Broken Frontier

On Tuesday, 150 retailers across the US opened their doors at midnight for Marvel’s Dark Tower Midnight Release event. BF reached out to a few of those stores to hear how the event turned out for them.

Considering the Chicago area got hit with the bitter cold and several inches of snow, the Dark Tower midnight release event went pretty well. It was 0 degrees F and there was about 5 inches of fresh snow on the ground. I would have liked to see a bit of a bigger turn-out, but I think the weather had a lot to do with it, and of course it was a Tuesday night at Midnight, when most people either have to go to school or work early in the morning.

We moved about 50 copies of the book between Midnight and 1am, not bad.  To get ready for the event, we had placed a half page ad in the local newspaper, gave away thousands of flyers at our stores and at other local businesses, sent out 3000 emails, posted info on our website and MySpace pages, and of course posted flyers and posters throughout our four locations.  (Just the Frankfort store participated in the Midnight event).  I saw a mix of regular customers and new customers, so it looks like this comic book series will indeed help expand the comic book consumer base, at least for the seven issues it runs. 

We gave away two copies of the 1:25 variant cover.  Everyone who bought a copy of Gunslinger #1, was entered into a free raffle for the variants, and as a bonus for any soul who braved the weather to come out to the shop, they were rewarded with a 20% discount on everything in the shop (again, if they bought a copy of Gunslinger #1), AND they received a coupon they could use on their next visit. 

If Marvel, or DC for that matter, decides to do something like this again, I would like to see things handled a little different next time around. First of all, we need MORE lead-time to get this off the ground properly.  This time, Marvel gave us little less than a month. That's pretty tough, when a lot of local advertising needs a couple of weeks lead-time to get an ad in, therefore, a couple of advertising opportunities I would have liked to take advantage of were unavailable to us because of the time constraints. 

Also, I would like to see Marvel, or DC, if they decide to follow suit in the future, do a little more advertising for the event.  I know Marvel did have all the stores that participated in the event, listed on their website, which is nice, but again, a little more support would have been handy.  I would have loved to maybe have seen some print advertising by Marvel, in Entertainment Weekly perhaps, or a TV spot or two on Sci-Fi.  Maybe they too ran into problems because of the lack of lead-time?  Perhaps Marvel did do more advertising, but not in all the markets?  Just New York and LA?  I don't know, maybe I missed everything they did, getting ready for the event.

So, in summary, it was an interesting idea Marvel.  I don't want to see this type of event happen TOO often, because then it would get boring, but maybe once a year by both Marvel and DC for a big release.  It would be nice to have an event like this happen over the summer, it would be easier for the high school and college kids to come out then. 

Lori Gentile
Amazing Fantasy
20523 S. La Grange Rd.
Frankfort, IL 60423 USA
www.afbooks.com

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We are 1/2 hour into our Dark Tower Release Party here at Samurai Comics. So far so good. We've had a decent amount of people through the door (probably 15-20). Our variant copies sold out immediately.

The best part about the promotion is that almost everyone that came in was NOT currently collecting comics. We filled the wall where we normally place our new releases with copies of Dark Tower #1. In the middle of the display we placed other comics that we felt might appeal to people coming in for Dark Tower—comics such as Anita Blake, Clive Barker's Great and Secret Show, Walking Dead, Zombies, etc. It worked! Over half of the customers walked out with something else. We also gave everyone a free copy of the Marvel Dabel Brothers sampler.

At our main location we brought in a projector and big screen and showed some classic Stephen King flicks throughout the night (including Creepshow—too bad we didn't have any of that old comic on hand).

All in all, a pretty fun and successful promotion!

Mike Banks
Samurai Comics
10720 W. Indian School Rd.
Phoenix, AZ 85037
www.samuraicomics.com

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The Mighty Midtown-Marvel Midnight Dark Tower event was a smashing success!  Despite frigid temperatures in the single digits, a crowd of 80 to 100 showed up at the witching hour.  Peter David and Jae Lee were wonderful, cheerfully signing copies of Dark Tower for fans while the city that never sleeps slept.

Marvel luminaries including Joe Quesada and David Gabriel were on hand, as well as performers from the hit live NYC show "The Comic Book Club".  Coffee and doughnuts were served, and a party atmosphere prevailed.... all on a wintery Tuesday night at midnight.

