(Comics Retailing) Early yesterday morning, someone calling himself "keithmeister" posted an email he'd received from Arizona comics retailer Bulldog Collectibles on the Newsarama message board. The email described a conflict between Bulldog and DC Comics, in which the comics publisher accused Bulldog of abusing the terms of sale and announced that it would henceforth refuse to allow Bulldog to buy its comics from Diamond Distribution. Bulldog, it should be noted, specialized in the purchase of multiple copies of perceived "hot" titles, which it would then resell to other retailers once the original print runs sold out. Here is the message DC sent to Bulldog in full, as reproduced in the email:
"19 June 2003
"Dear Greg: Following our conversation last year at the close of Comic-Con International: San Diego, DC Comics has again reviewed your website and your other promotional efforts. Due to your continued subdistribution of products in violation of DC's terms of sale, DC Comics has determined that Bulldog is no longer eligible to buy DC products via Diamond. If the nature of your business changes in the future, we will revaluate (sic) your eligibility.
"Sincerely,
DC Comics"
The Bulldog email went on to note that the retailer was cut off for some two and a half months, after which it finally reached an agreement with DC, under which the retailer would again receive DC product provided Bulldog did not attempt to again sell the company's books to other Diamond accounts until after the books had been on the stands for longer than three months, and only then if the books being sold were acquired from sources other than Diamond. Further, Bulldog was to provide DC with "detailed records on a quarterly basis to DC, specifying what DC comics [Bulldog] sold and to whom", as well as lists of the retailer's new customers, so that the publisher could ensure that the terms of the agreement were not being breached.
Later yesterday morning, an article on the subject appeared on rival news-site The Pulse, authored by Jennifer Contino. In the article, Contino interviewed Bulldog owner Greg Buls about the situation, and also noted, "Sources say that until a few months ago, Bulldog had a monopoly on the sold out comics and may have been responsible for the rash of DC Comics sell out issues from last year." Buls denied the notion that he was a factor in DC's sellouts, but his denial was more than a little curious in its phrasing. From the article:
"Buls admitted Bulldog, 'did purchase some issues that DC ended up selling out of, but I'm not aware of us running them out of anything. The largest percentage of any of their overprints that I'm aware of us EVER buying at any point was maybe 20% - 30% of the product. We generally purchase an amount like that long after the print run has been set and very near the time the book will be released -- so other retailers have had plenty of time to purchase issues themselves.'
"Buls offered his own view as to why DC Comics has had so many recent sell outs. 'The problem with the recent DC sell outs isn't Bulldog. It's something within DC's marketing department or some other factor that DC cannot control. We've only bought more than a thousand DC Comics on a handful of occasions.'
" 'For example, we did buy a fair quantity of SUPERMAN RED SON, but we sold at least 90 - 95% of what we bought at 40% off cover price to other retailers. That is typical. We exist to make books available to retailers in case they need them. We offer stuff they can't get from Diamond. A lot of bigger retailers order from us and support us because they like to see something different than just Diamond.' "
The article sparked discussion among the rest of the industry -- comics writer Warren Ellis pointed it out on the message board of the Comic Book Industry Alliance, at which point the industry insiders who populate that forum began debating its ramifications. Then, shortly after the article was posted, it was unceremoniously removed from The Pulse's website -- one of my more trustworthy sources is telling me that this action occured at the request of DC Comics, although I should strongly caution that this is unconfirmed and therefore speculative. If I were Rich Johnston, I'd give this one a yellow light; act accordingly.
Some of the gossip concerning the revelations in Contino's article apparently questioned whether there might have been some form of collusion between DC and Bulldog to create the sellout atmosphere and make DC's various titles seem "hot" to the speculators' market, but a close reading of the article reveals no evidence that this is the case. It seems far more likely to me that after warning a significant client once in 2002 over what it saw as unacceptable behavior, it simply took time for the thick layers of DC Comics' bureaucracy to follow up on what was going on, and that once this occured the company took steps to ensure that the violations of its Terms of Sale to retailers ceased, just as the Bulldog email posted to Newsarama indicated. Given DC's sharp response, the idea of prior collusion simply doesn't make sense on the face of it.
If DC did ask The Pulse to pull the article, however, the question remains: why? Without comment from the publisher, any answer to this question must of course be speculative. It's possible that the rumors of collusion reached the company, which then moved to nip them in the bud. Just as likely a reason, however, is the pall the article casts on DC's recent successes, even without such gossip spurring it on: by implying that the company's string of sold-out titles might have been aided -- however independently -- by a retailer looking to corner the market by purchasing upwards of 20-30% of the print run on select comics, the story makes DC's advances in the marketplace seem a little less genuine.
I think that this view is also more than a little unfair to DC. It's extremely unlikely that they're the only company whose titles have been purchased and resold by Bulldog; to the extent that mass quantities of comic books are being bought, held, and then re-sold for speculative purposes, it's almost certain to be a phenomenon taking place across the board. When you think about it, the spotlight cast on such practices by yesterday's controversy throws an unsettling aura over the whole industry. Was it entirely coincidental that the first new comics series published by Crossgen after the disclosure of its financial troubles, the pirate series El Cazador, sold out of its first printing so quickly? Having raised the question, I should note that Crossgen vice-president of sales and Marketing, Chris Oarr, was contacted for Contino's article and denied that Bulldog purchased any copies whatsoever of the first printing of the title in question -- but that's a far cry from stating that speculation on the company's health (and the possibility of an increase in value should the company go under) played no part in other people's purchasing habits. There's no way Oarr could even know such a thing. How many other supposedly hot titles are benefiting from speculators manipulating the market?
Far from kicking back and benefiting from the process, DC Comics took steps to ensure that its Terms of Sale were respected, and for this action I think the company should be applauded -- speculation has damaged the comic-book industry too many times in the past, and should be discouraged wherever possible. This incident gives observers a rare glimpse of the presence of an economic cancer that once nearly destroyed the Direct Market. How far has the cancer spread?
Update, 6:10 AM: Beating me to the post by ten minutes, Matt Brady has his own take on the subject over at Newsarama.
Update, 7:25 AM: After posting the above, I checked my email and found a response from Rick Veitch, the man who bankrolls The Pulse, whom I'd emailed earlier in the evening for comment. Noting that I had already posted the entries for the day, I asked him if he wished to add anything to what I'd written. What follows is his response, in full:
"As I clearly told Dirk in my previous e-mail, (which he apparently decided not to mention in his piece), DC did NOT ask us to pull the story. Jen posted the first story before Steve Conley and I, who act as defacto editors of the PULSE, saw it. After we did read it we bounced it back to her for rewrite. Since the PULSE isn't a rumor site, we didn't like the way her original story led with rumor and supposition and asked her to go back and focus on the facts.
"The rewritten article (complete with the quotes from Greg Buls) should be up any moment. Its a much better piece of reporting that doesn't pull any punches. We'll be following up later with a more in-depth interview with Greg."
