Category: Uncategorized

Hey, Folks!

 

Here we are finally officially into Summer 2022 and boy has it been a scorcher! I remember that I used to love these kinds of weeks, with the endless heat and the crazy humidity. I mean, I would bask in it like a gecko lizard on a nicely lit rock. As I grower older and greyer, however, the bloom has truly left the rose for this particular experience. Indeed…the bloom has not only left, but burst into flames and become a small pile of ashes. I mean, to think I spent year with nothing more than  a fan or two at home to keep things bearable and now I have air conditioning units spread out over my house. It is certainly a major change for me. Hell…I used to complain to Steve all the time that he had the store too cold and now that I’m the one paying the bill I find myself saying “#$%& it” and cranking the chill up. I tell myself it is strictly for the good of the product as well as my beloved customers, but the truth is I do it for myself.

 

Brian just completed sorting through the last collection that we had queued in the back room. I made my offer to the gentleman and he accepted it so keep your eyes peeled to the Facebook account for the inevitable posts I will be making. The collection is a plethora of late 80’s-early 90’s Marvel material as well as some earlier issues as well as some intriguing keys. Into the back issue bins we will be adding Avengers. Avengers West Coast, Fantastic Four, and New Mutant back issues and some of the keys include the first appearances of Cable, Gambit, Jubilee, Mr Sinister, and Psylocke. I just may have noticed a Secret Wars #8 nestled in there and I have been reliably informed that there are some 35 cent newsstand variants within as well. Of course, there will also be plenty of Dollar Box material to put out as well. It is going to take a couple of days for us to get it bagged and priced and there may be an item or two that needs to be sent the cleaners, but it should proceed fairly quickly now. If you have been waiting to bring in your collection until we were caught up then now is the time to swing by and drop them off…😊

 

I’ve been fielding a lot of questions lately about various D.C. and Marvel books that are behind schedule and I wish that I had a nice blanket answer for the hold up, but unfortunately we (retailers) have little to no official word on what the problem is. I mean, we’ve been hearing a lot about “supply chain issues” and “printer issues” and I have no reason to think that isn’t the case. In case you haven’t heard, a good portion of the comics that Marvel solicited in their June Previews will NOT be shipping in the month of August (as they were scheduled to) and will instead need to be resolicited. I am currently mulling the return of a weekly FOC list to make available on the Facebook page to hopefully keep everyone updated, but the last time I put the time in for it not very many people looked at it. Let me know when you come in the store if this is the sort of resource that would help your comic collecting. I mean, anybody who has been putting in monthly order forms (especially for variant covers) I want to assure you that I am keeping a record of your orders, but if it would help you to see a stripped down FOC list every week then let me know. I am currently ordering ALL D.C. and Marvel titles on a week to week basis and the only monthly orders I place are basically for what I’m ordering from Diamond. Frankly, that list is growing smaller and smaller all the time and the only reason I don’t just switch to FOC orders with Diamond is that there are many items that aren’t on Diamond’s FOC page and that have to be ordered through the monthly catalog. By the way, the July catalogs should be ready to go out next Wednesday and I will be completing the Diamond June initial orders later this afternoon in case you have anything you’d like to add!

 

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we are now restocked on small white comic boxes as well as resealable Silver Age bags! I was a little worried that I would have to raise the prices again, but thankfully after processing the invoice I determined that nothing has change and the small boxes will will remain $7.99 each and the bags will be $10 for a 100. We are still waiting on Magazine boards and black title dividers to come back into stock, but otherwise we are now at full restock!

 

I truly hope everyone has a great weekend! Hill and I have really dived into our board game obsession lately and have plans to once again play Wingspan with a new group of players. Thanks to Toledo Game Room for helping me expand a couple of my favorite board games like Terraforming Mars and Viticulture recently and brace yourselves for me expounding endlessly about a new game we’ve recently played called Ark Nova! I hope to see everyone in the store soon…😊

 

Ed Katschke

Hey, Folks!

