Welcome to a new year with Monarch Comics! I hope that everyone had a fantastic holiday. Mine was pretty good, but I am so glad that they are over and my life can return to its comfortable and easy to follow routine. Monarch Comics enjoyed its best holiday season ever so I suppose I should be more grateful for the holidays, but I just hate getting out of my rut.
Wednesday marked the start of our annual Post-Holiday Sale! All of our hard covers/trade paperbacks are on sale for the entire month of January for 25% off the price marked. This includes books already marked down on our sale table as well as any special orders you may place during the month of January. Additionally, all of our back issue boxes are 50% off price marked, our books displayed on the wall are 25% off price marked, and our dollar boxes will be 3 for a dollar through the months of January and February! So bring those holiday gift cards in to take advantage of our sale!
It’s the beginning of the year and I must mention that during the next two weeks I will be clearing out our subscription service boxes. By “cleaning out” I mean the folks that we are holding books for who haven’t been in lately will be flushed back out into our general stock. So if you have stuff on hold with us and you haven’t been in to pick it up lately then now is that time to contact us. If we don’t hear from you then your books will be placed back out for sale and you will not be allowed to use the subscription service anymore.
I also want to mention that for the first time in 30 years we are changing our regular store hours. Starting on Wednesday, January 8th, we will be changing our hours from 10am-8pm to 9am-7pm. This is mostly because we see way more business between 9am and 10am then we do from 7pm to 8pm.
Okily dokily…that’s it for me this week, Folks. I somehow managed to throw my back out yesterday here at work dragging my fat butt out of my chair and I am currently in agony. It is somewhat difficult sitting and even standing is excruciating and making it difficult for me to concentrate today, so I will leave you to the new shipping list and subscription form. Frankly I can’t wait to get home and take a muscle relaxer and lie flat on my back.
Well, that’s one holiday down and one to go before everything can get back to normal! Or, in my case, a semblance of normality. When you work in the comic biz everything eventually boils down to a rigorous weekly schedule and just one frakata holiday can throw everything into a tailspin and this time of year I’ve got two that screw everything up. I want to remind everyone that next week’s new comic day will remain Wednesday and that for the first time ever I will haul my hungover @$$ into the store from 12-4 to attend to your comic buying needs. Tired of Quality Family Time by Wednesday? Monarch Comics is the place for you!
I hope everyone had a good Christmas this year. It was a pretty good one for me despite my (deserved) reputation as a curmudgeon and a Scrooge. Hill and I visited my good friend Wendy’s grave site in the morning, visited his mom, went to see the car wreck of a movie musical Cats, watched the latest episode of The Great American Baking Show, and had a lovely dinner courtesy of my roommate David. Well, I had a lovely dinner…Hill ate his usual baked sweet potato. I enjoyed the extremely tasty roast leg of lamb…lol.
By the way, if you were tempted to go see Cats in the theater let me just warn you off right now. I am decidedly NOT a fan of the original musical, but I am a dedicated “Swiftie” so I had to go to see Taylor’s movie debut. Also, I am a movie masochist and I needed to see for myself just how bad it could possibly be. I am pleased to report that it exceeded all of my expectations and just might be the worst movie I’ve seen all year and I’ve seen some stinkers. I lost count of the times my gaze swiveled over to Hillman and we shared a shocked What the %^&# glance during some of the more bizarre sequences, including the Rockette-inspired cockroach dance sequence with creepy CGI faces painted onto the roaches while they get randomly eaten by the cat characters. It was a strange experience as I kept feeling a vague sense of embarrassment watching Dame Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen stumbling shellshocked through the musical wreckage in display. It felt like watching some pretty advanced elder abuse. The tap dance scene was pretty good though…
I also took my Dad to see the new Star Wars movie. I won’t get into any specifics as I don’t really feel qualified to comment on it from a fan perspective as I’m not really much of a Star Wars fan and my expectations were pretty low going into the theater. That being said, I found it amazingly entertaining…far more so than I had anticipated. It wrapped up 40 years of filmmaking in a somewhat satisfying way and I was never bored, except during the 40 minutes of trailers and commercials before the film started that was the cinematic equivalent of a forced march through 10 miles of knee deep snow. My Dad took me to see the first Star Wars picture back in ’77 and it felt strangely satisfying to watch the final chapter together. I will say that it beat the hell out of The Last Jedi in terms of simple entertainment. I do have ONE question though. Why did the final character (no spoilers) end up back at that $#!%hole of a planet Tatooine? Lol
I’m not expecting to be too busy this week as there are only a handful of new titles this week and most of them are small quantities and are already nearly sold out. One title I apparently under anticipated was Marvel’s Incoming #1, the sequel to Marvel Comics #1000 and 1001. I based my orders on the sales for #1001 and we are already at a sell out. I suspect I might need a few more copies and I do have some in the works, but because of the vagaries of holiday shipping I won’t see them until next week. So if you wanted an Incoming #1 then please let me know and I will do my level best to get a copy of it for you.
One final reminder and then I will get to completing my December initial orders. Monarch Comics’ annual Post-Holiday Sale will be begin on January 1st and will consist of 25% off hard covers/trade paperbacks, 25% off wall display books, and 50% off the back issue boxes. Additionally, the dollar boxes will become 3 for a $1 boxes for the month of January.
