Hey, Folks!
I’m afraid it’s gonna be a short EDitorial this week, mostly because “Painting Day” is coming up and all of that phat stimulus loot has been making things a bit more busy than usual this week. Not that I’m complaining! I am happy to see that everyone can catch up on their favorite funny books in a fiscally responsible way…:P
Monarch Comics will be closed, as per usual, on Monday, March 22nd, as we begin our exciting 2021 renovation projects! Monday we will be giving the store a new coat of paint and I am extremely excited at the prospect. However, due to the prep work needed, the store is going to be looking a little rough this week. Jake and I have to essentially strip everything off the walls and get the all the racks pulled away from them enough for a coat of paint. Those of you who visited yesterday already got a taste of it, but I don’t want anyone shocked or thinking we are going out of business when they come in over the weekend and see things REALLY stripped down. So please excuse our mess for the next couple of days as I work hard to get this project completed.
One of the things that I have to do in order for the paint job to go off as scheduled is moving all of the back issue boxes and sales tables into the back room for “storage”. The original plan was to not have them available for browsing during the renovations. After filling FOUR dumpsters full of crap in the last couple of months, however, I realize I had forgotten exactly how much junk had accumulated in the back room over the last 25+ years and the amount of space that would be freed up as a result of the “tidying up”. As a result, I do believe that I will be able to set things up so that I can allow folks to go into the back room for a deep dive into the back issue boxes. It is kind of a relief because I wasn’t looking forward to moving the back issue boxes back and forth multiple times for the duration of my renovation projects.
It currently looks like Free Comic Book Day 2021 will be moving forward as planned! Diamond released the information of what companies and titles will be involved and you can be sure that I will post the information on the Facebook page as soon as I get a spare moment. Hopefully, that spare moment will magically appear sometime before FCBD actually takes place.
I have posted the FOC information for this week on the Facebook page. FOC (or Final Order Cut-Off) is basically the last moment a comic shop can change its order numbers before said orders are closed off and the numbers are sent to the publishers and then to the printer. I decided to start doing it in order to more explicitly let you know what open order variants are available in case you were interested in requesting a copy. While I was putting together this week’s FOC variant offerings, I realized that it was kind of silly (as well as lazy) not to just put everything that is on FOC on the list I prepare, so starting next week I will be including ALL items on FOC. If there’s anything special that catches your eye while looking over the list then please let me know and I can take steps to make sure that the title is ordered and available to you. Keep in mind that the primary function of this effort is to catch books that people are planning to pick up that they normally don’t buy. If you’ve been buying Amazing Spider-Man for the past 15-20 years then I already have inventory information logging that knowledge. If, however, you normally buy Amazing Spider-Man but there is an open order variant that you are interested in then that is the kind of information I need. I’m hoping that this will cut down on the amount of “instant sellouts” and make sure I note extra interest in a title that I might have missed on my own. Truly, information is power!
Well, I’ve already gone on for far longer than I had intended to, so I will bid you all adieu! Again, sorry for the mess that some of you will be walking into this weekend and please make sure that if you are looking for something and don’t see it then speak to me or Jake. We love to help!
Have a great weekend, Folks!
Eddie