 

I just don’t understand Facebook. I mean, I don’t understand why something works one day and then the next it won’t work worth s#!t. I’ll admit that I was not planning on writing an EDitorial this week as I was very much looking forward to continuing my recent trend of getting the Shipping List/Subscription Form posted in a timely fashion. My new work habit of leaving the shop during the early afternoon lull in business in order to go home in order to complete the construction of the form has been working very well for me and getting into work early on Thursday morning to finish everything up has been extremely successful and allows me the time to get some other tedious paperwork caught up the rest of the day. Unfortunately, when I attempted to just throw everything up on the Facebook page this morning once again it went wrong. You see, normally when I cut & paste the subscription form web address on the Facebook page it will automatically generate an image that makes it easy for people to find it. For some reason, however, every once in a while the system just refuses to generate the image. No idea why, but if it happens then folks have serious problems not being able to find the sub form which in turn makes it more difficult to have enough copies of some titles available for the following week. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is. I have decided to write up a little EDitorial to make it a little easier for people to notice the Shipping List and Sub Form.

 

Unfortunately, there’s simply NOT much to talk about this week…lol. I mean, I could talk about how my PRH shipments have started showing up much earlier…on Thursdays/Fridays instead of Mondays, which I can’t stress how much easier it makes my life. I could go on about how training Brian to do my job in case I get hit by a bus is proceeding at a good clip and I am almost to the point where I feel like everything will be okay when Hill & I go on vacation in September. We also are almost caught up on comic collections that we have been working on purchasing and putting out for sale since before FCBD. In fact, I guess I should mention that there are plenty of new back issue stock in the boxes as a result and the Dollar Boxes have been refilled as well. Certainly worth doing a dive into them to make sure you aren’t missing anything!

 

Penguin Random House has finally published their new exclusive books reprinting some fun Marvel material along with scholarly commentary! The Penguin Classics Marvel Collection Series feature Back Panther, Captain America, and Spider-Man reprints in snazzy collections available in both hard cover and trade paperback! The Amazing Spider-Man volume includes Amazing Fantasy #15 as well as Amazing Spider-Man #1-19, Back Panther includes Fantastic Four #52 & 53, as well as Jungle Action #6-21, and the Captain America volume includes Captain America Comics #1, Tales of Suspense #59, 63-68, 75-99, and Captain America #100-111, 113. In addition, while supplies last, anyone who purchases one of the hard cover editions will also receive a set of prints featuring the art from the covers for FREE! The hard covers are $50.00 and the trade paperbacks are $28.00. Check them out today!

 

Monarch is currently out of the small, white comic boxes, but I should hopefully have them back in stock by next week. I had to arrange a shipment of them from a warehouse in Chicago that I don’t normally get shipments from and I’m not sure how long it will take them to get here. Yes, I know that Chicago is only two days (as the UPS truck flies) from here, but this warehouse tends to put its “regular” customers shipments ahead from stores “poaching” from another warehouse so I’m not sure when they will get to it. In the meantime we do have plenty of the D.C. and Marvel art boxes in stock right now, including the all new Captain America and New Fantastic Four boxes!

 

I hope everyone has a great weekend and manages to stay cool both today as well as next week when the temperature goes back up to “roasting” again. I will be keeping the sir conditioner on in the store for your shopping comfort as well as to stop any one from sweating all over the books…lol.

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Not too much going on around here right now which is a really good thing. After Brian and I fell behind on the amount of comic collections coming through the store I am happy to announce that we are almost caught up at this point. I actually sorted and completed an entire collection, the first one since Brian became my trusty employee, and I managed to do a pretty good job of it. Brian is still WAY better at it, but I am learning my lessons from him well. So keep your eyes peeled to our Facebook for the rest of the month as I will be posting new higher dollar back issue stock on the feed as we get it ready for sale. I’ll try to mention any surfeit of specific back issue titles that go into the back issue bins, but it is always a good idea to grill Brian about it when you stop by the store to shop. (By the way, just added a bunch of Spectacular Spider-Man issues to the back issue boxes recently…check them out!) Also, please remember that when we pick up collections sometimes a good percentage of it will end up in the Dollar Boxes and those are always good to flip through when you have the time.

