Month: April 2021

Hey, Folks!

This industry really cracks me up sometimes. I mean, I’ve been doing this long enough to know a thing or two about a thing or two, but there are still moments when I stupidly get blindsided by some trend or stupid speculator thing. While dealing with the fallout from the unexpected popularity of Batman Fortnite, BOOM Studios finally got around to releasing Brzrkr #2 and I’m going through the same thing all over again. I suppose I could be forgiven by my under order of Batman Fortnite #1 since as a 50 year old, non-video game player I had no idea what a “fortnite” was, much less how many people were going to come out of the woodwork looking to score a copy so that they (or their kids) could access the special code that unlocks a character skin (in this case, Harley Quinn). I’ll admit that I was worried that I would have to deal with a tsunami of increasingly desperate and vicious attacks when I sold out, but I must admit that the disappointed shoppers have all been very understanding which leads me to realize that they are already conditioned to accept it when the latest item their kids are panting for is hard to acquire. I’ve really made an effort this time around to be as helpful as possible by letting people know about the other stores in the area as well as the fact that they could simply buy a digital copy of the comic and still have access to the skin’s digital code. I feel like I might have missed an opportunity to get people into the store to see all of the other stuff we carry that they might be interested in, but for the most part I’ve decided to be content at selling out without having to worry about unsold stock or bothersome returns. Batman Fortnite #2 hits the rack next week and once again it will be limited to one copy per household for as long as supplies last. Also, I know there is a lot of interest in seeing the historic Batman VS Snake Eyes fight in #3 and I have ordered considerably more copies of that one with the expectation that many of you won’t be able to resist seeing that battle!

So Brzrkr #2 shipped in this week. This title is a real head scratcher for me. I mean, I sold quite a few copies of the first issue and probably could have moved plenty more had they been available for reorder. Of course, they weren’t available for reorder due to Boom! Studios fascinating foray into the Land of Collectors and Speculators. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Boom! made the first issue returnable for retailers and then unleashed a wave of variant copies tied to the number of copies of the returnable issue. They had a plethora of incentive variants…multiple 1 in 25 and 1 in 50 and 1 in 100…even a 1 in 1000 variant signed by Keanu Reeves. As you can imagine, many retailers who could afford the initial book bill for a 1000+ copies went for the speculator gold to procure THAT comic. As a result, there are literally thousands of copies of this #1 issue out there on the market, but, curiously enough, none available for reorders by those of us who ordered basically what we thought we could responsibly sell. To add to the bumbling confusion, Boom!’s attempts at 2^nd and 3^rd printings to cover retailers who needed a handful more copies for when #2 came out backfired spectacularly and, due to low orders or printing issues, both of those later printings are selling for $100 or more on their release date. I ordered a handful of 3^rd printings of the first issue in order ot have some on the rack for when #2 came in only to have my orders allocated by 50%. I mean, sure, I could potentially contact another store to purchase some copies of the 1^st printing, but, frankly, it is way more trouble to go through for 5 or 10 copies of a single title.

And now we have issue #2 on the rack. I basically went for the same amount of orders on #2 as I did for #1 because I figured it didn’t make much sense to order more #2’s than #1’s. Of course, I’m nearly sold out of #2’s and there are none available for reorder again. Another reason for not going for more copies of #2 is that I had nearly zero customers mention the title in any meaningful way. Maybe I’m reading this completely wrong, but it seems that the appetite for this title has very little to do with any entertainment value and everything to do with its perceived collectability. I’ve seen THAT movie before back in the 90’s and I wasn’t a big fan of it then either. (Of course then I had Steve fuming at me when we sold out of a title too quickly for his tastes, but I certainly don’t have to worry about that now and I am way too exhausted every night to bother fuming at myself…lol) We will see how all of this plays out, but at this point, once again, I am trying to just be happy with covering as many of my beloved customers as possible and having a quick, neat sell out. I’m pretty sure no store ever lost money by selling out.

D.C. Comics continues their noble quest to be a minor pain in my rump. As I do believe I’ve mentioned here before, D.C. Comics will no longer be offering their little poster fliers with a checklist of their upcoming titles divided into weekly release schedules. This follows along with their “brilliant” idea of not printing out proper catalogs and instead only offering it as an online service. It is very frustrating when a company makes it more difficult and expensive to market their product while all the time they tell you they are doing it to help you. I really don’t need anymore of this brand of “help”. In any case, I wanted to let everyone know that if you need a copy of the D.C. checklist then just let me know as I have printed out a handful of copies to hand out. I would have had them ready Wednesday morning, but my stupid printer ran out of ink again and I obviously didn’t have time to run to the store and get more cartridges to get my printer up and running. Also, I had a few people ask me what happened to D.C. latest online catalog as it hadn’t been posted in the usual spot as of yesterday morning. For all I know it has finally been posted to the usual D.C. Connect website, but if you can’t find it there then bop on over to “lunardistribution.com” and you will find it right in the front page.

