Author: monarchcomics@sbcglobal.net

Hey, Folks!

 

Huh…it’s a little snowy out there this morning…lol. Every year after the first quasi-big snow I have the same experience. I get up, get outside, curse and whine when I see I have to, you know, actually scrape or clear the windows on the van, and then I always have one moment of abject terror when I am just driving along as usual and start sliding when I should be braking. THAT always wakes me up, way more than coffee ever has! Is it considered lazy that I don’t go outside and clear the store’s sidewalks of snowy gunk because I think that in an hour or two it will all melt on its own?

 

I love you folks…I really do. Everyone keeps coming in and giving me the thumbs up over the upcoming Store Takeover and letting me know that I’ll do just fine. I suspect that is true, but it’s nice to hear it as I struggle daily with waves of anxiety lapping at the shore of my usual calm demeanor. Every time I assure myself that everything is more or less ready my subconscious bubbles up and spits out another issue that I have to deal with before that is true. Today I got into the store extra early because even though I sent Diamond Distributors all of their requested paperwork (and more!) I have yet to hear back if the store’s account has been transferred over to my name yet. I also haven’t been expressly informed as to whether our payment terms are changing to C.O.D. or not. I tried calling our credit analyst at Diamond only to get a phone message that she went on vacation 11/27 with no indication on said message when she would be “back in the office”. Considering that I e-mailed the information packet after the 27^th I have no idea whether she has actually even seen it or not. I left a voice message for her and tried to keep the frightened tremble out of my voice. Hopefully I will hear back soon.

 

I am also waiting for Steve to get in the store today so that we can call up Guardian Alarm and get the alarm account transferred to my name. That should be no biggie, especially since the bill for the alarm service covering January though March is already here at the store. I’d call myself, but I suspect that Steve will be the one they need to talk to at this point. Hopefully that will be a no brainer.

 

Additionally I still haven’t familiarized myself with the QuickBooks program I downloaded and installed a month ago. I opened it eagerly, but when I saw what looked to be an entirely overcomplicated screen I screamed once and shut it down while dissolving into tears. I need to put my Big Boy Pants on and figure out how to work it. I have received my new Square register and I need to set it up and turn it on and get it ready for use on the 2^nd. Another quasi-scary thing although I have been assured that it will be pretty easy to use. I think I may need to have Hillman around to hold my hand when I start THAT procedure.

 

So, that’s pretty much everything still on my plate at this point. I am already making plans on what to do on January 1^st. We are always closed on New Year’s Day, so I’m currently planning on coming in early in the day and working towards rearranging things a bit for my first day of ownership. One of the first big jobs I have to complete is cleaning out the backroom of the store and it will involve a certain amount of archeology…lol. If anyone is interested in purchasing the (very) old Monarch Comics sign from our old location then please, by all means, let me know. It’s been sitting in the backroom FOR YEARS and I need to get it out.

 

Well, suppose I should get started on getting this Shipping List/Subscription Form up and running. I hope that everyone has a great weekend and I look forward to seeing you before the holiday next week. Just for a refresher…here’s our holiday hours for this year:

 

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24^TH, CHRISTMAS EVE: 11AM-5PM

FRIDAY, DECEMEBR 25^TH, CHRISTMAS: CLOSED

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31^ST, NEW YEAR’S EVE (AND STEVE’S LAST DAY): 11AM-5PM

FRIDAY, JANUARY 1^ST, NEW YEAR’S DAY (AND ED’S FIRST DAY): CLOSED

 

Just a quick reminder…Monarch Comics Annual Post-Holiday Sale begins on the 2^nd! All hard covers/trade paperbacks 25% off cover (or price marked), all back issue boxes 50% off price marked, all wall books/showcase books 25% off price marked, and the dollar boxes will be 3 for a $1. This will run throughout the months of January and February and will include any special orders made for trades.

 

Take care and watch those slippery roads!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Huh. It certainly is foggy out there this morning! I felt like I woke up into a Stephen King novel. Seriously, it was of course still dark out when my alarm went off and I went about my morning schedule predictably enough by feeding the Pooh Bear, letting him outside to go pee, brewing a pot of coffee, firing up the news on the computer. Then, while I was sipping on my second cup of “strip your guts” coffee, I looked out the window in the grey dawn and all I saw was a fluffy wall of white outside the back window. I got up and went over to the window to see if I could pierce the unrelenting murkiness and half expected a giant tentacle to wetly slap against the window. I eventually made my way out the door and then proceeded rather carefully on the route to the store. I made it one piece, but thank goodness I take the same route every day…I’m not sure I could find my way here otherwise.

 

December continues to be a rather frustrating month for D.C. titles. I’m speaking, of course, of the current Justice League crossover story, Endless Winter. As I may have mentioned last week, I severely underestimated the enthusiasm for this storyline and, if I’m being completely honest, I didn’t really expect it to be as good as it actually turned out to be. I ended up ordering all of the different parts to the story based on sales of the previous issues as is my usual habit, but clearly I should have bumped everything up a notch or two in order to cover the possibility that it was a bigger hit than expected. Let me stress that this one is completely on me. To my credit, I did assume that D.C., as well as outgoing distributor UCS, would end up overprinting a bit to cover this eventuality, but I was incorrect and, as a result, the store is going to be hard pressed to cover all of the requests for these issues. I even checked upcoming D.C. distributor Lunar and they are apparently sold out as well. So, I’m sorry if you end up missing a chapter (or two) of Endless Winter. I hate to even suggest it, but if you need to catch up on a part you missed then you can download the issue from Comixology. Again, so sorry for the mistake!

