FOUR COLOR COMMENTARIES #31: Where Did The White Boxes Go?

[Richard Davidson, Jr.]

Where Did The White Boxes Go?

Look back in time with me though it really isn't all that far back. Every comic book store you went into seemed to have the same layout - new and latest issues all along the walls with white long boxes arranged in the middle. It would blow a person's mind to see the amount of long boxes that the given store would try to cram into their store space. I guess they thought that maximizing their back issue stock meant maximizing their profit margin though that is very debatable.

When you go into your local this week, take a look around and see how many long boxes you see and you might be surprised. Where they were all over the place up and into the current century, it seems like those bastions of past reading are vanishing right in front of our eyes. I guess this might be a sad thing for the old folks like yours truly but it can also seem to be good on the same side of the coin.

I have so many memories of spending a little time poking through the back issue boxes with every visit to my store of choice. You just had to take a swing past them to make sure that nothing you might be looking for had been slid in without you seeing it. Being a collector can sometimes be a lonely endeavor but it can feel so much better if you find the Blue Beetle volume 2 issue that completes your entire run in the quarter bin. That's comic book gold you've got there!

The quarter bins also seemed to be the home of parents that collect and want to get some stuff for their kids. Instead of paying full price for something on the wall or pulling some stuff from the standard long boxes, you could always see a parent or three taking a wander past the cheap boxes as they headed toward the cash register. If you aren't sure if your kid will like a book or not, it winds up being a safe way to test the waters to grab some books on the cheap.

Along with the quarter boxes, there were also a large amount of what I call "standard" boxes. These long boxes were more liberally priced and you would find a wider variety than you'd find in the quarter bins. These were the nicer copies of the books and the series that are more popular and the prices showed just how costly some of the choice issues were. Stores still tend to have some of these sections though they are disappearing a lot faster than the quarter bins are. I guess the cost versus popularity tends to dictate how many boxes you have.

What could be making such a drastic change in the physical landscape of your store? Just like so many of the most recent changes in the comic book world, it all comes down to the trade paperback.

While we might read the books for the enjoyment factor, it always pays to remember that this is a business to the companies that supply the stores we visit with the books that we buy. If the big companies aren't making a profit, then it can lead to all manner of dangerous events, including companies going out of business. One of the easiest and usually most cost effective is to release trades of the books that they release. They can make so much more money releasing an entire storyline in one book in comparison to doing it one issue at a time. Then you have the fact that these paperback books fit ever so nicely on the shelves of your local standard book stores and you can see how this is a money making behemoth. A trade paperback allows the comic book company to have more avenues for sales potential and they will always go with that.

At the same time, this sales potential also works out nicely for the comic store owner too. Cut down on the blank space that currently holds long boxes of past issues and replace them with a couple smaller racks or shelves of paperbacks and you can have a nice profit base for the store. The book gives the reader a beginning and an ending not unlike a prose novel. You might have a series of novels that tell one whole story but it isn't that hard to pick up a part of the series and get some form of enjoyment out of it. You don't need to start at the beginning of a comic series to find a trade paperback from that series that you can easily read and enjoy.

The comic book store of my childhood will always be full of those white long boxes full of past issues for sale. It hasn't been a full ten years from the launch of the current version of the trade paperback but anyone can see how that one aspect has changed the shape of every store around us. Instead of searching for that single issue you need to find, now you can just grab the trade and get the whole thing in one shot. Easy of purchase might trump the old ways but it is kind of strange to see all of the boxes slowly disappearing into the stores of my childhood.

Sidebar Of The Week
There is a local law currently making it's way through the legislature that would allow women in their third trimester of pregnancy as handicapped and allow them to park in the handicapped spaces. A lot of people are thinking this is a good idea though there are also handicapped groups that are complaining that these additional people would take up the small amount of parking spaces that are available for the handicapped. It took a moment for me to realize why this whole thing was happening - these handicapped moms-to-be would still have to pay for the placard and the right to have it. It might sound like the government is being nice to the people that elected them into office but then you look under the surface to see the real reason for the hows and whys that things get done.

My Pull List - March 19, 2008
Birds Of Prey #116
Brave And The Bold #11
Fables #71
Invincible #49

[Terry Verticchio]

Most of the stores I go to still have plenty of back issues. But I just spend so much time and money buying my weekly load that I don't really check them out. I usually wait for a convention for my back-issue fix.

