I'm doing my monthly comic orders, again.

Marvel has me backed into a corner. When I finished my orders, the numbers come in as nearly double what I ordered last year.

Why is this a problem?

Go back to the comic bubble of the mid-1990's. March, 1995. I finish my orders and realize that my orders are twice what they were the year previous. Actually higher in cost that the total amount of sales the year before. There is a huge crossover between the two hottest emergent companies, Image and Valient. I'm selling over 100 Spawn comics every month, and probably 50 of the best selling Valiant titles. All the Image titles and Valient titles are selling well. I go with 200 copies of each of the crossovers.

Similar dynamics are working for DC and Marvel and Dark Horse. Everything is selling.

Still, I'm concerned. For the first and only time, I call up my distributer and reach the highest management I can reach, and I say, "Listen, my orders are coming in at more than twice as much as last year. What if there is a slowdown? "

And the guy from Diamond said, "What are you worried about? Everyone else is happy."

So I sent my orders off.

Three months go by, and sales have started to fall of the cliffs. Now, if the majority of my March orders had arrived in June like they were supposed to, and majority of the April orders had arrived in July, and the majority of the May orders arrived in August, I probably would have been O.K.

Instead, they arrived in Oct and Nov, two of my slowest months, and months after the boom was over.

This event wiped out over 2/3 of the comic shops in America. All the distributers but one. Marvel went Chapter 11. Dire times. I spent the next 2 years paying off my debt to my wholesaler.

Flash forward to 2007. We've had six good years of steady growth. But Marvel has a hit on their hands, a huge crossover event called Civil War. As they fall behind in their schedule, they throw out one-shot fill-ins and they sell! They add new titles and they sell! They kill Captain America, and it's a huge publicity bonanza!

This month they have hit me with the equivilent of 6 Civil War titles in one month, along with dozens of crossovers. Only they are tie-ins, not the actual Civil War. And I have no idea what to do. If I order every Civil War tie in at Civil War numbers, or as if they may have another Death of Capt. America event, my budget is blown into massive numbers.

Problem is, I have no idea what the content is, how my customers will react, whether the titles will be on time. If I come up short, and disappoint my customers, will they stick with me or start looking online? How much risk can I take?

The last big crossover event Marvel did was called House of M. It sold pretty good -- not Civil War numbers, but close. At the end, they threw out post House of M titles -- Son of M and Generation M. I made a guess, ordered one third as many ( which was still alot).

I ate them. They didn't sell at all.

So now, Marvel has tossed out not one or two post Civil War titles, but dozens. They all look important, they are all hyped.

But in the end, they aren't really creating that many new customers. I'm selling them to my base subscribers, and I'm asking them, in effect, to buy twice as much.

A very dangerous game.

These are enough like Civil War that if they turn out to be hits, my customers can ask, why didn't they get them? If they are not hits, my customers can hand them back and say, I didn't ask for them.

Even though I beg and plead with my subscribers to tell me what they want, they generally seem to believe that I can read their minds. "Of course! I wanted that!" they exclaim in surprise. Or they frown, and say, "Of course! I didn't want that!"

The middle ground is to order about 2/3rds of the original Civil War numbers, but not put them on shelves unless specifically asked. If I come up short, it will be to those customers who took their own sweet time about getting into the store. I can always try to get reorders.

After it's all over, it will seem obvious what I should have done. But right now, I'm totally guessing. And even hedging my bets, I'm still at nearly twice last years budget.