I know that lately Monarch Comics has been struggling to keep up with your comic supply needs and I wanted to explain that the problem is industry-wide at this point and I am doing everything I can to keep on top of the constantly evolving situation. According to Southern Hobby (the distributor I use as a back up supply supplier) the problem lies with pallets of comic book supplies being trapped on freight ships from overseas. If they are to be believed, it’s a bottle neck of epic proportions and as soon as these ships are unloaded and shipped everything should be available. This includes MyLites, resealable bags, hard plastic comic holders, regular bags, and whatever else we are currently either low or out of stock on. While I am currently out of current backing boards I do have a couple of thousand coming from Southern Hobby on Friday as well as another 1000 coming in from Diamond next week. I have also taken steps to put 1000’s of bags on backorder in order to stock up the next time they arrive at my distributors. Thanks in advance for your patience and understanding as we continue to navigate through these choppy post-Covid waters.

My renovation plans continue to chug along at a good speed. You may have noticed that I am gradually making my way through painting the various comic book racks in the store. It is tedious work and time consuming when you figure in the amount of time I have to take letting the paint dry and cure. Honestly, I didn’t really expect it to take this long. Hopefully I’ll be able to get all of the racks completed before the time comes to replace the flooring. I have no idea how long it will be before I can schedule the installation, but from the chatter in the store I’m to understand that, generally speaking, building contractors are scheduling things months out and the actually building supplies could be difficult to get together. In any case, I’ve got a meeting with my first contractor this afternoon to give me an estimate so hopefully I will have some more information soon!

Well, I suppose I should wrap this up and get back to work. I’ve got a HUGE reorder from Diamond to sort through as well as the D.C. Comics for next week and I would honestly love to get another coat of paint on the rack I am currently working on before I go home tonight. Have a great week and I hope to see you all soon!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

I’ve got a very, very busy day ahead of me. In no particular order, I have to complete April initial orders, monitor orders on the subscription list, Move a round a painted rack and prepare another rack for renewal, finish preparing a big order of comics for a customer, and also, if I get a chance, finally clear out the card showcase and replace the broken glass shelf. There’s a few other odds and ends as well, but I doubt I will get to them. Also, Jake needed the day off Saturday so I will be here all day rather than just the few paltry hours I’ve managed in the last couple of weeks. So with that I will leave you all to your own devices whilst I get down to the business of running a business!

 

Have a great weekend and I’ll see ya on the flip side!

 

Eddie

You know, computers suck.

 

I mean, I love them and everything they do, but they really are inconvenient at times.

 

Let me explain…

 

After an extremely exhausting Monday rushing around with Dad errands (including an interminable sojourn to the Toledo Clinic), I found myself unable to finish my usual duties at the store. I mean, technically I only reserve Mondays for paying bills, updating my records, and moving stock around to make room for the new shipment on Tuesday. But I am, after all, in the middle of a big renovation and there were some minor paint jobs I wanted to work on as well as trying to get some poster art up on the walls to liven the place up a bit. The small amount of mail order I due was also a couple of days behind (They are coming now, Ernie and Will…taken to the post office yesterday!) getting shipped out. I had a list of stuff and everything…

 

Unfortunately, the best laid plans and all of that crap.

 

I didn’t get much done on Monday. By the time I was finished with my Dad errands and got back to the store it was already after 6 and I had a date to meet some friends over at Doc Watson’s for dinner and a drink or two. When I took of to meet the gang I had kinda sorta promised myself that I would come back to the store and get SOMETHING done before heading home. Unfortunately, after two beers and way too much fried food I couldn’t work up the energy to go back to the store. Instead, I reasoned, I’ll just go home and work on the laptop and still get something accomplished before going to bed.

 

Well, I did get some stuff done, but not nearly enough before sinking into my bed. I made a solemn vow seconds before slipping off to Dream Land that Tuesday was gonna be my day and that I had plenty of time to get everything done if I just went in a little early and got started promptly. I was actually quite pleased at the amount of catch up work I completed in the first two hours I was here.

 

Then…disaster struck.

 

Have I mentioned how much computers suck?

