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Thursday, January 08, 2004

Bookstores dictate Elfquest? 

This interview with the Pinis has most of the regular things in it. Mentions of how happy they are to be at DC, about the various upcoming books, about re-coloring old volumes, and even about the manga influence. I found this quote expecially interesting, though:


At the San Diego Comic Con 2002, where we coincidentally had our first meeting with DC's higher-ups, Warp Graphics' Waldenbooks sales rep informed us that they could no longer sell our black and white ElfQuest Readers' Collection volumes at their current size. Richard and I were strongly urged to hop on the manga bandwagon and repackage our books in that smaller format. Because we were nowhere near closing a deal with DC, Warp was already planning, if it became necessary, to take advantage of the manga craze sweeping the nation, filling shelf after shelf in the big chain book stores. We think it's a brilliant move, on DC's part, to incorporate this commercial awareness into their publishing plan and to launch it with ElfQuest, which is and always was manga influenced.

It isn't just a matter of the Pinis or DC deciding to go with this format. The rep for Waldenbooks point blank told them the stuff wasn't selling in the big size and they should really go with the digest format. While I'm happy DC decided to stick with the decision, it is also kind of disappointing that DC didn't come up with this on their own, though not all that surprising. Still, if this is successful, that combined with the already good numbers of Dead: At Death's Door will hopefully encourage them to do more stuff in this vein. I think it's also a good example of the places like bookstores already knowning what is working and what they want. IMO, they shouldn't even be having to bring this stuff up themselves...

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