Oh, wait! One more final thing…the regularly scheduled Monarch Comics…AT NIGHT Facebook Live show will be recorded/broadcasted at 5pm on Tuesday night rather than the usual 7pm time. This is because we close at 5pm on New Year’s Eve and I have dinner reservations for 7pm…lol.
I’m afraid that I have a short note for you this week as it is time to knuckle under and get ready for that last minute holiday rush of business! This could very well be the biggest ship week of the year and there were a tsunami of you descending down upon us yesterday afternoon to gobble up all of the comic book goodness that shipped in. There are a couple of things I’d like to go over really quickly before I sign off for the year!
One thing is going over our holiday hours with you one more time. Our holiday hours really haven’t changed much in over 30 years, but since the New Comics day falls on January 1st and it is a pretty heavy week I’ve decided to open for limited hours just in case you need an escape from all of that family holiday cheer! So, at the risk of driving the point home too hard, here are the Monarch Comics holiday hours:
Tuesday, December 24th, Christmas Eve: 11AM-5PM
Wednesday, December 25th, Christmas: CLOSED
Thursday, December 26th: 11AM-7PM
Tuesday, December 31st: 11AM-5PM
Wednesday, January 1st: 12PM-4PM
Thursday, January 2nd: 11AM-7PM
I guess its also time to make it official that we are changing our Wednesday hours in the first non-holiday week of 2020! I’ve been monitoring customer traffic patterns very closely for the last several months and have decided that we get way more customers before our official opening time of 10AM on Wednesdays than we do between 7PM and 8PM. As a result I decided it was time for a change. Starting with Wednesday, January 8th, Monarch Comics new Wednesday hours will be 9AM-7PM.
And, finally, I’d like to remind everyone that our Annual Post-Holiday Sale begins on January 1st and we will have the following items on sale for the months of January and February:
From Wednesday, January 1st, until Friday, January 31st, all hard covers and trade paperbacks will be 25% off price marked. This includes items on our sale table that are already marked down as well as any special orders you place during the month of January.
From Wednesday, January 1st, until Saturday, February 29th, all comics displayed on the wall will be 25% off the price marked.
From Wednesday, January 1st, until Saturday, February 29th, all of our back issue boxes will be 50% off price marked.
I’d like to now take a moment and thank each and everyone of you for choosing Monarch Comics for all of your comic book needs over the last year. I hope that you know how much I appreciate your patronage and that I realize that I have the best customers in the area. This is Steve’s final year before handing the keys over to me and it is going to be a quiet one promotion-wise, but I will continue to update and refine the website and subscription form in order to serve you better and make sure I make your hoppy experience the best one I can. I am humbled every week by the great group of people that I get to interact with on a regular basis. Truly…you’re THE BEST!
Steve and I would like to wish each and everyone of you the merriest Christmas, the happiest holidays, and a smashing (but safe) New Year’s!
Is the holiday season more exhausting than usual this year or is it just me? Those of you who know me know that I am not all that into holidays to begin with and I usually do all that I can to minimize it within my personal life. I do, however, try to capitulate a bit for those of you who are holiday-mad, but it is difficult. And this year it feels like everything has been crammed into too short of a time!
For instance, I do love holiday baking and every year I put out a tray of cookie experiments for customers to feast on when they visit the store. I always put the tray out on the Wednesday before the holiday since that is the last time I will see many of you before the actual holiday arrives. This year, however, the holiday is on a Wednesday which means I have to get my cookies done a week earlier than usual. Unfortunately, there is only so much pre-prep you can do in cookie making and I also have holiday parties and the like to attend. As a result, I will be attempting to motor through and baking up a crazy amount of cookies on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. I’m planning on my old standbys, such as the iced pumpkin cookies and the jam-filled shortbread thumbprint cookies and I always have to do a batch of (very) basic chocolate chip cookies for Steve. This year I will be attempting gingerbread men as well as sugar cookies to see if I can master even a basic level of decorating which I traditionally suck at completing. Hopefully Hillman will be able to give me a hand int hat department. And why do I do it? Because I love you guys and I’ve found over the years that my customers are the best when it comes to test subjects with my baked goods…lol. So look for the big tray of cookies on the 18th!
Speaking of the 18th, can we talk about the insane amount of titles shipping in next week!?! I finished the shipping list for next week and counted something along the lines of 107 titles that have to displayed on a rack that is built for 70 face out titles. I completed the subscription list yesterday afternoon and ended up with just over 200 options on the sub form! It’s goofy how many books are being published! Of course, it IS the final shipping week of the year considering there will only be a handful of titles coming out the week of Christmas, so I suppose we should have expected some sort of deluge.
On the plus side, there is a whole host of big books due in! The final chapter of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank’s magnum opus, Doomsday Clock, will FINALLY be arriving! Tune in to see the final big grudge match between Superman and Doctor Manhattan! Tom King’s conclusion to the long running “City of Bane” storyline in Batman #85 will be landing to many accolades and Scott Snyder will be wrapping up his long running Year of the Super Villain story in Justice League #38 just in time for the final battle between Apex Lex and the Legion of Doom and the Batman Who Laughs’ twisted Secret Six in the miniseries “Year of the Villain Hell Arisen” by James Tynion IV and Steve Epting. DC’s hit Black Label imprint will also have both Harleen and Joker Killer Smile returning to the new release rack and a new title, Wonder Woman Dead Earth, will also be here!
