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Are you serious about this Spirit thing? Jeebus, that clip has as much to do with Eisner's work as the Adam West Batman does to a competent piece of filmmaking. |
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There's something wrong with the Adam West Batman? |
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Totally with you here about the retailer taking money from himself with that newsletter. The fanboy retailer model is one of the many things wrong with this industry. |
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Totally with you here about the retailer taking money from himself with that newsletter. The fanboy retailer model is one of the many things wrong with this industry. |
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For whatever reason I had trouble posting a response to the original thread yesterday. But yeah, I couldn't get how anyone could possibly think that it was a good idea for a retailer to provide "reviews". There's a rather obvious conflict of interest and the impact of a negative review. Recommendations are one thing; if you went up to the guy at any kind of shop and said, "What's good?" they'll help you. When you call them "reviews" then a whole different set of expectations and requirements falls into place. |
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Y'know, I think I'm gonna stick a great big banner on my blog saying "Don't Read This Blog". They'll all think I'm an honest blogger and that'll get me oodles of traffic... |
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Hmmmmm. Is it possible to both agree with Kevin and with the "it's a slippery slope you're on there, internet" guy? Because on the one hand, it seems like a bad idea to talk smack about one's product, but on the other hand, a lot of comics bloggers are also people who sell comics for a living, and what they have to say about them is not always sweetness and light, and much of it (presumably) is being read by their customers. |
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With my computer muted, I supplied my own dialogue to the Spirit clip. |
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There will be no besmirching of Adam West's Batman in my presence. |
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Is that Frank Miller or Roger Glover from Deep Purple? |
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"But yeah, I couldn't get how anyone could possibly think that it was a good idea for a retailer to provide "reviews"" |
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Seems like the review thing would make more sense with more of a Siskel n Ebert thing, where the shop owner's negative review might be balanced by someone with different tastes who liked it, and customers could gravitate towards the opinions of the reviewer with similar tastes. |
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Yeargh, curse you HaloScan. |
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Um.... is the Spirit supposed to be funny? I'm not overly familiar with the work, but it looked like there were some unintentionally funny moments there. The whole thing looked very ham-handed. Was that on purpose? |
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McGee: Most bloggers tend to differentiate between representing themselves and their store. This guy was sending out a mass email to his customers and telling them not to buy a product he's stocking. That's pretty "goddamned stupid", I'd say. Can you imagine Borders telling customers not to buy, say, Da Vinci Code in its newsletters, or your local cinema telling its customers not to watch Dark Knight? But in comics retail, well... |
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Mike McGee - Well, it isn't so much the review aspect as it is the use of the words "NOT BUY." Had it been just the review, even a negative one, it would have seemed a little odd to have it in a marketing e-mail, but maybe that would have been okay. But adding the words "NOT BUY" -- a retailer, telling his own customers that he doesn't want them to spend money on something he's carrying -- that's remarkably self-defeating. |
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Jeffrey and Mike -- The self-defeating reviews do appear in those arenas, though...if you look at Amazon's reviews, you'll find not only customer rants and raves, but editorial reviews (usually from Publishers Weekly and the like) that are often not flattering. Likewise, sites that offer you showing times for movies in current release often present linked reviews that may not entice you to pony up your eleven bucks. Mind you, this isn't the same thing as the ticket-taker rolling his eyes before waving his hand in the general direction of the cinematic catastrophe you're so tasteless as to want to see, but I'm not sure the email newsletter is, either -- presumably, the guy's readers have signed up for his mailing list because they'd like to know his opinion, and don't feel he is inflicting it upon them, casting aspersions on their tastes, etc. I'm thinking that, because these people have elected to be on that list, they are in essence soliciting his opinion in a way not far removed from an in-store customer asking, "Is this book any good?" |
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I read through Kevin's thing just to catch your posts and wow, it is weird to see you swearing. Almost as if I saw Bully swearing. Almost. |
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I agree with you about that Spirit clip. Much more in the vein of Esiner's strip. |
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Love the Spirit. Love Eisner. Hated the clip. Similar to when Obama stated that we don't have to drill off-shore because we could save just as much if everyone filled up their tires properly. The audience seemed to laugh for all the wrong reasons and they were not sure why. And those were FRIENDLY audiences. |
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Mike McGee - It's not the negative reviews so much...it's just that finality of the statement "NOT BUY." I get what you're saying, that hey, his customers signed up for his list, they knew what they were getting into...and that's fine. If that works for him, then great. And even though a negative review may send the message "I didn't like this, and you might not either," there's still a little leeway there. You and I have both seen and read bad reviews of things that we went ahead and saw/read/listened to anyway. But actively, explicitly telling your customers "do not spend your money on something I've ordered and am going to stock on the shelves and, by the way, I can't return them if I can't sell them" - that's a strategy I just can't get behind, particularly in so marginal a business as the comics industry. |
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Re; The Review. |
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Well...yeah. "NOT BUY" is a little. Um. Definitive. |
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As an olde tyme Spirit fan my first fear is this being another Sin City. The violence of this clip is like Evil Dead II, which may be the only way to make it work. I never thought a Spirit movie was even possible on the level of doing the original art and stories justice. The perfect format would be a weekly series retelling the comics pretty much as written and directed. |
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I thought it made for a good discussion, Mike. Take out those two last words, "Don't Buy" and it changes the whole tone of the argument. |
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To be fair, I often tell my customers not to buy something. But in my defense I am telling them not to even consider buying the flounder or the sea bass because my manager is too lazy and stubborn to throw away six day old fish. also, I got yelled at for it once. So, in summation... anyone hiring? |
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Duncan - My posts are on my weblog, and not being sent out to my customer base as part of a marketing e-mail officially representing the store. There is a difference. |
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I don’t understand why anyone is debating Kevin on this. His thesis is extremely straightforward: It’s stupid for a retailer to order books he intends people to purchase, then actively urge them not to do so. It’s counter-productive. Integrity is all fine and dandy, but if a retailer plans to pay his mortgage and other bills, he might want to actually encourage people to BUY his offerings. The last time I checked, mortgage and credit-card companies don’t accept excess copies of The X-Men as payment. The fact that there’s even a debate going on about this is mindboggling. |
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Thanks for the Spirit clip - now I really *have* died inside. |
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I wonder if it creates any awkwardness for regular costumers. On my part I know that if the owner of my comic book watering hole had deemed an issue unbuyable and I bought the despicable comic, I'd feel obligated to defend my choice as a consumer. |
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And I think I'm done with the topic, if not for my sake (and need to move on to other things), but for poor Kevin's as well. |
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NOT BUY the Spirit |
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Oh, Andrew...! |
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"You and Kevin are correct. Any retailer advising their customers not to buy something they are selling in their store is stupid. " |
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"principle" |
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"pedant" |
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And before it goes any farther than that, let's stop the comments in this particular thread right there. |
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