Month: September 2020

Hey, Folks!

 

Well, I’m back! I had an absolutely magnificent time all weekend exploring the parks and tourist traps of the UP with Hillman. It was also incredible meeting up with two of my favorite people, Mike and Caryl Johnson (otherwise known to y’all as Captain America and Black Widow/Catwoman!), as they joined us for the day Saturday. And I got to see BEARS! Lots of bears in very comfortable bear habitats at the Oswald Bear Ranch in Newberry, MI! And the piece de la resistance was getting to actually feed and pet a bear cub! Spoilers: it was SO soft and cuddly! Hillman and I also experienced a panoramic view of the night time sky at the Headlands International Dark Skies Park in Mackinac City and we spent some time laying on the grass and looking up at veritable blanket of stars! And I haven’t even mentioned the sinfully delicious French toast made with croissants and stuffed with cream cheese and fresh fruit that I wolfed down at Diana’s Delight in downtown Gaylord or the ice cream cone that I got in St Ignace that was bigger than my head! It was a great time and I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but…

 

…now I’m back to the “office” and there is a boatload of work to catch up on. I haven’t been on a proper vacation in many years and I think I had blocked out exactly how far behind I get when I’m away from the store for a few days. I’m sure many of you experience the same things after a vacation, but since most of the heavy work falls on my shoulders here at Monarch when I step away it tends to start falling apart. Unfortunately, I have no one to blame but myself as I AM the one who devised all of the various systems that are in place to keep this weekly/monthly business going. Clearly there are going to have to be some serious changes in the way things get done behind the scenes once Steve retires in January. You’d think that since this changeover has been in the works for years that I would have a more cogent strategy on how to deal with things once I’m in charge, but this year has left me a bit breathless between the shutdown and the bump in business we’ve had since things started up again and the distributor/publisher foolishness that I’ve been dealing with since everything opened up again. I’m thinking I’m going to need a bit more help running the joint then I was originally considering, but I have a feeling that I’m not going to be able to determine exactly HOW much help I’m going to need until I get there.

 

Anyway, today is going to be devoted to getting my September initial orders in as well as some inventory work that has been neglected for a week. I haven’t even looked at the September Previews catalog, much less started processing special orders or coming up with some inventory numbers. The process for placing initial orders isn’t difficult, per se, and I’ve been doing it for a loooong time, but it is time consuming. Since D.C. has moved their distribution over to UCS I haven’t been doing monthly initial orders for them and instead have moved to placing my numbers in at FOC every week. I couldn’t do that for Diamond…too many special orders and small publishers who don’t participate with FOC, but for just one publisher I’ve found it is actually a pretty good system as long as I remember to do it every week. If anyone has any special orders they’d like to place from the September Previews now is the time to let me know.

 

As you know, I now come into work every Tuesday afternoon to unpack and sort the Diamond shipment (the UCS shipment is generally here on Fridays) and pull the subscription orders. Well, I’ve also started taking my favorite comics home on Tuesday night in order to read at least a handful of the new books for when everyone starts pouring in on Wednesday morning. This week I was excited to get my hands and eyes on X of Swords: Creation #1 and it did not disappoint. I was initially worried that it was a bit pricey at $6.99 a pop and the fact that Marvel has been pushing it pretty hard as a 22-part story spread over the entire X-line, but my fears have been mostly allayed. The first part is a dense and fascinating look at mythology building in the Marvel universe and it took me a good half an hour just to get through the first reading of the book. I had to go back and reread pieces of it in order to completely understand where they are going with it, but if you’re paying seven bucks for a comic then I think it is absolutely essential that you get a couple of good reads out of it. I don’t want to get too much into the story specifically as I solidly believe that you should take the time to unwrap and digest its mysteries first hand, but a lot of the mysterious subplot stuff that has been percolating in X-Men and Excalibur get at least partially explained and I for one am looking forward to seeing how this ends up changing, well, everything for the mutants and Krakoa. I also loved the use of Tarot imagery throughout the issue and I hope they keep it up for the remainder of the story.

