Month: February 2022

Hey, Folks!

 

Wow…no one informed me that planning a wedding would be quite so involving…lol. Now don’t get me wrong. I am absolutely thrilled that Mr. Crawford said “yes” and I am very much looking forward to the big party that we will be hosting after the big event. I am not even that worried about the cost although there will have to be an ample supply of smelling salts and possible a vanguard of EMT’s to stand by when I get a better idea of the costs involved in matrimonial bliss. The thing that is both surprising and irritating is the amount of nit picky details that we have to decide and submit before a whole host of information is unlocked. I mean, how am I supposed to have any idea of what date to set or how many people will be attending BEFORE I have an idea of how much a venue or catering costs!?! I don’t really understand these things very well, but I am determined to keep this as fun a process as possible. Please excuse me if I start ranting about it here at the store…lol.

 

Please remember that Sunday, February 28^th, will be the last day of Monarch Comics Post-Holiday Sale! It has been remarkably successful this year and I hope that everyone who has been putting off a purchase will tale the time to swing by the store this week and take advantage of the big savings. Just to reiterate, all hard covers/trade paperbacks are 25% off cover or price marked, back issue boxes are 50% off price marked, all the comics in the showcases are 25% off, and there are $2 off of POP figures and puzzles. This will be the weekend for the sale and it will not return until next January so advantage of it now!

 

Also, I should let everyone know that I have picked up a considerable amount of back issue material in the last month or so and much of that material will be hitting the back issue boxes soon. Back issues of Amazing Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, and much more will soon be available so make sure you check them out next week.

 

That’s it for me this week. I’ve got to get my initial Diamond orders whipped into shape and uploaded before the end of business today and I still have to handle the Penguin Random House FOC orders for the week as well. I hope everyone does well during the minor snow/ice storm forecasted for this evening. Have a great weekend!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

I’ve got plenty of ground to cover today and I’m not quite sure where to start! I suppose I should take special care not to bury the lead this week as I often do on these things. I mean, I typically just sit here and start typing…adding things as I think of them. Sometimes I even have little bullet point lists of things to cover so that I don’t forget. Let’s see if I can get through this EDitorial without a list.

 

To start off with I have a very special announcement to make. If you follow the Facebook page regularly at all or if you have listened to me blathering on at all in the store over the last few weeks then you have already heard the happy news, but for those of you not in the know I’d like to announce that I am now officially engaged to Hillman Crawford. Yes, yes, those of you who have known me for years may be shocked as I have been rather vocal about my opposition to ever getting married, but what can I say? Hillman is very dear to me and while we have “only” been dating for a little under three years we have become quite close and I frankly can’t imagine not spending the rest of my life with him. I won’t deny that the cardiac event he experienced in December was a factor in my final decision to pop the question, but I was actually already gravitating towards it anyway. Hillman is one of the best men that I have ever known and his compassion, intelligence, sense of humor, and his ability to almost instinctually pick up the rules of any board game put in front of him makes him, in my eyes, a great match for me and I look forward to the good work of building a marriage and partnership that will last until the end. If you are out there reading this, Hillman, thank you for saying “yes” to my clumsy proposal and I hope I can be everything that you need.

 

There is an amusing story involving the circumstances of the proposal involving an absolutely horrid restaurant, my fumbling for the ring, a constant stream of babble, and the fact the I nearly burst into sobs while proposing, but I will save that for when I see you all in the store. Wedding details are being talked through at the moment, but please watch this space for the announcements. I can’t imagine going through with this without the bulk of my beloved customers witnessing it and I’m hoping that it can be arranged.

 

Man, what a crappy day it out there! I’m sitting at the front counter banging away at this tender missive and all I can see are slate grey skies and an endless tsunami of rain. According to the both local and national meteorologists we can expect a somewhat significant amount of ice, sleet, and snow before the end of the day. After the fiasco of the previous Snowmageddon I’m not sure I really have much faith in any of the current predictions, but I am keeping any eye on things and I am currently planning on being open normal hours tomorrow. If anything changes in regards to being open I will most certainly post it on the Facebook page and you are always more than welcome to call the store to make sure we are open.

 

You may have already caught the news online, but comic book charity The Hero Initiative has announced an extremely limited edition reprint of the seminal JLA/Avengers miniseries by Kurt Busiek and George Perez! This reprint is limited to 7000 copies and will extremely allocated. It is being released to commemorate the career of artist George Perez who recently revealed that he has terminal cancer. Perez was one of the founders of the Hero Initiative who’s mission statement is to give aid to comic book creators in financial or health distress. The new reprint will have a cover price of $29.99 and will include supplementary material previously found in the slipcased reprints of the series as well as a new afterword by writer Kurt Busiek. I have ordered a huge amount of copies, but, of course, there are only 7000 to go around which means that Monarch will most likely only get 1-3 copies of the title. As a result, I will NOT be taking any preorder/presales for the book which I think is smart considering I have no way of knowing how many copies I will actually have to sell. In any case, the book is scheduled to ship in March and once I know how many copies I will have then I will make a decision on the best way to sell it, although I am leaning towards some sort of drawing in the store. Stay tuned, True Believers!

