous. Comic books are neither custom made nor durable goods they are “cheap” disposable entertainment. The idea of paying months in advance for such a disposable good is insane, and no other producer of such goods expects their customers to do so.

Just a point of clarification. Pre-order /= pre-pay.

You can pre-order on a pull list at your LCS and not pay until you pick up the books.

For an on-line business like DCBS, you do pre-pay, but there are 2 key facts I consider:
1) I benefit from pre-paying in that I get ~35% discount after all expenses (like shipping & the fact that some things have higher discounts than others).
I think it's reasonable to pre-pay if I also get the benefit of an increased discount.

2) I'm not really paying that much in advance.
* The current order is the September list for books shipping in November.
* I provide the order to DCBS by the end of September
* They bill my credit card ~Oct 15th.
* I get the credit card bill around the end of October & need to send a check by ~Nov 7th.
* I send the check & the money comes out of my account sometime in early November. By this point in time, I'm already getting books on the order.
==> Sure, some things will come out late or get cancelled, but I refer back to #1 above, that since I'm getting a big discount, that compensates for stuff like this.

------------------

All this said, not pre-ordering is a personal choice, but you can pre-order with an LCS and not pre-pay.

[fudd71]

Do you pre order?
NO!! The whole concept as it currently exists in the comic market is completely ludicrous. Comic books are neither custom made nor durable goods they are “cheap” disposable entertainment. The idea of paying months in advance for such a disposable good is insane, and no other producer of such goods expects their customers to do so.

Just a point of clarification. Pre-order /= pre-pay.

You can pre-order on a pull list at your LCS and not pay until you pick up the books.

For an on-line business like DCBS, you do pre-pay, but there are 2 key facts I consider:
1) I benefit from pre-paying in that I get ~35% discount after all expenses (like shipping & the fact that some things have higher discounts than others).
I think it's reasonable to pre-pay if I also get the benefit of an increased discount.

You are correct preordering doesn’t not necessarily mean prepaying. There are shops (and I would assume most) that have customers pay when books arrive. There are however shops like one local to me that offers a bigger discount to customers that submit payment with their monthly order form.

Again I understand people and stores (both LCS and online) offering discounts for preordering/ prepaying. My real complain is the fact that publishers have adopted this preorder/ prepay mind set as standard operating procedure. I have heard several creators or publisher spokesmen suggest to consumers that if they wish to get or have books be made they must preorder. It would be one thing if this was limited to smaller publishers but I have heard this form the “big two”. This is a dangerous mindset for several reasons. The biggest being that marketing all goes into preorders and solicits, this will never attract non-insiders to comics. The truth is dealer solicits and distributor catalogs should not be for the consumer. What marketing dollars the publishers have should go into promoting the books the week or two before and after they come out not months ahead of time. Also the distributors should have nothing to do with the end user, especially not selling them catalogs. Try to image this practice being done in a similar disposable entertainment market like video games. So I want a video game and walk into my local toy store. The Average video game is about $50 we will say. So I get to the store and they hand me a video game catalog for $65 tell me to fill it out and bring it back and then they will give me the game I want in a few months for say 20% off or $40. The whole idea is ridiculous but comic readers do this every month without thinking twice. The things we except just because we are told its normal long enough is astounding.

We often talk about what we think would be better for comics as a whole. I think the preordering solicit driven marketing is bad for the industry as a whole. I don’t understand why publishers particularly the big two don’t focus more on selling subscriptions to consumers (I know they would have to keep books around for longer than 10 issues if you were selling 6-month or yearly subscriptions how would we live with titles not being rebooted/ re numbered ever six months). While subscriptions exist the publishers seem to try and hide that fact and not really try and sell them. If they concentrated on subscriptions they could build up a large subscriber base and then leverage those numbers to go to a real book or magazine distributor with actual connections to retailers instead of Diamond and their few thousand small shops. Comics need to be marketed to and available to the public not just the people that go to comic shops on a weekly basis.

