Greetings, Comic Lovers!
It’s been an interesting time at Monarch Comics this week as I got the supreme pleasure of fixing a UPS delivery shortage. I’ll admit to a bit of smug self-satisfaction as I successfully contacted the correct people in the correct order and said the right things in order to fix the problem. 30+ years of comic book retailing will give you that kind of blazing insight.
It all started on Tuesday afternoon. Technically Tuesdays are one of my days off, but for the last year or so I’ve been coming in late in the day to help with the new shipment. It just seemed easier to give up a couple of hours of a day off versus dealing with my portion of the weekly unpacking early on Wednesday morning. I come in around 4:30-5pm, putz around with the sub orders, help Steve out with he special orders, record the Facebook Live show, and then pull all of my subscription peeps. Simple, right? I’ve actually got it down to a science and I can usually get out of the store before 8pm. It’s simple alright…as long as nothing goes wrong.
Well, something went wrong on Tuesday. Our UPS driver dropped off the bulk of our shipment a little later than usual and announce to Steve that he couldn’t find one of our boxes. He said he would be back with it once he found it so Steve didn’t kick up much of a fuss. When I arrived around 5 or so he still hadn’t returned. I went online and checked out the status of the missing box and there was some kind of note attached to the shipment tracking that didn’t make any sense outside of the fact that it looked like we wouldn’t be getting the missing box until the next day. I should mention now that it was a huge box with well over 2 dozen titles contained within and it would be a huge headache if I didn’t have those books on the rack before Wednesday morning. Not only would we be missing essential titles, but I would have had to do sub pulls twice in order to make sure everything was done properly. I blanched at the thought of it.
So I proceeded to start the process to get it straightened out. The first step was to call Diamond Comics Distributors to see what they could tell me about the missing box. Now we just recently lost our customer service rep so all I could do was call the general number and see who picked up. I was hoping for an experienced employee who could, you know, actually help me, but it was a crap shoot. Luck, r something similar, was with me and the gentleman who took my call quickly looked up the missing box and he was just as mystified as I was by the weird note on the shipment tracking page. “This doesn’t make any sense,’ he said, “let me call UPS and get back to you.” He was true to his word and got back to me immediately and assured me that UPS would be contacting me within the hour and they would help me straighten it out.
I was cautiously hopeful at this point and prayed to the comic retailing gods that the UPS person calling would be as efficient and helpful as the Diamond rep. Once again, my desperate prayers were answered by a very polite and competent UPS rep who found my package and offered me the choice between waiting until tomorrow to have the shipment delivered OR I could swing by the Maumee customer service station between 8pm and 9pm to pick up the box. I dreaded the thought of waiting for the box in the morning for all the reasons enumerated above, so I immediately told her I would pick up the box at 8pm. Luckily, Hillman was going to be stopping by after he got off work for his weekly X-title fix (Excalibur and Marauders this week…two of our favorites!) so he could give me a ride to UPS to pick up the box. My back is still a mess after throwing it a couple of weeks ago and I needed a big strong he man to haul it out to the car.
Bottom line? I got the missing box, finished the unpack, sorted through special orders, and got the subscriptions pulled by 11pm or so. It was a long night, especially for a “day off”, but it was so worth it when I hit the ground running on Wednesday morning and was ready for the ravening hordes hungry for new comics! I was pleasantly surprised when the solution came together relatively easily and I could get the job done with minimum muss and fuss!
Steve and I will be working on January initial orders this afternoon which will include our orders for Free Comic Book Day titles. Can you believe we have to work this far in advance for FCBD stuff!?! Anyway, for the last several years, Diamond and its attendant publishers have offered some FCBD merchandise exclusives that are only available on the big day, Funko in particular has had some fun FCBD exclusives for the last couple of years. I try to carry these items when possible, but this year there are items that I have absolutely NO idea whether there will be any interest in them or not. I figured I’d better mention them now and solicit any preorders for them before they hit their FOC dates. Never let it be said that I don’t enjoy giving my customers options!
The first exclusive FCBD merchandise item is the FCBD 2020 Marvel Gallery Emma Frost PVC figure. The X-Men’s sexy femme fatale is an approximately 12-inch diorama featuring detailed sculpting and paint applications, and comes packaged in a full-color window box. It is by Caesar and sculpted by Alejandro Pereira. The Emma Frost PVC figure retails for $49.99 and the FOC date is 1/31/20.