 

I’ve been meaning to mention for the last couple of weeks that I’ve picked up a variety of comics recently and at least a box and a half of material has been added to our Dollar Boxes! Additionally, there will be some new issues hitting the back issue bins once the Post-Holiday Sale is over at the end of this month. New titles given a good boost include Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man, and others. I have some other collections that are supposed to be making their way into the store and if I end up picking them up I will let you know.

 

Okily dokily…time to get this stuff up and posted! After a couple of relatively small shipping weeks we have an absolutely HUGE shipping list for next week. I can’t believe how long it took me to get the shipping list and subscription form whipped into shape this week.

 

Have a great weekend and I will talks at ya next week!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

I’m beginning to think that there is something broken in me and my sense of humor. As many of you are already aware, I am NOT a fan of 99% of DC Comics film/cartoon output. My typical complaints include the overall darkness of the tone as well as the portrayal of some of my favorite comic book characters as amoral and murderously incompetent. I have been complaining about this ever since I went to see Snyder’s Man of Steel travesty. Pretty much every DCU movie effort that I have attempted to enjoy since then has been marred by the same issues for me. I mean I have rather gone on full rant mode at earsplitting levels of dissatisfaction for quite some time about it.

 

That is, until James Gunn’s Suicide Squad was released.

 

I’ll admit that I was going to just skip it, but one of my customers (the incomparable Mark McKee) told me to put on my big boy pants and watch it. He knew of my endearing love for John Ostrander’s 80’s Suicide Squad comic book series and thought that I would like the homage to it that Gunn had crafted. Well, Mr McKee was right. I DID love it and for pretty much the reason he thought I would. James Gunn managed to inject a level of screwball dark comedy into the film and, despite the crazed level of violence, it just plain worked for me. I could mention that I would have liked to see a little more of the soap opera drama that Ostrander used in his comic stories and the protracted Harley Quinn bits were not my cop of tea, but that is just quibbling. It was the first DCU film that I had honestly enjoyed in a long time.

 

Then I was bored one evening and I was doing tedious laundry chores and I decided to give the Harley Quinn animated series another shot. I had tried the first episode a few months before and I must admit that it appealed to the ten year old inside of me the way all of these long standing DC icons kept dropping F-bombs like they were getting paid for it. I’ll admit that every time Poison Ivy or Joker or Harley let loose with a string of expletives I giggled like a small child. I was not, however, prepared for the nearly operatic intensity that the cartoon’s soap opera shenanigans and increasingly filthy language that eventually spills forth. Three episodes after that constant use of the F-word would normally grow tiresome for me I found myself rivetted by the crisscrossing subplots and characters in this twisted and hilarious DC world. And, of course, when Doctor Psycho directs the ultimate curse word at Wonder Woman in the middle of a pitched battle causing birds to fall out of the sky and the world to stop spinning (also being drummed out of the Legion of Doom for a potty mouth and disrespect for woman), well, I was just as stunned as the cartoon wildlife. I finished the entire two season run in record time.

 

Bolstered by those two experiments, I decided to tune into the Peacemaker series that has been heavily pushed by HBO Max. I am around 5 episodes into it and I must admit that it is every bit as filthy and entertaining as the above two examples. James Gunn is back, writing and directing multiple episodes, as his use of characters on the fringe of the DCU (such as Judomaster and Vigilante) is a formula that works well for his particular talents. The storyline itself is as silly as the plot of Suicide Squad, but holds everything together admirably and gives each of the main characters moments to shine. There’s just enough drama involving Peacemaker’s back story as well as the POV character Laota (played by Danielle Brooks) and her marriage to keep things somewhat grounded, but the humor remains as raunchy and unapologetic as anything from the movie it is based on.

 

So why can I only seem to enjoy DCU projects when they are THIS outrageously hilarious and filthy? I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now. I mean, my main problems with the entire slate of Snderverse pictures is their unrelenting darkness of tone and color and their rejection of just about every Silver Age convention that I tend to hold dear when it comes to DC projects. So why do I give these projects a free pass? I think the answer is that they have a definite sense of humor that for me elevates the material and stops it from being such a drag. It is a juvenile sense of humor, no argument from me, and it is VERY dark indeed, but at least it is bringing a smile to my face rather than 3 ½ hours worth of depression. Despite how dark the humor gets it is still humor and keeps things from getting too sad. And I guess that I just prefer that tone versus the tone of the rest of the movies/cartoons. I’ll be interested to see how Peacemaker wraps up its storyline at the end of the season as well as if we will see a brand new dance routine for the credits of season two…

 

We still have a about two weeks left in Monarch Comics’ Annual Post-Holiday Sale so if you had your eye on a particular back issue or trade paperback currently in stock then take advantage of the big savings while you can. We just picked up some new comics recently and there will be a lot of new material going into the dollar boxes this week as well. If you are a fan of diving into he dollar boxes then definitely check them out this weekend! I’m also happy to announce that we have managed to restock the Ultra Pro current size comic bags this week and topped off supplies on some other items. Next week’s shipment is a little lighter than usual from the big companies so it will be a good time to catch up on other things in the store!

