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Why does nobody talk about how comic shops treat new readers?
I was at Heroes Con in Charlotte back in June, standing at a booth for a shop I won't name, and I watched a guy in his 30s walk up and ask where to start with Batman. The owner pointed at a wall of 12 different trades and said 'just grab whatever looks cool' then turned back to his buddies. The dude stood there for like 5 minutes, pulled out his phone, and I could see him googling 'best Batman comics for beginners' before he just left. I get it, shops are busy and regulars keep the lights on, but that guy had a $40 bill in his hand ready to spend and nobody helped him. I actually followed him out and gave him my beat up copy of Year One from my bag, told him to start there and come back next week. He came back, bought the Long Halloween and a Knightfall trade, and now he's at my shop every Wednesday. So my hot take is that comic fans love to complain about dying shops and new readers not showing up, but then we act too cool to help a guy pick his first book. If your shop is not doing this, why not, and what would you actually hand a total newbie?
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white.keith15d ago
How many of those 12 Batman trades were actually good starting points though? Half of them are probably volume 3 of something or a tie-in to a event nobody remembers. The real problem is shops stock what sells to regulars, not what a new person needs, and the owner knows it. He just does not care enough to walk over and point at the one book that works. What would you do if the shop had nothing good on the shelf for a first timer, tell them to come back later or hand them something outside the big two?
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