> One of the unique challenges in comics is the monthly gamble on what will sell. Comics released every few weeks, as opposed to the collected editions availabl

> One of the unique challenges in comics is the monthly gamble on what will sell. Comics released every few weeks, as opposed to the collected editions available in bookshops or on Amazon, aren’t returnable; with 600 to 1,000 such items published every month, stores must make educated guesses or be stuck with their mistakes. At OK Comics, 90% of what Myland gets in are pre-orders, with the rest put on shelves for casual customers. “Smart retailers would rather under- than over-order,” he says Ouch. Returns make things hard for the publishers, so I understand removing them for a diverse catalog of small cheap publications which will be replaced by a collection in a known period of time. But yeah, that really does make them very unattractive for retailers.