Misery loves company.

It may not be a conscious decision, but it feels to me like the Bulletin has taken on a different slant toward the economic slowdown since declaring bankruptcy. They seem to be much more upfront about it; even playing it up slightly.

An article about corporate type people starting their own businesses was headlined as a "nightmare." The original article in the N.Y. Times a few days before, while saying that it was a surprise to these new entrepreneurs how hard they had to work, and how little money they made -- was mostly a positive slant.

(By the way, every new business should understand those two concepts: working harder for less money...)

I don't know. It's just an impression. It's an understandable need to show that it's not just the Bulletin, that bad times are everywhere.

Misery loves company.

At the same time, they still spout conservative views on the editorial page -- which seems somewhat contradictory. (You know, the idea that times are tough and people might just need some help, governmental or otherwise is more a liberal viewpoint -- while the Bulletin's natural stance would be -- touch luck, don't ask for help, it's your own damn fault.)

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Going to be a fair amount of commentary on digital this week, with the new DC initiative. Justice League #1 is coming in this week.

But I think that digital thing is going to take a very long time to play out -- not weeks, not even months, but years...

I'm a bit more concerned about the immediate impact of the difficulty in ordering correct numbers of these new titles.

They are NEW. Which means they don't have a track record. I got a bunch of new signups, which is good, right? Except that I'm committed to those titles -- legally and financially --- while my customers can more or less take them or leave them.

No matter what I do, I'm pretty much guaranteed to have either underordered or overordered, you know? On one hand, I don't want to sell out -- on the other hand, I'd really like to sell out (maybe have one left, two or three on the bigger titles?) So the temptation is to overorder, usually, if what you hate to hear is "Is this ALL you got?"

I thought I was being pretty conservative, but my DC orders more or less doubled. (Originally, they went up by 2 and a half times, but I've shaved them a tad.) These have to be paid for within the week.

I'm not worried about my store -- I'm pretty solid right now. But I know that for much of my career, that would have been a gamble and a cash-flow risk.

On one hand, I'm hoping that I and all my brethren ordered enough copies to make the venture a success --- and on the other hand, I'm worried that if the whole thing is a dud we'll be sitting on stacks of comics for months, even if we can return some of them in the end.

The unintended consequence is that I've had to be even more careful than normal in ordering non-essential comics -- which means, if everyone did as I did, all the other publishers are going to take a hit.

So far, I'm glad DC did it. I think it's going to be a boost for a few months, at least. But change is risky.

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