Hey, Folks!
To quote Samwise Gamgee from the end of Lord of the Rings, “Well, I’m back.”
My vacation was a good one that was filled with relaxation, food, friends, (LOTS of) fudge, and, of course, BEARS! It was one of the best times I can remember having on vacation and my only regret is that coming back means I have tons of work to catch up on. I’m not really complaining, but I do have to admit that this ownership thing has been a little more labor intensive and time consuming than I ever expected. I mean, I’ve been working on projects since I took over from Steve from the initial store cleanup to the renovations to the restock to FCBD and I have come to the realization that it is never going to be less work than it is now and that it is time to manage my expectations and work on training Brian to do more of the daily/weekly tasks that keep things moving forward as well as work on managing my personal time better.
I know this missive and the posting of the sub form is a bit behind this week and this is partly due to the fact that I had another comic book collection show up for sale this morning. It took me 2 hours or so to sort through it and make an offer which the gentleman ended up accepting. It looks like I have another project added to the list of 300 things that need to get done before the week is done. Hopefully, Brian and I will be able to get these books sorted, processed, and put out for sale before the end of the week. There are, of course, a bunch of books that will be going into the dollar boxes, but there are also interesting restocks of Spawn, Wolverine, Infinity Gauntlet, Hellblazer, Preacher, as well as some other various titles. There will be a bunch of 90’s era Vertigo titles going into the dollar boxes as well. Watch the Facebook page for pics once I get them sorted and priced and always feel free to ask when you come into the store what new back issues goodies we have to offer.
A few of you were asking this week about Batman The Adventures Continue Season Two #4 this week. Well, technically it DID indeed get released this week, however, due to a printer’s mishap we (as well as many other comic shops) did not receive our cover A’s for the issue. They are going to be coming in with next week’s books so I decided to hold the cover B’s and put both covers out for sale next week. It’s on the sub form this week if you are looking for a copy.
We also have a bunch of supplies getting restocked on Friday this week. These supply items include Ultra Pro Silver Age Bags, Ultra Pro Regular Comic Bags (which is a size between Silver and current), Ultra Pro Resealable Modern Bags, Ultra Pro Resealable Regular Bags, Ultra Pro Resealable Silver Age Bags, and, for the first time ever, Ultra Pro Resealable Golden Age Bags. It’s been an interesting challenge to keep a variety of comic supplies in stock since I took over, but I think that I am finally getting the hang of it. I mean, in the old days, Steve and I would keep relatively light stock of supplies in the store as it was never any problem getting a case or two of bags or boards within 2 days of ordering them. With all of the Apocalyptic Craziness going on this year, however, maintaining a healthy stock of supplies has not been an easy job. I’ve got literally thousands of bags coming this week and my current stock of boards and boxes is pretty strong although it looks like I may need to order more boxes next week to keep up with the demand.
Speaking of difficulties keeping things in stock in a post-apocalyptic world, it looks like we soon have a major windfall in regards to out of stock Marvel backlist items. As many of you already know, Penguin Random House will be taking over the position as primary distributor for Marvel Comics beginning the first of October. We’ve been promised that a huge amount of Marvel backstock has already been delivered to the distribution giant and that they will be released into PRH’s stock for order on October 1st. I am currently working on an order of potentially thousands of dollars worth of trades for next month in order to get things nice and stocked up for the upcoming holidays. Unfortunately, I can’t really tease what might be coming back into stock because the whatever the titles will be have to been released to us. I have also begun the task of restocking a lot of older hard covers/trade paperbacks from material that I have had in deep storage for years. So over the next couple of months please take a moment and peruse the new book shelves as they magically fill up with a cornucopia of new “old” books!
Okily dokily…that’s it for my blathering this week. As I mentioned above I have a million tasks to get through today, including Diamond September initial orders. Now that I am ordering D.C. and Marvel titles on FOC only, the initial orders stage is a little simpler, but it is still rather time consuming and the weekly Marvel FOC is rather different from other FOC systems that I am used to operating within and it is taking a bit longer to get the hang of it. I hope everyone has a great weekend!
Eddie