 

Completely off the subject of comic books, I want to remind everyone that the new season of the Great British Baking Show (season 11) drops on Netflix 9/25! I know it’s not everyone’s cup of Joe, but it’s one of my favorite TV shows! This season will be shown like last season with a new episode coming out every Friday until the show wraps with a new master baker. I just want everyone to know that my phone will be off and I will be parked on my couch with Hillman gleefully watching a new set of bakers doing their level best to wow us with cakes, pies, bread, and biscuits!

 

I’m sure many of you have already seen the news regarding the once again revised release dates for up coming comic-related movies. D.C. announced Wonder Woman being pushed back until Christmas and the Marvel movies have been pushed way back, with Black Widow not debuting until May. This is quite disheartening for me as I was looking forward to hosting more Monarch Comics Watch Events at the local Cinemark. I’m still hoping that James Bond debuts in November as that was one of the films on my shortlist for movies to host. In any case, Cinemark is filling up their screens with many older blockbuster movies like Goonies, Labyrinth, the Star Wars films and I was wondering if there was any interest out there for folks to participate in a viewing party for these films. It’s a cheaper deal to host an older film viewing party and I could get away with charging $5 per ticket for the 20 person limit. Let me know in the comments section or mention it to me when you’re in the store. If I perceive enough interest then I will give it a try in a week or so. The first one was a lot of fun and I’m chomping at the bit to do another one!

 

I wanted to take a moment and ask everyone who uses the weekly subscription form to please carefully check your order before hitting the “send” button. It hasn’t been a huge deal, but I’m noticing that there are more folks accidentally ordering things they don’t really want because of the Google interface on their phones. Unfortunately, I have no control over the format of the form as I am basically just filling in the blanks every week although I am exploring other formats to present the sub form. In any case, just take an extra moment before you confirm your order so I don’t end up with a bunch of stuff nobody wants…lol.

 

That’s it for me this week! Like I mentioned above, I’ve got about 12 hours of work to fit into an 8 hour bag, so I need to get to it. If anyone is interested in seeing my boring vacation photos just mention it to me and I will gleefully whip out my phone in the store and show you my bear pics! 😛

 

Have a great weekend!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Well, here I am on the cusp of a great adventure to the wilds of northern Michigan! Yes, the rumors are indeed true…starting Friday I will be out of the store and attempting to go on a short weekend vacation! Nothing too strenuous, you understand, but Hill and I will traveling to the UP on order to visit Oswald’s Bear Ranch in Newberry, MI. No, it is decidedly NOT some weird fetish outdoor camp, but an actual park who do the good work of taking in bear cubs whose parents are killed and raise them to be fine, upstanding members of bear society. For those of you who know me best you know I LOVE bears and I can’t wait to be standing right in front of a real live bear and see if there’s some spark of recognition that I am secretly a lost member of the tribe. If there is some magical connection then I fully plan on throwing off my clothes, jumping the barricade, and running off to join my bear-ish brethren in the habitat! Hopefully they will welcome back home with open arms. Maybe I should bring a picnic basket to share with them…

 

Anyway, so I will be out of the office for the weekend. I know, I know…it’s traumatic for me as well. I hate being away from the store for any length of time. I mean, that’s what happens when you are the motive power to a business. I am already fretting about little things like the subscription form, and my DC FOC deadline, and whether or nor Steve will remember to open the store. Ridiculous, I know. It’s not like I’ve never taken time out of the store, but, with the exception of the shutdown, I haven’t been away from the store longer than a day in many, many moons. I shouldn’t be worried because the system I have in place can keep going from sheer momentum for a day or three. Right…?

 

While I am away I will NOT be monitoring the Facebook page or Messenger. I simply won’t have the time and I also have no idea what kind of internet situation I’m cruising into this weekend. As a result, feel free to message questions or comments but don’t expect an answer before Tuesday. Also, please understand that any special orders off of the subscription list will be taking a wee bit longer to process and receive then is usual. I will do my best to get the service level up to snuff as soon as I return. Thank goodness it is a small shipment next week!

 

I wanted to let everyone know that D.C. Comics produced a series of “decades” masks of Catwoman and the Joker to promote their one-shot spectaculars that shipped in a couple of months ago. I ordered these masks for the purpose of handing them out during FCBD, but obviously that didn’t happen. When the masks didn’t appear for the release of the Catwoman/Joker specials I naturally assumed that they had been canceled. Not so…we got them in this week! As a result, if you come in this week you will see a counter covered in Catwoman/Joker masks. Please feel free to take one of each, if you are so inclined. If they don’t go this week I have a feeling that they will end up in the recyclable bin, so take advantage of the opportunity! Take our masks….PLEASE!

