Hey, Folks!
I suppose I should start out this week’s EDitorial by reminding everyone that Monarch Comics will be closed on Saturday, July 4th, for the observance of Independence Day. I’m not sure why I bother as we have never been open on the Fourth of July, but I still want to make sure that everybody knows. Additionally, because the ship week was so tiny what with no new Marvel or D.C. books, I want to also let you know that I will be out of the office Friday through Sunday. I just figured that this would be the time to take a couple of days off as next week will be the first week we receive D.C. Comics from our new distributor.
I have checked with our new distributor, USC, and I was delighted to find a copy of our invoice for next week’s books on the back end of their website! WOO HOO! Why so excited by an invoice? It means that our orders were received, logged, and we are being charged for them. The chances of us actually receiving the orders has increased exponentially and a big portion of the low level anxiety I have been living with since the new distributor announcement has now melted away. I’m assuming at this point that we will see our D.C. Comics on Tuesday alongside the Diamond shipment, but honestly we won’t know until next week. Unfortunately, I don’t have any shipping information as of yet, so I don’t have a shipment tracking number to check and therefore can’t see where the shipment is in the supply line. I’m not too worried though. If they’ve generated an invoice that means the stuff should be on its way.
Meanwhile, we are still dealing with he aftermath of Diamond and UPS incompetence from last week. As you may recall, we were shorted a 60lb box of books because UPS “destroyed” it in transit. In addition to the missing books from that ill-fated box, Diamond managed to short us all of our Marvel Previews catalogs. Well, four phone calls and four different customer service reps at Diamond has managed to get me MOST of the missing titles and the Marvel Previews are set to arrive this afternoon. Titles we are still waiting for include Teen Titans #42, TMNT Jennika #3, Year Zero #2 along with a small number of special ordered titles. I have an e-mail out about them now (that would count as FIVE calls into Diamond about the issue), but I haven’t heard back yet. Hopefully we will have these titles in before Christmas.
Speaking of Diamond/UPS, I’m not entirely certain what the deal-io is but there is a serious kink in the supply line chain right now. Usually when I place a reorder it is two business days away. So, when I place my regular Sunday afternoon reorder for items due out I can generally be assured that I will see it by Wednesday afternoon. Unfortunately, apparently UPS has had a surge in packages and as a result we are seeing things a day or two later. So any special orders or restocks that have been placed in the last week have their delivery to the shop delayed. It looks like the reorder I placed on Sunday may not be here until Friday. SO if you have placed any special orders either in person or through the subscription form things are running a bit behind, but I WILL have them for you soon. Sorry for the lousy service…hopefully it will improve soon.
Well, that’s it for me! I’m trying desperately to get this up and posted before the end of business today so that I can kind of, you know, sail through Thursday doing as little as possible before my mini-vacation starts. I’m waiting for some file updates from Diamond, however, and I can’t finish the subscription form until they are posted. So if you see this on Wednesday you’ll know that Diamond came through for the win!
Have a great holiday, Folks, and I’ll see ya next week!
Eddie