Hey, Folks!
Well, here we are finally past Free Comic Book Day and moving boldly into the future!
Just kidding…I’m actually physically and emotionally exhausted and am desperately trying to catch my breath while looking longingly at the calendar while wistfully wishing for my vacation to get here sooner…
FCBD was a measured success this year. Attendance was way down compared to 2019, but I’m not sure what I really expected. Between the pandemic, other events going on in town, August vacations, and the fact that this was a lot of folks “last weekend of the summer” (with school starting up this week) I think there was a lot stacked against my quiet little celebration of comics. All that being said, however, I was still pretty optimistic about how things went. Everyone who attended was TERRIFIC and adding things like Kurt Nielson and his mobile photo booth and the free ice cream cone from Shivers only made things more fun. Hopefully FCBD will be able to return to the first Saturday in May next year and we can see some real fireworks. Of course, Monarch still has plenty of FCBD titles still available and we are going to leave the books on the counter through the end of this week so that anyone who wasn’t able to make it Saturday may come in and get their fill of freebies. There is plenty of most of the titles, so even if you did come by on Saturday and got your five titles feel free to stop by and get any that you may have had your eye on!
One of the things that Brian and I were working on in the weeks leading up to FCBD were the creation of massive amounts of new Dollar Box offerings. We ended up doing very well with them Saturday, but I want all of you who go crazy for new dollar boxes to know that there are still plenty in stock and more to come once Brian and I get done sorting through them. There will also be a lot of back issue stock going out over the next couple of weeks as well as some new higher demand books going into the showcase. As a matter of fact I’ll be posting about some of those books on Facebook later today.
I’ve been talking about the last few renovation projects I have in mind for the store this year and I thought I’d mention that the proposed new book shelves are currently still on backorder with my supplier. These are the book shelves that I have mentioned to many of you that I am going to use to turn the current slat walls int o proper book shelves. This will allow me to display a good deal more product once they are installed and I also think it will end up looking pretty sharp. I have a literal mountain of older and out of print trade paperbacks and hard covers at home that I am very much looking forward to putting in front of you. Hopefully I’ll get those shelves in soon so that I can start the project properly. Also, let’s hope they don’t show up while I am out of town next month.
I also want to mention that there may be small disruptions of store hours over the next three weeks. This is because my Dad, who regular customers know is suffering from dementia, is “on his own” while his caretaker takes a very deserved three week vacation. I am coordinating with my family to make sure he gets the care he needs during this time, but there maybe moments of emergency that I will have to leave the store to take care of. Hopefully, if this happens it will be on a day that Brian is in the store and I can come and go as I please, but let me apologize now if you roll up to the store and find it closed at an odd hour. Everything may run completely smoothly for the whole three weeks, but if it doesn’t I just want everyone to be aware of what the problem may be.
That’s it for me this week. I’m actually kinda proud that I got everything ready to go this early and that I can now spend the afternoon sorting through more back issues! The quicker I can get into the boxes the quicker we will have yet more Dollar Boxes as well as some really interesting back issues!
Have a great week, Folks!
Eddie