New books by Conley, Knight and Tatulli

Comments ²⁶

1. StupidInventor

   If you think the cover of Mark Tatulli’s new Lio book is great, check out the back cover where he recreates a picture of Bill Waterson… great stuff!

2. Dan Thompson

   That back cover is hilarious, Mark!

3. Mike Cope

   It’s one of those covers you can judge a book by!

4. Mark_Tatulli

   In a world where cartoonists are being threatened for drawing Mohammed, I’d hardly call my silly book cover “balsy”…they risk their lives, whilst I risk a sharp rebuke.

5. Alan Gardner  (admin)

   I missed the back cover earlier. I’d buy the book just for that alone.

   Well done, Mark. Well done. I hope you at least get SOME feedback from the great one – even if it’s a snarky note. 🙂

6. Mark_Tatulli

   Alan, you hear that sniffing sound coming from Ohio? That was him.

7. Lucas Turnbloom

   Holy crap! I too would buy the book for the back cover alone!

8. Tom Heintjes

   Man, that is brilliant, Mark! I never figured you for a Dapper Dan man, but you rock the pomade!

9. Shane Davis

   Very sick, very twisted.

   Here, take some of my money…

10. Stephen Beals

    Yea! I’ll buy all three. I think we need a poster of the Lio cover.

    It’ll be interesting to see if Barnes & Noble or Borders stocks any of these. I’m not sure why I bother looking anymore, because I always wind up going to Amazon.

    Then, mysteriously, Half Price Books will receive stacks of new Andrews McMeel books months down the road, marked down (half price, I believe).

11. John read

    I’m a VERY regular shopper at the Barnes & Noble near me, Stephen, and am happy to say they usually do have the latest comics and cartoon collections published by Andrews McMeel and others. As a matter of fact, I’ve already bought the new “Get Fuzzy” book, and will certainly grab Mark’s and Keith’s books when they put them out.

    BTW, I’m wondering if anyone visiting The Daily Cartoonist knows how to contact Darby Conley. I’d very much like to have him as part of the comic strip exhibition I’m curating, but have been unable to reach him. If you do, would you please e-mail me his address?

12. Charles Brubaker

    John,

    Darby is apparently becoming the new Bill Watterson, avoiding interviews and public appearances in the past few years. So good luck getting in touch with him.

    http://www.omaha.com/article/20100215/LIVING/702159969

13. Charles Brubaker

    John,

    A recent article from Omaha World-Herald states that Darby Conley no longer makes public appearances and rarely does interviews. In short, he’s the new Bill Watterson.

    Good luck trying to contact him.

14. Stephen Beals

    @John, Maybe it’s a regional thing. I hit four B&N regularly and there’s el squatto aside from the cartooning staples. They’ll have Get Fuzzy, but never Lio. I saw two copies of Cul de Sac at each store, like some higher up ordered a whopping two for each.

    Then, out of nowhere they’ll display something like the Blondie Anniversary hardback in the bargain bin for three bucks.

    When I saw a stack of crisp Dog Eat Doug books at Half Price, like they were dropped from nowhere, I began to think we’re some sort of weird cosmic comic dumping ground.

15. Mark_Tatulli

    Stephen, all you have to do is ask somebody at the help desk to order a book for you, and they will have it in less than a week. They even will call you when it’s in.

16. Stephen Beals

    Oh, I know Mark (I worked in libraries for 11 years). I’m just whining about what’s available for browsers. There’s never an even mix.

    My wife fell in love with Lio only because I showed it to her. There are quite a few recently syndicated comics (like, within the last 10 years) with collections out there that I think would sell if they had the shelf space.

    I don’t understand Barnes & Noble. The multitude of books that are on display for the impulse purchase can be very odd. The titles of fiction authors (beyond the top bestsellers) seem to be a year out of touch. In the case of comic strips, they seem to be at least ten years behind the times. They’re ok with graphic novels.

    Like I said, I whine. It’s what I do.

17. Mike Peterson

    Last Christmas, I decided to do the right thing and order the half-dozen collections I was giving family through the local independent bookstore instead of Amazon. It took a little over three weeks and, without Amazon’s discount, cost me about the equivalent of a seventh copy more.

    Of course, the big chains have better pricing and swifter contact with distributors, but I’m not sure I see a difference between ordering from B&N or Borders and going to Amazon, other than having to go get the book when it arrives rather than having it delivered to my door. If you want anything more than the best-sellers, somebody is going to have to hit the computer to make it appear, and I’m not clear on why it should be them instead of me.