 

Robert Kirkman is at it again and in the best possible way. I’ll admit that I’m a big fan of Kirkman, not only for his generally excellent comics, but also by the way he continues to help out the comic retail industry in new and interesting ways. He overshipped us Walking Dead issues when he knew we were going to be caught underordered due to some plot twist, after the Spring shutdown he sent us free copies of an all-new Walking Dead story for us to sell to help get back on our feet, he slips in little variant foil covers for us to make a little extra cheddar, and now he’s at it again with a surprise new drop of a comic at this point only known as Solid Blood #17. I noticed it yesterday when I took a look at the invoice for next week’s books in order to get the shipping list together. It’s listed as a “free/promotional comic” item on the invoice and we have a total of 15 copies coming in the door. When I had a spare moment, I poked around the internet and found precious little information about it. I wasn’t even sure if that was even the actual title of the book or if it was another blind tease. The other comic retailers were speculating wildly about the possible contents, but no one had any clear idea of what this was about. Eventually it came out that this apparently a comic book from an alternate universe that was talked about between frequent collaborator Ryan Ottley and Kirkman. I’m still not absolutely sure if that’s the truth or another weird tease, but I am very interested to see what gets pulled out of the box on Tuesday.

 

In any case, after a bit of deliberation, I’ve finally decided on what to do about the conundrum of how to make them available to our customers. I decided fairly early on not to put it on the subscription form, mostly because I had no official cover image and, as I mentioned above, I can’t be sure if that’s even the actual title of the project. With only 15 copies coming in we are obviously going to have more demand than we will copies. It also opens the door to any number of speculator inquiries. I even checked on e-Bay and Midtown Comics to see what other people are asking for it. The answer heartened me and finalized my decision. There is only one copy currently of eBay, marked up for charity sales, and Midtown is only charging cover price (of course, I’m sure they have many, MANY more copies than I do, but that’s only fair as I’m sure they have a much larger customer base.) So here’s what we are going to do. I’m going to put the copies we have out on the new release rack Wednesday morning, limit them “one per customer”, and sell them on a first come, first serve basis. I figure this is fairest thing I can do at this point. I’m also expecting that more copies will eventually be available for reorder although at this point there is no way for me to confirm that in Diamond’s system. So if you are interested in checking out a copy of Solid Blood #17 it will be out on the new release rack on Wednesday morning!

 

The slow takeover of the shop is proceeding apace. I ordered and received my new Square cash register this week. I haven’t unpacked it completely yet, but I am looking forward to plugging it in and playing with it a bit to see how it works. Hopefully there will be no surprises and I will have an easy opening on January the 2^nd. If, however, you come in on the 2^nd and see me crying behind the counter while helplessly pushing buttons you’ll know that something is amiss.

 

I will be out of the office on Sunday this week. This will be my last unscheduled day off for the rest of my tenure as Steve’s employee and I’m going to spend it making Christmas cookies with a friend of mine and her young niece. I’m kind of looking forward to having an entire day set aside for baking and I think I will finally have enough time set aside to decorate the cookies properly. Because of the current covid crisis I won’t have a big plate a cookies set out this year for my beloved customers. Instead, I’m going to try to come up with some gift bags of cookies to hand out this year instead of the usual. Usually I have a selection of fun cookie options, but because of lack of time to properly prepare this year I do believe that I will have sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies. Let’s see how much baking I can knock off in one day!

 

I hope that everyone has a great weekend! I also hope that no one gets snatched up by barely seen tentacled monsters in the mid-morning gloom!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Let me start by thanking everyone who made our annual Black Friday sale the big hit I was hoping it would be this year. In fact, thanks to everyone who has helped make this Monarch Comics’ biggest year ever! It was a nice send off for Steve who, as I’m sure you all know, is retiring on December 31^st. I was planning to have a big retirement party for him this month, but obviously things are not going to work out that way. I was thinking of having a wild and wooly, yet tasteful, bacchanal, but I do believe we will all have to settle for me and Hill taking Steve and Nanci out to dinner somewhere nice instead. Frankly, after years of talking about it, I am extremely interested in watching Steve eat a $60 steak. Maybe I’ll record it so everyone can watch on in amazement and wonder.

 

As I careen towards the beginning of my tenor as High Lord and Master of All I Survey, the final pieces are starting to come together. I’m finishing up the paperwork with Diamond Distributors this week as well as signing my first 5 year lease on the building. I’d say it was “exciting stuff”, but frankly it is more of a bore and rather anti-climactic. I’m also ordering in the new register and credit card machines in preparation for my triumphant January 2^nd opening. I’m nervous, but focused, and looking forward to starting 2021 and putting the mess of 2020 behind me.

