Yesterday I went to two comics stores looking for issue #2 of Powers volume 2, which hit store shelves on Wednesday. Both had already sold out.

Today I tried a third store. They had a stack of at least 20, and that was just on the shelf. Who knows whether they had more in the back?

Of course, this store tends to carry both a larger selection and a larger inventory than the others. If I’m looking for back issues or anything esoteric, that’s my first stop. The others — well, the one I normally go to (which is near where I work, so I can drop in on my lunch hour) has a small collection of mostly recent back issues, but much of the store is given over to D&D and Warhammer. The one I tried yesterday evening (since I had a better chance of getting there before closing) is very small, and I have no idea what they do with their back stock, because I’m fairly certain it’s not in the store. But they have lots of graphic novels, anime, and manga — and the best thing is that they rent out graphic novels as if they were videos. That’s how I discovered Powers, actually — one of their clerks recommended it to me and I rented the first few collections, then started buying them.

What I’m getting at is that store #1 and store #2 seem to be ordering the number of books they expect to sell and no more, while store #3 seems to plan on keeping things around so that people can come in, pick up issue #4, and look for issues #1-3, and actually buy them.

Either that, or stores #1 and #2 mainly get customers in on the day new comics arrive, and store #3 gets more of its customers on the weekend.