Month: June 2021

Hey, Folks!

 

Well, the store renovations are really starting to coalesce and come together! I’m starting to get a duel feeling of excitement and trepidation as the day comes slowly closer to the quasi-final trans formation. I say “quasi” because the floors will STILL eventually get replaced just not before this year’s Free Comic Book Day as I had originally planned. They may still be replaced before the end of the year, but at this point I’m thinking it will be a “Year Two” project. I’m am very happy with the new lights and the replaced ceiling tiles (thanks to BEST boyfriend in the world, Hillman Crawford, for spending one of his days off getting dusty and dirty changing them out!) and I am currently getting prepared to move the counters and the racks around.

 

I am currently putting together my plan for the final furniture move. Laibe Electronics have been consulted and they have presented me with a plan to get a power pole installed in the middle of the store that will get power, phone, and internet service to the new counter set up. I am waiting for the part to arrive after which I will be scheduling the technicians to come in and do the job. At this point, I am planning to close shop on a Sunday afternoon in order to move all the furniture around and then I will schedule the electricians to come in on Monday and finish it all with an eye to being open for normal business on Tuesday. I figured this was the best way to handle considering Sunday is a short day for the shop and I am closed on Mondays. I have even ordered new dollies in order to move the counters around (hopefully) easily. So I am putting out the Call of Duty to any customers with strong arms and backs to come in on Moving Day to help me schlep counters and racks around the store. As I mentioned above, I don’t have an exact date yet, but it will be on a Sunday in July. I’ve got two volunteers lined up and I need at least two more people for the job so let me know if you are interested in lending a hand.

 

Of course, I have often promised and yet not delivered on a Free Comic Book Day post and I am covered in shame about it. I assure you that sometime before the end of the week I will be posting on Facebook the list of FBD titles we will be carrying as well as some details about the event. Due to the pandemic and the fact that it will be taking place in August instead of July there will be some operational changes, but I’m sure that we can still have a great event! Stay tuned, True Believers!

 

It is an incredibly small shipment next week so I am soliciting some patience in regards to the titles coming in. I may have under ordered a bit on some titles not realizing that they would be released on a week with very few other comics. I’m going to try to play catch up as well as possible and we’ll see how it goes. Additionally, you might consider stocking up on some supplies next week as I have finally secured pretty good supplies of most of the bags and boards as well as the plain storage boxes. I got some good news today from Southern Hobby who have a couple of thousand silver age resealable bags coming in on Monday so those of you who have been waiting for them can get ready to finally get them.

 

Many of you already were aware that I have successfully opened up and account with Penguin Random House in preparation for them taking over Marvel Comics distribution in October. Well, it turns out that while they are not yet carrying Marvel product, they have a huge amount of DC backlist items currently in stock. As a result, I have begun the time-consuming and expensive process of building back up the store’s graphic novel collection. This has been a big focus of mine for many years as I have always wanted to work/own a bookstore. It has been heart breaking to watch all of my careful work building up the store’s “in stock” trade paper back collection slowly falling to pieces as I sold books and then were unable to restock them. I’m still shocked when new customers come into the store and compliment me on the amount of titles in our stock when I know they would have been far more impressed with how well I was stocked two years ago. In any case, the work begins again and you may notice books coming back into stock that we haven’t had in many moons. If you are looking for something and don’t see it on the rack then please ask either me or Brian about it at the counter. It may simply be a case of the title not coming back into print or it may be a case of me simply missing it or forgetting to check if it has returned to availability. In any case, we will do our best to get you the comics you desire!

 

Well, I better get back to it. Steve (remember him? Lol) is stopping by soon to pick up recyclables, I still have to throw all of this weekly material online, I have to finish off my June Previews in initial orders, shoot off some e-mails concerning the promotion of FCBD, AND I want to get started painting one of the last three racks I have to do before tackling the New Release rack.

 

Have a great weekend, Folks!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Well, it is shaping up to be an exciting day at the comic book store! Despite getting a week’s warning from my beloved landlord, I totally forgot about the parking lot resurfacing being done today. It’s not the WHOLE parking lot, but it is the “L” shaped portion that runs in front of all of the businesses. The only entrance to the lot open is the one in the “middle” of the lot as the Eastgate/Key St and Heatherdowns entrances are part of the resurfacing effort. The contractors have also helpfully left a sort of path for folks to get to the shops a few storefronts down from Monarch in front of the chiropractor’s practice. This means you don’t have to walk through a fiery field of lava-like tar to get to your favorite comics this week. The project is meant to be completed by end of business today and by the quickness of their progress I do believe we can bank on it. Still, please be careful passing though the Lake of Tar while approaching the store.

