Hey, Folks!
Welcome the final EDitorial for 2023! It has been a, shall we say, challenging year for Monarch Comics, but we came through the best and worst of it and, while the final numbers aren’t in yet, it looks like we have managed to come in with the best year in Monarch sales history. Thanks to everyone who contributed to our success and who stuck around while Brian and I adjusted to a continually changing comic book landscape. I had no conception that when I took the reigns from Steve back in 2021 that in two short years I would be able to affect such changes in the store while surfing a wave of distributor and publisher weirdness.
One of the biggest changes that I made in our business model was the pivot we began back in 2020 to becoming more of a back issue store. I mean, for 30 years Steve and I focused on being your favorite stop for new comics and, especially, hard covers and trade paperbacks. We would dabble with cards or merchandise on and off at various intensities, but we were basically here to keep you caught up on all of the latest comics being published every week. As the amount of publishers and comics kept multiplying over the years it became increasingly difficult to achieve this without losing our shirts in unsold product and when the stupid Covid thing hit and the comic companies froze in place and stopped supplying our weekly fare things started to look a little shaky. Okay…a lot shaky. Add to that all of the stuff we had planned for Steve’s 2020 retirement were blown out of the water and the difficulties of shifting the business controls over to me with half the government shut down due to Covid…well, I won’t lie and say that I wasn’t rather harried during the changeover.
So I started bringing the huge amount of stuff that I had stored at home and began making Monarch Comics a place that had a back issue stock that was more than just a storage place for all of the comics that ordered too much of during the year. It bumped up our sales significantly in 2020 and let Steve retire on a high note. In the 2 years since I have continued on that road which has drawn a great deal of new/old customers to Monarch and has generated excitement that I have never seen before now. And with my gamble on the New Jersey Collection (which I am still laboriously working through) and the BG Collection (which we still have plenty to go as well) it looks like Monarch Comics is set to continue for a good long time.
This is all new to me and I can’t tell you how exciting it is to realize that after running a comic shop for 30 years that there are still new things for me to learn and new paths to take. I will admit that I was starting to feel a great weight of tiredness, especially when I was confronted with all of the extra work being the Head Honcho was gonna add to my usual work schedule. Brian, however, came along and has been a HUGE help and a great influence on me. He’s really pumped up my enthusiasm and has taught more about comic book grading then I had ever paid attention to before. He’s taught me the evil of “foxing” and has been there to help me separate the “valuable” from the “truly valuable”. He also saved our copy of Journey Into Mystery #83 from the trash…lol.
Of course, I can’t diminish the help and support that I’ve gotten in the last year from my dear husband, Hillman. Hillman is very much behind the scenes here at Monarch and his love and support since we met have been invaluable. He’s my best sounding board and I’m not sure I could have done this without him. Also, he sold me a bunch of X-Men copies really cheaply…lol.
For those of you who have been excited and delighted by the recent spate of classic silver age comics that we have put up for sale in the last week or two, rest assured there is more…much more…coming in the weeks and months to come. Later today there will be some key X-titles hitting the Facebook page and I am committed to completing my unboxing of the rest of the Jersey collection in the next 6-8 weeks. The BG collection and its many treasures will take a little longer to get out, but we should have more ready to post by the end of the January. And oh how juicy those posts will be…😊
Please remember that starting January 2nd will mark the start of the our annual Post Holiday Sale that will go on through the end of February. I’ve posted it a lot already, but here’s the sale details once again!
MONARCH COMICS POST-HOLIDAY SALE!
HARD COVERS/TRADE PAPERBACKS 25% OFF
BACK ISSUE BOXES 50% OFF
SHOWCASE BOOKS 20% OFF
POP VINYL FIGURES 50% OFF
$3 OFF PUZZLES/LUNCH BOXES
$10 FOR ART COMIC BOXES
That’s it for me this year, my friends. I am going to get the subform up and running and then try to knock out another box of Jersey collection books before I jet out of here for the next two days. I will be here on Sunday this week for our regular store hours, but the store WILL be closed on Monday for New Year’s Day. I hope that everyone has a safe and fun New Year’s Eve and I will see you next year!
Eddie