Not to be outdone, Marvel Comics will be ending the year on s strong note with the grand finale of their 2099 event with 2099 Omega. Avengers #28 by Jason Aaron will be continuing the current Avengers in space storyline with poor Thor apparently turned into a Brood warrior. The final issues of the hit Guardians of the Galaxy book will be in as well as the final issue of Jason Aaron’s swansong of his Thor run, King Thor. Amazing Spider-Man and Daredevil and Tony Stark Iron Man and the latest round of X-books will also be gracing the new release rack on Wednesday. It is a literal bounty of amazing comics and coming out right before the big holiday weekend!
There will also be a few Funko POP figures making their appearances this week just in time for holiday gift buying! The 80th Anniversary Wolverine 1st appearance, Endgame Cap with broken shield and Mjolnir, Endgame Korg w/headphones, and the Thanos Snap 6” PX figure! All of these great POP figures will retail for the standard $10.99 except for the larger and more impressive Thanos figure which will be retailing for $28.99! We will have limited quantities available for all of these figures on Wednesday and those of you who preordered their figures will have them held behind the counter. Check out the other POP super hero figures we have in stock while you’re here.
Frank Miller’s latest entry into the world of Dark Knight Returns dropped this week right on the heels of the completion of his Black Label Superman Year One series. Dark Knight Returns The Golden Child is written by Miller and drawn by the absolutely amazing Rafael Grampa. Seriously, whatever you may think of Miller’s storytelling skills, this is a gorgeous book. Well, at least as gorgeous as any book can be that deals with that flattening of Gotham City by Darkseid and the aftermath of destruction that these things tend to cause. I haven’t been a huge fan of Miller’s writing as of late, but I did enjoy my read through of this one shot. It features Carrie Kelly as Batwoman as well as the brother sister team of Lara and Jonathon, erstwhile children of Superman and Wonder Woman. It’s great stuff and worth a perusal at the rack this week.
Just in case you missed the announcement in last week’s EDitorial, our holiday hours for this year are as follows:
Tuesday, December 24th, Christmas Eve: 11am-5pm
Wednesday, December 25th, Christmas: CLOSED
Thursday, December 26th: 11am-7pm
Tuesday, December 31st, New Year’s Eve: 11am-5pm
Wednesday, January 1st, New Year’s Day: 12pm-4pm
Thursday, January 2nd: 11am-7pm
I’ve really got to figure out how to post these on the website…
I also wanted to say a few words about the subscription form orders this week as well. Since the launch of the new website, I have more people than ever taking advantage of the Subscription Form and I couldn’t be any more thrilled! I do want to let new users know that at this point there is no mechanism available to accommodate orders for multiple copies of individual comic titles. If you are looking to buy more than one copy of any book then please message me through the store’s Facebook Messenger account and if I can spare the copies then I will take care of you. Additionally, I put a lot of comics up on the subscription form, particularly small press titles. Unfortunately, occasionally these titles sell out before I can cover any orders for them. This has been happening with disturbing regularity with BOOM! Studio and IDW titles, with BOOM! apparently selling out of the first two printings before the first has even been published, although I’m not sure exactly how that work.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to deal with these kinds of situations in regards to the subscription form. In the past, I have simply stopped offering titles from publishers who have problems publishing enough copies to fill orders. This system, however, is haphazard and stops me from giving you the opportunity to get a hold of the comics you want. So I’m going to try something new. From now on I will include a checkbox at the top of the subscription form that you may opt in to if I try to order a comic that is sold out, but there is a 2nd (or 3rd, or 4th) printing available for order. If you ordered, say “Red Mother #1”, and all the first printings are sold out and you’ve checked off the box then I can automatically put you down for whatever printing is available. If you aren’t interested in anything but the first printing then you can leave the box unchecked and I will take the title off of your order. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s all I can think of unless I can find a better platform for the subscription form. Also always remember that I love special orders and if there are any titles that you are worried I either won’t be carrying please let me know before FOC and I will make sure I have those books ordered for you.
Okily dokily…that’s it for me this week! I want everyone to know that I will be out of the office on Saturday to attend a Christmas party that I will be supplying some of the food for (slow roasted pulled pork and a dessert to-be-determined later) and I need to take the day off. Also, It will be nice to actually get a chance to sleep in with Hillman on a weekend morning without worrying about opening the store on time. I will be back on Sunday, so if you have any pressing questions please message me on Messenger and I will get back to you as soon as possible!
Have a great week, Folks, and I’ll see you next week!
Well, I’m back! It has been a long couple of weeks what with the holidays and all. I mean, I haven’t been this busy socially or professionally in a good long while and I still haven’t caught up with my regular duties. I can’t even get my laundry caught up at home much less get the Shipping List and Subscription Form out quickly! Of course, we are still in early December which means it is going to get way busier before it settles down for the cold, dead month of January.
