Reviews

Months ago, in my introduction to this reviews page, I warned that from time to time my reviews would digress into little diatribes about the current state of the comic book industry.  Well, this week rather then a review you’re getting one of those diatribes.  I had planned to do a review of the new Dungeons & Dragons #0 but after reading it I thought it was more important to tell everyone how the publisher IDW had bungled a golden opportunity to create new comic fans.

 

Let me make clear that IDW is not the first publisher to make this mistake they were just the most recent.  What mistake am I talking about; well let me tell you.  When a publisher solicits a comic book they are really targeting two different audiences.  The first audience the publisher is targeting is comic retailers.  The truth is that a comic series can’t succeed if retailers are not willing to stock it.  How can a comic get into the hands of the end consumers if they can’t go into their local comic shop and get a copy?  The second audience the publisher is targeting when they solicit a comic book is the end consumers. 

 

Now, to get retailers to order their comic, particularly the first issue of a new series or a series that may appeal to non-traditional comic fans, a publisher will often take steps to reduce the financial risk retailers have to take when they order a product.  One way a publisher can reduce the risk is by reducing the cover price of the comic.  Since, the price retailers pay for a comic is a percentage of the cover price the lower the cover price the less money the retailers have to spend and thus the lower the risk they have to take.  A publisher also knows that lowering the cover price has the added benefit of targeting the end consumers since they don’t have to shell out much to give the comic a try.  Retailers are also aware that the lower cover price means they will have an easier time selling the comic to the end consumers and this also serves to reduce the risk the retailers are taking.  At this point everyone is happy; the publisher reduced the risk the retailers have to take to order their comic and the end consumers get to try a new comic for a very low cost.  If the end consumers like the comic that is great if they don’t then they are not out much.  At this stage, I should make clear that the publisher has provided these benefits to the retailers and the end consumers by taking a loss on the comic themselves.  This is because by reducing the cover price to such a low price the publisher can no longer cover the cost to produce, print and distribute the comic.  The reason the publisher does this is because by lowering the cover price they hope to reach a wider audience of end consumers; which will enable them to sell more copies of future issues of the series.  In short, the publisher is willing to lose a little money now in return for making more money later.

 

Now that the publisher has put out this comic with its low cover price and retailers have ordered a ton of them and end consumers have bought them all off the shelves we reach the point where, all too often, the wheels fall off.  We discover that the publisher has made a fundamental mistake; they have put out a comic that does not catch the interest of the end consumers.  Here we are, the publisher has gone to all this trouble to reach the largest audience of end consumers possible and they deliver a dud.  This mistake can take many forms; poor art, bad story or, as is the case with Dungeons & Dragons #0, just not enough story.  All we get is a ten page main story (less then half the length of a typical comic story) and a six page back-up story (about a quarter the length of a typical comic story).  Neither of these stories is long enough to sufficiently develop any characters to the point where they are interesting and no intriguing story elements are introduced.  In short, readers are given no reason to come back for more.  This is an unforgivable mistake especially when dealing with a comic series that has the potential to reach non-traditional comic fans and doesn’t the comic book industry need all the fans it can get?

 

One more mistake IDW made, with Dungeons & Dragons #0, is that the next issue will not be out until November (three months away) and the first issue of the Dark Sun story, which is what the six page back-up story is based on, will not be out until January (five months away).  That means if anyone did get excited over this zero issue they probably will have forgotten all about it by the time the next issue comes out.  I know someone out there is saying that IDW created the long break between issues so that retailers could gauge response to the zero issue before having to place orders for the full priced number one issue.  That’s very thoughtful of them but they would have done better by retailers, end consumers and themselves by putting the number one issue out without any extra delay and just making it 100% returnable.  Making the zero issue all about one story that would spark the interest of end consumers would have been a good idea too.

 

The bottom line on Dungeons & Dragons #0 is that you can skip it and still not have missed anything.  As for the overall series, I really can’t say since this zero issue just didn’t have enough content in it to give me any idea about what the series will be like.  My final word on this and all other low cost introductory issues is that they are a great idea that can grow our industry and increase profits for everybody but only if they are done intelligently.  Otherwise, publishers should just not bother to do them.

 

Keith Forney