Thanks to the the indefatigable Dirk Deppey (third item down), I discovered this summary by the Pulse’s Heidi MacDonald of the latest Book Expo America, at which many comics publishers made, it would seem, quite substantial inroads into the bookstore market with hard- and softcover collected editions of their periodical offerings. The one exception, mind-bogglingly, was apparently Marvel, who despite putting out some of their best-ever comics in their best-ever collections managed to send only one inexperienced rep to this big event. Marvel had a similarly low-key presence at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, but I didn’t mind: by eschewing big light-up displays and models dressed as Elektra on the convention floor, they were able to fly in practically everyone who worked for them, all of whom were extremely available to fans and press (as I can testify from hanging out in their hospitality suite). But at San Diego, a comics-only convention, they’re superstars; at Book Expo they’re nobodies. If they’re really taking the bookstore market and trade-paperback format as seriously as they claim, they’d better get their act together there. There’s no reason why their really impressive collections (with uniformly better paper and reprint quality than their competitors’) should clean up at a place like that, and they dropped the ball.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I know a bunch of Marvel guys a bit, and I’m kinda sorta working on something for the company. Of course, the above is probably a “statement against interest” in that regard. Oh dear.)