Thought Bubbles: Spoiler Space

We need to talk about spoilers.

I’m not talking about people spoiling stuff after it’s happened. As far as I’m concerned, once a thing is out there in the world it is my responsibility to avoid spoilers for it. If I don’t want to know what happened on the latest episode of Game of Thrones or in the latest issue of Batman, I stay off the internet, or at least away from places where one might reasonably expect to find spoilers.

No, what I’m talking about is far worse than that. It is reasonable to expect some level of discussion once a piece of work, be it a TV show, comic, movie, etc. has been released. What I’m talking about is the practice of comic publishers releasing spoiler-ific details about their comics before they’ve even hit shelves. I’m not talking about solicitation material – that’s a normal part of business, and it’s easy enough to not read solicits if you want to avoid the mild spoilage that comes from those. I’m talking about the phenomenon where a publisher will, a few days before a comic’s release, just flat out reveal what happens in the issue.

This is a thing that’s been happening with more frequency for a few years. Every now and then, a publisher will decide, ‘You know what, this book comes out a couple of days from now…let’s tell everyone what it’s about.’ DC did it last year with Batman Incorporated #8. Marvel did it before then with Amazing Spider-Man #700. Before that, probably the most notable case was Captain America #25, though in that case Marvel chose to reveal the spoiler on Wednesday morning – on release date, but still, as in the other cases, before any readers would have had a chance to pick up the book in question.

And last week, Archie Comics did it again. We’ve known for a few months that Archie was set to die in the pages of Life With Archie #36. It’s not unprecedented for a publisher to reveal some details of a book months ahead of time – see the aforementioned solicitation text – with the best example of this likely being a certain Superman comic from 1992. But last Monday, two days ahead of the issue’s release, the publisher decided to tell us exactly how he dies. I mean, exactly.

Listen: I understand how publicity works. Alex Segura, former executive director of publicity at DC Comics and current VP of publicity and marketing at Archie Comics clearly knows how it works, too. Certainly Archie hired (or re-hired, as the case is) him to try to raise the profile of their line of books, so it makes sense that a tactic that (I guess) worked for Batman when he was at DC would work again at Archie. That makes total sense to me. And if the goal was to get people talking about Archie, then mission accomplished. I’ve heard more people talk about Archie in the past week than I think I ever have in my life. So well done for that, sir and company.

The thing that makes me crazy about this is how it completely screws fans and comic shops alike.

For readers, it’s one thing: spoilers. If you haven’t gleaned it by now, I generally do my best to avoid those, but in some instances they’re just unavoidable. I recall vividly the day that Captain America #25 came out, and the news was everywhere. I found out about it not from reading the comic, but from seeing a headline about it first thing in the morning on Yahoo News (Shameful secret: I was still using Yahoo email at the time).

I’m aware that there are so-called ‘people’ in the world who don’t care about spoilers. There’s even so-called ‘science’ that says that knowing how something will end actually makes the experience better. Personally, I like not knowing how things will turn out before I sit down to read or view them. I get more enjoyment experiencing things along with the characters than I do if I know, ‘Oh, he’s going to die before this is over.’ If I want to go back and re-watch or re-read that thing, then I can experience it differently then. It’s about where your priorities lie, I suppose.

Comic shops have an entirely different dilemma on top of that. For them, it’s a simple supply-and-demand issue. Publishers making big news by revealing story details a day or two before a book’s release leave retailers no time to order more of that book in time for the release date. They’re left with a supply of books that will meet the needs of their regular customers based on prior experience. At least with the death of Archie, retailers had a vague idea three months ahead of time that they should up their orders. For books like Batman Inc. #8 or Captain America #25, though, the big event was a total surprise to everyone. The demand generated by Robin or Captain America’s death brings in not only the regular customers, but also new people off the street who have never been in a comic shop before but who heard that a beloved character was dying and want to check it out. With higher demand and not enough supply, someone’s going to end up dissatisfied. Sure, a store can reorder or advance-reorder extra copies of a book, but that can take up to three weeks to be fulfilled. By then people have either gone to another shop to try to find the book, or simply moved on to other things and forgotten all about it.

A few clarifying points: Attention for the industry is great. Things that bring new people into comic shops are great. More people should read comics. More people should talk about comics. Everyone who wants to read comics should be able to read comics.

And that’s the rub. Someone’s going to get the raw end of this situation. It’s either going to be the loyal customer who comes in to her shop to find the book she wants is sold out much faster than usual, or it’s going to be a potential new customer, someone who wants to read comics, but the much-hyped book that they want is nowhere to be found. Either way it’s lost potential sales for retailers; it’s also a blocked entryway for a new generation of readers.

I wish I had an idea for how to avoid this, but there’s no easy answer. In every scenario I can come up with someone always gets the short straw. I know that a publisher’s ultimate goal is to sell out their books. In the case of Archie, not only did Life With Archie #36 sell out on its release date, but Life With Archie #37, which hits stands tomorrow, is already sold out at the distributor level. This, of course, is an area where digital comics have print beat every day of the week, but as long as publishers continue to insist that they’re supporting the specialty retail market, they should consider the long-term impact that spoiling their stories ahead of time has on those shops.