 

I’ve also been working on an ambitious schedule of remodeling the store once I take over the joint. The old girl has needed a facelift for years and I’m excited by the prospect of new floors and paint. If I have to spend the rest of my life in this place then I want a new view…lol. I’ve been consulting with someone who has a background in construction and she has worked up a nice floor plan of the store for me to play around with while I decide exactly where everything is going. Unfortunately, due to the big post-holiday sale, these changes won’t be starting until March at the earliest. This is because I will need to make space on the sales floor to move things around and as a result the back issue boxes will be taking up refuge in the back room during the remodel. I wish that I could just close down for two weeks and just get it all done, but that isn’t very feasible due to the weekly nature of The Biz. So my first step will be an invisible one….clearing out the backroom of all of the junk that has accumulated over the last 30 years and making room to store stuff for construction. That might be the most exciting prospect yet…lol.

 

Speaking of the Post-Holiday Sale, it will indeed be taking place between January 2^nd and February 28^th. The only difference this year is that the Hard Covers/Trade Paperbacks will be on sale for 25% cover price (or price marked) for the whole two month period as opposed to in the past when they’ve only been on sale the month of January. It’s an experiment that I’ve wanted to try in the past and now is my chance to see how it will work out. The back issue boxes will still be 50% off and the books displayed on the wall or showcase will be 25% off for the duration of the sale as per normal.

 

I’m noticing what may be a small issue this month with D.C. Comics releases. As you know, we are closing out our business relationship with UCS Distributors and switching over to Lunar Distributor for our D.C. titles. THAT particular kink is all worked out, but now another problem seems to be rearing its ugly head. I’ve noticed this week that UCS does not have much in the way of D.C. overstock available for reorder. This is after they have done an exemplary job of having some extra copies available. Also, they’re stock of backlist D.C. hard covers and trade paperbacks is shrinking as well…and anything Diamond has leftover from their stock is disappearing as well. This is making it rather difficult to secure reorders on both types of stock. Of course, this is possibly the worse time in the world for this to be happening, but there’s little I can do to work around it. I’m going to try and stay on top of the situation and make sure I have enough copies to go around, but there may be titles I fall short on. I’m going to expand my search for these items and start ordering from Lunar if I have to, but so far it doesn’t look like their stock situation is much better.

 

Well, that’s it for me this week. I’ve got a full load of work to get done today and tomorrow and these papers ain’t gonna shuffle themselves! Have a great week and I’ll talks at ya next Thursday!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

I know, I know…I’m late with everything again this week! I swear, though, it’s not my fault this time…lol. On Wednesday, Diamond Comic Distributor’s website went down due to some sort of mechanical failure and it took most of the afternoon to get it up and running properly again. Unfortunately, by the time it was running it was already midafternoon and I had the Wednesday afternoon rush to deal with here in the store. Since I it was down during the time when I generally put the finishing touches on the Subscription Form I wasn’t able to complete by end of business yesterday. I probably should have taken the work computer home to finish it overnight, but, darn it, I “forgot” to take the computer home with me. I’ll have to work on that…lol

 

There’s not a whole lot to report this week in any case. We did get the brand new POP Star Wars Mandalorian Child with Bag Vinyl Figures and they are predictable adorable. We only have a few left in stock, but I have more coming next week, so we should have some ready for our Black Friday sale next week. They are only $10.99 so make sure to take a look at them when you come in for your weekly haul.

 

Speaking of our Black Friday Sale, let me mention again that it will basically mirror the same sale we’ve had for the last couple of years. Essentially, the January post-holiday sale will be moved up for one glorious day of shopping on November 27^th. For the uninitiated, the includes 25% off all trade paperbacks and hard covers (including an extra 25% off sale items), 50% off our back issue boxes (which have been restocked in the last couple of months!), and 25% off the back issues currently displayed on the wall! Additionally, if you are looking for a trade paperback or hard cover that we don’t currently have in stock and you order it on Friday then the 25% discount will apply when we receive the order.

 

Monarch Comics will, of course, be closed on Thanksgiving as per usual. The rest of daily hours will remain the same next week. I have 2020’s holiday orders posted on our Facebook page in case you have any questions.

 

I’d also like to take a moment and thank Marisa Dickens for featuring me on her interview podcast, Artifacts! I had a great time getting thoroughly grilled on the show! I’ve posted a link to the podcast if you haven’t enough of me pontificating on the comics, the industry, baking, and general questions and want to hear me blathering on about them. I’ve posted a link to the podcast episode on our Facebook page so please give it a listen! Let’s show Ms. Dickens how many downloads the Monarch crowd can run up for her show!

 

That’s it for me this week! I’d better get back to putting the finishing touches on the Shipping List and the Subscription Form! And if there is a mistake or two this week please be merciful in your judgement! I’m dancing as fast as I can…😊

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Well, it’s been a looong week already and I am already running behind schedule due to an impromptu dentist visit this morning. I actually thought I would be getting to work later this morning, but my delicate morning schedule has still been irreparably shattered. It’s just as well as I don’t really have much of substance to report this week anyway.