I wanted to start out this week’s EDitorial by once again going over Monarch Comics holiday schedule this year. As you may remember, both Christmas Day and New Year’s Day fall on a Wednesday this year which is creating a mild amount of havok in the back end of our distribution system. Both next week (12/11) and the week after (12/18) are going to be HUGE ship weeks. This is mostly due to the fact that the week of the 25th will be an extremely small ship week as well as all of the comic companies, both large and small, cramming out as much product before the end of the year as possible. I can’t really look at the data easily at this point, but I suspect the shipment on the 1st is going to be pretty substantial as well.
In any case, while Monarch Comics will remain closed on Christmas, I have decided that there are so many new books due out the week of the 1st that I will for the first time open the store up on New Year’s Day for limited hours. I figure y’all are going to be needing a break from the family by then and we are here to accommodate you! We will see how this goes. If it goes well enough then it might become a new thing for us in the future. I also want to assure everyone that I will broadcasting the weekly Monarch Comics AT NIGHT Facebook live show on Tuesdays as per usual, but it will be at 5pm instead of 7pm!
MONARCH COMICS HOLIDAY HOURS
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24TH, CHRISTMAS EVE: 11AM-5PM
WEDSNESDAY, DECEMBER 25TH, CHRISTMAS DAY: CLOSED
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26TH: 9AM-7PM
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31ST, NEW YEAR’S EVE: 11AM-5PM
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1ST, NEW YEAR’S DAY: 12PM-4PM
THURSDAY, JANUARY 2ND: 9AM-7PM
I suppose now is as good a time as ever to mention that we are also permanently changing our Wednesday hours starting next year. For the last 30 odd years we have been open 10am-8pm on Wednesdays, but Steve and I have discussed it and we think it is time for a change. You see, I’m always here by 9am on Wednesday morning, mostly to finish getting everything ready for New Comic Day. As a result, I see more than a few folks dropping by for their weekly new comics long before the official 10am opening time. We rarely have more than one or two people who show up after 7pm on Wednesdays, however, and I think we would be better served opening earlier and not staying quite as late. As a result, our new hours on Wednesday will 9am-7pm starting January 8th!
Also, starting January 1st will be Monarch Comics’ annual post-holiday sale, or, as I like to call it, “The Propping Up The Really Slow Retail Months of January and February Sale”. That doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as well as “Post-Holiday Sale” though. In any case, starting Wednesday, January 1st, and ending Friday, January 31st, all hard covers and trade paperbacks will be at 25% off price marked! This will, of course, also include any titles already marked down as well as any special orders that are placed and/or received the month of January, So, for instance, if you special order a hard cover or trade paperback in the month of January you will receive the 25% off no matter when it actually ships in! We will also have 50% off all of our Back Issue Boxes and 25% off Wall Books from Wednesday, January 1st, through Saturday, February 29th! That’s right…two whole months you can plunder our back issue boxes on deep discount!
Diamond Comic Distributors just released the complete listing of titles that are going to be going on sale December 26th and it is such a tiny list I figured I could end your suspense and just give it to you now. Never fear though…I will post this information under a proper shipping list that week as well as have a subscription form ready for your orders. The list of titles includes:
BETTIE PAGE UNBOUND #8 (DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT)
CRIMINAL #11 (IMAGE COMICS)
DIAL H FOR HERO TP V.1 ENTER THE HEROVERSE (DC COMICS)
DR STRANGE #1 (MARVEL COMICS)
EAST OF WEST #45 (IMAGE COMICS)
FAITHLESS TP (BOOM! STUDIOS)
FIGHT CLUB 3 #12 (DARK HORSE)
HOSUE OF SECRETS THE BRONZE AGE OMNIBUS HC V.2 (DC COMICS)
INCOMING #1 (MARVEL COMICS)
KILL LOCK #1 (IDW)
MARKED #3 (IMAGE COMICS)
MASK I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE MASK #3 (DARK HORSE)
OUTCAST BY KIRKMAN & AZACETA #13 (IMAGE COMICS)
RED SONJA VAMPIRELLA BETTY VERONICA #7 (DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT)
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #24 (IDW)
SPIDER-HAM #1 (MARVEL COMICS)
SUPERGIRL TP V.2 SINS OF THE CIRCLE (DC COMICS)
VENOM #21 (MARVEL COMICS)
I wanted to take a moment and mention the BIG EVENT coming up in next week’s Superman #18! I’m going to assume that everyone has heard the news by now, but if you haven’t then ***SPOILER ALERT***!
Still There? Okay. Superman is going to reveal his identity to the world in issue #18 shipping in next week! This is, of course, the continuation of Brian Michael Bendis’ brilliant run on Action Comics and Superman. After kicking off his Superman run with a magnificent outer space saga and the continuation of the Leviathan storyline in Action Comics I have a feeling this new “reveal” storyline is going to be a doozy! In any case, I ordered extra copies of the new issue in the anticipation of extra interest, but even so, we will be limiting purchases of Superman #18 to one of each cover (regular and variant) to make sure that everyone who wants a copy gets one. I will lift this restriction as soon as I’m satisfied that I’ve sufficiently spread the copies around. The title is already listed as sold out at Diamond so I don’t believe there are any more copies available for reorder.
