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