 

Hillman and I made the trek up to the Henry Ford museum on Monday to visit the Marvel exhibit that has been running for the last couple of months. I highly recommend visiting the exhibit although due to Covid your mileage may vary. It was an extremely light crowd during our visit and we had plenty of time to peruse the exhibit without anybody else in the room. I knew that it was mostly centered around the Marvel Universe movies and there are plenty of costume and prop displays, but I was pleasantly surprised at all of the comic book paraphernalia, including original comic book pages, key issues on display, and plenty of comic book art. There are also a couple of interesting “performance” bits, such as a huge Iron Man display that puts you in the armor virtually and an adorable little kiosk where you can get photos of yourself superimposed onto comic book pages or covers. It’s like a fancy photo booth. Of course, the rest of the museum has pleasures of its own and I highly recommend a visit, although if you can’t wear a mask for a long period of time then it is probably not the place to go.

 

You don’t realize it, but it has been an hour between this paragraph and the previous one. I received a surprise shipment from Diamond this morning containing an Diamond replenishment order (basically a bunch of old back orders boxed together) and our D.C. Comics shipment for next week. I say “surprise” because when I checked yesterday we weren’t supposed to get the D.C. stuff until tomorrow. That’s fine with me, but I had to take a break from writing this to unpack. Another great pack job from UCS although we were shorted a single copy of Joker Harley Criminal Sanity #6 CVR B and the Plunge HC. Still, I can’t complain as those are relatively minor when measured against receiving an entire box full of destroyed comics from Diamond.

 

It also reminded me to mention something that otherwise I may have forgot. Two weeks ago almost all of our copies of Justice League #56 CVR B showed up with extremely crumpled corners. I made notes of subscription customers who I didn’t bother to pull damaged copies of the title. I have placed a copy in each of those spots, so make sure you still need a copy as I did put the damaged ones out for anyone interested as well as all of our CVR A’s. If you by chance purchase an extra copy by mistake then please just bring it back the following week for full credit.

 

Also want to give a quick update on my nefarious plan to take over the business in January. I now have my business account set up at the bank of my choosing after finally getting all of the paperwork they required. I’ve also sorted out the lease for the building as well. It’s getting closer, Folks, and starting to feel all too real…lol. After 20 years of “Hurry UP!” I am now wishing everything would slow down a bit. Still, just a couple of more things to get checked off my list and I will be good to go on January 2^nd!

 

Speaking of the January takeover, I suppose now is as good a time as any to announce some changing of the store’s hours. As of Saturday, January 2^nd, these will be the official hours for Monarch Comics:

 

SUNDAY: 12PM-5:30PM

MONDAY: CLOSED

TUESDAY: 11AM-7PM

WEDNESDAY: 9AM-7PM

THURSDAY: 11AM-7PM

FRIDAY: 11AM-7PM

SATURDAY: 11AM-7PM

 

Additionally we will be closed on the following holidays: Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day.

 

I’ve decided to close on Mondays simply because I need a day off to take care of my Dad who is under a guardianship. The holidays are essentially the same ones we’ve been closed on for years although this year I do believe I will be open on Easter Sunday.

 

While I’m at it, let me reiterate Monarch Comics for THIS year:

 

Thursday, November 26^th, Thanksgiving Day: CLOSED

Thursday, December 24^th, Christmas Eve: 11am-5pm

Friday, December 25^th, Christmas Day: CLOSED

Thursday, December 31^st, New Year’s Eve: 11am-5pm

Friday, January 1^st, New Year’s Day: CLOSED

 

Okily dokily…that’s it for me this week! I hope everyone is having a great week and I look forward to seeing you in the store soon!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Just short note today, mostly because I have some stuff to catch up on this week and I want to get started before I lose any steam. And by “steam” I mean before the pot of coffee I swilled this morning wears off.

 

There’s not much new to report this week although I can finally assure everyone who buys D.C. Comics that my new account with Lunar Distribution has FINALLY been approved. It has taken me a bit to navigate the twists and turns of their approval process, but I have leveled up, as it were. The problem was getting a specific piece of paperwork to them that I didn’t need when I applied for our account UCS. You see, Lunar wanted a tax exemption certificate and I kept confusing it with the vendor’s license which I thought was the same thing. My confusion was fueled by the fact that all I needed for UCS was the vendor’s license. Well, after e-mailing back and forth a couple of times, I finally just called my accountant and she e-mailed the form she though I needed. Well, I was a little surprised that all I had to do was fill out the form and confirm that I can purchase things at wholesale because I am a retail business reselling the product to my customers and was collecting sales tax from them for it. I went back to their website and followed the link to upload the form, but because of the confusing way the form website is set up I managed to upload the form without answering a questionnaire at the same site. I then received another e-mail from Lunar telling me to go back and fill out the questionnaire and was also told that the form I uploaded still wasn’t what they were looking for. So, nearing the point where I just snap and start crying and repeatably stabbing myself in the leg with a butter knife, I filled out a second form which had the exact same information on it as the first form and then answered their questionnaire which also asked for the same information as both previous forms. I then e-mailed them and said, “Well, you now have my vendor’s license, two different tax exemption certificates, and I filled out your questionnaire. Please let me know if you need a human sacrifice as well and I will get right on it.” Apparently that did the trick as ½ an hour later I received an e-mail saying my account has been approved. So…YAY, me! Of course, I haven’t been on their website to see whether or not my status has been changed on there yet, but I am living in a world of hope.