But every now and then I rummage through the quarter bin and find a gold strike. It's those moments that make me enjoy being a geek.

[chrismozer]

my local comic store has plenty of white boxes but they are usually packed so tight that it is impossible to look thru 'em...and it's been that way for years. Leads me to believe back issues just don't sell.

[Terry Verticchio]

Yesterday was a light week, so I went through the back issue bin of the my LCS and cleaned them out of some old Usagi Yojimbo comics.

[virtuadept]

Originally Posted by chrismozer

my local comic store has plenty of white boxes but they are usually packed so tight that it is impossible to look thru 'em...and it's been that way for years. Leads me to believe back issues just don't sell.

I think you're right that back issues don't sell that well, and probably the Trade Paperback business is the biggest reason why, along with the high cover price of current comics. The high price of comics means even collecting back issues can be expensive since a lot of them go for way higher than their original cover price, and finding them in a collected edition is almost always cheaper if you're wanting to read a long arc/full run.

But your local shop should at least not pack the boxes really tight like that because obviously YOU would have occasionally stopped to look through them but couldn't be bothered because they've got them packed in too tight to even be useful for browsing. Either that or they need to put in a kiosk with a database of what they have in inventory and which box it's in so customers can find the issues they may be looking for easier, or something like that. Sometimes I will pass my LCBS guy a list of back issues I'm on the prowl for, but about 2 years ago before I began collecting he lost almost all his back stock in a building fire, so unless it's fairly recent he won't have it anyway and he doesn't seem to be interested in replenishing his back stock of older comics (which is further evidence that back issues don't sell that well).

I am getting to the point after only around 18 months of collecting comics where I do not really feel the need to browse the back issue stacks any more on my trips to the comic store. I used to, because when I first started I was more exploratory in what I would try out as long as the price as right. But now I'm to the point where I know what I like. Unless there's some new character or old event I suddenly find myself with an interest in that I want to go read up on past issues, I won't bother with the back issues. Even then I'm about 90% more likely to go buy a TPB than to spend my time hunting back issues, unless it's a character that I actually want the actual comics for. I have more money than time and even if I were to luck out and pay less for the comics because they're in a stale long box somewhere, I would have lost out if it took more than 15 minutes of my time to find it when I could just log into Amazon or even eBay and order up the trade.

But I am very glad for the fairly strong TPB/HC business. For the new comic fan it is a real convenience, since I can catch up on long running series with relatively little hassle and expense. Plus it's got to be great for publishers since they can not only sell it in more places, they can continually provide books to meet demand for anyone interested in the book no matter how late it was after the comic first ran. A real long-tail economics opportunity.

What confuses the crap out of me is why some publishers seem to just not get it. I can't understand now why they let some seemingly popular books go completely out of print and unable to find in any form just to read. In a perfect world every single comic ever published would be available in a collected form online for ordering for a reasonable per-issue cost. Anything more than current cover rates for new books and I tend to not bother. So for a HC with 20 "issues" collected in it I might pay up to $60, if it's something I really want to read, but any of those out of print books going for $100+ are usually no-buys for me.

[chrismozer]

I used to browse all shops on Long Island when i was on a back issue hunt. Most of my hunts were due to wanting 1st appearances, origins or a really cool story.
As time went on, i found myself browsing less and less. This was mostly due to the stores not having them in the condition i wanted.
I don't think i've purchased a back issue in over 10 years. As it stands, i will wait for Countdown and Secret Invasion to get the H/C or TPB treatment. FYI...i'll probably wait for TPB. Nothing that great that requires me to buy a H/C that i'll read only once before passing it onto my son.

Ever notice that some stores have tons of copies of certain issues but never the one you want?

[chrismozer]

Good example of back issues vs. TPB........Secret Invasion Infiltration TPB is out and collects:
New Avengers: Illuminati #1 and #5
New Avengers #32, 33, 38, 39
Mighty Avengers #7,
Avengers: The Initiative Annual #1.

These are all fairly recent issues and may take some searching but why bother? This is one of the reasons i have stopped purchasing single issues.
I know that Countdown and Secret Invasion will get the TPB treatment as will Final Crisis. Downside will be that i won't be on the cusp of all the possible excitment on a monthly basis but it's just easier then possiblyl missing an issue and the weekly trip to the comic shop is getting tiresome.