 

Oh, another thing…I ordered what I thought would be a perfectly acceptable amount of the new $9.99 multi-covered Detective Comics #1027. I was wrong. We are almost out of our initial order and I am waiting for emergency reorders to get here. If you ordered a specific cover on the subscription form this week and it is not in your pull, don’t panic. It’s on the way even as we speak. The last time I checked all  the covers, save the blank variant, were still available for reorder so let us know if you’d like one ordered in for you! It’s really no extra trouble and the only drawback is it might take a minute to get here.

 

I hope everyone has a great weekend and I will see you next week assuming I’m not eaten by a bear or disappeared by the Blair Witch or Wendigo or something.

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

I had actually gotten this installment of my weekly EDitorial finished up yesterday, but I had to do a slight rewrite while cloaked in grief this morning. Diana Riggs, British star of stage and screen, has died at the age of 82. Ms. Riggs had a deep and distinguished career, but was perhaps best known for her portrayal of Emma Peel on the hit 60’s British television show, The Avengers. Playing opposite straight man, Patrick Macnee, Riggs helped create an amazing character, a thoroughly modern woman who was smart, sassy, and unapologetically sexy. I became obsessed with the show as a teenager and enjoyed every episode of the venerable TV show with a vigor that was previously reserved only for my comics. Rest in peace, Ms. Riggs, and I hope that you are enjoying a much deserved cocktail along with your vaunted kung fu kicks in the Great Beyond.

 

I can’t remember if I mentioned it in last week’s EDitorial and I’m too lazy to go back and reread it but I completed a very successful test of a new store promotion on Saturday. Monarch Comics first sponsored private movie showing went off without a hitch! Yes, I set up a private showing using Cinemark’s current discounted offer, sold some tickets, and hosted some of my favorite people for New Mutants! All but two people showed up for it and think that we all had a great time except for the small problem that the movie sucked bilged water in the worse way…lol.

 

I’ve always known that you could rent out theaters for private showings, but I never really considered the ramifications or the possibilities until recently. I always figured it would be too expensive or something. Well, not anymore it isn’t! For $99.99 (for one of the old movies currently playing) or $175 (for a new release) you can buy a private showing for up to 20 people! It makes social distancing in the theater much easier and you get to see your favorite geek films with an audience of dedicated fans! If the offer continues at this price point then I want everyone to know that I will be sponsoring more Cinemark private movie showing starting off with Wonder Woman 84 which debuts on October 2^nd!

 

The Wonder Woman debut is still a month away, but I will be reserving at least one showing opening weekend for Monarch customers! Tickets for the Monarch sponsored event will $8.75 per person and will have to be purchased at the store before the event. Obviously I can’t tell you the time yet, but I will be attempting to get something in the 7-8pm time frame on either Friday or Saturday. If the demand is great enough I will add more showings to accommodate as many folks as possible. If it continues to be a success then I will also be sponsoring showings of Black Widow and James Bond as well.

 

By the way, that New Mutants movie? I’m sorry to say that calling it “hot garbage fire” would be an insult to hot garbage fires everywhere. Josh Boone, the man who brought us The Fault in our Stars, directed and co-wrote (with conspirator Knate Lee) this low budget dreck and he should have his pee pee whacked good and hard for it. The rumors were that it was the Disney acquisition of Fox that delayed the release of this movie, but after seeing it I would guess that the rumor was started by whoever was in charge of promotion for this stinker as a desperate attempt to cover up the stench. New Mutants is a scant 94 minutes long, but it feels like it takes 4 hours to get started. The film goes on endlessly without really saying anything at all. The special effects are nearly non-existent and the plodding pace encourages sleep rather than terror. The most interesting character is, of course, Illyana/Magik (Anna Taylor-Joy) and while she does get plenty of screen time she is never given very much to say and while the movie kinda sorta explains everyone else’s powers/situations apparently the sequence explain Illyana’s powers and origin ends up on the cutting room floor. In fact, I suspect most of this movie ended up on the cutting room floor as there are plot holes you could walk a giant demon bear through right to the end when an actual giant demon bear briefly saunters across the screen. Frankly, the bear is the best part of the movie, but maybe that’s just my bear obsession talking. Avoid this movie, Folks, I won’t warn you again.