    And I say this as someone who really likes independent bookstores. And newspapers. And drugstores where they’d make you a vanilla Coke from the fountain.

18. Stephen Beals

    Mmmmm. Vanilla Coke from the fountain.

    I agree, it’s too expensive to order a stack of books through a bookstore. I just think of browsing as a form of advertising.

    If you’re a bookstore that has a dedicated humor section, stock a better variety of books (especially if they’re from the same publisher and you still get lower prices through bulk ordering). Given that every B&N has Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side stacked in their bargain bins, they may have relied too heavily on those staples.

19. Dan Bielinski

    I’ve had to order ALL the Lio books at Borders. They never have them in stock, yet I go there thinking they will. Hey, I’m a Cubs fan… eternally optimistic.

20. Mark_Tatulli

    Yeah, I have no control over that. I don’t know how they make these decisions. Some stores carry them, some don’t. Some hold them for 30 days and then return them. I don’t get it.

21. Garey Mckee

    The back cover is Hi-larious!

22. Ted Rall

    @Stephen: Wow, I agree with you! Had to happen eventually.

    Many so-called independent bookstores rely on bestsellers. When I go to these stores looking for a certain title, it’s usually not a bestseller–and it’s usually not in stock. So I go home and order it online, thus depriving the author of full royalties. I certainly don’t feel guilty about the store; what good is that store to me as a consumer or the authors I care about? The sad part is, Barnes & Noble is better about stocking low-volume titles than so-called indies.

    Of course, there are exceptions. St. Mark’s Books in NYC, for example, does what a good store should do–it stocks titles I might never otherwise have heard of, not the Stephen Kings I should be finding at Border’s or B&N.

    But I’ll pay for instant gratification. If a store has the book right there, in stock right now, I’ll pay more for the ability to go home with it right away.

23. Mike Peterson

    This has a lot to do with market size. As a small city market, the Borders here — there is no B&N — is a mid-sized store that only stocks the usual suspects. This, incidentally, is also true of the Wal-Mart and the Rite-Aid — they’re smaller versions of what people in the megalopolis expect.

    Meanwhile, most independent bookstores these days have a niche or two that they rely on. Local authors and New England themes are big here. Even in larger markets, you’ll have stores that specialize in mysteries or whathaveyou. What is essentially gone is the generalized independent bookstore, and they were killed by both the chains — who siphoned off the bread-and-butter best selling crap that allowed them to stock more esoteric titles, and the Internet, which made it easier to go to Amazon than to wait two weeks and drive downtown to pick up a special order.

    Cartoons are a niche, but you’d need to be in a big market to pull it off on a broad level. As it happens, I went to the local comics store on Free Comic Book Day and picked up a handful of books for the grandkids, but he said he doesn’t get enough call for comic strip collections to take up valuable shelf space in his small shop. He’s willing to special order, of course.

    Which is where I think I came in.

24. Stephen Beals

    @ Ted, I think we’re more alike than you think. It’s just that if there’s a US soldier denied an abortion on an Italian military base while being court marshaled for refusing to fight in an illegal war (or whatever), I’m not going to get into it on a site about cartooning.

    But back to bookstores, I would be interested to peek at Barnes & Noble’s business strategy when it comes to scattering about a hundred or so weird books when you enter the store.

    I think a small Speed Bump or Bizarro book would be a perfect impulse purchase, but they’re not out there. Surely they have sales figures that prove me wrong and the “Cake Mistakes” picture book of funny misspellings on cakes is far outselling whatever a cartoonist can come up with.

    The “superstores” (Target, WalMart, Meijer, etc.) also have a mini-bookstore section. There’s never comic collections. Why not? There used to be. I’d love to see a Ted Rall Attitude collection next to a Glenn Beck, uh, book.

25. Tom Wood

    Speaking of impulse buying… I’ve never seen anybody actually buy one of those Enquirer type magazines at the grocery store checkout. That’s a very competitive space, but if ever there was a spot for cartoon collections to be sold, that would be it.

26. Ted Rall

    @Stephen: You’re right, comic collections make nice impulse buys. Kramerbooks in DC, one of the better indie stores, understands this and puts them by the cash register.

    This used to be standard. When I was a kid in the 1970s, most bookstores stocked humor books by the register and up front. The “humor ghetto” took shape in the 1980s, and I don’t know why. Now it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: they don’t put humor books up front because they don’t sell, and they don’t sell because they’re buried in the back of the store, spine out.

    My strategy for getting my books placed at the front of the store is to blend cartoons with prose, thus getting them classified as “Current Events.” Makes a HUGE difference in sales.