Have Wacky Minis really been a success at retail (aside from this small community)? I still see series 1 & 2 cups languishing on shelves at Target / Walmart.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the combination of our small but free-spending community, plus modest sales among the Junior Circuit, are enough to turn a profit. I saw plenty of instances where dated ANS material hung around in stores well after the next series came out, but that didn’t stop Topps from chugging along for 10+ years of retail releases.
The whole question of what’s been happening the last few years and what the future looks like makes me think back to a very interesting and informative internet article I read a few years back about Silver/Bronze Age X-Men comics. Apparently although there were high hopes for X-Men from its 1963 inception, within a few years sales were languishing in comparison to Marvel’s other titles. What the brain trust decided X-Men needed was an international flavor and an expanded cast of characters, but they needed time to develop the concept, conjure up some storylines, etc. So they began reprinting earlier issues as new ones, sometimes as double issues, sometimes tweaking cover art, etc. I guess they figured the most casual comic fans wouldn’t notice they were running reprints, and all would seem well in the X-Men world. The second, and IMO far more important step Marvel took, was to write one-Shot appearances of X-Men characters into other titles during this period - Iceman in Amazing Spider-Man, Banshee in Captain America, Beast in Marvel Team-Up, and several more. Brilliant move - this kept the characters alive in readers’ minds while the revamp was in the works. Even X-Men fans who might have given up on the title because of the reprints could branch out into these other titles and get new stories. Then the reboot got launched, and the rest is history - X-Men exploded in popularity from that time circa 1975 and never looked back.
Although I doubt Wacky Packages will ever peak again like they did 1973-75, the minis to me are somewhat like a smaller example of the X-Men phenomenon. Keep the brand alive, even with only occasional releases, and a new marketing idea can bear fruit. Difficult to predict for sure what will happen with the changes at Topps, but no reason to kill the brand with the potential still there.