Hey, Folks!
This has certainly been an interesting week for the store. As I’m sure many of you have already heard UPS somehow managed to “destroy” (Diamond’s description, not mine) a 60lb box that had more than a few comics in it. From what my customer rep told me the box had to be duct taped back together and returned to Diamond’s warehouse. I am not sure exactly how such a thing happens, but there you go. Luckily, everything was available for replacement (again, at least according to Diamond) and the only things that were not immediately available were a couple of single copy variant covers that were special ordered. I was told that the order would be processed first thing Wednesday morning and that the missing books would be here by Friday.
That was apparently wishful thinking. Wednesday morning came and I received an e-mail from Diamond explaining that shipments were being picked up from the warehouse at the appropriate time, but apparently “UPS has notified us that they are experiencing delays throughout their transportation network due to volume”. What does that mean to us? Well, I just checked our shipment tracking and, lo and behold, the box of missing books is NOT going to be here by Friday. Color me shocked. I’m going to have to get on the horn with Diamond today and find out exactly when we can expect to see all of the titles we were missing from our shipment this week. I can say that the reorder I put in every Sunday which is usually here by Wednesday is now going to show up today…so that’s something, I guess.
Here’s the list of titles that we are currently missing from this week’s shipment. I want to stress that if you ordered these books they will still be held for you once I get them in the door and apologize for the shoddy service. The only good news is that there is almost literally nothing shipping in next week so those of you who missed a title or two will have something to pick up next week…lol.
Here’s the list. Please note that this is primarily stuff that goes out on the New Release rack. There were also special order titles that didn’t make it in yet either and those will be pulled and held for you as well.
AQUAMAN #60 VAR ED
BATMAN #93
FLASH #756
IRON MAN 2020 #4
MARVEL PREVIEWS V.5 #1
STAR WARS ADVENTURES CLONE WARS #2
SUICIDE SQUAD #6 VAR ED
TEEN TITANS #42
TMNT JENNIKA #3
YEAR ZERO #2
Next week is quite possibly the smallest shipping week in living memory. Okay…not MY living memory, as that stretches back to the far reaches of time and space when there weren’t the sheer amount of titles being published, but it is the smallest in a good long while. As a result, I’ve decided to take the holiday weekend off and won’t be in the store on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Of course, we’ll be closed on Saturday because of Independence Day anyway.
Also, I was just informed on Monday that my Dad has to go into Toledo Hospital on Tuesday for a heart catherization with a possible side order of Heart stent. Of course, catherization and stents are like old friends to my Dad and I’m not to concerned with the actual procedures, but I am terrified of taking him to the hospital with all this Covid craziness going on. The last thing I need is Dad to get The Bug and then deal with that on top of everything else that is wrong with him. In any case, I’m not sure what my schedule is going to look like on Tuesday and there may not be a Monarch Comics Afternoon Delight/AT NIGHT episode. Of course, with the size of the shipping week there would only be, like, ten titles to show you anyway…lol…so it won’t be a huge loss, but I do enjoy our little get togethers and hope I am able to record it. In any case, there won’t be any interruption in regards to your sub orders being pulled. I am, as always, on the case.
I also want to assure everyone that I FINALLY heard back from our new distributors, USC, and they have let me know that our account has been approved and we should be getting our first shipment of DC products on 7/6. I have yet to receive anything from them, so I have no idea what the service is going to look like or how things like damages and shortages or reorders are going to be handled. I also don’t if we will see the shipment on Monday or Tuesday or even Wednesday. Let me tell you that it is going to be a wait filled with suspense and trepidation. Still, I guess none of us are owed a boring life. I’m going to try and be optimistic about it, however, and hope for the best. There’s always time for hand wringing and wailing to the heavens if it doesn’t turn out perfectly.
