By Martijn Form  Hello Vertigolovers, Do you feel like I do that comic buyers are special customers? Most of us don't go into a comic book store, grab the comics we want from the shelves and then leave. We stay a long time there, searching for new things. Well, at least I do. On average I spend an hour to an hour and a half in the comic book store a week. Most of the time I start out by collecting my pull list comics and gazing through them. I always have my little notebook with me, where I write down which books I ordered and which I should pick up that week. This way I can check to see if I'm missing any issues. Store-owners are human you know; they can make mistakes. Is it really necessary to keep comic book purchases so organized? For me it is. I collect about 25-30 series a month, so I have to keep track of things. Maybe it's compulsive behavior in the making. Ha Ha. My comic pleasure starts two months in advance, on the last Wednesday of the month, to be exact. This is when the new Previews arrives in stores. When I get hold of the new Previews, that's the first thing I read when I get back home. Of course, I begin with the Vertigo section, and then go to the beginning of the Previews to the Dark Horse section and make my way through the publisher's alphabet. The last thing I read is Marvel Previews. Pun intended here. By the way, did you notice that Marvel raised its Previews book from 0.99 cents to 1.25? Yeah I know it's still free when you pick up the larger Previews book, but still… I write down my order list on a piece of paper to hand over to the comic-store owner. Then I write down--and this is very important—with a new pencil any new series I'm going to follow. Why pencil? So when the new series is cancelled or I decide to drop it, I can erase it from my note book without making a mess of my organization. That way I don't have to re-write entire pages every couple of months. I do like order in this chaotic world. I'd like to think that I'm one of the first readers when Diamondcomics.com provides, at 5pm, a list of new comics and trades arriving in comic shops that week. I write down what I intend on picking up. My must haves. Then I compile a small list of what seems interesting to take a look at. Then I connect my browser to the Vertigo site, and double check their list, trying to avoid any taglines or synopsizes and--if it's possible--the covers of the books I'm picking up. I like to be surprised, folks! Then comes the hard part: the waiting. The waiting for the best day of the week: Wednesday. Wednesday is really special for me, solely because new comics arrive in stores. It depresses me quite a bit when some kind of holiday makes new comics come out on Thursday. It unbalances my whole routine. After picking up my ordered books, I head out to the shelves. Looking at all those comic books reminds me what a wonderful world we live in. So there seems to be a recession. It's hard, man. I read an advertisement slogan somewhere: "Cut down costs, don't cut down comics." Lovely slogan, don't you think? The most recent issue of Fables had an impressive price tag of $4.99. Okay, granted, you got a lot more story for your money, but still. I read somewhere that Marvel sees the need to raise the prices of their single issues as inevitable, due to the raising costs of paper and their talent. Well, you can argue what Marvel calls "talent." I will leave that to my CB colleagues, but the situation raises a question for me. What kind of price tag would I find too steep for a Vertigo comic? I think it's an interesting question that is pretty hard to answer. I know that several comic lovers I speak to don't buy Avatar or IDW comics just because they charge a buck extra for their comics. Some friends of mine already dropped some series due to the increase in price from $2.99 to $3.50 for a single issue. They are now going to wait for the trade, but I can't do it because if I drop all my series, I have to wait at least six months for the trade. What am I going to do in those six months? Stay home? Not buy comics on a weekly basis but only once a month? Hell, no, that is no option for me. Maybe if prices are going up on my favorite books, I have to cut down my pull list. Twenty series a month is the bare minimum I must read though. When it comes to Vertigo, I always love to talk about their books and trades with other comic fans. Everyone with a nice comic stack at the store counter can expect some conversation with me. I look at their pile and ask them why they are not reading a specific Vertigo book, because if they like this kind of DC or Marvel book, they are going to love some Vertigo. Wolverine fan? Read Scalped or 100 Bullets because it's just as gritty. X-Men fan? The Invisibles could be up your alley. Loving what Grant Morrison does with Batman, wait until you read The Filth, and so on. And mind you, all my Vertigo promotion is done on a friendly basis. We comic fans love to read, but also love talking about our favorite past time, right? I hope that I can keep coming to comic book stores until the day I die. When I go blind, I already have a backup plan: my wife shall have to read them to me, and she can't skip describing the art work. She wouldn’t mind because it's her own suggestion. Once when I had a pretty steep fever, she was as sweet as my mom and read me a comic book, just like your mother did when you were little. And yes, she used different voices for the different characters. It would be a blast, if I wasn't drooling all over the place. So I hope there is an afterlife. And if there is, I hope they have comic book stores so I can keep reading Vertigo books throughout eternity. See you next Monday, and remember: cut down costs, don't cut down Vertigo comics. |