 

I had a very old Apple brand router that I have used in the store since the beginning of time. It has served me ably, but I knew its service time was drawing to a close. Unfortunately, I was too lazy or too complacent or both to actually go out and buy a new router before the old one crapped out. Maybe I thought it would be disrespectable to abandon the poor thing after it has served so well for so many years. In any case, while I was waiting for UPS to bring me the weekly shipment from Diamond, I was fooling around with my poster idea. This involved steadfastly refusing to no longer put tack holes in the wall for securing posters and instead employing low cost poster frames to make the whole presentation look a little more professional and neat. I didn’t realize that, while I was scurrying up and down the New Release rack measuring and securing my first new poster frame, that the Apple router had quietly passed away. I didn’t notice until I took a break and was checking the store’s e-mail and realized with sadness what had happened.

 

Surprisingly, I didn’t panic. After all, I knew this was coming and I supposed that if it was going to happen his was as good a day as any and it was definitely better than it happening on a Wednesday afternoon. My roommate David was already planning on coming in to work on painted the big showcase, so I called him up and asked him to come in quickly so that he could watch the store and catch the UPS shipment while I went off to WalMart to grab a new router. I went and got the router (a small adventure in and of itself, but it’s still not terribly interesting) and returned to the store. At this point, the shipment had arrived, David was doing an excellent paint job on the old counter, and the router was touted as being easy to install by essentially containing no instructions whatsoever. So I unboxed it and set about connecting everything up. This was going to take 15-20 minutes and then I could get at lest one more poster up before I tackled unpacking the shipment. I’m sure you can infer at this point that nothing was going to go right at this point.

 

First off, it costs me nothing to admit that I am an idiot when it comes to electronics. I don’t know what my damage is, but I cannot help making hooking up things three times more complicated than it actually is. So I disconnected the rat nest of cords and wires in order to extract the Fallen Device from my set up. I kissed the dead Apple router gently and then tossed it in the trash. When I turned around, new router firmly in hands, I realized that I had no idea what connected to what. As I mentioned above, this is not a new sensation for me. I sighed and began picking my way through the cords and connections. Eventually, after a little trial and error, the likes of which could be compared to assembling a jigsaw puzzle, everything came together and I turned on the new device. As it roared to life I turned to the laptop to synch it up and restore internet capability. Then disaster struck…or at least mild inconvenience…

 

It didn’t work. The computer briefly synched up to the new router and then it just…stopped. What I mean to say is the computer lost all connection the new network AND it refused to detect ANY networks. Understand that there are generally as many as a dozen or more networks typically showing up around here during the day. So either the entire internet disappeared in a poof or there was something wrong. You can probably see where this is going.

 

Well, long story short (That was actually a joke for Hillman), something something Windows gazpacho just took out the computer’s ability to detect wifi networks. I eventually figured this out once I realized there other devices in the store to test the connection, including my phone and cash register, and they connected just fine. At least my ability to ring people up and get credit card payments was restored. But the computer stubbornly refused to acknowledge any networks. “LA LA LA LA!,” it exclaimed with hands clasped over its ears, “There ARE no networks.” I thought it might be lying to me, so I started doing the usua…rebooting the computer, rebooting the router, and clicking through diagnostic routines. “Okay, you got me,” the computer quietly admitted, cursor downcast, “It might be a driver problem. I don’t know.”

 

Success! I knew what a driver is and I vaguely knew how to check them and update them! How young and foolish I think I was back in those days…those heady hours and hours ago. Jumping ahead through the story of my initial optimism, then confusion, then profound irritation, and soul shattering despair, I couldn’t figure out what he problem actually entailed. Then I began consulting my “experts” in these matters and Cyn Mackley and Ryan Rigaux ably and unstintingly provided a great deal of support during this trying time, but, alas, none of us could figure out the solution to the problem. In despair I cast about for any person who could help during this Crisis of Infinite Proportions. (Apologies for not thinking of Aaron Melzak!) Mind racing I finally realized who I could message who is helpful AND close at hand. The inestimable Ben Sweetser! Ben helpfully swung by the shop, and, like, 10 minutes later has everything up and running! It was like, dare I say it? Magic!

 

So everything is up and running again. I mean, I still had to stay at the shop until around 11pm on Tuesday to finish the job of unpacking and sorting the comics, but that’s the life of a comic shop owner.

So thanks to everyone who helped out, especially Ben! Oh…and sometimes computers suck.