And finally this week there is one new POP offering from Funko and Diamond this week and it is a doozy! Diamond is taking preorders for the POP Specialty Series DC Golden Age Green Lantern Vinyl Figure! This absolutely gorgeous figure will retail for $10.99 and come packaged like all of the POP figures in its own window box. The Final Order Cut-Off Date for this figure is 12/23/19 with an estimated ship date of 3/25/20! Please let me know ASAP if you’d like to special order one of these figures!
I hope everyone has a great weekend despite all the cold and dreary weather and I will be right back here next week to blather on some more about comics and store stuff!
The holidays are certainly barreling down on us like a freight train out of control this year, aren’t they? I mean, I’m not much of a holiday guy and I don’t really celebrate the season too much anymore, but even I feel a little residual tingle of anxiety when I consider there is only going to be a scant three weeks of shopping between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. I can only imagine what this vague itch of anxiety translates to those of you who, you know, actually celebrate and do the whole gift giving thing.
In any case, I suppose it behooves me to mention at this point that we will be doing a scaled back Black Friday sale this year. Steve’s tenure is quickly winding down and he’s not too interested in doing much more than the basics until his retirement next year. So this year we will be open our regular hours on Black Friday (11am-7pm) and we will be featuring a 25% off all hard covers and trade paperbacks. This will include an additional 25% off sale or marked down prices in the store. Additionally, if there’s something you’d like at the discount that we don’t have in stock we will be offering the discount for any special orders made on Black Friday, so if we are out of or don’t carry that very special title you are looking for then please ask and I will order it in at the 25% off.
It also bears mentioning that we will be closed on Thanksgiving, although we will have normal operating hours for the rest of the week. Now that I think about it there will probably not be an EDitiorial next week because I doubt I’ll have time to actually write it between getting the subscription form completed, dealing with the new shipment, getting ready for Black Friday, and, of course, Thanksgiving itself. On top of all of that November initial orders are due in next week, so I will have that to monkey around with as well. I’m going to make an effort to get the shipping list and subscription form posted on Wednesday evening next week and hopefully it will get done before I leave work for the day, but, if not, I think I can get it done while I am baking pies on Wednesday night at home.
Yes, I said, “baking pies”. While I haven’t truly celebrated Thanksgiving for quite some time, this year Hill has talked me into volunteering at a mission to serve dinner. I figure I might as well throw a couple of pies together to keep my pie crust making skills sharp and since I don’t eat much in the way of sugar or carbs anymore it will be nice to actually serve my baked goods to people who will appreciate them. Hill, for those of you not in the know, is a proponent of the plant-based whole foods lifestyle, so the typical Thanksgiving feast is clearly not on the menu for him. As a result, despite a couple of kind invites, it seems ridiculous to take him to a dinner party where most, if not all, of the menu are verboten. So, we are going to eat out early in the afternoon and spend the rest of the day serving those of us who are less fortunate. I’m looking forward to the experience and I hope it ends up being a new Thanksgiving tradition.
We went to a pretty good concert last night. Elvis Costello, one of my favorite rock gods, was playing at the Michigan Theater last night in Ann Arbor. I’ve seen Costello perform once before, last year at the Fillmore in Detroit, and it was an amazing performance. Last night’s performance was not quite as strong…not sure if there was a problem with the sound mixing or if Costello’s voice was worn out from touring, but it was somewhat hard to hear him over the music. Still, the energy was good and I forgot how much I love going to live performances. He brought down the house at the end with a medley of his biggest hits, although I was most excited to hear his live performance of “Brilliant Mistake” in the middle of the show as it is, quite possibly, my favorite song in his catalog.
Has anyone here watched the “Lucifer” show, late of FOX and now showing on Netflix? It’s ostensibly based on the comic of the same name which is, of course, spun out of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. When the show debuted I was initially curious about it as the comic book run, written by Mike Carey, is one of my top 10 all-time favorite comics. I know this will sound like heresy to many of you, but I actually enjoyed the Lucifer comic even more than Sandman. Unfortunately, I watched the first two episodes and was disappointed to discover that the show took an incredible showcase for mythological figures and fascinating characters dealing with out of this world metaphysics and turned it into a run of the mill buddy cop show. It wasn’t that I necessarily hated it, but it was so different from my beloved comic that I just couldn’t get into it. I gave up after those two initial episodes and never gave it another thought. Hillman, however, is a big fan of the show and I decided at his suggestion to give it another try.
I started over at the beginning and found myself with he exact same opinion of the show after watching the first season. It basically keeps the same buddy cop formula going on through the series and while there are a couple of characters who create a frission of interest (Mazikeen in particular manages to come through as the character most closely aligned with the comic version) it still remains of limited interest to me. I am about three quarters of the way through season two at this point and I’m not sure whether I will continue or not as there is a convenient jumping off point in the last episode I watched. Like I said, it isn’t terrible, just of limited interest to those of us who have actually read the source material. If you’ve read the comic and watched the show mention it the next time you are in the store. I’m curious what you may have made of it.
