Ah yes, spinner racks. That's were I too started getting my comics as a kid at a Houchens grocery store in ye olde year of 1984. Many a wonderous purchase was made.
Comics disappeared from mass market spinner racks for two reasons: margins and price points. Retailers got 20% of Not Much Money. And it's work to rack the new books, pull and strip the old books and write up the returns. Magazine distributors have historically had poor reputations for honesty, so a retailer expects to have to fight for his credits anyway. It all adds up to a lot of work for a little return from the retailer's perspective. And no mass market retailer is going to want to go 40% non-returnable.
Thanks, Jim! See, I knew there were good reasons...
But it seems that this is an arrangement that could be re-thought, if nothing else but to get the books out of the specialty shops and into places where "regular" people are.
Personally, I think the only thing that has a chance of working is the anthologies. Obviously this isn't a sure bet either, and the anthologies seem to historically have trouble in the US...
But Shonen Jump has managed it so that gives at least a bit of hope for the future. The fact that an anthology is bigger and sturdier like a magazine, a price high enough for the shop to get margins off of, seems a good deal to the consumer, etc. all seem to make for somethign that could work..
I guess we'll just have to wait and see if anything ever comes of it. I don't think the sadle-stiches really have a chance in today's market place anymore though...
Shawn
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