The post Underrated: Alphabetizing Comics appeared first on Graphic Policy.
This is a column that focuses on something or some things from the comic book sphere of influence that may not get the credit and recognition it deserves. Whether that’s a list of comic book movies, ongoing comics, or a set of stories featuring a certain character. The columns may take the form of a bullet pointed list, or a slightly longer thinkpiece – there’s really no formula for this other than whether the things being covered are Underrated in some way. This week: Alphabetizing comics
As I was sat down trying to think of something to cover for this week’s column, I realized I hadn’t really read much this week other than the comics I’ve already reviewed or written a column about. Maybe you’ve seen the and, maybe you haven’t, but I didn’t want to retread the same comics here, regardless of whether they fit the theme or not. Which left me in a bit of a pickle as I really didn’t have any thing up my sleeve and I wasn’t particularly keen on rerunning a column from yesteryear.
It was then I realized that one of the biggest frustrations I have when looking at dollar bins in comic shops is the lack of alphabetization of the comics. I don’t expect much; my LCS has the dollar boxes separated out by letter, but doesn’t bother to make sure it’s 100% perfectly sorted because that’d be a loosing battle. But there’s at least some semblance of order there that enables customers to find the letter they’re looking for and then flick through looking for a good deal on X-Men or Batman comics. But when they’re thrown in the boxes willy nilly? Yeah, that sucks.
I get it, though. As a person who has to restock dollar boxes, I can tell you it is far easier to just dump them in and let the customers hunt. But what’s easier for me does not make for a good business practice in the long run.
For example, my wife and I stopped in at a shop a few months ago in a city we don’t visit all that often. In fact it was only the second or third time I’ve been to that specific shop in that city because the opening hours aren’t always compatible with the time and day we’re in said city. I digress. We stopped in the shop, and she was expecting me to go digging, which I did, and I knew she’d look for a bit before she eventually lost interest in the hunt (indeed, she actually found me a couple of absolute gems in their Free For The Taking box). She’s not a huge comic fan, and is certainly not fond of rooting through dollar boxes. Which allows me to circle back to my point; because the ten long boxes weren’t alphabetized, I had to look through each and everyone to find the hole-filling books for the series I was looking for.
And I did.
While I did find quite a lot of comics to plug the holes I was looking to fill, it irked me a little that I found an issue of X-O Manowar next to Moon Knight and Detective Comics. Rifling through those boxes left me less time to go through the other boxes, shelves and what have you that inevitably had a higher price tag (I always start in a dollar bin when hunting in a shop because you never know if the owner is using those to clear overstock of a book he’s got for $5 in marginally better condition). In this specific case the lack of alphabetization potentially cost the store further sales of more expensive product. I say potentially, because I don’t know if I’d have actually found anything else to pick up.
Alphabetizing, especially for stores, is a cheap and easy way to potentially increase sales. If nothing else, it also makes you look organized. Hence why it’s an appropriate subject for today’s column.
Unless the comics industry ceases any and all publication look for a future installment of Underrated to cover more comics that aren’t cracking the top 100.