2) I'm not really paying that much in advance.
* The current order is the September list for books shipping in November.
* I provide the order to DCBS by the end of September
* They bill my credit card ~Oct 15th.
* I get the credit card bill around the end of October & need to send a check by ~Nov 7th.
* I send the check & the money comes out of my account sometime in early November. By this point in time, I'm already getting books on the order.
==> Sure, some things will come out late or get cancelled, but I refer back to #1 above, that since I'm getting a big discount, that compensates for stuff like this.

------------------

All this said, not pre-ordering is a personal choice, but you can pre-order with an LCS and not pre-pay.

This is not really true. You are paying for your comics on the15th. The fact that you don’t have to pay your credit card statement for another few weeks is irrelevant. Based on that logic the book I just bought a few minutes ago at the shop are free for a few weeks, until I receive and pay my credit card statement. The payment terms you have agreed upon with your credit card company are what they are and having nothing to do with the store you buy your comics from.

[LA Rabbit]

* Do you pre-order?
- From a mail order service (DCBS, Sci-Fi Genre, etc)
- Pull List at a comic shop

I do not. I did pre-order one book, the Engines of Doom from 215 Ink, due next month I think. I did not like doing it and doubt I will do it again. Once in awhile I will call the LCS and have him grab a book off the shelf and hold it until I come in but those are books that are already out.

* Do you buy stuff "off the rack"?

Yes, I do buy off the rack. Trades I have taken to buying online as I can usually get 45 to 50% percent off routinely. I also buy at conventions as well. For real indy comics, I buy from the creator's at conventions or off the internet.

* What do you primarily buy/collect?
- Just what strikes you?
- Buy/Collect titles?
- Buy/Collect characters?
- Buy/collect by creative team

Mostly what strikes my fancy. There are a few creators which will usually get my dollars, Ryan Dunleavey, Fred Van Lente, Pat Mills, The Houghtons, King Bone Press.

* Do you prefer primarily
- Print Comics
- Digital
- Collected Editions

Print comics to start but I am moving to collected editions. They are easier to store and read and it seems like the big 2 are moving to creating them for the trade. I have a very little digital but do not care for it.

* Do you limit what you buy based on
- Budget
- Time you have to read the stuff

You forgot one other resource, SPACE. I have taken to reading quite a bunch of stuff out of the library to save space. Mostly big 2 books that I will never likely read again. If I could warm up to digital, I would buy everything but no room, no room.

* Do you get comics:
- Just to read
- You like to collect
- Both!

Mostly to read but I like to collect a little as well. Particularly the indy books that I like to get personalized by the creators. I also think those Artist Editions, and other nice collections are great to have.

* If you miss an issue do you:
- Look for it as a back issue
- Skip it & that's OK
- Stop getting the series

about 50/50 look for back issue or skip. If it is easy to find, I will buy it but I usually won't go through too much work if it crazy. Maybe it if was a series I was nuts for.

* What turns you on or off to titles?
- Turn ons (Guest stars, cross-overs, etc)
- Turn offs (Double-shipping, cross overs, $3.99 price, etc)

Probably cancelling the titles... That seems to happen to books I like. Probably the big thing is when the creative teams change up. I am not thrilled with cross-overs but if I like the book I will stick with it. I am not really counting when I try out a new series for a few issues and don't continue. I try a few new things and sometimes they just don't click.

* What do you think about variant covers?
- I don't care one way or the other
- I love 'em! Who needs the insides of a comic, a cool cover is where it's at!
- They are the Devil's work & marketing people are demons tempting our mortal collector's souls.

They are neat to look at but I have never paid more for them. Glad they are around for those who dig them. I like looking at them in the collected editions. The only one that I actually wanted but never found (and it is probably too expensive) is the C.P. Wilson one that is done as homage to Winnie the Pooh with the Hulk stuck. Anyone has that that wants to dump it for cheap, please let me know.

Another Possible Question is Crossovers?
Do you buy the other titles?
Skip?
Drop the title you did buy?

I usually skip the cross-over issues but I keep buying the title I like. If the other book is getting good buzz, I will flip through it in the store and buy it if it looks cool.

Another Possible Question: Events?
Buy the main?
Buy it all?
drop the titles you were reading that were on the fence?