 

We got in the CRAZY sized POP Jumbo Marvel Galactus PX 10IN Metallic Fig this week! I’m not kidding at all. It’s “Give-It-A-Shelf-All-Its-Own” size. And it has the cutest itsy bitsy Silver Surfer figure to go with it. Frankly, I love it. If I had the space I’d take one home. While supplies last we’ve got them at SRP of $45.99. This one is already sold out from Diamond so once they’re gone, they’re gone…

 

I got my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine yesterday afternoon. The shot, of course, didn’t bother me at all. I did feel a little dizzy in the hours after I was administered it. When I got up this morning I felt more or less same as usual. I’m feeling a little tired now, but, hell, I don’t know if it has anything to do with he shot or if it is just usual tiredness…lol. I guess it’s good I’m not feeling sick.

 

Well, that’s it for me this week. Now that everything is back to normal for the time being I am going to spend the afternoon trying to get some paperwork caught up. I’ll post the links to this week’s FOC soon so take a look and see if anything catches your eye. Have a great weekend!

 

 

Eddie

Hey Folks!

 

Another successful Wednesday had come and gone and now I can start preparing for NEXT Wednesday. When I step back from my job I realize that I have been living a weird alternate version of life compared to everybody else where time is measured by weeks. Like sands through the hour glass and all of that crap, I forge on week after week, new release by new release, on down through the decades. Just when I can let go of another bout of anxiety as to whether I’ve ordered enough books or pulled everyone’s orders properly, I am immediately bound up by the anxiety of next week’s releases. If I let my attention drift for but one moment I can lose track of where and when I am operating or what little efforts have to be made to keep the store moving forward. I had a system in place while I was Steve’s Number One and it has been an interesting experience trying to forge ahead without Steve and set a new schedule in place in order to get everything done. Oh, well, everything has been running pretty smoothly all things considered, but I just wanted to let you know that I am always looking for ways to improve my performance in order to serve y’all better.

 

Nothing much new to report on the comic book front this week. I can assure everyone that the final kinks have been worked in regards to setting up an account with Penguin Random House. They have been a dream to work with so far and the only problems I’ve had can be attributed to my own foolish mistakes. For instance, I had to turn in a form stating that I am purchasing product at wholesale in order to sell it for retail and I left my vendor’s number off the form in a rush to get it turned in. Of course, I had to resubmit it in order to assure my tax exempt status with the distributor, but it was all ironed very quickly and with no muss or fuss. I was wrong about a previous assumption I had made about PRH. I was under the impression that they had already been distributing Marvel trades to the book store market for years and so I was confused when I couldn’t find any Marvel titles on their ordering website. It runs out that ANOTHER distributor peddled Marvel product to the bookstore trade which was kind of disappointing as I was hoping that they would be able to help me get the Marvel trades restocked in the store as so many items are currently on backorder with Diamond. The good news? PRH does handle various other publishers (including D.C. Comics) for the bookstores and so in the next couple of weeks I have to get to work making lists of trades and hard covers that I haven’t been able to get restocked from Diamond or Lunar. I’ll try to post lists of restocked items when they start showing up. Please take a look at my “Back in Stock” section of the weekly shipping list as that as where they will probably be listed.

 

When I took over the store back in January one of the things at the top of my “To-Do” list was the vacating of the thousands of old non-sport card singles that have been gathering dust in various out of the way spots in the store for years. I was basically gonna see if I could take them out to Hillman’s place and spend a fun couple of hours burning them all to ash in his aunt’s burn barrels…lol. I have been informed, however, that there is apparently a resurgent interest in these old cards, so, while I am busy fixing up the joint, I am going to give everyone a final opportunity to peruse and purchase these old relics. Jake and I were working on getting some card product ready to put out on the counters yesterday and I have currently put out a couple of monster boxes of non sport singles on the counter. To be honest, I left the job to Jake so I can’t sit here and list every set that is represented in these boxes, but I can assure you that there are far more cards ready tog out then what is currently part of the display. Anyway, I know there are a variety of Marvel, DC, Star Trek, Star Wars, art cards, and more in the boxes. I will be charging 15 cents a card, 10 for a dollar, or $7.50 for a hundred. So, if you are into this sort of thing, please check them out during your next visit!

 

I must once again also beg your forgiveness for the mess that I am going to be kicking up in the next couple of weeks in the store. I have decided that for the next phase of renovations I am going to start painting the old wooden racks as well as cleaning out the showcase (which just got a new glass top!) and painting it so that I can get the books that used to be up on the wall out on display again. Jake assures me that he is a wizard at painting so I do believe that I am going to try and set up a small work area for the two of us to begin giving those old racks new life with a fresh paint job. So if you see a working mess when you come in then please look politely away and pretend that I haven’t just clogged up all of my new and beautiful “free space” in the store with a big and messy project!

