Tapping into Watchmen nostalgia.

Lots of discussion over on the retail sites about whether BEFORE WATCHMEN is going to be a hit or a flop, or in-between.

I ended up ordering heavily.

I could have gone the other way, (The saying is, "No one ever went broke selling out.")but because the store is overall doing well, I decided to take a chance.

I've noticed with the bigger promotions,that they tend to have an umbrella effect on the rest of the titles. That is, the big title itself may not be a moneymaker, but it seems to help sell other things.

That's the thing about comic shops -- we order in advance, based on limited knowledge, and we don't get to return the unsold copies. In compensation, we get a higher mark-up than we do on other product that we theoretically could return; books, for instance, even though I never do.

The talk is whether WATCHMEN still has an appeal to modern readers. Or conversely, whether the creators behind the new titles are great enough to hold onto readers.

My calculation is, that WATCHMEN is indeed a perennial and probably always will be. It's taken on a mythic proportion by now, with or without the movie. What I'm saying is, Alan Moore created some great characters, and I'm going to assume that people will want to read more about these characters.

After all, the very best part of the movie was the opening credits which created a deep sense of nostalgia for an earlier time; a time that never really happened.

If these titles are written well, they will tap into that nostalgia and I'll be along for the ride.