I started buying the main books for Fear Itself and AvX but quite on AvX. I don't buy any of the side books. Now I just read the trades (for the sides ones and the main ones) out of the library. I did Flashpoint, Secret Invasion, Fear Itself (the sides and crossovers), I am forgetting some Marvel Events I know I am ....

Cool stuff.

[Trev]

Here are my answers -- my stance and attitude on this has evolved over the years as I've gotten deeper into collecting and evaluating my buying and reading habits against the aspects of the hobby I enjoy.

* Do you pre-order?

For a few years I bought from DCBS. In fact, I met John as part of making that decision and trying to figure it out. Once I got back into the hobby, I was consuming a ton of new stuff figuring out what I liked and didn't and DCBS was by far the best way to do that.

Today I do not maintain a pull list or order from DCBS. This is primarily because the Austin market does not discount for pre-orders. Some stores maintain pull list as a courtesy, but nobody discounts.

* Do you buy stuff "off the rack"?

Exclusively now. I typically buy 3-5 books a week and enjoy not having to track what is waiting for me at a particular store vs. where I'm at. I travel a bit for my job and enjoy being able to visit any local shop wherever I'm at on Wed and buy whatever interests me.

My loyalty in this case is to comics and the comics community and not a particular LCS. Even when I'm in town, I vary where I buy my books based on shops I like and what my schedule looks like on any given Wed.

I enjoy 'spreading the love'.

* What do you primarily buy/collect?

I used to buy tons of Superhero stuff with a smattering of indie books. Today I tend to buy primarily indie books with a smattering of the Superhero stuff I'm particularly drawn to. I tend to avoid crossovers and look for creative teams who are doing signature runs or interesting things with characters. I don't follow any particular character or team religiously, though I did buy X-men, Avengers, JLA, and Spider-man heavily at various times.

On the back issue side (what I call 'the collection'), I collect runs of Gold/Silver/Bronze/Copper. I tend not to buy anything published after 1989-1992 depending on the publisher and the bulk of my collection is silver age marvel and DC. For the various ages, I like to buy:

GA: 3.5 and higher
SA: 4.5 and higher
BA: 6.5 and higher
CA: 8.5 and higher

I follow whatever interests me at the time, either from a genre, creator, or historic perspective. So my collection is all over the place -- crime, horror, war, superhero, funny animal, teen, licensed, etc. The one area I don't have any in right now is romance, though I'm starting to get interested in the artists who worked on those books (Romita, Simon/Kirby, Matt Baker, etc). I also don't have much from the sci-fi/horror GA books -- EC, ACG, Fiction House, etc.

* Do you prefer primarily

Print. Floppies. They are more reflective of the time they were published and that is probably the most interesting thing to me. Plus I love having the ads and the original copy just as much as the story in most cases.

* Do you limit what you buy based on

For new stuff, it is purely about time. At one point I bought whatever interested me, but as I built up more than a long box of unread books, I realized that it was just ridiculous for me. Most books rarely hold their value, so I was essentially just throwing money away on unread books. I shifted to buying more back issues and fewer new issues and I enjoy that much more.

I haven't been buying books off the racks for 30 years, and just started building my collection over the last 8 or 9 years. Even when I did collect as a kid I was buying late bronze and copper with a smattering of silver back issues. And it all disappeared around 1989 when I sold them. Even then my 'collection' was maybe 2 longboxes of books in bags only.

* Do you get comics:
- Just to read
- You like to collect
- Both!

Both. I manage them completely differently though. Books I read are not necessarily books I collect. They'll become books I collect when I've had them for more than 10 yrs.

* If you miss an issue do you:
- Look for it as a back issue
- Skip it & that's OK
- Stop getting the series

Depends on how much I like the book. I found over time that missing an issue was sometimes an indicator of my interest level in a book (that i wasn't interested) and so I would drop it. If I missed the issue and didn't 'miss' that I didn't read it, then I would drop.

Sometimes I miss an issue of a book I really enjoy, in which case I will search it out. Luckily I live less than a couple of miles to 2 different LCS's, one of which stocks most everything, so the times that I miss an issue I really want and can't find it are low.

I have however stopped going to ebay for 'hot' books that missed. I will just wait for the trade or not read it in that case.