It’s still a little early, but I want to remind everyone that I will be out of the office next week, September 18^th-21^st. Hillman and I are taking a little trip up the UP in order to visit Oswald’s Bear Ranch in Newberry as well as just bum around for a couple of days. I haven’t been on a vacation in a couple of years, mostly because something always comes up to stop me from leaving town. You know, Dad ends up in the hospital or there’s a pandemic or flaming meteorites or demonic infestations…something always puts a halt to my festivities. I’m hoping to actually make it out of town this time, but we will see how it goes. In any case, I will not be available for questions or comments the whole weekend, but you can leave me a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible. I will do my best to process any special orders placed on the subscription form that week, but chances are the orders will not be able to get filled until the following week.

 

I just received a little love note from Diamond letting me know that due to a problem at the printer a handful of Marvel titles may be allocated next week. They include Giant Size X-Men Storm #1 Alex Ross Timeless Variant, Thor #7, and X-Men #12. Diamond is working with the printers (presumably with thumbscrews and red hot pokers) and we should any allocated copies by 9/23. I’ll let you know if any orders (special or otherwise) are affected by this little problem.

 

There is second printing of Batman Three Jokers #1 currently being offered by D.C. Comics with a brand new cover by Jason Fabok. I will NOT be carrying nay copies for the rack because I have plenty of first printings still in stock. If you are, however, interested in a second printing then please let me know and I will order one in for you! I’ve posted a picture of the cover elsewhere on the Facebook page if you need to get a look at it before committing.

 

Next week we will see the release of Detective Comics #1027 and there will be 12 different covers at $9.99 each. In this extra-sized issue D.C. Comics celebrates Batman’s first appearance in 1938’s Detective Comics #27 with a huge all-star creative team!  This issue will include stories by the following creative teams:

 

* Peter J. Tomasi, Brad Walker, and Andrew Hennessy
* Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez
* Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky
* James Tynion IV and Riley Rossmo
* Kelly Sue DeConnick, John Romita Jr., and Klaus Janson
* Marv Wolfman, Emanuela Lupacchino, and Bill Sienkiewicz
* Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham
* Tom King and Walter Simonson
* Scott Snyder, Ivan Reis and Joe Prado
* Dan Jurgens and Kevin Nowlan
* Mariko Tamaki and Dan Mora

 

It will also include spectacular pin-ups by the following artists:

 

* José Luis García-López
* Jamal Campbell
* Jim Cheung
* Lee Bermejo
* Olivier Coipel

 

I have copies of all of the covers ordered for the rack and I have had very few preorders for specific covers, so I will try to do my best to stock the covers everyone wants!

 

Okily dokily! That’s it for this week’s blatherings! I’m pretty sure that I had a half dozen other things to go on about, but frankly I can’t think of anything else! Enjoy your weekend and I will talk to you next week before I head out into Bear Country!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Welcome back to the weekly EDitorial after a week away. I really need more hours in the week to get things done, but I’m not quite used to the new post-apocalyptic status quo. I mean, for years…YEARS…I had a streamlined and easy to follow schedule with keeping up on orders. Because I am the only one to use a computer here at the store I have had to pioneer whole news ways of tabulating and keeping track of special orders, creating accurate shipping lists, and making it as easy as possible for you, my beloved customers, to get the comics you want into your hands. The last several months, however, have created a blasted landscape fraught with pot holes, flaming garbage, and other obstacles. I’m in the process of getting by act together, but it is frustrating that such homegrown innovations take so long to figure out and implement.

 

For example, a handful of you turn in the monthly Previews consumer order form. For those not in the know, Diamond generates a stripped down order form that is meant to be used in conjunction with the larger Previews catalog. It’s somewhat convenient for me as I can easily go month to month and use the form in order to pull any books that are ordered right from the rack. Post-apocalypse, however, it has turned into a headache of trying to keep track of 4 months worth of Previews guides. So I apologize to all of you who practice due diligence with your monthly orders only to have me inadvertently miss things. I promise that I have a “quick” fix in mind that should take care of such stupid mistakes in the future.