Gerry Gladston
Midtown Comics
NYC
www.midtowncomics.com

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Long after the doors would normally have been closed and all the employees home snuggly in their beds (where else would we be at 10PM?), the registers at Atomic Chandler and Atomic Paradise Valley were still ringing and it didn't stop until one in the morning. Both stores stayed busy as Stephen King fans and bargain hunters alike hung out to take advantage of the Dark Tower Midnight Release.

The first issue of The Gunslinger Born, the prequel to Stephen King's epic Dark Tower series, chronicling the backstory of Roland, the gunslinger searching for the mysterious, titular Dark Tower. Issues couldn't be sold until midnight, but that gave people plenty of time to watch Stephen King movies and sort through the back issue bins and take advantage of the huge back issue sale.

"There are a lot of King fans out there," explained Paradise Valley manager Jeff Pina, "but comic readers who are going to pick up the rest of their new books Wednesday afternoon would probably be less inclined to come it at midnight just to pick up one book." Those fans, however, couldn't pass up a chance to stock up on a full run of Booster Gold or Major Bummer.

Both stores rang up about fifty sales between midnight and one, meaning almost one sale per minute. In fact, sales totals for that one hour were roughly the same as half of an average day.

There was, though, a distinct difference between the two crowds. While almost 75% of Chandler's sales were of Dark Tower and 25% of back issues, P.V.'s numbers were flipped, implying most of the southsiders were there for the event while most northsiders were there for the deals.

"I was surprised to see some stragglers still coming in well after midnight," smiled Chandler manager Alex Najar. "I expected this would be something where people would hang out, the clock would strike twelve, and we'd just go through the motions of ringing everyone up. It was good to see people coming and going."

In the weeks leading up to last night, there was much debate on the internet about whether the midnight release would be worth doing and whether anyone would show up just to buy one comic. "Fortunately, Atomic Comics didn't have to find out," pointed out owner Mike Malve. "By making the release an event and tying it to one of our biggest back issue sales in years, we weren't relying on a single comic to attract the crowd. If Marvel--or anyone else--wants to do another midnight release, we'd be one of the first stores to sign up."

Jake Bell
Atomic Comics
Phoenix, AZ
www.atomiccomics.com

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I don't know about anyone else, but this was a complete bust. I had seven (7) people show up and I was1 of only 10 stores in the state to run this promotion! I ordered 225 copies and sold 12. I hope it's because people won't come out on a Tuesday night at midnight, when they have to go to work the next day!  I also believe that there wasn't enough support to promote this from Marvel.

Keith Mallow
Collector's Comics
Fort Piece , FL

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At Austin Books & Comics, we honestly had no idea what to expect. We've always been interested in doing a midnight comic premiere, and the Dark Tower comic was our opportunity to see what it would be like. We promoted the event pretty heavily by making and handing out handbills, detailing the event in our weekly e-mails, and even creating a Dark Tower FAQ page on our website.

Since the event was to be at midnight on a Tuesday night, we really didn't expect too many people to turn out. In addition, none of this week's other new comics would be available until the following morning. We expected most customers would wait until new comic day to buy it. We stayed open throughout the night finishing preperations. Around 11:15, we noticed there were people slipping into the store in groups. As midnight rolled closer and closer, the store was gradually filling up! A few familiar faces and many more new ones were shining with excitement and anticipation. Our expectations had been shattered, and we weren't even selling the books yet.

Everyone grabbed any number of Dark Tower issues, variant covers, Dark Tower door posters, even other comics they have missed earlier in the week or were just now discovering. As we made the announcement at the exact stroke of midnight, the line began at the counter. The line would soon be winding around shelves, full of people bouncing to get home and read the comic they all waited so patiently for. The register rung up happy late-night sale after sale, and we were amazed that people kept filing in to get their copy of the newest cross-media tie-in. Five minutes before our target close time, 1:00 am, the last customer purchased his comic and waved goodbye. We put out all the new books we had made spaces for throughout the day, and went home after a long, surprising day. We're extremely happy with the success of the event, and we're glad it destroyed what our reserved expectations of what a midnight premiere could be!

Brad Bankston
Austin Books & Comics
5002 N. Lamar
Austin, TX 78751
www.austinbooks.com