Hey, Folks!
In my wildest and most distorted fantasies I could never have predicted a 2020 quite as wild and wooly as the one we are getting. I mean, putting aside the plagues and the social unrest and the murder hornets and Carol Baskins, we can just look at the comic industry and stare, slack-jawed, at the amount of crazy change we’ve gone through in the last few months. I actually feel a bit breathless and I sit here every Thursday morning trying to decide what to talk about in my Editorial and what to just keep quiet about in the hopes that it magically fades away. There are some days that I would much rather continue discussing the pros and cons of keeping too much powdered sugar in your pantry on the GBBO Facebook page then talk about the comic industry.
But today is not such a day. I want to start out with something positive this week. Despite my knee deep anxiety and general worry wart nature, new D.C. Comics distributor UCS has continued to impress with their second week of comic distribution. I received my new D.C. shipment on Saturday which is something that I can’t ever remember happening. It was simultaneously invigorating and surprising. Strangely enough, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know, half the books missing, the other half damaged, getting the wrong order, etc., etc. But nothing of the sort occurred at all. The shipment was well-packed and it was all there. There was one single damaged comic and everything else was perfect. UCS even shipped the Death Metal #2 incentive covers in a bag and a board! It’s been like some beautiful dream come true, but I do admit to being a little worried about what happens when the honeymoon is over. Darn my worry wart nature!
I do have to confess to one problem with UCS. They have no reorders on new product available! It is so frustrating because the inventory numbers I used to order the current titles are mostly from before The Apocalypse and are a bit out of date. I mean, thank goodness I didn’t do what some retailers did and cut my numbers anticipating a business slowdown or else I would really be screwed. Literally every single D.C. Comic that came out this week was going to backorder as I put together my Sunday reorder last week. This is, of course, manageable in the long run…I just need to start upping my numbers on FOC, but in the short run we might end up having some quantity problems on books that pre-Apocalypse would be fine. I’m not quite sure what the problem is with UCS not having more reorders available, but I can hazard a guess. I suspect that there is a certain percentage of retailers who didn’t get their numbers in by FOC and the extra copies UCS had earmarked for reorders were sucked up to cover accounts who didn’t get their orders in on time. Again, pure speculation married to reading between the lines on the retailer Facebook pages have caused me to make this speculation. In any case, it should be a strictly temporary problem and one that will be adjusted for once everyone gets in the groove of the new distribution process.
Things with Diamond Comics Distributors are not going quite as well, but it’s hard to see it as being totally their fault. After coming out of the post-Apocalyptic gate pretty strongly, Diamond has been faltering a bit in the last few weeks. The regular weekly shipments have been getting here on a timely basis and, for the most part, damages and shortages are about at the same level. But reorder shipments are completely screwed up right now and I don’t even want to get into the continuing saga of trying to get everything replaced that was in the UPS destroyed box of a month ago. (Yes…a box was destroyed a month ago and, after half a dozen calls/e-mails assuring me that I would get everything that was destroyed in the box I STILL don’t have everything.) The Apocalypse has clearly hurt Diamond and in ways that are only now becoming apparent.
You see, in the “Old Days” I would place a reorder on Sunday afternoon to restock the store as well as to order more new product if it looks like I’m going to need it for the following Wednesday. The reason why I have to wait until Sunday to order more product for the following Wednesday is that Diamond’s system is set up so that you cannot have an item direct shipped if, by shipping it direct, it will appear at the store before it’s official release date. So in order to have it for the new release rack on Wednesday I have to order on Sunday so that they will be shipped directly to me rather than having to wait for it to come with my regular shipment the following week. This system has served me well over the decades and it also helps to make sure that anyone who orders something I normally don’t carry will have it waiting for them when they come in on Wednesday. It was perfect and it was a thing of beauty.
Unfortunately it also looks like it is a thing of the past. For the last several weeks I have noticed that our reorders, once a bedrock of stability, are now anything but. Sometimes the shipment takes 5 days to get here and sometimes 3 and once it took a whole week! I couldn’t figure out what was going on and we were getting precious little information from Diamond. When they finally commented on it they shifted the blame to UPS saying that UPS was backed up and that was the reason we weren’t seeing things on our regular schedule. But that claim started to ring hollow when everything else, from the personal to the professional, was arriving smack on time from UPS. We have now been given another reason for the back up of shipments and it sounds a bit more on the nose.