* What turns you on or off to titles?
- Turn ons (Guest stars, cross-overs, etc)
- Turn offs (Double-shipping, cross overs, $3.99 price, etc)

Now this feels like The Playboy Interview.

On:

* Good take on great characters
* Excellent writing
* Interesting Art
* Interesting concept
* Throwback stories

Off:

* Line wide xover
* reboots
* numbering changes
* double shipping
* stunt
* variable quality writing or art

I value consistency over variation. The feeling that a creative team is working on something larger than the single issue and committed to the characters and stories.

* What do you think about variant covers?
- I don't care one way or the other
- I love 'em! Who needs the insides of a comic, a cool cover is where it's at!
- They are the Devil's work & marketing people are demons tempting our mortal collector's souls.

Yes. I hate them except for when I love them.

I do intensely dislike variant covers that are for example just the line art, changing color, foil variant, etc.

[Gilgabob]

* Do you pre-order?
- From a mail order service (DCBS, Sci-Fi Genre, etc)
- Pull List at a comic shop

Pre-order form DCBS

* Do you buy stuff "off the rack"?

I rarely visit a shop. I have nothing against them but there are none nearby (within 20 miles)

* What do you primarily buy/collect?
- Just what strikes you?
- Buy/Collect titles?
- Buy/Collect characters?
- Buy/collect by creative team

I have a few titles that I'm loyal to no matter what but mostly I will add/drop most anything that either is falling short or looks interesting.

* Do you prefer primarily
- Print Comics
- Digital
- Collected Editions

Print. I have paid for a few digital comics

* Do you limit what you buy based on
- Budget
- Time you have to read the stuff

Luckily the time to read things tends to match up with what I like to pay each month for comics. If I ever started to get a stack of unread books I would cut back. All my books are read before the next shipment arrives.

* Do you get comics:
- Just to read
- You like to collect
- Both!

Primarily to read but I handle each issue as gentle as possible and every one is entered into my comics database then bagged, boarded, and stored in a long box. So there is a collector component.

* If you miss an issue do you:
- Look for it as a back issue
- Skip it & that's OK
- Stop getting the series

This is where the digital has been handy. If it's and old book I want I will use eBay. (I just completed an Avengers 1-100 run this way for example.)

* What turns you on or off to titles?
- Turn ons (Guest stars, cross-overs, etc)
- Turn offs (Double-shipping, cross overs, $3.99 price, etc)

I love when a well crafted story collides with fantastic art.
I don't love renumbering. I've started to ignore this as the marketing ploy it is so I'm not as annoyed as I used to be but still not a big fan. (i'm getting zero Marvel Now books).
I don't mind GOOD crossovers

* What do you think about variant covers?
- I don't care one way or the other
- I love 'em! Who needs the insides of a comic, a cool cover is where it's at!
- They are the Devil's work & marketing people are demons tempting our mortal collector's souls

I don't buy variants so I'm of the opinion if you want to buy varaints at a premium price, knock yourself out.

[JohnMayo]

* Do you pre-order?
I had a pull list for the longest time at the local comic book shop. In more than one case, the poor way the pull list was handled at the store eventually caused me to move my business elsewhere. The last time that happened, around late November 2003, I switched to preordering and prepaying for comics through DCBS. I've been a happy customer of DCBS ever since.

* Do you buy stuff "off the rack"?
Sometimes but not often. Since switching to DCBS, I haven't needed to go to the local comic stores as much and my impulse buying has dropped accordingly. That having been said, if I hear good things about a comic, that can be enough to get me into a comic shop to check it out.

* What do you primarily buy/collect?
I buy what looks interesting to me.

A title needs to have *some reason* for me to get it. Sometimes that is a cool concept. Or characters that are just fun to watch. Or a dialogue that is fun to listen to/read. The reasons can and do vary wildly from title to title. The more such reason a title has, the safer it is on my pull list.

Other times it is continuing with a title I've enjoyed for years, even if it isn't on a creative high point. Part of that is a completist mentality on my part but a lot of it comes down to me wanting to have the big picture, both of the character/team and of the universe in question. I do not jump on and off titles as creators change or at the start/stop of storylines. Generally, either I'm reading the title or I'm not. If I'm simply not liking a title or come to the conclusion it isn't something I need to read, the title gets dropped.

