Mike Boze of HawgHead Comics in Fort Smith, Arizona responds to a comment made by Steve Bennett in his latest column regarding the upcoming DC relaunch (see “Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Don't Call It A Reboot”).

I would like to comment on Steve Bennett's question, “How can anything that brings the Barbara Gordon Batgirl back to us be bad?”
 
First I would like to repeat what a customer said, "I think Barbara Gordon as Oracle is the more compelling character."  I would like to add that also we lose or even worse turn one of the best stories concerning Barbara Gordon into a weak Elseworlds or more correctly What If?--in Alan Moore's Batman: The Killing Joke.
 
As I thought on this the last couple days, a thought crossed my mind that goes back to when there used to be regional retailer conferences.  At one of these in the mid-90's I was listening to the Wizard Magazine rep tell the retailers that everything the company did was for the benefit of the retailers.  I responded with the following question, "If that is so then why do you offer your magazine to mail-order customers at our wholesale price and as an incentive offer premiums that even the retailers cannot get?"  I seem to remember that we broke for lunch soon after that.
 
Now we can look around and see that Wizard Magazine is no longer available except as an online product.  In September DC Comics will begin to offer online versions of everything we are attempting to sell.  Is it safe to say that there may be a pattern here?

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