The Outhouse - The Greatest Comic Book Forum

by **outsider** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 8:26 am

This seems very sketchy. If they were closing, why not try to at least sell the stock?

Amoebas wrote:When can we start blaming the trade-waiters?

After you front me cash and storage space?

by **BlueStreak** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 8:47 am

cncoyle wrote:This seems very sketchy. If they were closing, why not try to at least sell the stock?After you front me cash and storage space?

The rumor, according to one of his assistant store managers, is that Malve declared bankruptcy. In that case, I'm pretty sure that the stock has to be sold to repay any debt he might have. If he's shutting down, then he probably declared Chapter 7, which makes it a lot harder for a company to stay in operation during the proceedings.

On the plus side, I heard today that Atomic plans to transfer their customers' pull boxes to other stores to make sure that they still get their preorders.

by **S.F. Jude Terror** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 10:16 am

This doesn't bode well for Vertigo.

by **guitarsmashley** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 10:40 am

Punchy wrote:A shame, the shop in Kick-Ass looked awesome.

None of them have coffee bars inside, but the stores were really nice and made you feel like you weren't walking into a dungeon to buy your books and they had a ton of stuff. It's a real shame to the community and the industry.

by **guitarsmashley** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 10:41 am

S.F. Jude Terror wrote:This doesn't bode well for Vertigo.

Or X-men forever trades.

by **Jubilee** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:00 am

A shame, but if it wasn't maintainable than I suppose it has to close.

It's a shame, but this will have a real impact on a lot of people in the comic industry, just because it is currently so small. Anyone know how many comics they would have ordered throughout their locations? Was it in the hundreds or thousands?

Shame for all the people who worked there. Hope they get jobs ASAP.

by **Apache Chef** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:04 am

That sucks. The store I went to was the 2nd best comics store I've ever been to. It's a shame for the owner, the employees, and the industry.

by **BlueStreak** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:08 am

Always Soulja Boy wrote:A shame, but if it wasn't maintainable than I suppose it has to close.

It's a shame, but this will have a real impact on a lot of people in the comic industry, just because it is currently so small. Anyone know how many comics they would have ordered throughout their locations? Was it in the hundreds or thousands?

Shame for all the people who worked there. Hope they get jobs ASAP.

They were, at least at one time, one of Diamond's largest accounts. If I had to guess (and this is based solely on speculation and reading retailers' reactions to all this), they're probably still in the top 25% in terms of orders from Diamond. This doubly comes as a shock as the owner of the store is pretty well-known throughout the industry and was considered to be running one of the more tighter operations in the eyes of many retailers. Hell, I've even talked to him a few times about news stories and whatnot.

However, the Phoenix area is a pretty strong market and has a decent amount of other stores, so at least the fanbase has other options.

by **Jubilee** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:11 am

BlueStreak wrote:
They were, at least at one time, one of Diamond's largest accounts. If I had to guess (and this is based solely on speculation and reading retailers' reactions to all this), they're probably still in the top 25% in terms of orders from Diamond. This doubly comes as a shock as the owner of the store is pretty well-known throughout the industry and was considered to be running one of the more tighter operations in the eyes of many retailers. Hell, I've even talked to him a few times about news stories and whatnot.

However, the Phoenix area is a pretty strong market and has a decent amount of other stores, so at least the fanbase has other options.

Yeah but as always with this sort of thing, I imagine that all the comics that are being sold here won't be picked up at other locations. It just doesn't work that way .Say for example the News of the World (Sundays biggest paper) shut down recently. After an initial bump, other Sunday papers didn't rise that much in circulation. For some reason I doubt every comic sold at Pheonix will now be sold somewhere else.

The thing is, if it is in Diamonds top 25% of sales, it's not massively out there to say that if something like this happens 2 or 3 more times it could be horrific for the comics industry.

by **BlueStreak** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:27 am

Always Soulja Boy wrote:
Yeah but as always with this sort of thing, I imagine that all the comics that are being sold here won't be picked up at other locations. It just doesn't work that way .Say for example the News of the World (Sundays biggest paper) shut down recently. After an initial bump, other Sunday papers didn't rise that much in circulation. For some reason I doubt every comic sold at Pheonix will now be sold somewhere else.

The thing is, if it is in Diamonds top 25% of sales, it's not massively out there to say that if something like this happens 2 or 3 more times it could be horrific for the comics industry.

Well, I know that the owner is transfering the pull lists to another store, which could transplant some of the customer base successfully, but you're right, not all the customer base will make the move to another store. There could very well end up being a supply issue as well as stores run out of books due to Atomics' closing. When there's not much overstock for many popular titles, it wouldn't suprise me if it comes out that stores can't accomodate and get in more stock in time. However, that's just me talking out of my ass and I could be 100% wrong in that regard.

However, this won't affect Diamond as much as Borders (who had a far, far bigger account) shutting down will.

by **Jubilee** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:34 am

Yeah that's true. Honestly at a time when publishing in general is doing so bad, and online stores are getting better and better, this isn't that surprising, just a shame.

by **Chris** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 12:12 pm

Amoebas wrote:When can we start blaming the trade-waiters?

I'm going to trade-wait even more now.

by **guitarsmashley** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 12:44 pm

Punchy wrote:
After we've blamed:

Dan Didio
Joe Quesada
Robert Kirkman
Barack Obama
The DC relaunch
One More Day
Wolverine being on too many teams.
Superboy Prime.

You forgot the Jews.

by **guitarsmashley** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 12:49 pm

BlueStreak wrote:
They were, at least at one time, one of Diamond's largest accounts. If I had to guess (and this is based solely on speculation and reading retailers' reactions to all this), they're probably still in the top 25% in terms of orders from Diamond. This doubly comes as a shock as the owner of the store is pretty well-known throughout the industry and was considered to be running one of the more tighter operations in the eyes of many retailers. Hell, I've even talked to him a few times about news stories and whatnot.

However, the Phoenix area is a pretty strong market and has a decent amount of other stores, so at least the fanbase has other options.

It is an incredibly strong market but Atomic was the store that ordered at least one of everything. I will be guilty of not checking out the other stores but I'm afraid of them not having the 4 or 5 comics I still buy.