 

Before signing off for the week, I want to quickly mention that I have read two great new comic series in the last month and both of them are from Image. Department of Truth by writer James Tynion IV and artist Martin Simmonds is on issue #2, but I am mentioning it now because I finally got second printings of #1 in this week after a quicker than expected sellout. It is a terrific start to a series that is essentially “anti-X-Files” and follows a government organization dedicated to investigating and quashing weird conspiracy theories. In this universe consensus reality is a major thing and some of these increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories need to be rooted and ended before they inadvertently change reality. The art by Simmonds is clearly inspired by Bill Sienkiewicz (and, yes, I did have to look up at how to spell his name…lol) so it may be turnoff to some, but I think it is perfect at portraying the shadowy conspiracies these folks are fighting against. Tynion may be known to you as the guy currently doing a bang up job on Batman, but this titles shows he has more going for him than just the long underwear crowd.

 

The other title is Crossover by writer Donny Cates and artist Geoff Shaw. Now I am the first to admit that I am not a huge Cates fan, but I’m also willing to cede that it may mostly because the characters he tends to write are not personal favorites. This title, however, really surprised me! The basic setup is that the real world has been suddenly and inexplicably been invaded by the comic book fictional universes during one of the Summer blockbuster events. Unfortunately, this sudden intrusion of the fictional on the real destroys Colorado and creates a backlash against super heroes not seen since Alan Moore’s Watchmen. This is terrific stuff and the final page is certainly an eye opener and I can’t wait to see how Cates handles referring to Marvel and D.C. Comics’ characters without trampling all over trademarks and copyrights. Usually I like to wait for an issue or two before I really decide whether or not I like the book, but this time I was so intrigued by the ending that I am giving it a premature thumbs up!

 

Also, I’ve been getting a lot of questions here in the store about it so I will let everyone know right now that we will see the second printing copies of TMNT The Last Ronin #1 on 12/2. That’s two weeks before the second issue ships. Hopefully there will be plenty to go around this time. I will include the 2^nd printings on the subscription form the week they ship so you don’t miss out!

 

I hope that everyone has a great weekend and I will talks at ya again next week!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

I hope everyone is having a good week. Mine cab easily be filed under “so-so” at this point, but there is the chance it will be redeemed. As some of you may already know, we had a few problems with the comic shipment this week. Nothing catastrophic, but merely a few minor blips that won’t bring ruin upon us, but do make things a little more interesting.

 

I’m never sure just how interesting the nuts & bolts details of running a comic book shop are to the uninitiated. I mean, on one hand, I worry that most of you are simply interested in coming and having a stress-free moment in your busy day to talk about comic book storylines and to enjoy your hobby. On the other hand, I’ve always figured that if there is a problem that prevents you from coming in and purchasing your weekly fix of comic book goodness then you deserve to know from whence the troubles come. It’s kind of a juggling act because I don’t want my seemingly endless rants to sour anyone on the prospects of visiting the store. I’m always worried that it will become and instance of, “I really want to get the new issue of Batman, but I don’t want to listen to Ed whine for half an hour about how hard everything is”…lol.

 

So in the interests of not oversharing, but still giving you the information you may desire, all I will say this week is that we had a couple of Diamond shipping boxes that took serious hits to the corners. All this means is that the comics at the bottom of the box got damaged during shipping in a way that makes them essentially unsellable to the condition conscious collector. Unfortunately, one of the damaged books was Spawn #311 cover B which is the McFarlane Chadwick Boseman variant that many of you were looking forward to picking up. It’s not a HUGE emergency as I still had enough copies to cover 95% of folks who preordered it and the damaged copies were available for replacement. Even better news for those of you who may have missed it on Wednesday…the replacement copies are being emergency shipped to us and we should have them by Friday. So, no harm, no foul there…

 

I’m also sorry to report that we have a complete sellout on TMNT: The Last Ronin #1. For those of you coming in late, IDW, for whatever reason, put in their orders at the printers for this comic before they received our final orders for the title. They guessed at how many they would need to print and they guessed wrong…really wrong. All stores were hit with a 20-25% allocation on the number of copies they received versus the amount they actually ordered. The Last Ronin was already tracking to be a big hit just on the strength of its central concept, but this accidental “shortage” of copies also set off every speculator in America with eyes set on selling the book for 3-4 times cover price Wednesday morning on e-Bay. It was a nightmare scenario and one in which we dealt with as much grace and elan as was available to us. I just want to mention again that while we are sold out of the regular cover 1^st printings (we still have a couple of the variants in stock if you’re interested), but we will hopefully have plenty of 2^nd printing copies available on its release date of 12/2. This will be shipping in a full two weeks before #2 comes out on 12/16.

