Bad Idea studios is looking to do comics differently. So ask your retailers of the forum the promo comic for a self published comic called the Hero Trade. Turns out it is Matt Kindt and Dave Laphan’s new book that Bad Idea snuck out to retailers.
1 Like
Has anyone seen the sales of this book on ebay. Sales are going for $300-$860. Crazy.
I tried to warn people. I was on “Its Drunken Chat Son” Friday night and Denise from Bad Idea was on the show and gave one away. On a side note I started drinking Blantons at about the 2 AM mark, it was another bad idea.
Do you know how many were sent to retailers? Was it 100?
250 printed 140 sent to stores. Dinesh has 5 copies. The remaining were allowed for orders based on the letter sent to retailers. The thing is, not sure how many copies were just thrown in the trash.
Another creator/publisher trying to manipulate the market. Trying to Create hype for his book with this type of stunt so thwy can sell the normal comics.
3 Likes
That’s called advertising. It’s a brand new publisher. That is not an easy venture, especially given everything that has happened in the past 6 months. As an owner of a online store, Mike, I’m sure you can appreciate that fact. I’m not sure how this promotion can be viewed as ‘manipulating the market’. Care to explain what you mean in this scenario, with that hot take phrase, Mike?
Dinesh and Bad Idea are not out to manipulate the market. Ive seen Dineshs PC, he doesn’t need to manipulate anything.
I think my biggest issue with it is just the timing of doing it while many stores are just struggling to survive. $3/book for a self published comic by creators with an unknown history and having to order through a gmail address with such a small window of time to not even really be able to ask customers who might be willing to take a shot on something 100% new and indie made it not a great idea (maybe even, a bad idea?!) for a lot of smaller stores.
There’s also the fact that stores with good intentions (who may have actually read it, or read it to provide feedback to help these new creators) are “punished” by having a more worn copy to sell than stores who ignored it until they saw it trending on Bleedingcool.
It definitely succeeded in terms of marketing their brand outside of the niche LCS scene, though. So in that regard they did a great job and it was a brilliant plan.
A publisher with a small base, likely limited on funds and just starting out is manipulating the market already? Sounds more like a marketing strategy to push their way onto the actual market they’re not really a part of currently. I never heard of them until now.
How many people here can claim they own a book in their current collection that was published by Bad Idea Studios?
1 Like
So the book was completely made to look like something people printed on their own. It wasn’t intended to sell for $700. It was cool that it is but Bad Idea intended it to sell for $3.99 on the shelves. Was it meant to manipulate the market, absolutely not. Is it something that people deemed Collectible and wanted to chase. Yup. It was an ash can. It was a marketing idea. It has turned Into free advertising for the company.
Furthermore there are 250 copies printed and sent to the 100 stores in the “bad idea network” of stores. 140 went out. I contacted the gmail address on Tuesday morning at 9 am and was told they had sold out of the remaining copies.
And lastly, to avoid secondary market sales and gouging, Bad Idea has asked retailers to limit sales to one per customer. Don’t know how that is market manipulation.
1 Like
I have Eniac #1, their first book coming out, on pre-order from TFAW and a couple of other stores.
1 Like
I’ll have to check it out.
I read it and liked it. No, I don’t have a physical copy right now (press digital stuff), but if I did…
1 Like
I’m still really excited for Eniac when it eventually comes out.
I think it’s coming out soon.
FYI Eniac #3 will reprint the Hero Trade story in the back of it.
1 Like
Bad Idea! is a new Indie publisher that was made by comic book fans, for comic book fans. Dinesh, one of the organizers of Bad Idea! is respected in the industry and has been in this game for a long time. You won’t find too many people that have anything bad to say about him.
They Bad Idea books were going to hit the shelves right around the time covid hit in March. That screwed everything up for the new publisher. I’m surprised it survived covid and is still being released.
Dinesh used to be the CEO of Valiant. He has a very well known history.
I am just curious as to who the buyers who are paying $800 a book and what they expect in terms of the price going forward.