For anyone interested in what I mean buy "something I don't need to read," I don't need or want to read anything graphically gory. I don't need to read something for the sole purpose of being able to say I read it. I certainly don't need to read something just because it exists. I have little to no interest in horror/supernatural titles or suspense/thrill stories. Slice of life stories rarely keep my interest over the long haul. I like the super-hero genre and enjoy well written science fiction stories, gravitating mainly towards alternate timelines, time travel stories and Star Trek like space adventure stories.

When I throttle back my reading, which I've done a couple of times, I tend not to drop titles but to drop families/groups of titles, imprints, or entire publishers. There is a bit of an "in for a penny, in for a pound" with my buying habits.

There are particular characters I really like and follow but typically I'm getting the titles anyway. I will typically pick up an issue of a title I don't read if it is involved in a crossover with titles I do read. On occassion that will get me on or back on a title I wasn't reading every month but that doesn't happen often because I'm already getting more titles in the lines of comics that tend to have crossovers.

As for creators, I tend not to obsess about them too much. I can't think of any creators that I specifically avoid. There are some who get the benefit of the doubt. I'll give writers like Mark Waid a chance to hook me on a title because usually they do. If I don't like that first issue, don't expect me to come back. Often I'll give a series a few issues so the title can build some story momentum because I'm a nice guy.

I will admit there is at least one publisher that my default decision is to not buy from, even if the title is something I'd probably get from another publisher. I'm not an overly forgiving guy on a few things. If a publisher gets on my bad side because of titles starting and then vanishing or too many titles aborting-to-trade or for some other reason. That is an exceptino case and if a title is good enough, I'd probably get it anyway.

Overall, I buy what I feel like buying.

* Do you prefer primarily
I'm mainly into periodical print comics. I like not having to commit an hour or two of reading time like you have to do for a collected edition. The collected editions I get are usually older material I don't want to hunt down or pay permium back issue prices for.

As someone you likes to get something tangible for my money, I haven't spent that much on digital comics. I like the format and find them great to read on my Transformer tablet. I just don't like the price point on digital comics, particularly since I can get the print version cheaper through DCBS.

* Do you limit what you buy based on
I try to limit my monthly DCBS order to around $500 or so. Sometimes it goes over, sometimes under. I don't really use that as a hard limit. If the cost of a monthly order is higher than my general comfort level, I'll start to look for things I might want to reconsider. Flip side, if the total is coming in unusually low, I might spend a little extra time looking around in Previews for additional things I might like.

As far as budgeting time, I try to read all of my new comics every week. If I get behind, I try to catch up as quickly as possible. I find letting new comics pile up quickly results in a short box or two of a reading backlog.

* Do you get comics:
I like to read. I keep what I read so some people consider me a collector but I'm more of an accumulator.

* If you miss an issue do you:
I don't miss issues often. When I do, I usually try to fill the gap. Sometimes, it can be enough for me to drop a book that I'm not really clicking with as much as I'd like.

* What turns you on or off to titles?
- Turn ons (Guest stars, cross-overs, etc)
- Turn offs (Double-shipping, cross overs, $3.99 price, etc)

* What do you think about variant covers?
I think variant covers are bad for the industry. They drive a collector mentality over a focus on reading and enjoying the material.

To be clear, I did not consider alternate, variant and/or incentive covers to be "the Devil's work" not do I think "marketing people are demons tempting our mortal collector's souls."

These sales gimmicks are counter-productive to getting new *readers* on titles. They are a simplistic sales ploy to get around the fact that most comic book titles are not successfully engaging the readers enough for all of them to come back for the next issue.

That having been said, I have a fair number of alternate, variant and/or incentive covers in my collection. I've double dipped on titles like Infinite Crisis because I liked both sets of covers.

So, while I think cover gimmicks are a destructive force within the industry, I also think readers should buy whatever they want and that includes supporting these bad marketing practices.

