Hey, Folks!
I’d really like to start off with my weekly ramblings by thanking everyone who has done their part to help Monarch Comics get back on our feet after the recent shutdown. Honestly, you folks have been great! Despite being closed for two months, having to forego our annual Free Comic Book Day Event, and not having a whole heck of a lot of new comics to sell, we are still on track for having one of our best summer seasons ever. It is truly humbling to see the outpouring of support, especially with the crazy whirlwind that has swept up the comic industry and the rest of the world. Take a bow, Monarch fans, you guys and gals are terrific!
Obviously the new comic input has been extremely limited as the industry slowly works itself back to full steam and I have been remiss in mentioning here that I have begun the process of bringing in portions of my personal collection into the store in order to repopulate our back issue boxes. The back issue boxes, as you may have noticed, have been winnowed down a few boxes after I spent a month sorting through them to get back them back in order. About a quarter of the way through the process I started to get irritated at the amount of back issue material we had in stock that has essentially been moldering away in the boxes for 20+ years and decided a serious Spring cleaning was way overdue. As a result, we now have a ton of dollar books on the sale table and half empty boxes sitting on the back issue tables. Well, I was deciding how to handle my somewhat overzealous job on the back issues when I had to go into my garage looking for some old lawn furniture that I knew I had stored somewhere. Well, I found the lawn furniture and it was too broken down to be of use, but I did get seriously irritated when I started tripping over a pile of long boxes that for some reason I had sitting right in the middle of the floor. It was at that moment that I decided I needed to move these damn boxes out of my way because I was sick of tripping over them.
So I decided to start bringing them in one or two boxes at a time. Of course, I’ve also had to start cursing out “Ed from 2000” for being a lazy S.O.B. who couldn’t be bothered to put his damn comics in order. As a result, I have comics brimming with “new” back issue material, but in very little order. The 4 boxes I’ve brought in so far to sort through have been mostly material from the late 90’s/early 00’s and mostly D.C. titles at that. I didn’t remember being such a fool for the Batman family titles! I don’t remember exactly when I stopped buying individual comics in lieu of trades and hard covers, but once I get into the boxes in deep storage there should be a huge selection of comics from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. It’s really kind of fascinating…like comic book archeology. Some of this stuff I don’t even remember buying, much less reading…lol. In any case, you might want to give the back issue boxes and the dollar boxes a second (or third) look the next time you are in the store. So far I’ve added significant back issues of Batman, Birds of Prey, Catwoman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Marvel’s Ultimate titles. Keep checking back, True Believers, as there will be new stuff added every week…at least until it is all out of my house!
I’m working on June initial orders this week, so if you have any special orders in mind Please let me know before the end of the weekend. This will by first initial order since D.C. Comics left Diamond Distributors, so it is somewhat bittersweet. The New Distributor (USC) has no mechanism in place to accept initial orders and instead they only offer books through their F.O.C. (Final Order Cut-Off) and I have to figure out how to fit this new system into my record keeping apparatus. After hearing laments from other, more technologically advanced retailers about how UCS does not have a system in place to accommodate their P.O.S. (Point of Sale) systems I suppose I should be happy that we haven’t installed more complicated devices in the store. This is the first time I’ve admitted to being happy we are essentially Primitive Screw Heads.
D.C. Comics has also announced this week that Diamond will no longer be filling orders for their line of D.C. Direct toys and statues. They gave us a list of items that were originally offered and ordered through Diamond whose numbers are now cancelled and they supplied us with new release dates for the items and instructions to place orders again through the new distributors. Unfortunately, they sent us an e-mail WITH THE WRONG RELEASE DATES. Also, after much hair pulling and poking around, I could only find a handful of the cancelled items available for reorder in the new system. Le sigh…I suppose it is too much to ask that if you are going to tear down the distribution system you’ve used for 40 years that you’d have a workable replacement ready to go. Please be patient, Gentle Readers, as I do believe we are heading for some stormy weather in a couple of weeks when all of this really gets started. Of course, I fully admit that I could be totally worrying over nothing and that everything will snap right into place, but I kind of doubt it…
We are still taking orders for personalized face masks! We still have some masks in stock (Deadpool, Harley Quinn, Hydra logo, and Venom), but feel free to place an order for pretty much any image you want. Simply message me on Facebook or shoot me an e-mail with the .jpg or .png file you’d like along with whether you want the image over the whole mask or just in the bottom corner. I’ll put the order in and in a couple of days we’ll have your new mask! Remember, all masks are 100% cotton, very breathable, and are machine washable. I’ve washed my mask several times now and it has lost none of its shape or comfort!
Before I get moving for the day I’d like to share a funny little story from this morning. Before the Apocalypse came down on us like a ton of diseased bricks, I bought my Dad tickets to see The Lion King over at Stranahan Theatre. Naturally enough, the performance was “postponed” and I’ve been waiting ever since to find out what to do about the tickets. Well, a post came up from Stranahan on my Facebook scroll yesterday saying that the performance had been rescheduled June 16-July 3! WOO HOO! My Dad was gonna see a bunch of dancing puppets after all! Obviously I didn’t read the post clearly enough as I was pretty busy yesterday, but I resigned to call the box office this morning and find out when my Dad’s tickets would be good. I got through to the box office and a very nice lady told me that the new date for Dad’s tickets would be “June 17th”. I thanked and let her go, but something was nagging at me about that date. I turned around to look at a calendar and realized, “OMG! June 17th was YESTERDAY! GAAAAAH!” I called her right back and explained the problem and she clucked at me and said, “Oh, Dear, that is June 17th…OF 2021! We couldn’t possibly hold a show this year!” I was stunned for a moment and then I burst out laughing! I apologized for being an idiot and thanked her for her help…lol. SO, if you got tickets for The Lion King make sure you give Stranahan Theatre a call for your new dates…lol…and remember…IT’S FOR NEXT YEAR!
Geez…one more thing. I almost forgot. You will notice that Batman #93 is on next week’s invoice. Well for those of you who preordered the 1 in 25 Designer design variant I’m sorry to say that due to an apparent Diamond snafu we will not be receiving our copies until the week of July 1st. I noticed it almost immediately when I opened next week’s invoice and after ascertaining that I did indeed order the book I posted the question on the D.C. Retailer Facebook group. I was worried at first, but it quickly became apparent that pretty much no one serviced by Diamond had the missing cover on their invoices. That was when we ere informed of the slip up and that it would be rectified the following week. (Remember what I said above about “stormy weather”? I didn’t think it would start before the changeover…lol.)
Have a great weekend, Folks!
Eddie