Hey, Folks!
Well, I’m back! It has been a long couple of weeks what with the holidays and all. I mean, I haven’t been this busy socially or professionally in a good long while and I still haven’t caught up with my regular duties. I can’t even get my laundry caught up at home much less get the Shipping List and Subscription Form out quickly! Of course, we are still in early December which means it is going to get way busier before it settles down for the cold, dead month of January.
I wanted to start out this week’s EDitorial by once again going over Monarch Comics holiday schedule this year. As you may remember, both Christmas Day and New Year’s Day fall on a Wednesday this year which is creating a mild amount of havok in the back end of our distribution system. Both next week (12/11) and the week after (12/18) are going to be HUGE ship weeks. This is mostly due to the fact that the week of the 25th will be an extremely small ship week as well as all of the comic companies, both large and small, cramming out as much product before the end of the year as possible. I can’t really look at the data easily at this point, but I suspect the shipment on the 1st is going to be pretty substantial as well.
In any case, while Monarch Comics will remain closed on Christmas, I have decided that there are so many new books due out the week of the 1st that I will for the first time open the store up on New Year’s Day for limited hours. I figure y’all are going to be needing a break from the family by then and we are here to accommodate you! We will see how this goes. If it goes well enough then it might become a new thing for us in the future. I also want to assure everyone that I will broadcasting the weekly Monarch Comics AT NIGHT Facebook live show on Tuesdays as per usual, but it will be at 5pm instead of 7pm!
MONARCH COMICS HOLIDAY HOURS
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24TH, CHRISTMAS EVE: 11AM-5PM
WEDSNESDAY, DECEMBER 25TH, CHRISTMAS DAY: CLOSED
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26TH: 9AM-7PM
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31ST, NEW YEAR’S EVE: 11AM-5PM
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1ST, NEW YEAR’S DAY: 12PM-4PM
THURSDAY, JANUARY 2ND: 9AM-7PM
I suppose now is as good a time as ever to mention that we are also permanently changing our Wednesday hours starting next year. For the last 30 odd years we have been open 10am-8pm on Wednesdays, but Steve and I have discussed it and we think it is time for a change. You see, I’m always here by 9am on Wednesday morning, mostly to finish getting everything ready for New Comic Day. As a result, I see more than a few folks dropping by for their weekly new comics long before the official 10am opening time. We rarely have more than one or two people who show up after 7pm on Wednesdays, however, and I think we would be better served opening earlier and not staying quite as late. As a result, our new hours on Wednesday will 9am-7pm starting January 8th!
Also, starting January 1st will be Monarch Comics’ annual post-holiday sale, or, as I like to call it, “The Propping Up The Really Slow Retail Months of January and February Sale”. That doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as well as “Post-Holiday Sale” though. In any case, starting Wednesday, January 1st, and ending Friday, January 31st, all hard covers and trade paperbacks will be at 25% off price marked! This will, of course, also include any titles already marked down as well as any special orders that are placed and/or received the month of January, So, for instance, if you special order a hard cover or trade paperback in the month of January you will receive the 25% off no matter when it actually ships in! We will also have 50% off all of our Back Issue Boxes and 25% off Wall Books from Wednesday, January 1st, through Saturday, February 29th! That’s right…two whole months you can plunder our back issue boxes on deep discount!
Diamond Comic Distributors just released the complete listing of titles that are going to be going on sale December 26th and it is such a tiny list I figured I could end your suspense and just give it to you now. Never fear though…I will post this information under a proper shipping list that week as well as have a subscription form ready for your orders. The list of titles includes:
BETTIE PAGE UNBOUND #8 (DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT)
CRIMINAL #11 (IMAGE COMICS)
DIAL H FOR HERO TP V.1 ENTER THE HEROVERSE (DC COMICS)
DR STRANGE #1 (MARVEL COMICS)
EAST OF WEST #45 (IMAGE COMICS)
FAITHLESS TP (BOOM! STUDIOS)
FIGHT CLUB 3 #12 (DARK HORSE)
HOSUE OF SECRETS THE BRONZE AGE OMNIBUS HC V.2 (DC COMICS)
INCOMING #1 (MARVEL COMICS)
KILL LOCK #1 (IDW)
MARKED #3 (IMAGE COMICS)
MASK I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE MASK #3 (DARK HORSE)
OUTCAST BY KIRKMAN & AZACETA #13 (IMAGE COMICS)
RED SONJA VAMPIRELLA BETTY VERONICA #7 (DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT)
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #24 (IDW)
SPIDER-HAM #1 (MARVEL COMICS)
SUPERGIRL TP V.2 SINS OF THE CIRCLE (DC COMICS)
VENOM #21 (MARVEL COMICS)
I wanted to take a moment and mention the BIG EVENT coming up in next week’s Superman #18! I’m going to assume that everyone has heard the news by now, but if you haven’t then ***SPOILER ALERT***!
Still There? Okay. Superman is going to reveal his identity to the world in issue #18 shipping in next week! This is, of course, the continuation of Brian Michael Bendis’ brilliant run on Action Comics and Superman. After kicking off his Superman run with a magnificent outer space saga and the continuation of the Leviathan storyline in Action Comics I have a feeling this new “reveal” storyline is going to be a doozy! In any case, I ordered extra copies of the new issue in the anticipation of extra interest, but even so, we will be limiting purchases of Superman #18 to one of each cover (regular and variant) to make sure that everyone who wants a copy gets one. I will lift this restriction as soon as I’m satisfied that I’ve sufficiently spread the copies around. The title is already listed as sold out at Diamond so I don’t believe there are any more copies available for reorder.
And finally this week there is one new POP offering from Funko and Diamond this week and it is a doozy! Diamond is taking preorders for the POP Specialty Series DC Golden Age Green Lantern Vinyl Figure! This absolutely gorgeous figure will retail for $10.99 and come packaged like all of the POP figures in its own window box. The Final Order Cut-Off Date for this figure is 12/23/19 with an estimated ship date of 3/25/20! Please let me know ASAP if you’d like to special order one of these figures!
I hope everyone has a great weekend despite all the cold and dreary weather and I will be right back here next week to blather on some more about comics and store stuff!
Eddie