 

It looks like this is going to be a very weird shipping month for comics. Most of the publishers seem to be more or less on target with originally solicited release date, but some publishers, such as IDW and Marvel are hopelessly wonky right now. I have no official idea as to why. I mean IDW could be behind because they recently have ceased being exclusively distributed by Diamond and have joined Marvel’s exodus to PRH. With Marvel it is anyone’s guess…I have heard paper shortages and printer shop hold ups as the main culprits. Everyone should be aware that a good percentage of books solicited in the Marvel June catalog will not actually be shipping out until September or even October. It makes keeping track of special order stuff a little tricky, but at this point I think I have a handle on it. Always feel free to ask about any titles you think you may have missed. Chances are you haven’t missed anything and we can give you the most up to date release info that we are privy to.

 

Okily dokily…that’s it for me this week! I hope everyone is enjoying our summer weather and has a great weekend!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Short EDitorial this week as it is also a short week for me. Hillman and I have concert tickets to see AJR at Pine Knob tomorrow so I will not be in the store on Friday. I might be in for a bit on Saturday to catch up on some stuff, but I wouldn’t bank on it. Additionally, Monarch Comics WILL be closed on Memorial Day, but we are closed EVERY Monday so it really isn’t much of an announcement! It will be an incredibly small shipment next week, but I still hope to see everyone stop by the store. Brian and I are working feverishly to get new back issue stock out on the floor so keep an eye on the Facebook page for announcements.

 

Okily dokily…that’s about it! Have a fun and safe holiday weekend and we will talk again next week!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Just a quick note this week as there is frankly not much to talk about at the store. I would like to send out tons of hugs and kisses to all of you as I finally got to see the new Doctor Strange movie and not only did I love the movie, but I was extremely pleased that not one of you spoiled a single blessed thing! Honestly, I think I was maybe more floored by the fact that I encountered no spoilers then the actual events of the movie which were incredibly thrilling. I know that there are some naysayers, but any film that is the result of an MCU film making sweet, sweet love to the Evil Dead movies is quite alright with me.

 

I also wanted to let everyone know that if you are thinking that current release schedules are a bit…off that you are not losing your minds. I know I’ve had this discussion with a few of you but I do want to let everyone know that many companies publishing schedules are going a bit pear-shaped these days (particularly Marvel Comics) due to our old friends, Supply Chain Issues and Paper Shortages. I am trying to keep on top of the schedule changes, but it is proving nearly impossible as things are fluid and changing on a week to week basis. Always feel free to ask when you are in the store if you have any scheduling questions.

 

Brian and I (well, mostly Brian) are getting closer to catching up with our back issue restock that was put on hold while preparing for FCBD. I will continue to publish Facebook posts regarding higher priced  books as well as keys, but please be aware that we have a ton of new back issues from D.C.’s New 52 as well as some X-Titles. The Dollar Boxes have been similarly “restocked” so make sure you take the time to go for a nice, comfortable dive into them! We still have a couple of collections to go through and I still have a ton of stuff to retrieve from deep storage so stayed tuned!

 

That’s it for me, Folks! Have a great weekend and enjoy the warmer weather…😊

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Free Comic Book Day has come and gone and I have to say that I am somewhat relieved it is over until next year…lol. I mean, the amount of work and resources that I plow into the BIG event every year can be a bit staggering, but I have to admit that when it comes off as well as it did this year then it is all worth it! Thanks go out to everyone who participated in making FCBD 2022 so fun, including the Monarch Avengers cosplayers, Shivers Ice Cream, the Monarch Comics staff, Kurt Nielson’s Photography, and, of course, all of my terrific customer base who showed up for the event! Let’s hope it goes as well next year!

 

Now comes the aftermath part of the program…lol. I am currently working hard at restocking the store of all of the trade paperbacks and hard covers that went out the door. I will also be reposting a bunch of the cool cosplaying photos that were taken during the event, so keep your eyes open on the Facebook page for some truly awesome stuff!