 

On a personal note, I am about to continue my exploration of homemade baked goods this week. I have been on a baking tear since the Apocalypse broke out and have been concentrating on upping my skills. I have taught myself how to make many basic baked goods in the last six months while also upping my game in regards to set skills like cake and pastry. I’ve learned how to make and bake bread, choux pastry, homemade jam, perfected my custards, and can now roll out a magnificent pie crust with little to no problem. Hillman and I have a small get together to attend on Saturday and for the occasion I am trying a new recipe combo that I have never attempted before…an orange cake! More specifically, an orange cake with dark chocolate orange infused ganache filling, with cream cheese frosting partially infused with orange flavor. I never even knew orange cake was a thing, but after watching several seasons of the Great British Baking Show I have learned that citrus-based cakes have ALWAYS been a thing…lol. So, I’m gonna try it out and see how it goes. I’m also going to attempt an actual pumpkin design on the top of the cake so if it turns out I’ll share some pics on the Facebook page. If it doesn’t turn out, well, just forget you read any of this while I am in the corner crying while eating bad cake.

 

One more thing while I’m thinking about it. A few of you missed the subscription list last week because you couldn’t find it on the Facebook page. I’m afraid this was a combination of Facebook and my own negligence. You see, normally when I cut and paste the subscription form link Facebook automatically generates the sub form picture you see as part of the post. For some reason it didn’t properly display the image last week and I didn’t notice until it was too late to do anything about it. So, in the future if you don’t see the graphic just know that the sub form link is always posted after the EDitorial and the shipping list. Alternately, it also always posted on the front page of Monarch’s website.

 

That’s it for me this week! I hope everyone has a fun filled and safe Halloween weekend!

 

See ya in the funnies pages, Kids!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Here I am with yet another interesting week under my belt.

 

The week started innocently enough. I had a scheduled meeting with the store’s accountant on Monday. Steve has used the same firm since God was a child, so I’ve decided that it is one of those “If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it” kind of things. I figured it would be a good idea to meet with her and get the skinny on exactly what would be expected of me tax-wise and find out exactly what she can do for me. It was a good “meet and greet” style meeting and we identified some things that I needed to do and some things she needed to do and we are meeting again at the end of the month to compare notes. She also helped me make a final decision on where I want to set up the new business bank account.

 

So, after the meeting, I sauntered over to the bank in order to start the process of setting up a new Monarch account. If I’m being perfectly honest I foolishly thought it would be a fairly simple process. I mean, I just want a place to dump wheelbarrows full of cash. I turns out that it is more of a process than I had considered. A simple request for a bank account turned into a scavenger hunt for a variety of paperwork and triggered several calls to the accountant and my attorney. Who knew that getting vendor’s licenses and tax ID numbers was such an adventure?

 

Well, I should have known for one, especially after the procedural craziness I went through to get my Dad’s guardianship approved. I started to mentally castigate myself for not starting all of this stuff earlier in the year, but I was ultimately comforted by the knowledge that it probably wouldn’t have gone any quicker six months ago when everything was shut down. Besides, I still have a couple of months to get all of this paperwork together…what could possibly happen to throw a wrench into the process?

 

Well, that was when the other shoe dropped. I checked the store’s e-mail early in the afternoon while I was putzing around and was somewhat irritated to find out that UCS, our “new” D.C. Comics distributor, was going to no longer be distributing D.C. product after the end of December. You would think, Gentle Reader, that this would have sent me off in a right royal tizzy. I did tend to go on and on about the inconvenience and general chaos of changing distributors back in the Spring when we were forced to make a choice between UCS and Lunar. But you know what? I found out that there is a limit to how irritated and upset I can get about this whacked out industry. I read the e-mail announcing the change and how sorry UCS was and how we had to immediately set up an account with Lunar in order to make sure we had uninterrupted D.C. Comics service. They also included some assurances that any preorders we’ve placed with UCS for items that don’t ship until after December would still be good and that there was a plan in place to transfer our orders. Of course there was no concrete reason given for the sudden change. I mean, there’s rumors making the comic retailer rounds, but nothing has been confirmed or denied. I realized that ultimately it doesn’t really matter to us peons what the reasons are…we just have to make sure that we are signed up with the new supplier. It also serves no purpose for me to get all excited and upset over it. I just don’t have the emotional bandwidth right now to deal with it on that level.

 

So I have begun the “hoop jumping” segment on the distributor changeover. I’ve opened an account and am currently waiting for the acceptance of my application. It shouldn’t be a big deal. I mean, we purchase several thousand dollars of D.C. comics in any given month and we pay our bills on time so I’m pretty sure they don’t want to do anything to disrupt it. There are some problematic aspects to changing distributors the same month that the business is also changing ownership, but I think I am currently on top of it. I guess I just want to assure you that at this point there is no danger of an interruption of services. I’m going to try and block out some time this week to poke Lunar’s website with the proverbial stick to see how it works, but I just realized that my initial Diamond orders are due today so I’m going to be plugging away at that this afternoon and probably tomorrow morning as well. We will see how it goes.

