Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by retailer Steve Bennett of Mary Alice Wilson's Dark Star Comics in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett talks about the comics that sell consistently, year after year. 

When I blithely go around dispensing advice to other retailers about how to sell comic books I try very hard to remember just because Comic X sells (or doesn't) at Dark Star it doesn't mean it doesn't sell somewhere.  I can't tell you how many times I've leafed through the new Diamond Previews, pointed at some item at random and wondered aloud 'Is there anyone, anywhere who actually buys that?'

Oh, FYI, in case anyone was wondering who bought all those pricey black and white Golden Age reprints from AC -- that would be me.

For instance this week we'll be getting another big shipment of Asterix; you know, the European graphic album series about a Popeye-sized ancient Gaul who along with his oversized friend Obelix use their super strength to protect their tiny village from the invading Romans.  In Europe Asterix is a huge brand name (Asterix is to Superman as Tintin is to Batman) but in a lot of shops in the States you probably couldn't give them away, and admittedly even at Dark Star we don't sell them at anything like 52 or Civil War numbers.

But each year we order another full set of them because while we get distracted keeping up with everything from Marvel and DC they slowly disappear.  This is an object lesson on how you can focus so much on bestsellers you can miss out on a lot of steady sellers.  Because while these are definitely good days to be both buying and selling comics, you can only sell so many Marvel/DC comics before the buyer runs out of funds or interest.

Which, hopefully, is where your other customers come in; you know the ones that buy the other comics, the ones I like to call The Perennials.  Last time I said comic books don't sell themselves...except of course for the ones that do.  And while none of these may ever sell for you, I think it's important you know they're selling for someone.

You might even want to try them yourself.

After years of trying we've finally made peace with the fact we can never order enough copies of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.  Locally it's a rite of passage for every new class of college kids or subset of disaffected teens to discover JOHNNY; either they get the word from older sibs or peers or via some kind of weird word of mouth lunchroom whisper campaign.

Without ever being deemed 'hot' by Wizard and with absolutely zero in the way of advertising, week in and week out, Johnny sells.  There are only seven issues and since its creator has gone Hollywood it's highly unlikely we'll ever see an eighth, or a trade paperback collection and hardcover 'Director's Cut,' but that hasn't dampened its fans' enthusiasm.  And in spite of the fact there's nothing else like it, it hasn't stopped Slave Labor from creating a nice little niche for itself publishing comics that are sort of like it, like Lenore, Gloom Cookie, Bear, etc.  And they sell pretty well too, which comes in handy when we're (once again) out of Johnny.

Or take manga; I remember back in the 80s we (OK, I) looked forward to the glorious day when manga would be readily available in America.  We'd finally get a chance to experience the incredible diversity of genres which could appear to a much wider audience than super-hero comics.  And now that there are several hundred different volumes from dozens of publishers being published every year, at Dark Star mostly we sell... fantasy romance comedies from Tokyopop to teen girls.

For a long time we tried out all sorts of series, everything from gay romances to hard science to outre comedies, but what sold have been the fantasy romance comedies (and, to a much lesser degree, fantasy, romances and comedies).  So we cut orders, refocused on what did sell and soon the number of unsold manga dropped.  But just when we were getting smug about the fact we knew who our customers were and what they wanted, we started getting a bunch of 10-12 year old boys picking up the Shonen Jump boys adventure stuff like Mar or Legenz that had been taking up shelf space for months.

As my previous columns have certainly proved, I can go on and on.  There are the Vertigo readers who keep buying the Fables and Y the Last Man trades and the little girls who latch on to (and steadfastly refuse to let go) the latest W.I.T.C.H. graphic novels.

Maybe you don't have 'other customers,' but you certainly could use some, so now, when times are so good, it couldn't hurt more retailers to stray out of your comfort zones and try to get some by selling something different.

Not much, anyway.