Apparently, Diamond has been having some major staffing issues since the Apocalypse hit. If I am reading their press release correctly, Diamond warehouses are running at 70% employee capacity because of the Covid-19 situation. The Olive Branch warehouse in Mississippi, where we receive our reordered product, is running at 50% employee capacity because of a recent flare up of cases in that state. Diamond is waiting for employee corona testing to be completed as well as dealing with employees in self-quarantine while at the same time trying to re-outfit their warehouses to accommodate social distancing. Oh! And there is the small matter of losing 30% of their business overnight because one of their major vendors pulled out of their system. Yeah, I guess that could explain the problem.
In the meantime, my reorders are running behind schedule. The reorder I placed on Sunday was originally scheduled for delivery today, but I just checked and now it appears that it won’t be here until Friday. Oh, well…nothing to lose my mind over although I did top off all of the current new Marvel books and I could have used those copies today…lol. In any case, if you don’t see a title on the rack PLEASE mention it to Steve or I. Chances are that I have more on order and already ont heir way and we would be thrilled to put you down for a copy when the reorder finally does arrive. Also, if you are a subscription form customer and something is missing from your pull it is probably due to the same issue, but if I forget to mention something to you always ask. I’m full of useful information!
Hey! Remember that destroyed box I’ve been endlessly going on about for a month? Color me amazed, but our missing copies of the AWA title, Year Zero #2, are on the invoice for next week! Yes, if you missed issue #2 then it appears we will be receiving the title despite endless backorders as well as an e-mail to AWA themselves in a desperate attempt to find ten copies. Geez, Virginia, maybe there IS a Santa after all!
I added some more old comics to the back issue bins last weekend. There was a smattering of New Teen Titans as well as a huge amount of New Mutants back issues from the 80’s. I’ve also added a goodly amount of the 1987 Flash series back issues as well as a pretty complete run of Fury of Firestorm. Did you know that Felicity (from the Arrow TV show) first appeared in Fury of Firestorm? I didn’t even know she was in the comics! In any case, if you haven’t checked out our back issue bins for a minute then now is the time for a reexamination! Make sure you check out the D.C./Marvel miniseries sections…they are full of comic book goodness these days!
Free Comic Book Summer continues on its merry way next week! New giveaway titles next week include Spider-Man Venom #1, Dark Ark Instinct (from Aftershock), Horizon Zero Dawn (from Titan), and the Year of Heroes Special (from Valiant)! Monarch Comics will have limited amounts of these titles for FREE on July 22nd! Please stop by the store, get your freebies, and take a look around!
I’m kind of burying the lead with this issue, but I figure I need to make a statement aside from the quick mention I mad eon our Facebook page. Obviously, the Covid-19 situation is continuing to escalate and I’m sure that you’ve heard about the recent Toledo City Ordinance that was put in place by Toledo City Council on Monday that mandates mask wearing for everyone out in public. As you know, Steve and I have kept our masks on since we reopened in the hopes that it would help keep our customers safe considering that the two of us are in contact with a couple hundred people a week. We have encouraged our beloved customers to do the same and, for the most part, a good percentage of you, despite whether or not you believe in the measure, have respected our requests to cover your faces in the store. Once again I want to thank each and every one of you who have gone along with the request. You have no idea how appreciative I am of your efforts. Now we are being told that we HAVE to require everyone to be masked with the understanding that if we are caught with folks in the store not wearing a mask we will eventually be levied a fine of $150.
Now, understand that I do think that the masks are a good idea and I have always believed that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I also take care of my elderly father and he has several health issues that would make Covid-19 a death sentence for him so with the amount of people I come into contact in an average week I find it somewhat reassuring that I’m doing something to protect myself from infection. All of that being said, it is not my job to be The Mask Police. I am not interested in convincing anyone or imposing my will on them despite my belief that at this point simply wearing a mask is pure politeness and seems to be a pretty innocuous request. So Steve and I will continue to encourage folks to wear a mask while in the store and we still have a small amount of masks available to those of you who come in and don’t have a mask, but we won’t be barring entry to those of you who refuse to wear a mask. I have absolutely no desire to end up on a YouTube video or be the target of online outrage via Facebook or Google reviews. As in most things you must be the master of your own conscience and decided what is best for you. I am grateful to those of you who do use the mask.
And that’s it for me, Folks! Steve is busily preparing for a trip to the recycle bins so I’m going to have to man the register for our Thursday afternoon rush and I can’t merrily type away here while there’s eager customers looking for a bit of that Monarch service! I hope that everyone enjoys the weekend and I look forward to seeing you soon!
Eddie