 

The long awaited TMNT The Last Ronin #1 is finally going to be coming out next week. Unfortunately, IDW made the disastrous decision to set their final numbers with the printer before the FOC for the title and as a result they have allocated everyone’s orders for the title. This has resulted in Monarch having 15 fewer copies than I originally ordered. Thank goodness I really ordered heavily on account of all of the customer interest in the title. I mean, normally TMNT isn’t exactly lighting the sales chart on fire, but I definitely got the message on the excitement generated by this “Dark Knight Returns”-style take on our beloved turtles. Frankly, I’m not quite sure of how to handle this issue. I mean, if I had gotten my full order I was prepared to just throw our copies out there and let the feeding frenzy begin. However the current situation has churned up even more of the dreaded speculator interest in the title and I have no easy way to curtail this activity. Also, to try to make up for their foolish move, IDW has already offered a 2^nd printing of the title, but that will not be coming out until 12/2.

 

So this is what I’m going to do. I am going to limit the number of copies to “one per person” to begin with and there will be NO exceptions to this policy. I’m also going to only make about half the copies I am receiving available for order on the subscription form this week. What this means is that as soon as I hit that halfway mark I will remove the listing from the form. The rest of the copies we will have for sale will then only be available to walk-in business starting on Wednesday morning. Again, the “one per person” policy will still be in place and if I detect even a hint of chicanery I will shut it down. Please do not bring in a round robin of children, spouses, friends, etc. to attempt to buy multiple copies for resale online. I’m handling this situation in this way to make sure that as many people as possible can get a copy of a popular title, not so I can act as an unofficial distributor for an E-Bay store. I hope that everyone understands the position that I am in. Additionally, if you don’t care what printing you get or waiting an additional month to get it then please let me know and I will order it up for you.

 

Because there is no rest for the weary, there is another big book coming out next week. Spawn #311 with the Chadwick Boseman tribute cover drawn by Todd McFarlane will also be available. Now this one I took quite a few preorders for before FOC so I should have plenty of copies available. If you ordered the book in advance then I still have your request on file and I will be filling those orders first. Unless you are an established subscription service customer I will only hold your preorder until 11/4 unless you call the store and make other arrangements. I’m only doing it this way because of in the past we’ve ended up sitting on preordered comics for months only to be stuck with them because someone forgot they ordered them or ended up buying them elsewhere. I will be limiting purchases to “one per customer” unless you specifically preordered more than one copy. Once I’m satisfied that all of the regulars have been covered I will lift the “one person customer” limit and you can buy them to your heart’s content. I f you have any questions about this policy (or about the TMNT issue) then feel free to give me a call at the store or message me on Facebook and I’ll help as much as I can.

 

Some of you may have noticed that the outward changes to Monarch Comics have begun this week as well. Steve kindly went to the trouble to fix something that has been driving me up the wall for years. We are now “officially” no longer “Monarch Cars & Comics” and from this point on we will only be known as “Monarch Comics”. The very capable staff of Fast Signs came by on Tuesday and removed the “Cards &” letters from the sign above the door. I briefly considered renaming the joint “Ed’s Comic Emporium”, but considering that I’ve spent my entire adult life building up and promoting “Monarch” I figured I should just keep it simple. I’m getting ready for the future and it is barreling down on us like a bullet train!

 

And before I forget I’d like to let everyone know that I will be out of the office on Sunday this week. Hillman is off this week and we decided to go to lunch in Ann Arbor with some friends on Sunday and maybe get some light shopping done. I understand about the rise of the specter of Covid in Ohio and Michigan lately so we will be erring on the side of safety during our travels. In any case, Steve will be covering for me so if you have any questions or problems I will get back to you as soon as I can.

 

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Well, I got to work and was all set to make this another short EDitorial as I have a lot on my plate today, even more than an average Thursday, but then I made the mistake of checking Facebook one more time before beginning this little missive. Eschewing their normal habit of dropping huge, comic-size bombs on Fridays, D.C. Comics decided to let the cat out of the bag 24 hours earlier in regards to their upcoming publishing plans after the January 5^th ending to Dark Nights Death Metal. But let’s put a pin in that and talk about a couple of other things first.

 

This week I want to thank everyone who regularly uses the weekly subscription form. Honestly, you’ve made my life so much easier. As I’ve mentioned in this forum before, it has been a real challenge keeping up with my inventory numbers since the Spring shutdown ended. Not only has there been some serious bumps along the way with the major and minor publishers in regards to new comics getting released, but UPS shipping has been something of a nightmare as they struggle to deal with the overwhelming amount of packages moving through their system. Add to that D.C. Comics defection from Diamond and all of the challenges that has created and stir in soupcon of booming business and you can probably imagine why things have been a bit topsy turvy. The subscription form, however, has been a tremendous help at gathering sales data and figuring out just that I need on the rack and what I need to special order. I feel like I’m just about there in terms of covering all of your regular comic book needs although clearly some work still needs to be done on my part. I still don’t like looking at a bunch of sold out comics on Wednesday morning, but thanks to your efforts I can honestly say that 9 times out of 10 when I sell out of something it is because that’s all the copies I needed and that information has been culled from your sub form responses. So thank you for helping me help you.