I had a chance yesterday to catch up on DC Comics’ “Infected” story line that is running through Batman/Superman as well as a handful of monthly titles (Hawkman, Supergirl) and a couple of one shots (King Shazam, Sacrab). I find myself really enjoying the narrative, much more than the current Year of the Villain story running in Justice League. In it The Batman Who Laughs is slinking around the DC Universe with a handful of poisoned batarangs designed to infect their victims with he same voodoo that turned The Batman Who Laughs into he perverse monster he is. There was initially a mystery regarding who laughing boy was targeting, but batman and Superman pretty quickly figured it out, especially after they laid siege to the Fortress of Solitude.
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
It turned out that there were six different victims and together they comprise a new “Secret Six” team of corrupted heroes. The lucky recipients? Commissioner Gordon (infected at the tail end of the Batman Who Laughs miniseries), Shazam, Hawkman, Blue Beetle (the Jaime Reyes version), Supergirl, and poor “I-Can’t-Buy-A-Break” Donna Troy. The full team is revealed in Batman Superman #4, out this week, and while we are not quite sure yet what there ultimate goal is at this point, I can say that it is an interesting variety of characters and it should be quite interesting what these dark and perverted versions of these heroes gets up to. I know I complain a lot about DC’s tendency to make everything dark and dour in their move serials, but I have to admit that I am looking forward to seeing what kind of mischief this new Secret Six gets up to before their inevitable redemption. Hell, I the current Hawkman comic hasn’t even been on my radar and I am actually excited to see what the next issue brings! If you haven’t been paying attention, now is the time to jump into this story line.
I’d like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving and I hope to see you in here on Black Friday after you are done with your holiday clean up and shopping!
I’ve really got to start upping my game. Here it is, already after 1pm on a Thursday afternoon, and I am just getting around to penning my weekly love letter to my adoring fans. I suppose I should get used to this as the holidays are coming up as well as the end of the year and things do start to get crazy with my schedule. In any case, please accept my condign apologies for making you wait an extra hour or two for the latest Shipping List/Subscription Form! I will do my best to be prompter with it in the coming weeks!
Speaking of holiday craziness, this is as good a time as any to list off Monarch Comic’s holiday hours. It’s kind of a screwed up year for the holiday schedule as both Christmas and New Year’s Day fall on Wednesday which, as I’m sure you are aware, is the typical new comic day. We are usually closed on these major holidays, but because of the weird shipping schedule and the apparently huge amount of new books due in the week of the 1st I’ve decided to try something a little different this year. To wit, our holiday schedule:
Thursday, November 28th, Thanksgiving Day: CLOSED
Friday, November 29th, Black Friday: 11AM-7PM
Tuesday, December 24th, Christmas Eve: 11AM-5PM
Wednesday, December 25th, Christmas Day: CLOSED
Tuesday, December 31st, New Year’s Eve: 11AM-5PM
Wednesday, January 1st, New Year’s Day: 12PM-4PM
As you can see, due to the amount of new titles shipping in, I will be opening up on New Year’s Day for a few hours to service you hardy souls that have sufficiently recovered from your reveries the night before and are ready for new comics before heading back to work! Do you now understand the great and abiding love I hold for you?
I should also mention that this year we will ne having a small Black Friday sale. All of our hard covers and trade paperbacks (including marked down items) and back issues (including wall books, but not including items in the showcase) will be 25% off. If we don’t have the hard cover or trade paperback in stock that you are looking for then we will also offer the 25% off for special orders! Hopefully, you will have the time to stop by and visit us during your holiday shopping frenzy in order to pick up that comic collection or key back issue that you’ve had your eye on!
Well, I suppose I should wrap it up for the week and get this posted on Facebook and the website. If you have any questions regarding our holiday hours or the Black Friday sale then please feel free to contact in any of the usual ways and I will do my level best to answer your queries. Have a great weekend, Folks, and I will see you when I see you!
Well, in clear defiance of the whole “No Shave November” thing I have whacked off my big bushy beard. I know, I know…it was a magnificent construction, one that was ironically enough started on this week last year. It was big and fluffy and relatively well-groomed, but it was also constantly getting in the way and the hair was getting everywhere! Simple activities like brushing my teeth became an exercise in logistics as I had to learn to tuck the damn thing under my chin. And don’t even get me started with the difficulty in getting a good neck shave with a big wiry bush in your face! I was also shedding more than the dog and I was tired of cleaning up long white hairs off the furniture. So I deemed it was time for a trim and I decided to go with a quasi-classic muttonchops look. We’ll see how long it takes me to get tired of this beard configuration.
Brian Bendis has spent the last year setting up their return and the time had finally come for the official debut of the new Legion of Super-Heroes! Yes, Legion #1 hit the racks this week, written by Bendis and drawn by Ryan Sook, and it is a doozy! Now I am a Legion fan from waaaaaay back and I have been excited to see how Bendis and D.C. were going to handle their big return after the depredations of the New 52 Legion. I’m not disappointed although it is going to take a few issues to get used to the new versions of these classic characters. The names and the basic personalities have stayed the same, but the costumes and general looks have been switched around completely. I also love the fact that Superboy is being included this time around and it should be fun to watch him get used to life in the 31st century.
