Month: January 2023

Hey, Folks!

Boy, oh, boy, was yesterday exciting! There is nothing like a little Snowmageddon to make things interesting. Honestly, I had a feeling that it was going to be a somewhat heavy snow and I’ll admit to feeling a bit hoodwinked when I woke up and it hadn’t started yet, but it certainly had a lot of energy once it began! I got to work at my normal time yesterday (around 8am) and then handled the Wednesday Morning Rush as per usual and then the snow started coming down and everyone disappeared…lol. We had a couple of people in between 11am-12pm, but it was starting to look pretty messy out the front window. I did a quick clean up in front of the store and decided to head home an hour or so early because as much as I HATE driving, I REALLY hate driving in the snow. And then it was just a matter of driving down deserted streets for the 5 mile trek home at 25 miles an hour..lol. It was SO bad that when I got home I gave Brian the option of closing up and heading home. So my apologies to anyone who made the journey through the treacherous snow just to find us closed, but it was pretty dire out there.

I did manage to get plenty of paperwork completed yesterday at home, however, including the Shipping List and Subscription Form. It is an incredibly tiny shipping list next week, mostly because DC and Marvel seem to be treating it as a sort of fifth week event though it technically isn’t. I’m actually glad for the break in new stuff as we have most of our “old stuff” on sale right now! Yes, we will be continuing the Annual Post-Holiday Sale through the month of February even if you won’t be seeing the ad for very much longer on Facebook as I only set it for the end of January. Rest assured, everything from back issues to trade paperback/hard covers to POP figures to small comic art boxes will all continue to be on discount until Tuesday, February 28^th!

A quick note to those who base their visits on the arrival of the new catalogs…We FINALLY received the bulk of our orders for Diamond’s January Previews and I am putting those out this week because we still haven’t received the Marvel or DC catalogs for February. We should have all of the component catalogs in and ready to go by next week, however, so plan on visiting us next weekend. One of these days maybe these publishers will arrange it so that their catalogs all come out the same week…

That’s is for me! Not only do I have to do my weekly FOC numbers for DC and Marvel, but I also have to post my initial orders for Diamond hopefully before I leave the store. I’m heading back out to our apartment in the country tonight and I would prefer not to have to take any work home…lol. Have a great weekend!

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

Well, Brian and I have successfully completed two weeks with our new opening hours on Monday. There hasn’t been much traffic at this point, but I’m going to give it through the end of February before deciding whether or not to continue the practice. It was getting to be a concern for me when I was closed on Monday because so many people showed up whilst I was in the store doing paperwork and stuff between errands I had to do because of my guardianship for my dad, but now that those responsibilities have ended it just seemed to make sense to open the doors since I was here anyway. In any case, either Brian or I will be here on Mondays between 12-5.

I’ve just about had it with Diamond Distributors. I’ve resisted writing anything in my little blog negative about the behind the scenes stuff one deals with when running a comic book store because I thought it was entirely too much negativity and I figured you folks didn’t want to read a whole lot of complaining about stupid industry stuff. This recent problem with securing Previews magazines for January, however, has me steamed up. The January Previews that was originally supposed to be here on 12/28/22 and I did pay for along with crazy shipping charges never appeared. The box apparently went missing and now, three weeks later, the Previews are supposed to be here this afternoon. This isn’t very helpful, however, since the February Previews will be here next week and my initial Diamond orders will be due in a week. This will, of course, occur before I even have a chance to get this issue of Previews in front of most of you. I will also be charged full price for the damn things AND get charged shipping on the box again as well. This means that I have to make a hard decision in the near future regarding whether I carry the catalog at all. I am seriously considering merely ordering a handful of copies for the folks who use it to special order stuff every month because the information is mostly available online at this point and it feels like most of you are more interested in the D.C. and Marvel catalogs which won’t be affected by this decision at all. I think I may be a bit too angry by this and other problems that I have been having with Diamond lately so please, by all means, let me know your views on this subject. Do you, oh, Loyal Customers, want me to continue carrying the Previews?

Brian is starting to get a bit backed up with evaluating comic collections again, so please keep on mind that if you have stuff you want to sell or trade to us then you may have a week or two wait to get an offer. He will, of course, get to your books eventually, but there may be a slight delay as there will likely be one or more people ahead of you in the sorting line. Thanks in advance for your patience!

That’s it for me this week. I really have a lot of stuff to get through this week, including preparing initial Diamond orders in a month where I couldn’t get catalogs in front of anybody. I hope everyone has a great weekend and that we don’ t get the prophesied crappy weather on Sunday and Monday…lol.

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

If anybody ever tells you that business stuff is easy then please punch them in the mouth for me. It’s the beginning of the year and it is that delicate time when I have to get all of my fourth quarter business information together for my accountant. Unfortunately, there were, like 20 days, where the information put into the sales records spread sheet was incorrect. I had to go back and track down all of the sales data from these days and then figure out how to get the information to my accountant. I started off by simply e-mailing her from my register terminal, but it only worked for about half the data. So then I had to go back and download the data, scan it into my system, and then e-mail it to her. I think it is finally done, but I haven’t heard back yet. This little side trip has not improved my mood any today.

I also want to assure everyone that we should FINALLY have all of our January catalogs in the store next week. The problem this month is that the 42lb box that contained our Diamond Previews was apparently lost in UPS’s system. I say “apparently” because it was on my UPS driver’s board the day it was set to arrive, but wasn’t in his truck. The next day when I checked the box’s status it changed to one of those dreaded “We Will Get Back To You as Soon As We Have A Delivery Date” messages. I immediately e-mailed Diamond about it and got a phone call asking us to wait two days to report them shortage as they didn’t want to send replacements and then have the original box show up. I ended up compromising and giving it one more day and then the message changed to “Huh. We Have NO Idea Where Your Frakakta Package Is…Talk TO Your Supplier, Chump” and so I reported them missing. Of course, Diamond didn’t process the shortage until 1/3 and so we are still waiting for them to appear. Of course, it looks like we won’t see them until NEXT Tuesday, but I am living in a world of hope.

The Case of the Missing Marvel Previews is a little more, well, mysterious. My original FOC information places the release date for two weeks ago, but when they didn’t show up on an invoice I double checked PRH’s website and the release date had been changed at some point to 1/11/23. No explanation as to why was offered. They are currently listed on the packing list for next week’s Marvel books so I’m fairly certain they will be here for your consumption next week as well. Unfortunately this will mean I will need orders in ASAP this month so keep that in mind if you normally fill out an order booklet or if you just see something you are partial to and you are worried that we won’t be carrying it.

Well, time for me tog et back to work. I’m having to do DC and Marvel FOC for the first time int wo weeks and I am already waaaay behind on that because of all of this other crap I’m dealing with so I hope everyone has a great weekend and remember that the big Post Holiday Sale is currently in full effect AND Monarch Comics will be open again from 12pm-5pm on Mondays starting the 9^th!

Eddie