 

Why am I going on about the subscription form this week? It’s because I had a minor league screw up this week and I’m swallowing my pride to ‘fess up about it. Cable #5 shipped in this week and it was part 8 of the current X of Swords storyline running through all of the X-Titles. I love this story and I think it is one of the best X-stories that I have read in a good long time. I’ve been pushing it pretty much non-stop and let me tell you it is a great embarrassment to me that I screwed up and didn’t order enough copies of Cable #5. I noticed it as soon as I got a good look at the invoice last week, but I wasn’t too worried about it because Marvel has done a great job of having extra copies of the individual chapters available…at least for the first few days after release. I figured I’d just order up 20 or so extra copies and that would be that. Unfortunately, while I was able to bump up numbers on the other two chapters this week there were no more copies of Cable available to properly restock and now I’m short some comics. I know how frustrating it is to miss a chapter on such a close knit story and I would hate to have anyone miss the rest of the storyline because I stupidly had a brain fart and didn’t order enough copies for coverage. Marvel has not announced a 2^nd printing for this title, but I fully expect one will be announced later this afternoon with the regular Marvel Mailer e-mail and these rushed second printings usually take at least 3 weeks to materialize. In any case, I won’t to assure everyone who may have missed a copy of Cable this week that I will have more eventually and the only question is will it be first printings (which I have on back order and may still fill) or second printings. I just wanted to straight up explain things to you and hope you’ll have the patience to wait until I’ve cleaned up this inventory snafu. I will also go so far as to assure you that this will NOT happen again and will endeavor to keep my eye on the ball a little closer.

 

SO D.C. Comics has a new promotion and story line coming up in January after the end of Dark Nights Death Metal! How would have thunk it? Rising like a Phoenix out of the ashes of the previously teased Generation Zero/One comes D.C.’s Future State! Bookended by a couple of one shots (Generations: Shattered #1 and Generations Forged #1), Future State will take over the D.C. Comics line during the months of January and February with a couple of miniseries running into March. This line wide story arc will feature tales of our favorite D.C. characters in the near and far-future timelines created by the end of Death Metal. And IT WILL NOT BE A REBOOT! Forgive my shouting, but I wanted to make sure the back seats heard me…lol. These one shots and miniseries will be roughly broken up between the Batman family, Superman family (including Wonder Woman), and the Justice League family. These series will be produced by a star-studded line up of creators, including: Mariko Tamaki, Brian Michael Bendis, Gene Luen Yang, Joëlle Jones, Joshua Williamson, Nicola Scott, Cully Hamner, and John Timms along with creators from the worlds of TV, movies, and animation and other DC publishing lines including John Ridley, Brandon Vietti, Meghan Fitzmartin, Brandon Easton, Alitha Martinez, L.L. McKinney, Paula Sevenbergen, and Siya Oum, among others. I have to admit that I am rather excited for the whole event even though normally a collection of one shots and miniseries like this tends to not have very far ramifications as a rule of thumb. I don’t care because I have a feeling that the quality of the individual stories is going to be very high indeed and I am excited to see what kind of multiverse we will be looking at for the next 5-10 years. I love D.C.’s multiverse and I have been hoping since the end of the first Metal miniseries that there would be a return to the infinite multiverse at the end of Snyder’s story. There are way more details concerning specific titles for the event online and I’ve posted the big D.C. press release on the Facebook page for your perusal. As a side note, this will be the first big comic event that I will be handling as the new owner of Monarch Comics and I must admit to being pretty excited about that as well…😊

That’s it for me this week, my friends. I just finished unpacking a huge amount of boxes including various reorders and next week’s D.C. books and I have a bit of work to get them sorted. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Just a quick note this week as I am already an hour behind schedule getting the subscription form up and running. Ever since D.C. switched distributors and stopped producing a printed catalog I’ve had some difficulties collating and keeping track of special orders. Also, Diamond has a relatively new system of dealing with and shipping backorders and shortages that is a little tricky to death with until I kinda sorta got the hang of it. Anyway, because of new ways and means of keeping track of everything it has taken me a little bit longer to get the sub form ready for you to use and it has put me behind schedule. Of course, I’m almost ALWAYS behind schedule on Thursdays so I suppose this is nothing new.

 

I want to express my extreme disappointment that the final straw in the Fall new release movie schedule broke the proverbial camel’s back this past week. Dune, my final hope of hosting another Monarch Comics Movie Screening, was pushed back until next year alongside such highly anticipated films as Wonder Woman 84, Black Widow, and James Bond. I was really hoping I could make this a thing in the next couple of months and give some of you the chance to experience a return to theaters with a modicum of safety as well as the fun of going with a bunch of fellow comic book geeks, but, alas, it is not to be. I have been considering whether or not it would be worth it to buy up a couple of showings of “classic” movies for fun, but I am still polling people as to whether this would be something that would interest my customer base. Wonder Woman 84 HAS been scheduled for a Christmas release and I am also still considering buying out a couple of showings for the holiday weekend, but at this point I’m wondering if I should not got any hopes up as I think there is a good chance it will be pushed back again. Also, the fact that it will be less than a week before I take over the store from Steve and I honestly don’t know if I’ll have the time to run a store promotion. Again, if a Christmas Day trip to the theater to see a new movie sounds fun to you then by all means let me know. If there is enough demand for it then I don’t see how I can say “no” to all of you in good conscience…lol.

 

I hope that everyone has a great weekend and I look forward to having a bit more to say next week now that my new subscription system is in place. It should free up whole MINUTES of my time on Thursdays! 😛

 

Eddie