Comments on: Marvel Eliminates Barcodes on Collections

By: Joe

Joe — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:45:17 +0000

I’ve heard that Marvel and DC alike are going to leave Diamond. Archie Comics has already and are going to another publishing house, Random maybe?

By: D. Peace

D. Peace — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:54:08 +0000

OK, now I understand. For a minute, I thought Marvel was no longer publishing books with ISBN’s which would be… bizarre. Kind of like a cop throwing his badge in the trash.

By: Journalista – the news weblog of The Comics Journal » Blog Archive » Oct. 12, 2009: Thank you in advance

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:09:48 +0000

[...] Johanna Draper Carlson discovers that Marvel is eliminating the barcodes on their book collections. [...]

By: David

David — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:44:50 +0000

Right. It only says that they are eliminating the UPC bar code, not bar codes altogether. I’d bet that the ISBN code remains.

B&N needs that code. They don’t need the UPC code.

By: BobH

BobH — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:40:25 +0000

Yeah, it’s probably a thing where they’re used to the jargon that distinguishes a UPC barcode from an ISBN barcode, and are aware Marvel carried both until now, so it’s perfectly clear to them, but to anyone else a barcode is a barcode.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:17:29 +0000

That would make sense, but boy, that’s not at all clear from their announcement, is it? I would hope someone clarifies at the retailer summit, please?

By: BobH

BobH — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:58:51 +0000

Yeah, I assume they mean that inside barcode, not the outside one (which has the ISBN). Looking at one of them right now, I see the inside one of those I have the inside barcode says “Direct Edition”, which I guess means they currently split the print run (presumably based on whether returns are accepted) and are going to stop doing so.

By: Ed Catto

Ed Catto — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:35:11 +0000

THANK GOODNESS there will now be something to talk about at the Retailer Summit tomorrow. It’s been such a dull, uneventful industry lately! ;)

By: Randy Lander

Randy Lander — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:56:32 +0000

This came up at the retailer forum on Delphi, and I believe, though of course we won’t be sure until we see them, that this isn’t the huge deal it would seem.

If the retailer surmised correctly (and forgive me, I can’t remember who it was), Marvel, like many book and comic book publishers, has two barcodes on their trades, one on the back (a barcode) and one on the inside cover or inside back cover (a UPC barcode). What they’re doing away with is the one inside the cover that nobody uses, the barcode on the backs that many comic shops use will remain.

I hope that’s the case, because otherwise, yeah, I can’t see the logic in this either. Certainly dropping barcodes from their trades entirely would make it a pain to ring up Marvel trades at my store.

Do kind of wish that Marvel would clarify this, if the supposition of “dropping one barcode, not all of them” is the case.

By: Ed Catto

Ed Catto — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:49:00 +0000

I was surprised at Marvel’s lack of presence at the Baltimore Comic Con yesterday. It was a great time – and very comic-focused!

By: Johanna

Johanna — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:48:11 +0000

I know Marvel’s done at least one of the Stephen King collections “direct market only” as a selling point (and because they didn’t have rights to sell it in bookstores), but yeah, even if they want to take their books DM only, the comic shops more and more have computerized point-of-sale systems that need barcodes too.

By: Ed Catto

Ed Catto — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:40:09 +0000

Very strange..might be a way to concede ground to comic shops..but more and more bar code readers. Weird..