 

I also wanted to mention that there are several big projects coming out from D.C./Marvel in the next six months or so and big projects generally means multiple open order covers. Just a reminder that, for the most part, I don’t carry much in the way of open order variants on the rack so if you see something that you want then please let me know ASAP so that I can get the order in for you. I’m thinking mostly of the 124,365 variant covers for the new upcoming Amazing Spider-Man #1, but really it applies to anything else that has multiple variants. Of course, you can always ask after FOC, but my ability to guarantee it drops dramatically after that point.

 

OKily dokily…that’s it for me this week. I am feeling rather remarkable efficient this week as I have most of my paperwork caught up, my taxes effectively dealt with, and all of the bills caught up. Planning on spending this afternoon at the store chitchatting with customers and completing my weekly Penguin Random House FOC. If I’m feeling cute and have a spare moment I might unpack some stuff that comes out next week. Have a great weekend and hope to see you in the store soon!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Well, Snowmageddon 2022 certainly didn’t amount to much. I do believe the technical term is “Fart in a Bathtub”. I mean, don’t get me wrong. We did indeed get a bit of snow and while I haven’t heard any official numbers as of this writing I have been shoveling or driving in it since early this morning and my overall impression is that it was really no big deal, especially for those of us who grew up with this kind of weather. The way the media was going on about for the last three days I was expecting to at least face the threat of a heart attack while shoveling snow, but clearing off my house, my Dad’s place, and the store barely got my pulse rate going. I was actually a little worried that I would leave people waiting at the store because I was a little bit behind due to all of the shoveling and driving around, but I made it here on time and two hours in I have had exactly one person in the store. He let me know that I am apparently the only comic book store open today in Toledo and that there are plenty of other businesses that stayed shuttered today as well. I’m not quite sure why, but I must say that it did make all of the driving around I did earlier a lot easier without as much traffic middling around the streets.

 

I am at work now and I have plenty to keep me busy for the nonce so I plan on sticking it out for the next couple of hours. I did make a Facebook post when I first got here saying that I would stay until at least 5pm, but that is looking increasingly unlikely as long as I am sitting here by myself. I have a customer from Adrian who called and asked if I would be open and I told him that I would be here for him, but once he has come and gone, assuming no other eager consumers appear, then all bets are off. There is nothing that I am working on today that I can’t easily do at home and I still have to head over to Dad’s again at some point to clean up the snow. I don’t know. This is one of those things that I am now in charge of as owner of the business, but I really hate making these decisions. Now that I think about it, according to UPS tracking I have a shipment of 16 boxes worth of supplies that are out for delivery today as well. I suppose I should at least give UPS a chance to get here before heading back home.

 

I still have a few free tickets to hand out for Fantasticon which is taking place this year on March 12^th & 13^th at the Seagate Center downtown. We also have fliers on the counter although the most up to date information can be found at www.fantasticon.net. While Monarch does not set up at shows, mostly because the current owner is far too lazy for such a laborious undertaking, we do support local shows and I know that many of you are hungry for an honest to goodness comic show to attend. I know that they hand out a mountain of free passes at various businesses in town, but if you need a Sunday pass then ask Brian or I at the counter and we will pass one on to you.

 

It’s funny but both Lunar Distribution (D.C. Comics) and Penguin Random House (Marvel Comics) made a wonderful effort at getting our shipments for next week boxed up and shoved out the door before the snowstorm hit and now it looks like both shipments should be showing up tomorrow. I was kind of hoping to see them hit the store today so that I could have them unpacked while business was slow, but it looks like they got as far as Columbus and got stuck there because of the weather. Hopefully that won’t be a problem and cause a delay. In any case, both distributors get a big thanks and many kudos for making the effort at heading off any potential shipping problems. Let’s hope we see more forward thinking like that as things move forward.

 

Okily dokily…enough wool gathering for me. I’ll get this and the shipping list/subscription form up and running and then move on to another project. I hope everyone is enjoying their first (and probably last) Snow Day of the season. Please stay safe and remember…shoveling snow is a perfectly acceptable form of exercise…😊

 

Eddie