[BobBretall]

My real complaint is the fact that publishers have adopted this preorder/ prepay mind set as standard operating procedure. I have heard several creators or publisher spokesmen suggest to consumers that if they wish to get or have books be made they must preorder. It would be one thing if this was limited to smaller publishers but I have heard this form the “big two”. This is a dangerous mindset for several reasons. The biggest being that marketing all goes into preorders and solicits, this will never attract non-insiders to comics. The truth is dealer solicits and distributor catalogs should not be for the consumer. What marketing dollars the publishers have should go into promoting the books the week or two before and after they come out not months ahead of time.

Valid points. Somewhat necessary though in the world of a direct market where an LCS needs to pre-order monhts in advance & if they stock stuff that doesn't sell to a large enough degree they face a real possibility of going out of business.

I'm no expert on the GameStop market, but if they order 100 copies of a video game & only sell 2, do they eat the cost of the unsold 98 or can they return them to the manufacturer?

Does it work this way for Best Buy ordering movies?

Maybe, but these are National chains, maybe they can absorb this easier than an LCS.

Another thing I'm not sure about is how many people actually pre-order vs. how many people just wander in & buy off the rack.
Are the pre-order people really accounting for the majority of sales on the "top comics"?

As a for instance, the LCS I go to has pull lists. When new books come in, they skim the pull-list copies off the rack, these end up filed away behind the counter waiting for the pull-list customer to come in & pick them up. By definition if a book is "on the rack" it is something that will be bought by someone that didn't have it on a pull list.

I typically see HUGE amounts of the popular books out on the rack on a Weds. I'm talking 50+ copies. That means there are a decent # of people just buying these things off the rack.

I think pre-orders account for a decent % of sales on the books with lower circulation, but have less of an impact on the "big'uns" like Batman, AvX, and Justice League.

This is not really true. You are paying for your comics on the15th. The fact that you don’t have to pay your credit card statement for another few weeks is irrelevant.

You are, of course, technically correct. But until the money actually leaves my checking account, I don't "feel" the purchase.

[BobBretall]

* Do you limit what you buy based on
- Budget
- Time you have to read the stuff

You forgot one other resource, SPACE. I have taken to reading quite a bunch of stuff out of the library to save space. Mostly big 2 books that I will never likely read again. If I could warm up to digital, I would buy everything but no room, no room.


Another Possible Question is Crossovers?
Do you buy the other titles?
Skip?
Drop the title you did buy?

I usually skip the cross-over issues but I keep buying the title I like. If the other book is getting good buzz, I will flip through it in the store and buy it if it looks cool.

Another Possible Question: Events?
Buy the main?
Buy it all?
drop the titles you were reading that were on the fence?

You're full of good ideas! (Probably better than what people usually tell you you're full of....)

I'll add these to the main post.

[torchsong]

I think pre-orders account for a decent % of sales on the books with lower circulation, but have less of an impact on the "big'uns" like Batman, AvX, and Justice League.

"Pre-orders are the lifeblood of the independent creator." - Steve Bryant, creator of Athena Voltaire, artist on Boom!'s Steed and Mrs. Peel series.

Hopefully Steve won't mind me quoting him. It's very true, though. Outside of the Big Two (heck I'd even throw Image, IDW, Dynamite, etc. in there), if you're a small-press publisher (y'know, those pages in the back of Previews nobody reads? ), it's often crucial to get enough word of mouth and pre-orders out there to get your book solicited. An LCS is unlikely to order big numbers...or any at all...unless people ask for it, and are willing to pay for it.

[torchsong]

To answer the new questions:

Crossovers?

Avoid until a collected edition comes out. If one doesn't come out, I don't lose sleep over it. I won't skip a run on a book I'm reading if it suddenly becomes part of a crossover, but even if it ends on a cliffhanger, I'm more apt to go to the LCS, see what happened, and put it back on the shelf unless the art really screams "buy me!" That may sound like a jerk move, and it probably is, but I'm not the one doing the crossover in the hopes that it'll sell more books.

Events?
Buy the main?

I would buy the main. I say "would" because I avoid events like the plague now. Eventually they'll get collected and if word of mouth says it was really good, that's how I'll pick it up. Secret Invasion just burned me to the point where I stopped and haven't looked back.