 

Monarch Comics has new lights! As many of you noticed when you stopped yesterday, we are no longer shrouded in darkness! Instead there banks and banks of brand new LED overhead lights. I can’t tell you how pleased am I by the new look, despite the fact that, as many of you took pains to point out, we can now see how REALLY bad the floor looks…lol. It’s funny…I’ve literally never seen the back room as well lit as it is now! Unfortunately, in regards to the floor situation, I may have to hold off the new vinyl floor until 2022. Sad, yes, but with the shortage of contractor and material availability it might be for the best anyway. Until then, enjoy actually being able to see your books before you purchase them!

 

Thanks to everyone for the big welcome and show of support to new employee, Brian McMillin. Brian is working out fantastically well and I’m hoping that he eventually becomes as much of a fixture of the store as I became, lo, those many years ago. Because of the marvelous job he has done so far, I will be required to be in the store somewhat less than usual. In fact, my new schedule will have me “out of the office” on Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings. If you have any questions or requests for me when I’m not here then please feel free to talk to Brian. He can reach if necessary or take messages. I will do what I can to help as soon as possible. In the meantime, I get to start my Friday nights early and I get to sleep in on Saturday mornings!

 

That’s it for me this week, Folks! Please pay attention to our Facebook feed in the next week as I am planning some posts concerning Free Comic Book Day 2021 that I think you will find quite exciting!

 

Have a great weekend!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Well, the day we’ve been waiting for is FINALLY here! Yes, Monarch Comics is currently having its new LED light fixtures installed! After weeks of dealing with lights burning out and leaving me in darkness I will now have brilliant illumination through out the whole store. It really is quite exciting and I feel like I am adulting hard here…lol. I’m not sure how long the entire process is going to take, but please take care if you come into the store during the installation and pardon our mess!

 

The only drawback to getting the lights upgraded is that it looks like I am going to have to wait until next year to replace the floors. This is incredibly disappointing to me as I have looked forward to having the floors done by FCBD and I am sick of looking at the current ones. After the lights started dimming and going out, however, I decided that it was probably more important for customers to be able to see in the store. I am, however, still planning on moving the racks and counters around in the next few weeks. I’m not sure exactly when that blessed event will occur as I still have to schedule the electricians in to help with the logistics of rearranging everything.

 

Speaking of racks, I want to clarify something for everyone who’s been in the store during my renovation projects. Many of you have noticed my work area in the front of the store where I have been diligently repainting all of the various racks in the store a flat black so that they match. Many times over the last few weeks people have come in and chuckled over the fact that I was still working on the racks. I didn’t think much of it until last week when I realized that everyone thought it was the SAME rack sitting there week after week with “wet paint” sign on it. At first I was stunned and then I just started laughing. While it is true that I really hate painting and I readily admit that I am not particularly good at it I now have to state that I am not THAT bad a painter…lol. I want to assure everyone that it has not been the same rack sitting week after week in the front of the store. When I decided to paint the racks one of my worries was the amount of time that product would have to be removed from the racks while they were being serviced. I didn’t want to have to fiddle around with constantly emptying racks and finding places to put the books while I want through the laborious task of painting, drying, and curing. With each rack requiring 2-3 coats and at least 2 days to cure properly the whole project was already taking more time than I had expected, so early on I cleared one rack of books (mostly Image trade paperbacks) and put them in a box and left them there for the duration of the project. Then once I finished my work on a particular rack I would choose the next rack I wanted to work on and then I would switch it out with the completed rack. So I have been slowly moving across the store and have been focused on painting all of the racks with purely wooden structures as it is easier to make paint stick to them. The final all wooden rack is now complete and I would have already swapped it out with another rack except that the lights are getting changed and I didn’t want to fart around with it while that work was going on. Once the lights are back on I ask everyone to walk around the store and see how many racks have actually been refurbished…lol.