 

Additionally, with D.C. Comics pulling out of Diamond, I have the problem of how to solicit and keep track of preorders of D.C. product. When it was all in the same catalog it was really quite a snap, but now that it is NOT in the same catalog and, indeed, there isn’t a printable catalog at all I’ve been at a loss as to how to proceed. Rest assured I’m working on solutions to that as well. In fact, if I get half a moment tomorrow afternoon then I’m hoping to come up with at least a temporary solution.

 

Monarch Comics is trying something a little new this week. You see, I love going to the movies. I always have and I always will. There’s just something magical about sitting in a darkened theater with a bunch of strangers and having a group experience watching a story unfold. Obviously, I hadn’t been to a theater in many months because of the whole Covid thing and I was chomping at the bit to get at least a shadow of that experience again. So when it was announced that Cinemark was reopening its doors again and “Tenet”, the new Christopher Nolan film, was going to be one of the first new releases to hit the Silver Screen, I was cautiously excited at the prospect. I love Nolan’s films, even when I don’t entirely “get” them from a first or even second viewing. So I looked into how Cinemark was going to handle its reopening…you know, what kind of mask policy and social distancing policies were going into effect…and decided to give it a whirl. Hillman and I went to see “Tenet” on Monday evening and I was impressed with the set up and how they were trying to handle things in a post-apocalyptic landscape.

 

Well, while I was perusing the Cinemark website, I noticed that they had a listing for “Private Viewing Parties”. I know that it has always been possible to reserve a screening of a film, but whenever I looked into it in the past it always seemed a little too pricey to really bother. Out of curiosity I clicked on the link and discovered that in this new movie going era they had priced these private events MUCH more affordably. For $175 you can reserve a new release showing for 20 people! You also get discounted concession stand prices as well. It breaks down to $8.75 per person and I got the bright idea of sponsoring a private showing for Monarch Comics customers! I reasoned that with only 20 people on the guest list and a whole theater to ourselves we could easily practice social distancing, especially since the Cinemark policy is for wearing masks during your time in the building except when you are eating and/or drinking. I made a snap decision and decided to give it a try.

 

Since New Mutants is the big comic book movie and one of the first new release offerings I chose it and reserved the 9:30pm showing at Fallen Timbers this Saturday. For this initial promotion, I invited 18 of you to pay $5 in order to join a fun-loving comic book crowd for the film. I was surprised at how quickly the tickets were snapped up and I am genuinely excited that I will have the chance to see it with some of my favorite people. Depending on how well it goes and if Cinemark continues with the discounted pricing, I am considering offering similar sponsored showing of Wonder Woman 1984, Black Widow, and the new Bond flick. If I continue this program then I will most likely ask everyone who participates to chip in the whole $8.75 for the tickets to cover the costs, but even that is discounted off the regular Cinemark prices AND you get to experience your comic book movies with your fellow fans. If you happen to be in the store and you are interested in future events like this then please let me know. Who knows? If this turns out to be a hit then maybe Monarch Comics can sponsor multiple showings of popular comic book movies in the future!

 

Getting back to the State of the Industry a bit more, I’d like to mention that whatever “logjam” that was delaying shipments of reorders and supplies has apparently loosened up a bit. The reorders I put into Diamond’s system have started showing up a bit quicker and I think I’ve finally figured out how to get UCS reorders back in quicker and with less shipping costs. Additionally, the comic book supplies that we have only been able to stock sporadically have also begun being available with the old regularity. I was freaking out for a minute because things were getting more and more difficult to get back in stock, but I settled down after talking to a few of you in the store about it. It made me realize that ALL businesses were laboring under similar problems, not just the comic industry. I guess in hindsight it should have been self-evident, but I was a panicked bear and it was driving me crazy that I was having so much trouble restocking books and supplies. Here’s hoping that things remain relatively available and that the upcoming holiday season doesn’t really back everything up.

 

Okily dokily…that’s it for me this week! As I mentioned above, I’ve got a laundry list of projects to get done this week and very little time to get to them. OH! While I’m thinking about it, I will be out of the office the weekend of September 18-20 in order to get in some much needed vacation time with Hill before the end of the season. I’ll talk more about it next week.

 

Have a great weekend!

 

Eddie