The second item is the FCBD 2020 Mondo Spider-Verse Miles Morales PX Enamel Pin! Designed by Matt Taylor and released through Mondo Tees, this 1.2″ hard enamel pin has a butterfly clutch pin arrives on an Into the Spider-Verse backing card. It retails for $10.00 and the FOC date is 1/31/20!
The final FCBD merchandise exclusive is the one from Funko and it is real head scratcher…at least for me. They are the FCBD 2020 Funko PX Marvel Mystery Boxes and even thought I’ve read the item description three times I still can’t quite figure out how to sell these things to you…lol. I figure the easiest thing to do is just pass Diamond’s solicitation info onto you and see what you think…
“Funko steps up their game for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2020 with their first-ever PREVIEWS EXCLUSIVE Mystery Box! Inside you’ll find a brand-new Marvel Comics POP! PX bobble-head figure, an exclusive PX Marvel Funko Variant Comic Book (title TBA), and a PX Funko POP! Character Tee – all PX items and available in Comic Shops on Free Comic Book Day 2020! The POP! PX figure comes in standard Funko window box packaging for easy display, while the Marvel comic book features cover art in the Funko style, depicting the Mystery Box’s featured POP! character in three randomly distributed designs: Main Variant Cover (65%), No Logo Variant (25%), Gold Logo Cover (10%)! There are three Mystery boxes to choose from (A, B, C), each with its own exclusive T-Shirt design of the featured POP! character. The character and contents of the box are a MYSTERY for now, but you’ll only have to wait until Free Comic Book Day to discover what’s inside the box!”
That’s it! That’s all the info I have on these “mystery boxes” and, frankly, I don’t know enough about POP collectibles to know exactly who is going to be looking for these things on FCBD. On top of that, you have to order the mystery boxes by short size which really ups my anxiety level for ordering any at all. And don’t even get me started trying to explain this promotion to Steve…he can barely understand the appeal of regular Funko products. So, I’m leaving it up to you, gentle sentients. If you are interested in purchasing one of the mystery boxes then please let me know and I will order in your box. All three boxes retail for $34.99 and the FOC is 1/31/20. When ordering, please include the t-shirt size of your choice. Sizes range from Small to Double Extra Large.
Wonder Woman #750 shipped in this week and is selling at a good clip. In addition to being legacy numbered at #750 this issue of Wonder Woman starts a new chapter in DCU continuity with a back up story by Scott Snyder which shows us Princess Diana’s new place in the DC Universe. As you probably know by now it also comes with ten different covers and has a cover price of $9.99. We started off yesterday offering a complete set of 10 covers for the sale price of $80, but I’m afraid we no longer have all of the different covers still in stock. I just checked with Diamond and only about half of the covers are still available for reorder, so if there is a specific cover you are looking for and it isn’t on the rack then please check with me to see if I can order one in for you.
FLASH #750 by HOWARD PORTER 
FLASH #750 1940S NICOLA SCOTT VAR ED 
FLASH #750 1950S GARY FRANK VAR ED 
FLASH #750 1960S NICK DERINGTON VAR ED 
FLASH #750 1970S GARCIA LOPEZ VAR ED 
FLASH #750 1980S DELL OTTO VAR ED 
FLASH #750 1990S MATTINA VAR ED 
FLASH #750 2000S JIM LEE VAR ED 
FLASH #750 2010S FRANCIS MANAPUL VAR ED
All of that brings me neatly to DC’s next big milestone, Flash #750! Featuring 10 different covers (a “regular” cover, a blank cover, and decades variants from the 40’s-10’s), Flash #750 features the beginning of “The Flash Age”, the story DC has been building toward since issue #50! In addition this special anniversary issue will also feature tales from across the generations of super-speedsters by an all-star line up of creators! Flash #750 will retail for $7.99 and is due out March 4th.
Monarch Comics will be offering a special sale price of $63.99 for all ten covers. This offer will be while supplies last. I have to admit that I will have considerably fewer copies initially ordered for this title versus the previous special DC anniversary issues, so please let me know ASAP if you would like to purchase a complete set or even a specific cover. Subscription customers who don’t specify a particular cover will receive whatever we have in stock after complete sets are compiled. The FOC for the issue is 2/3/20!
That’s it for me this week, Folks! It’s already after noon and I still have to get all of this mess posted online as well as getting my January initial orders entered. Thankfully, my first draft of initial orders is complete and the only things of substance that needs to be sorted out is our orders for this year’s FCBD titles. If you have any questions about any of the items above then please message me on Messenger or give me a call. I’ll be here for the rest of the week!
Eddie