 

So I know a lot of you have been following my attempts at introducing new types of merchandise into he delicate ecosystem of the store. This week I received an item from Diamond that I didn’t even remembering ordering…lol. As I pulled the item out of the shipping box my eyes grew wide and all I could wonder was exactly how much crack I had smoked before putting in the order. So please make it a point of checking the Rock Em Sock Em Game that came in this week! I know I had one of these when I was a kid at some point, but I was unprepared for the amount of nostalgic joy emanated off the box in waves. Seriously, I LOVE board games and it is taking all of my willpower not take one home and immediately rip it open, set it up, and commence with robot rocking and socking! We will see how well they sell and if you, my loyal customers, have an appetite for this kind of thing in the comic shop!

I have also been working hard at stocking Funko POP figures that I think will do well with the store. I don’t bother posting the POP figures that show up on FOC to solicit preorders anymore as I was getting a lot of orders that no one would bother to pick up after they were placed. Partly this is due to the fact that comic shops rate somewhere below convenient stores in Funko’s wave shipping system and many of the POP figures are available online or at big box stores weeks or months before we see our orders. I would like to reiterate for the record that I am more than happy to accept preorder request for POP figures, especially if they are placed before my FOC date.

 

Okily dokily…since I’ve been at the store since 7am I am way ahead of my usually Thursday duties and I would like to get everything up and running ASAP. Just to let everyone know, Brian (the new minion) has completed his Monarch training course and will be tackling his first solo stint in the store Friday afternoon. As a result I will be out of the store after 3pm on Friday and won’t be back until 3pm on Saturday afternoon. Please take it easy on him if he gets stuck on a procedure and I will take care of any problems when I get back into the office.

 

Have a great weekend!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Well, this has certainly been a weird week. Between the Memorial Day holiday on Monday and the memorial service I attended on Tuesday I’ve been struggling to keep up on the day to day business of running the store. Throw in the end of the month duties and I feel like I’ve been moving double time just to stay on top of everything. Please bear with me folks as I play catch up. This calls for HyperSpeed!

 

As many of you have noticed by now, the overhead lights in the store have continued their inexorable demise. Currently I have four lights out although they have been tending to switch back on at random points only to dim after a couple of hours. The very nice electrician from Leibe was here this morning and gave me the estimate for repairs and I am now working on getting something scheduled. I am told the repairs will take two days and during this time the store will be in a bit of disarray as racks and other things get moved out of the way to allow the electricians to do their thing. Hopefully by the end of next week Monarch Comics will be equipped with brand new LED lighting! The quote came in less than I was expecting so hopefully I will still be able to get the floors done before the end of the year, but I’m taking it one step at a time at this point as I have now learned the lesson that anything can go wrong at any time…lol.

 

I’d also like to welcome Brian McMillin to the Monarch Comics family! Brian has been a customer here for years and years and I was excited when he requested a place on the team as my new minion. He started his training on Tuesday and I’m expecting he will be ready for solo stints in the store by next week. There is, of course, a learning curve for all new endeavors, so I hope you will be patient as the two of us work on his training and how he will fit into the Monarch operation!

 

I haven’t done a Facebook psot on it yet, but I am pleased to announce that I have finally gotten restocked on the modern/current sized polypropolene bags as well as the UltraPro Current Size Comic One-Touch magnetic comic holders. The polypropolene bags will remain at $6.00 for a package of 100. The magnetic holders are priced at $17.99 each. I have also gotten a shipment of small comic boxes in this morning and have more due in by Monday of next week. I am currently out of stock on Current Comic Boards, but I’m hoping to get restocked on these by the end of next week. I can’t wait for the day when comic supplies are easy to restock again.

 

I received some fun new merchandise in this week as well. The Marvel ROTO Phunny Groot 8IN Plush dolls retail for $14.99 and are basically the most adorable stuffed toy you’ll see this week! We also got it the Star Wars Mandalorian The Child Clapper Night Light for $29.99 and this thing is as aggressively cute as all of the other Grogu merchandise that has been sent down the pike. Please take a moment to check out both items out on the merchandise table!

 

Okay…that’s all for this week. There’s some other stuff I’d like to blather on about for fun, but it is already 2pm and I know everyone is excited to access the new Subscription list so I will get this stuff posted ASAP. Have a great weekend, Folks!

 

Eddie