Comic World News

April 22, 2008:
CWN and the Grand Finale! -

February 4, 2008:
In Conclusion - David ends his CWN run with Tezuka's MW from Vertical

February 2, 2008:
Acting Like You Have Nothing to Prove -

February 2, 2008:
The Shoegazer Returns - A New Year Begins, And Our Narrator Makes A Pledge

January 30, 2008:
Tim's Reviews -

September 13, 2007:
Wizard World Chicago Loot, Part One - Stykman, Empty Chamber, the Ztarian Saga, and yes, Little Bunny Foo Foo

February 15, 2007:
I Come Not to Bury Nick Cage... - But to mourn the death of my punchline

November 20, 2006:
The End - Rich's last Chicks & Romance

November 8, 2006:
Joann Sfar's Klezmer - And a Front Racks Hiatus

October 4, 2006:
This Month's Guest: Dave Gibbons - From the pages of Elephantmen!

September 18, 2006:
Back in Berlin - or How I spent my summer

July 29, 2006:
KICKING UP A STORM - An interview with David Lloyd

June 19, 2006:
You Ain't Never Had A Friend Like Me. - Graeme looks at Spidey's "genies"

December 18, 2005:
Disappointed - Sad news for fans of Busiek's CONAN, Stephen King, and others

December 13, 2004:
JUSTICE UNPLUGGED 2 at last !!! - By Fabrice Sapolsky & Xavier Fournier

December 2, 2004:
THE TWELFTH AND FINAL STEP - Say it ain't so, Dan.

November 23, 2004:
The importance of editing -

September 29, 2004:
Mystery and Conundrum indeed! - Where in the world is Jason Pomerantz?

September 13, 2004:
Hello and Goodbye and Hello Again - Change is in the air at CWN and it smells sweet.

August 12, 2004:
The Rise of the Web Toon - New Business Model or Dumb Luck?

July 30, 2004:
The Name Says it All... - Spin Doctors revamp Boomerang.

July 27, 2004:
Bigger Isn't Always Better -

June 8, 2004:
Pre-emptive Strike: MoCCA Arts Festival - Looking forward to the con, rather than looking back at it

The Layer Method
Our top Secret time-saving technique for creating and merging balloons and tails in Illustrator.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Comparison Shopping

It�s obvious that I�m pro-manga. I�ll happily encourage people to read it, and read broadly, whether it�s low-brow sh�nen action comedy or sprawling, high-minded classics, or something chic and nouvelle.

But I don�t want anyone to go broke in the process. Manga can be a costly hobby, depending on your level of addiction, so it behooves the hobbyist to make the most of that portion of their discretionary income dedicated to crisp new tankoubons.

So I decided to conduct a little experiment, picking five titles and running them through the gauntlet of on-line shopping outlets to see which offered the best prices and most attractive shipping options. To make it a little more interesting, I picked five titles that might not be found on the shelves of the local bookstore chain.

� Blue, Kiriko Nananan, Fanfare/Ponent Mon, $23.99
� Between the Sheets, Erica Sakurazawa, Tokyopop, $9.99
� The Judged, Akira Honma, DramaQueen, $12.99
� Pure Trance, Junko Mizuno, Last Gasp, $19.98
� Sexy Voice and Robo, Iou Kuroda, Viz, $19.99

My thinking here was that one of the advantages of on-line shopping is ready access to products that you might not be able to find locally. Not everyone has a big bookstore or well-stocked comic shop within a couple of miles of their home.

Before applicable sales taxes and shipping, the books would retail for $86.94

Moving alphabetically through some obvious outlets, I started with Amazon.com. The total cost of the books was $69.66. With standard shipping (three to five business days), the order came to $77.61. Since the order was over $30.00, free shipping in five to nine business days was available. Two-day shipping seemed only available in theory, as grouping the items to reduce shipping costs to $17.44 would create delays, and having them shipped within the time frame would result in a whopping $47.40 in shipping charges for three separate shipments. To receive them in one business day, shipping costs would hit $82.40 for actual one-day delivery. (Since Borders currently partners with Amazon for on-line shopping, I saw no real reason to try and differentiate between the two.)

At Barnes & Noble, the total product cost, with tax, was $91.13. Buyers with a $25.00 membership in Barnes & Noble�s discount program save 10%, bringing the price down to $82.48. If you wait for your order to be sent in a single shipment, standard delivery (three business days or less) is free. Expedited delivery (two to three business days) adds a shipping charge of $8.94. Air service (also two to three business days) rings up at $17.44. Expedited air service (one to two business days) comes in at $27.44. If you ask for items to be shipped as they become available, cost bumps up: standard is $10.95; expedited is $12.93; air service is $24.93; and expedited air is $39.93.

Books-a-Million offered a total product cost, with tax, of $80.44. Buyers with a $15.00 membership in the chain�s discount program could save an additional $7.57. On the delivery front, customers willing to wait for a complete order would have the following choices: free shipping in four to ten business days is available for orders over $25.00; standard ground shipping (three to seven business days) for this order would be $7.94; second-day air shipping (two business days) would cost $16.94; and next-day air shipping came in at $25.94. Recalculating to allow items to ship as they became available didn�t change shipping costs, which suggests that Books-a-Million would be able to collect this order at a single, central warehouse, though free shipping was no longer an option.

At Buy.com, total cost of the books was $60.16. Shipping options included: budget (free shipping in seven to nine business days); standard ($15.10 to receive items in three to five business days); second day for $32.99; and next-day for $58.00. Two of the books in the order (Blue and The Judged) were listed as �on order,� though the other three were in stock. This would obviously add an undetermined delay to delivery.

Overstock.com eliminated itself from the running by having no listing for Blue and being sold out of The Judged. For the three books available for purchase, they did pretty well in terms of price, offering $49.96 worth of books for $36.00. They did have another Honma title from DramaQueen, Last Portrait, in stock and offered it for $9.35. If they had a better selection, it seems as if Overstock might have come in with a very low total price.

I was pleasantly surprised by how many of the on-line retailers had readily (or relatively readily) available copies of books from boutique publishers like Fanfare and Last Gasp. I honestly suspected that the shopping list would result in more eliminations.

While Buy.com did offer the lowest total price for the actual books, its shipping terms aren�t quite as attractive as Amazon�s. And neither of them compare favorably to the timeline on free shipping offered by Barnes & Noble, though both handily beat Barnes & Noble in terms of price, even if you have a discount program membership. Another advantage to both Amazon and Buy is the ability to pay via checking account for those who don�t want to run up their credit cards.

But it all depends on whether you�re looking for price or speed. I personally can�t see why anyone not desperate to procure a gift for someone else in a timely fashion would pay for shipping when so many no-cost options are available, and when placing a time frame on an order can bring such a steep tariff, but to each his or her own.