I live in a mid side city (about 50,000) and we go to the library at least twice a week.... there's rarely more than a dozen others there if it's not an event of some sort, and I often recognize most of them. Sure, kid event lure up to 20-25 kids, but its the SAME 20-25 kids every time, from the same families.

I don't think it's particularly affluent here (quite the opposite), but I think people are much more likely to use their neighbors wi-fi, or hang out at Dunkin/Panera/Starbucks than go to the library.

At several points in my career, I’d done non anglo non Christian non Femaale characters, co-created for a ‘significant company.’ As in a publisher providing good - to - great page rates and an excellent royalty program, including profit participation for creating a character under certain [fair] conditions.

Some characters ‘back then’ were a ‘risk’. They did not fit ‘the consumer demographic’. Much of what I did risked my career, my rent, my food money. I had skin in the game, I had the biggest bull to be gored.

(bleeding cool is denied permission to use any of this in case they see it as lurkers here, btw, just as HeatWave is denied such rights, as I am non partisan.)

The ironies, politically-in-comics, between then and now, astound me (‘ ironies’ used properly, not ala the Hipster—dumb-arse misuse of the word).

I could be blacklisted for using my time/talent to champion non cis/white/hetero/anglo/male characters, and suffered a ‘Chuck Dixon verboten by Axel Alonso’ more than once. “Soft’- blacklisted for sticking up for female editors/Assistant editors (as they were titled then, vs. ‘Associate’ editors as they are now). Supporting by word, deed and art, African American creators, Female creators, and Queer creators.

Queer creators was the ‘big one’. I’d been tapped-on-tbhe-shoulder to do a Batman Project BEFORE the idiotic ‘collector-vs-reader’ comics-economic-crash of the 90’s. The royalties this would have garnered during that sales-period of Bats would mean I could have bought a HOUSE. Yet, sadly…

During a private ‘company get together’ (I won’t say ‘which’ company; it was one of the big 4), the person I related to most, and whose art I liked most, was a Queer Person, who seemed very sad, had been ‘sectioned off’, shunned. No-one was speaking to them, no-one complimenting them on their excellent work, work-ethic, the money they’d brought in for the company. Appalling. Disgusting.

And the person whom had ‘pink-ceilinged’ this creator was one of the head honcho’s in the room, at this get-together.

Sitting in clear-earshot of us. So, I made sure to sincerely compliment this fellow creator, be openly yet only platonically affectionate towards this fellow creator, in a Huck Finn to Tom Sawyer manner. Or, as we’d ‘learn later’, a Matt Smith Doctor Who to Captain Harkness manner. Or a non cis male to a non cis female manner, as we’d say today.

DID NOT GO OVER WELL.



Basically, a full-on blacklist, from folks whom no no longer ‘call the shots’ in comics ‘today’. If twitter and tumblr etc. had been extant/popular THEN, I’d have had no problem. But they weren’t extant, so all my skin in the game was flayed off, my bull was not only gored but murdered, and all cows in my paddock slaughtered and left to rot.

I still ‘came back’ though, after being blacklisted for that, and the racial thing, and the Matriarchal-Feminist thing. Because I had artistic WORK ETHIC. In fact I later did - via standing up for my principles YET backing that up with art-grunt work ethic - the best ‘score’ of my comics career. Because a ‘top five’ writer gave a ##@!!!, and saw what I’d been doing (not ‘tried to do’) for a long, long time. And scored me 2 gigs. Which made money for ‘The Man’.

this meant, for any retailer reading this thread, i made money for YOU. including the times when i’d be asked to do a signing-session and tell people asking for a sketch, yet buying nothing from the shop-in-question, ‘buy $5 worth of stuff from the shop, show me the receipt, and I’ll give you the sketch for 50% off. If you buy $15 worth of stuff, the sketch is free’.

that worked. every time.

Ironically, considering what i’ve been paid to do after being a ‘proto-sjw’ and after being ’soft-blacklisted’ several times for supporting non anglo-hetero-male stuff and non anglo-hetero-male creators/editors/staff, i made made $ for myself off sales via purchases from Slam Bradley and Spike-X, most likely.

So now we live in the tweety-twitter-twatter age, but retailers can still make use of what i’ve said above in a PRAGMATIC fashion.

It can be done in a new, ‘digital-native respecting the potential new/young consumer’ demographic.

ASSUMING retailers are willing to be as flexible as publishers and creators have been demanded to be since twitter decided it’s blah-blah mattered more than sales. And work with creators in that regard, which hasn’t really been the case up til now, from creators’ points of view. we can discuss that later, below.

and this thread was/is about sales, new sales, new customers, not ‘blah blah’. people whom PAY for comics don’t give a #@@!!! about ‘blah blah’.

and in closing, this thread is about economics, not self-appointed quasi-political-pundrity. the later has seemed to be proven to LOWER sales and scare off people under the age of 25.

as one of my /godmothers always said, after escaping one of the worst concentration camps to become one ofe the best/successful Hungarian Jewish Survivor Manhattan lawyers in the past 50 years,

‘Be careful of the question you ask, because you never have a say over the context of the answer. merely smile honestly if anyone sincerely answers, as that is a gift.’.

my Asian godmothers were MORE direct.

and none of them tolerated becoming, as said by non anglo-hetero’s ‘today’, a ‘purse-puppy’.

consider THEIR side of the street, instead of merely ‘milk-shaking’ a tweet pretending-to.

i can relate to that being a half-crip (and we’ll discuss that later, too)

the new customers will respect this, and pony-up the purchase $$.

i respect this very much.  your honesty is greatly appreciated, and when applied in a pragmatic manner, serves to improve comicsin general.  and as a credit to you, from your sharing of your purchases, in other threads, you back up your politics with 'hard dollars'.

here's a thought upon Reaching new fans and expanding sales:

retailors could back Mike Baron up, when it's hard, not 'easy'.

his storytelling is beloved by all generations.

but we're not gonna talk about THAT, are we?

i'll go into reply to all your counterpoints later (and thank you for them!), but my initial response, emotionally and as a freelancer of 'the same vintage as yourself', is:

'yeah, but we're old'.

so we must put our feelings aside and look at what the young want.

millenials want product better than they can make themselves. 'smashed avocado sandwiches' at cafes. over-priced lattes, etc.  comics are no different.

also, bear in mind that with nn USA markets, i utterly agree with you, but this site's members are over 90% usa based, so my comments above pertained to the yank-market, specifically, as i felt that the OP's question pertained to the yank-market, specifically.

usa creators should really look at euro markets though, when moon girl is selling under 9,000 in the usa.

yes, mike's tales are beloved that way; even millenials track his stuff down

on he other stuff, i grok you, but again, what you say applies if we're looking globally, not usa-domestically.