Greetings, Monarch Mavens!
Well, the holidays are finally over and everything is going back to normal or as normal as things get in the comic business. After the tsunami of titles that surged up during the last couple of weeks of the year we have been given a slight respite from our favorite publishers as January is a five shipping week month and your usual favorites are spread out a bit. This, of course, gives you the opportunity to stock up on comic supplies of which we have just gotten a solid restock of after letting things sell down for the end of the year and to take advantage of the Post-Holiday Sale where all of your favorite hard covers and trade paperbacks are 25% off the price marked and our back issue boxes are all 50% off! Additionally, our Dollar Boxes are, for the month, now magically transformed into 3 FOR A DOLLAR boxes! Take advantage of these great savings now and help us reduce the amount of stuff we have to count for the end of the year inventory…lol.
You might recall that last week I was crying in my beer over throwing my back out again for the umpteenth million time. It’s even more embarrassing to know that it happened merely by getting up out of my chair although I was considering inventing some fiction involving lifting a truck off of an injured child to make it sound more dramatic. I’m still in pain although it has been downgraded from “complete agony” to “frustrating ache”. You’ll be pleased to know that I have stopped drugging myself insensate at night and progressed to merely using pillows to prop myself up. And while I wasn’t able to throw comic boxes around with my usual vigor I did have a go at lugging my laundry around last night. Here’s hoping it heals up by next week.
I finally pulled the trigger on opted into the new Disney Plus streaming channel. I swore that I would not make the move until I cancelled one of my previous streaming services and I’m afraid the DC Universe app bit the dust this month. Don’t get me wrong…I thoroughly enjoyed the DC app, particularly the wide selection of back issues that were available digitally, but their television content just wasn’t as tempting as the Disney Plus service.
And what a wide range of programming they offer! Many of you have heard me comment about it at the store and I will say it again…I could care less about Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, or Simpsons…what I was really excited about was tucking in and watching al of the 70’s live action Disney films that my parents used to take me to see at the Jesse James Drive-In when I was a kid. I started out with a personal favorite, “The Cat From Outer Space”, and despite having an issue trying to turn off the close captioning it remains one of my favorite and most fondly remembered kid’s films. I’m also convinced that Spielberg ripped off the plot from “Cat” for “E.T.”, but that is a discussion for another day.
I also sat through the original “Pete’s Dragon” and what an eye-opener that was! I had absolutely no memory of this children’s classic being so, well, creepy. I mean, we’ve got a family of deranged and filthy hillbillies who sing charming songs about buying children from orphanages, turning them into slaves, and then torturing them to death. No wonder this kid has a dragon as an “imaginary” friend! I’m just surprised that the dragon didn’t roast these awful people alive and eat them for dinner. Adding a crazed evil sorcerer who’s dangerously obsessed with dissecting the dragon for spare parts and his demented assistant who has no trouble kidnapping kids to use as dragon bait and you’ve got a Disney film that is ripe to have its trailer recut as a horror movie! Thank goodness Helen Reddy is there to lighten things up a bit as a hot spinster who does a song and dance number for the drunks at the local bar including her lovable sot of a father played by Mickey Rooney. And I haven’t even mentioned the OTHER local spinster who is a curiously strict school marm who I suspect wears a leather bodice under her plain school marm dress.
I also bit the bullet and started watching “The Mandolin Player”…sorry, “The Mandalorian”, that everyone has been raving about lately. I have a complicated relationship with the Star Wars franchise and as I will tell anyone who will listen I’m not that big of a fan. That being said, I have sat through the all of the Star Wars film released since “The Force Awakens” and I must admit that I have found some measure of enjoyment out all of them. “Solo” is still my favorite Star Wars film, but a funny thing happened while tuning into the first four episodes of “The Mandalorian”.
I’ve been watching them two episodes at a time which just about perfectly fills the average amount of time I spend watching the Boob Tube at night. The first two episodes rather surprised me as the television series is gorgeous looking and one of the best look TV productions I’ve ever seen. And, yes, “Baby Yoda” IS aggressively cute and clearly has the mutant ability to turn hard-bitten bounty hunters into pools of adoring goo. But a funny thing happened about halfway through the third episode, I realized that I was genuinely invested in the fates of The Mandalorian and his erstwhile child…invested and thrilled at the spectacle of their daring escape from an army of crazed killers. After decades of hatred for the franchise followed by a couple of years of indifference I suddenly realized that this industrious little show was quite possibly the best Star Wars narrative I’ve ever seen! I mean, if the movies were as sharply written and acted as this little screen gem I might have ended up loving the material as much as, oh, I don’t know…Jim Beard or somebody! By the time I got to the end of the fourth episode, I was hooked! This really is a terrific little show and I’m looking forward to finishing the first season. I want to know more about these “Mandalorians” and what exactly the significance is of the “Yoda Baby” and what the evil Nazis…I mean “former Empire agents” want with it. Hats off for everyone involved in this small triumph of a television show.
That being said, “Watchmen” is still the better show so if you haven’t started watching it yet I suggest you get on your hobby horse and get going!
Cover by Joelle Jones 
1940S Variant Edition by Joshua Middleton 
1950S Variant Edition by Jenny Frison 
1960S Variant Edition by J. Scott Campbell 
1970S Variant Edition by Olivier Coipel 
1980S Variant Edition by George Perez 
1990S Variant Edition by Brian Bolland 
2000S Variant Edition by Adam Hughes 
2010S Variant Edition by Jim Lee and Scott Williams
I haven’t really commented about it too much because I am really reaching the upper limit of my tolerance for variant covers, but Wonder Woman #750 is shipping in two weeks and all of the cover images are finally revealed to the public. (To be fair, I stopped checking for updates two weeks after I put in the initial orders, so they may have been available earlier. I just figured if DC couldn’t be bothered to make the images public sooner then I couldn’t be bothered in trying to sell their books blindly.) Once again, there will be ten different covers with one marking every decade of Diana’s existence as well as a “regular” cover and a blank cover. I went far lighter on these books as opposed to Action Comics and Detective Comics #1000, but I think I will have enough to go around for my beloved customer base. I’ve discussed it with Steve and we will also be offering a deal on anyone who is interested in a complete set of all ten covers. At cover price, the ten covers would be $99.90 and we are offering the set for $80, a 20% savings! This discount will apply if you preorder a set, order it on the subscription form, or simply pick one of each off the rack. Reserve your copies today!
That’s it for me this week, my friends! I hope everyone has a great weekend and that no one gets swept away by the three feet of rain predicted over the next couple of days. Remember…at least we don’t have to shovel it!
Eddie