I need to address another situation that I have been loath to even mention here for reasons which shall become clear. Yes, it is true that D.C. Comics has officially made Tuesday the release date for their product. In the past all companies have more or less agreed to make Wednesday the “official” new comic book day and it still remains as such for all the other publishers. D.C. made this decision in a bid to get all their product released to their various sales platforms (online stores, Amazon, Comixology, book stores) and thereby make it easier for them, presumably on a publishing level. This is all well and good and it is certainly their prerogative, but, unfortunately, this decision didn’t take into account the realities of comic book stores. You see, we don’t even see D.C. product until Tuesday and it could show up from UPS anywhere between 11AM and 5PM…sometimes even later…and Steve and I still need time to unpack the shipment, sort through it, and pull subscription and special order customers. This doesn’t even address what happens if there are problems with the shipment as there was for this week. As you may imagine this takes a good deal of time. Because of this there is literally NO WAY we can easily put D.C. Comics on sale before Wednesday mornings. I really apologize about this, but even if we magically started getting the D.C. books on Monday (which we’ve been told that due to the logistics of packing and shipping is pretty much impossible to do) it would still be very difficult to just put the D.C. titles out on the rack to make them available for Tuesday sales. So unless the shipping situation changes drastically we will continue to make Wednesday the day for new comics.
Geez…in all of the excitement I nearly forgot to once again mention that Free Comic Book Day is back on the schedule…sort of. Since it is become increasingly obvious that there is no way to host an event with 900+ attendees safely this year, Diamond Comics (as well as the publishers) have decided to institute Free Comic Book Summer. Basically every week between July 15th and September 9th Diamond will be releasing a handful of previously announced FCBD titles for us to hand out to customers. I think that this is the best way to handle it this year and I’m actually curious to see how many “civilian” customers we will see wandering through the store for a freebie and a good look around. In this manner we can still invite the community into the store responsibly and without being mobbed all at once. And while the event is technically through 9/9 because of the titles we decided not to carry for the event we will not have any new titles for the last week. I’m not sure how we are going to display them yet, but I will include them on the weekly subscription form the week’s they arrive in store. These titles will all be free while supplies last!
Here’s the complete list of titles we will be featuring:
IN STORES 7/15/20
FCBD 2020 MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC
FCBD 2020 POWER RANGERS RANGER SLAYER
FCBD 2020 X-MEN #1
IN STORES 7/22/20
FCBD 2020 DARK ARK INSTINCT
FCBD 2020 SPIDER-MAN VENOM
FCBD 2020 VALIANT 2020 YEAR OF HEROES SPECIAL
IN STORES 7/29/20
FCBD 2020 ARCHIE BLUE RIBBON PRESENTS
FCBD 2020 BATMAN OVEDRIVE ONCE UPON A CRIME FLIPBOOK
FCBD 2020 STRANGER THINGS & MINECRAFT
FCBD 2020 THE BOYS #1
IN STORES 8/5/20
FCBD 2020 INVINCIBLE #1
FCBD 2020 LUMBERJANES FAREWELL TO SUMMER
FCBD 2020 RESISTANCE
FCBD 2020 THE TICK
IN STORES 8/12/20
FCBD 2020 BLADE RUNNER
FCBD 2020 CRITICAL ROLE & NORSE MYTHOLOGY
FCBD 2020 HILLBILLY LIZARD OF RUSTY CREEK CAVE
IN STORES 8/19/20
FCBD 2020 DISNEY MASTERS DONALD DUCK SPECIAL
FCBD 2020 OVERSTREET GUIDE TO COLLECTING
IN STORES 8/26/20
FCBD 2020 BRANDON SANDERSON DARK ONE #1
FCBD 2020 USAGI YOJIMBO
IN STORES 9/2/20
FCBD 2020 LADY MECHANIKA
And that’s it for me this week. I’d like to spend another couple of paragraphs opining over the change of business flow and how Thursdays used to be a really dead day with very little for me to do in the store outside of selling comics, but I’ve frankly got too many things to get to and not nearly enough time to finish them. Also, I have to get out of the store as quickly as possible as it is my turn to make dinner (roasted salmon fillets with lemon and rosemary, roasted yellow potatoes, and steamed asparagus) and I have to get started on my Dad’s birthday cake (dark chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling and hot fudge chocolate buttercream frosting). A busy retailer’s job is never done!
Have a great weekend!
Eddie