 

That’s it for me this week…I really need to get this stuff posted so that I have an hour or two to work on the showcase before next week’s new D.C. books show up from FedEx this afternoon. I will most likely be away from my desk this afternoon, so if you message me it may be a minute before I get back to you. I hope everyone enjoys this beautiful weather and has a great weekend!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

It is sporadically SNOWING outside today! Really, Mother Nature, REALLY!?! Yes, I know that Prince warned us decades ago that “Sometimes It Snows In April”, but I always think of it as more hyperbole than actual fact. Le sigh…well, at least we won’t have to shovel it!

 

So I’ve had a couple of boo-boo’s lately with the Subscription Form. Basically I have inadvertently oversold some of the items that I have listed on the form. It’s usually not that big of a deal because all I have to do is order a few more copies and, voila, the problem is fixed. This week, however, I made a mistake in counting the orders for the latest issue of Flash and I ended up short a couple of copies. Unfortunately, Lunar rarely has any copies of current D.C. Comics available for reorder and when they do have copies available it is generally two weeks before I can get them shipped to me. Anyway, sorry about that. I am currently working on an updated system for tracking orders more carefully and hopefully this will reduce the amount of snafus in the future.

 

Speaking of ordering snafus, many of the new D.C. Comics have been quick sell-outs here at the store above and beyond what I was selling before the Future State promotion began back in January. I pretty much got all of the regulars covered, but for anyone interested in starting the new line of D.C. Comics/creative teams the good news is that D.C. has announced a couple of titles going back to press for a second printing. So, this week I will be ordering a small number of copies of Nightwing #78 and Detective Comics #1034 for the rack. If you would like a copy then please let me know ASAP and I will add your request onto my order for them.

 

So some big distribution news dropped last week after I had already posted the EDitorial. This is probably a good thing as it gave me moment properly digest the news rather than simply having a public gut reaction to it. I mean, everyone, particularly comic book retailers, are suffering from a mild case of PTSD after all of the Covid driven industry problems/changes of the last year, so every time I get a suspicious e-mail in my box I break out into a cold sweat. Marvel Comics and Random Penguin House announced last week a new deal for distributing Marvel periodicals. Basically, Penguin will be the new suppliers of Marvel Comics periodicals starting in October. Penguin has, of course, been distributing Marvel’s hard cover/trade paperback line for decades to the book store market and these will be available to comic book retailers as well. If I understand the quite excellent presentation that Penguin sent to retailers correctly then accounts will still be able to order Marvel titles from Diamond, but they will essentially become “sub-distributors” and get their orders from Penguin.

 

Now, as I mentioned above, I had to fight a stab of panic when I first read the news. I mean, it was around this time last year when D.C. Comics dropped the bombshell that they were pulling out of Diamond in the middle of a global pandemic and general national shutdown and shifting their business to two different “new distributors” that were actually online comic book stores and we all saw how that turned out. This new Marvel situation, however, appears to be an animal of completely different stripes. In the first place, the Marvel and Penguin have clearly been planning this move for quite a while as witnessed by Penguin’s building a dedicated warehouse for Marvel periodicals and the amazing e-mail presentation they put together explaining the new terms. Additionally, unlike D.C.’s choice of “distributors”, Penguin Random House is one of, if not THE, largest book distributors in the world and they are well situated for comic book distribution on a scale that even Diamond would find difficult to emulate. I won’t go into all of the details, but the behind the scenes terms for comic retailers are also pretty good compared to Diamond and do include free shipping. Overall I’m feeling pretty good about the new distribution deal despite how adding yet another distributor may make things a little more challenging to keep up with at this point. I’m hoping that the briefly mentioned new promotional material will sooth any difficulties I might have at keeping up with another supplier. I did receive the confirmation of the my new Penguin Random House account this morning so they are very efficient so far!

 

Okily dokily…I had some more stuff I wanted to blather on about today, but it has been refreshingly busy this morning, far more than I am accustomed to on a Thursday and the day is already half over and I still don’t have the Shipping List up yet. I do want to mention that for the first time ever Monarch Comics WILL be open on Easter Sunday. Honestly, I’m not expecting much in the way of business, but I have to be here anyway to cover my usual Sunday duties so there doesn’t seem to be any reason not to stay open as long as I’m here.

 

I hope everyone has a great weekend and enjoys the holiday!

 

Eddie