Along with plenty of copies of the first issue, we also have a limited supply of the brand new Legion Flight Rings! Supplied by D.C. for this promotion, these Legion Flight Rings are available while supplies last to everyone who purchases a copy of Legion of Super-Heroes #1! Just ask for it at the counter if we don’t press one into your hands…😊
Image Comics has released a much anticipated new title by writers Charles Soule and Scott Snyder titled Undiscovered Country. The story begins in the future where we discover that humanity is in grave danger from a global pandemic that is decimating the world’s population. The United States has built a wall around its borders and has stood in isolationist silence for 30 years apparently reaches out to the dying world governments and offers a glimmer of hope at a cure. The action follows a team of military, science, and medical experts as they make their way into a U.S. where everything is a mystery. Soule and Snyder have given us an intriguing set-up in this extra-sized debut issue with eye-catching graphics by Giesuppi Camuncoli. This isn’t a quick read either as we are literally inundated with text and graphics setting up the state of this strange new future. This will be of particular interest to fans of the Walking dead who are looking for a new post-apocalyptic adventure to delve into this Fall!
D.C. Comics has a new cover promotion this month and it involves a series of acetate covers on the “regular” covers to their main titles. What is an “acetate cover”? Well, it is basically a thin sheet of plastic with a snazzy cover image that, when lifted, gives you a glimpse of a second cover image. I must admit that I was initially a bit irritated with these silly cover affectations as we were required to order them sight unseen long before their release, but I have to admit that once I saw the finished product I was quite impressed with them. This week’s acetate covers are on Batman, Harley Quinn, Justice League and Deathstroke. Even if you don’t plan on picking these items up make sure you check them out on the new comics rack!
Well, that’s it for me this week. I hope everyone has a great weekend and that the upcoming cold snap won’t be too much of a drag for you!
I am so far behind this week that I considered not even writing up an Editorial today, but I figured a paragraph or so wasn’t going to put me that much more behind schedule. Why am I behind schedule? Well, it’s a combination of fate and circumstance involving Steve having some minor outpatient surgery requesting him to be out of the store for a couple of days and the fact that Diamond’s computer system went down for a bit this morning. Steve is recovering nicely and is back in the store after being out on Tuesday and Wednesday so I finally got a chance to finish up the final version of the subscription form and that’s when Diamond’s system decided to take a dump. But its all online again and I have finally finished up the sub list. Actually I just remembered that I have a couple of more things to add to it, but it shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.
In any case, I should get to it. I hope that everyone has a fun and safe Halloween, both tonight and this weekend! Watch out for those ghosties and goblins!
Well, it’s another gorgeous Fall morning here in Northwest Ohio and I’m facing another blank screen as I try to decide what to blather on about in this week’s Editorial. You’d think it would be no big deal, especially with the way I tend to go on in person. I’ve never really explored the further limits of my abilities to chitchat. Unfortunately, and this may come as a surprise to you, but my life is not the thrill-a-minute whirlwind you may think it is…lol. So, let me soldier on and see if I can fill a sheet or two of paper and get this thing posted so that we can all get on with day.
I suppose I should mention that today is the Diamond deadline for submitting initial orders for the October Previews. I’ve been doing this for 30 years and yet this looming monthly deadline never ceases to sneak up on me. Month after month the initial orders are due on the fourth week of every month and yet I still manage to get surprised every time it jumps out of the bushes at me. I mean, I haven’t even looked very closely at the October Previews yet much less begun to assemble a coherent order. To be frank, I’m dreading going through the Marvel Previews which always takes about three times longer than main catalog. I guess it’s a little game I play with myself every month. Years ago the deadline made me so paranoid that I would insist on getting it done the week before it was due, but these days I guess I get some sort of perverse glee out of waiting until the last minute every month. Oh, well, at least I have episodes of the Flash and Arrow to listen to while I slave away at all the fiddly bits in the order form.
Speaking of the CW shows…how do you all do it!?! And by “all of you”, I’m specifically referring tot hose of you who manage to watch ALL of these darn DC/CW shows! Generally speaking, I’ve only been keeping up with my fave show, Supergirl, although I would always tune in to the other shows for the yearly crossover. It’s not like I particularly disliked the other CW shows. In fact, I kept up with Flash for a season or two as well. The problem became A time issue. I simply did not have the time to watch anymore regular network television, especially the way the shows relentlessly move onward, week after week, episode after episode. If you miss one week then you might as well miss three weeks the way the multiply like mice. After learning that this would be the final season for Arrow and that it was essentially “Bottoming out” into the Crisis crossover I decided that I would knuckle under and watch the last ten episodes so that I didn’t miss anything cool. Yes, Gentle Readers, I confess to having the same OCD issues as the rest of you when it comes to comic book stuff and needing to read/see every little bit of it. Of course, then the comments and reviews of the new Flash season started rolling in and it sounded that there was much Crisis material being included in the Fastest Man Alive’s series as well. So I figured I would watch Flash, Supergirl, and Arrow in order to get the full effect. Adding to the stress was the inclusion of the new Batwoman show which I had been eagerly anticipating since her first appearance during the CW crossover last year.
