Posted on: April 15th, 2010 Comic Book Day Moving to Tuesday?
Here’s a little nugget of news:
This weekend marks the first Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo. While Giant Killer Squid will be in attendance at the main convention, the retailers’ summit has already begun. It seems Diamond Comic Distributors pitched the idea to the attending retailers that new comic books might go back to being distributed on Tuesdays.
For a long time, thanks to Diamond, new comics have been released on Wednesday while most entertainment media arrives on Tuesday (movies, music, video games). It seems those retailers at C2E2 have taken a vote and if it were up to them, Wednesday comics might be no more. Diamond also offered up the alternative that retailers could keep their new book shipment on Wednesday, but if they’d like them on Tuesday, it would be at a minor additional charge. I’m not entirely sure why that would matter, to be honest.
Why is this a good idea? Well, this way comic book shops might be able to have better success selling other media. You know those DC Animated DVDs? Well imagine that DVD for sale right next to the Secret Origins comic book it was based on. It might mean variant covers for DVDs sold at comic book shops versus your local entertainment retailer. Any number of marketing ideas could be concocted out of this idea. It’s very possible that this would help save some of those comic shops struggling to make ends meet with just the sale of comics and toys.
With the dawn on the digital age of comics upon us, this new distribution setup might be what saves the print medium. Let’s say that print comics are made available on Tuesday, while their digital copies are released on Wednesday. How many would clamor to the store fronts to be among the first to read as opposed to waiting 24 hours for a less expensive, yet intangible copy?
What do you think? Think you want to switch your favorite day of the week for Tuesday? Or will the addition of more marketable products just end up diluting the comic shops? Right now it’s basically hypothetical, but this could very well mean I have to request a new day off at work.