Off Panel #251: Guessing Game with Heidi MacDonald

By David Harper

April 20, 2020

In this week’s episode of Off Panel, Heidi MacDonald from The Beat returns to the show for a chat about the state of comics during a pandemic, which, I should note, was recorded Thursday evening before the insanity of Friday (we did an addendum in the episode). MacDonald discusses how her world is, comics changing from the inside, conventions, whether Diamond would be the only direct market distributor at the end of this, comics’ obsession with the new, DC’s distribution solutions, DCBS and Midtown as retailers/distributors, doing this when shops can’t even open, the William Schanes story, AWA and Bad Idea, the state of Image, the book market, ComicHub vs. retailer solutions, who she’s concerned about, learning from this experience, the comics community, and more.

You can find MacDonald on Twitter and The Beat.

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Thanks to my patrons, including – but not limited to – Charlie Chu, Greg Peterson, Stefan Hull, Dan Lee, Cameron Shrader, Penscaola Pop Comics, Kim Estlund, Phillip Maira, Christian Shelton, Kenny Porter, Chris Bachalo, Torunn Grønbekk, FuzBubbles, Christopher Ta, Transmitterdown, Harry Sayer, Walt’s Comics & Books, Carl Mizell, Danny Ollie, Paul Salaets, Lytwyn Studios, Akil Wilson, Alex Dimitropolous, Terry Dodson, Troy-Jeffrey Allen, Liana Kangas, Keigen Rea, Milton Lawson, Wesley Gift, Shawn Kirkham, Harry Small, Alister Ross, Julio Anta, Brett A. Schmidt, Jason Goodmanson, Paul Reinwand, Vita Ayala, Aditya Bidikar, Tara Ferguson, Dave Slusher, WMQ Comics, Akylle, Kokaachi, Phil White, Shaun Pinello, Kent Heidelman, Phillip Sevy, Al Ewing, Ryan Alcock, Nick Michelin, David Kelley, Robert Wilson IV, Nick Poleto, Eoin McCready, Brenden Fletcher, Gary Moloney, Jonathan Nilsson, Matthew Groom, Jason Nassi, Adam Bogert, Xavier Files, Matthew Taylor, Tyler Turner, Nick Pitarra, Jacob Sareli, Ford Gilmore, David Baroldy, Ira James Udaskin, Nick Hall, Bjorn Basen, John Hendrick, Steve Anderson, Ian Maxfield, Cliff Chiang, Benjamin Schipper, Colin McMahon, Chris Palmer, Scott McGovern, Nathan Fairbairn, Cat McKenzie, Greg Rucka, Adam Highfill, Fiona Staples, Chris O’Halloran, Mark Abnett, Mike Murphy, Michael Shirley, Tom Barnett, Jim Demonakos, Norbert, Nick Lowe, James Kaplan, and Mission: Comics and Art in San Francisco. You’re all the best.

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Header art is from DC Univese Rebirth, art by Gary Frank. Off Panel’s theme music is an original track by custom music agency Upright T-Rex Music, written and performed specifically for the podcast. A huge thanks to Ross and Cody from Upright T-Rex Music for putting the track together!

Notable Replies

levi says:

April 20, 2020

“Push trade releases back even further from the single issue release” and “stop doing day and date digital comic releases” - this is some First Take level performance art from retailers now, right? They’re just playing into their act? They can’t possibly believe any of this is good for the industry or even themselves individually.
chrisburton says:

April 20, 2020

There was also something about selling $1 comics of new material on that Crazy Google doc. That is so short sighted and out of touch. How the heck does that make sense from a business standpoint for a publisher? Are they going to “pay” unknown creators with “exposure”?

The only response to that doc is, “ok, boomer.”
SKTCHD says:

April 20, 2020

I don’t totally disagree with that premise, Chris. The idea of loss leaders in comics is a potentially good one, and DC has used them to great value with those quarter anthology titles they’ve done the past couple years around Free Comic Book Day. I mean, the very idea of FCBD as a jumping off point is an example of the value of loss leaders. But I’m not even sure if that’s what they meant. And now the document appears to be locked?
chrisburton says:

April 20, 2020

Yeah, I could be totally wrong but I don’t think that is what they meant. I agree that occasional low price issues for marketing purposes is good; I remember DC doing at least a couple 25 cent Batman issues back in the day and that Year of the Villain thing last year was a quarter, plus the Rebirth special was $2.99 but a lot of pages. From the google doc though, I think they were more implying that the True Believers reprints should be replaced with new material at the same price. I guess that would be the same as the (not good) early 90s titles Avengers Unplugged and Fantastic Four Unplugged that were 99 cents when most regular books were priced around $1.95. But it isn’t 1993 anymore, so…

Edit: as far as FCBD, I still really like this take from last year by the Variant Edition folks. Worth a read if you haven’t read it.

https://www.comicsbeat.com/the-retailers-view-the-problem-with-free-comic-book-day/
chrisburton says:

April 20, 2020

I found what Heidi had to say about bookshop.org to be interesting. Obviously, as she mentioned, an easy source of additional revenue that doesn’t require a lot of additional work by the retailer is appealing, especially right now when the physical stores are shut down. That being said, if I am a book retailer, and this might apply to the comics stores too, do I need to be careful about offering ways to purchase that allow customers to not come into the store? Obviously a moot point right now, but what about after shelter in place is lifted? I don’t know. For me personally, I enjoy the experience of visiting and browsing bookstores and comic book stores separate from the act of making a purchase, but I do almost always make a purchase if I am in a store that I like. So for someone like me, the channel bleed is never going to be a concern. Hopefully, there is a healthy percentage of consumers that think in a similar manner.