And, you know what? It’s just too much! Trying to keep up with four hours of CW shows a week along with American Horror Story AND The Great British Baking Show has been nigh on impossible, especially when coupled with the handful of other shows I’ve been trying to check out. I also have to divide my TV viewing time between Shows That I Watch Alone (typically while I’m handling work stuff like the shipping list), Shows That I Watch With My Roommate (which generally covers Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights), and Shows That I Watch With Hillman (which covers the weekend). I’m telling ya…I need a score card to keep track! As of today I have managed to catch up with Batwoman and Supergirl. I love both shows wholeheartedly despite their inclination to write scripts where everyone is required to react to quasi-adult situations as if they were teenage girls. I’m hoping to get at least two episodes of the Flash under my belt today while I’m fiddling with the order form. If you come into he shop and I have my ear buds in please don’t hesitate to throw something at my head if you need to get my attention.
Of course, my new viewing habits are not monopolized by merely the CW. It had completely slipped my mind that the new Damon Lindelof magnum opus, Watchmen, debuted Sunday on HBO. Watchmen is, for those of you new to comics, based on the classic graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons upon which the so-so movie was made by old What’s-His-Name back in 2009. The comic (and, to a more limited extant, the movie) dealt with a world where costumed heroes arose in the 40’s as a kind of fad movement and suddenly became much more serious when an actual super being inexplicably appears. One of the former costumed heroes, whose identity I won’t reveal on the outside chance that there is someone reading this who hasn’t read the book or seen the movie (Yes, Hillman dear, I’m looking at you…) is reading this and doesn’t want it spoiled, comes up with a plot both twisted and surprisingly simple to stop a world on the brink of a nuclear apocalypse. It’s a classic comic book story and one that richly deserves its towering reputation. With this in mind as well as the mediocre film attempt made ten years ago, I was cautiously interested in what HBO would make of the material.
Well, I watched the first episode of Watchmen last night and it was, well, both fascinating and truly bizarre. Apparently set in the Watchmen world some 30 years after the events of the comic/movies, we are greeted with a vision of a totalitarian state where law enforcement officers parade around in anonymity with scary masks and ninja outfits battling an apparently white supremacist domestic terrorist organization whose members have a fetish for wearing masks inspired by Rorschach, a sociopathic dead costumed adventurer. It begins with an extended historical flashback to the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, a horrific event which ended in the estimated deaths of 100-200 people. The scenes are brutal and terrible and then the action segues into present day Tulsa where race issues are once again bubbling to the surface. This leads to the main plot in which are introduced to several characters on both sides of the fight and another terrible incident that leads to no small amount of death and destruction.
Into this mix there is a smattering of references to the original material, although not as much as I was expecting. Newspaper headlines mentioning Adrian Viedt and the Rorschach masks are introduced rather early in the proceedings, but for the most part there is very little to connect this story to the comic. There are other scenes, later in the show, that have more concrete ties, including a very strange interlude featuring a main character from the comic played to perfection by Jeremy Irons, a curious “rainstorm”, and the appearance of a piece of equipment also used by a former costumed hero. What any of this has to do with the main narrative of racial divides in the US or the apparent slow slide into fascism isn’t clearly addressed, but it is presented in such a frankly bizarre way that I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. Even at its most obtuse, Watchmen is compulsively watchable, if only with the hope that all of this general weirdness is in some way tied together. I’m not really sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it and I mean that in the best way possible. Looking forward to checking out the rest of the season to see where it is all leading. If you’ve seen the episode please make sure to mention it to me when you visit the store as I am curious as to what you may have thought about it.
I have a big apology to regular readers of the Weekly Shipping List. I was getting everything ready for publication this morning when I realized I inadvertently erased the “Titles Not Stocked” segment yesterday while I was farting around with formatting. The time it would take to recreate it is way more time than I have to spare today so I am leaving it off. Never fear, intrepid readers, it will return yet again next week and I’ll try not to erase it before posting.
We seem to be cursed with feast or famine when it comes to Funko POP figures. Either we can’t get what we ordered or else three tons of them ship in over a two week period. We are currently in the throes of the later situation and after the tsunami of this week’s POP figures we have four more anticipated POPs coming in next week. POP Marvel 80th First Appearance Beast and Marvel Girl and POP Marvel Holiday Deadpool and Rocket Raccoon figured will all be making their Monarch debut next week. Those of you who preordered these figures will have them held behind the counter and you have two weeks to pick them up unless, of course, you get in touch with us and make different arrangements. This new wave of figures all retail for $10.99 each, although if you preorder the X-Men figures as a set you will still get them at $10 each.
For those of you who have been wondering, Hillman has recovered from his throat surgery quite nicely and is well on his way to acclimating to his “new” vocal abilities. While I have yet to hear him sing, I can report that his regular speaking voice is quite an impressive upgrade and much welcomed, especially when I’m talking to him on the phone. Because I am half deaf it was always a bit difficult to understand him over the phone, but now all of our conversations are crystal clear.
Thanks for tuning in this week and I hope all of you have a great weekend! As I mentioned ad nauseum above, I will be deep into the order form all day, but I will still be available for questions and inquiries through Messenger.
