MARVEL LEGACY: Comic Book Shops Are Rebelling Against Lenticular Order Requirements
Marvel is relaunching their entire comic line but local comic book shops are starting to unite and outright boycott the series due to the publisher's cumbersome requirements for lenticular covers.
As Secret Empire looks to finish up a run that began back in May 2017, attention is beginning to turn to Marvel's relaunch of its entire comic line this September. Under the branding of Marvel Legacy, the comic publisher will be looking to focus on its core characters and rich history with 53 renumbered or new titles that explore the most important superhero mantles in Marvel and the relationship between the various characters that have assumed them in recent years. This relaunch comes after 2012's Marvel NOW! which focused on a younger and more diverse crop of heroes that looked to step into their predecessor's shoes.
Comic book fans are excited to see old heroes return to reclaim their costumes, mantles and powers from their younger counterparts but some comic book retailers are a bit miffed with Marvel over their requirements for special lenticular covers (see full list of Legacy titles below). It seems Marvel is requiring retailers to order 2x or 3x their usual number in order to get access to the flashy covers that fans inexplicably covet. Doing so, retailers complained, ensures that the issues with lenticular covers sell but at the expense of the regular covers (which Marvel required them to order more of), which would sit on shelves.
"It's a very strange business model to put one's primary customer base in a position to have to purchase 2 to 2.25 times the product it knows it can sell to provide the 1 times quantity it needs for its customers," said Ralph DiBernardo of Rochester, New Hamshire's Jetpack Comics.
"I have tried to crunch numbers and have spoken to a lot of other stores and find that I'm not alone. We would have to order more regular covers than we could ever sell just to qualify for a lenticular," said Arizona comic store owner Jesse James Criscione in a FB post.
Marvel has since lowered its minimum order requirements for the less popular Legacy titles such as Cable: The Newer Mutants but more popular books, like Invincible Iron Man: The Search For Tony Stark still have the same 200% minimum requirement.
Will you be supporting the retailers in their efforts to confront Marvel on its sales-inflating practices? Or are you siding with Marvel and believe the company is simply using sound business strategy to retain their majority ownership of market sales? Let us know in the usual spot below.