 

Additionally, Brian and I have been working hard over the last several months at getting Monarch’s back issue stock up to snuff. Because of FCBD there were a couple of collections that we hadn’t gotten around to sorting through and Brian is now hip deep into that particular job. There were around 8 boxes of Dollar Books that we were holding for FCBD and those are now out on the tables, so if “dumpster diving” for cheap back issue stuff is your thing we are ready for you! Those of you who monitor the Facebook page know that there are some choice key back issues that we have recently put out for sale and it always worth a quick look in the showcase to see what may have been added recently! A lot of back issue stock has also made it out into the boxes, including huge amounts of DC New 52 titles, Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Thor, and much more. Since Brian is actually the one doing all of the work on the back issue boxes then he is the one to actually direct your questions to about specifics…😊

 

Additionally, I have decided to keep all of the FCBD titles that we have left out on the counter for the rest of the week in order to cover anyone who either missed the day or wanted a couple of extra comics and couldn’t get them because of the title limit I imposed at the beginning of the event. Well, feel free to grab a couple of extra titles when you are in the shop before they all get boxed up and put back into storage for the year!

 

I hope everyone has a great weekend. I will admit that I am looking forward to actually getting a day off this week and that I will decidedly not be in the store Saturday. I’m actually hoping to get out of the store earlier than usual Friday, but I can’t do that until I catch up on a few things. Take it easy, Beloved Patrons!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Well, the blessed week has finally arrived and everything is in the box and ready to go! What am I prattling about? Why, FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, of course! After a one year hiatus followed by one year held in August, FREE COMIC BOOK DAY has returned to its regular day on the first Saturday of May, in this case May 7^th. Naturally, we here at Monarch are all very excited about it and can’t wait to welcome the width and breadth of Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan into the store to take a look around and get some free stuff!

 

Honestly, this will very much be a return to the days of yore with a couple of slight changes necessitated by the pandemic. There will be a wide range of FREE comics available at the counter as in years past and Brian and I will be racking them with the All Ages selections along the bottom, the Teen+ selections in the middle, and the more Mature content along the tops of the racks. We will be instituting a 5 comic book per patron limit at the beginning of the event although I may relax that once the initial rush is over and I am sure that we have plenty of comics to go around. I still have plenty of free comics left over from last year’s FCBD along with tons of new selections from this year’s offerings so I do believe we will be well stocked! I will, of course, be at the FCBD racks all afternoon welcoming folks and answering any questions you might have so please do not be shy! Despite the amount of complaining I tend to do in the store about FCBD I confess that I am thrilled to welcome such a diverse crowd of fans into my humble shop.

 

The Monarch Avengers, Toledo’s premier cosplaying society, will once again be gracing us with their presence this year and I couldn’t be more excited by the line up! This year’s team will include Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, Catwoman, Spider-Man, Storm, Harley Quinn, and Deadpool, as well as new the new additions of the Joker, the Mandalorian, and the Mighty Thor! I have also once again hired the fantastic photographer Kurt Nielson who will be once again joining the cosplayers with his mobile photo booth and will be here to snap your pic with your favorite cosplayer and then add the photo to custom Monarch FCBD frame and e-mail or text you the result! I also want to let any other cosplayers in the area know that you are more than welcome to show up in costume as the more the merrier is the Marvel Way! Also, please be aware that the cosplayers and Mr Nielson will only be here between 11-3 on Saturday!

 

I have also continued Monarch Comics partnership with Shivers Ice Cream this year! Every patron who goes through the line will receive a coupon for a free Junior ice cream cone or small slushy what may be redeemed across the street at Shivers! FREE comics AND FREE ice cream!?! It’s like some beautiful dream! Please be careful walking across the street, however, as Key St can sometimes get busy in the afternoon.

 

Monarch will also once again, weather permitting, be setting up a bunch of new Dollar Boxes in front of the store for customers to check out! Feel free to take your time going through the boxes and know that when you are ready to purchase your selections you do NOT have to wait in the Free Comic Book line! Former employee, Jake Teelander, is joining us again for the big day and will be working the door and he will allow you to right in to the register in order to make your purchase. Of course, there may be a line at the register, but at least you won’t have to stand with a pile of dollar comics in a line halfway down the block…lol. If you are interested in the free comics as well as the dollar books then I suggest going through the lone for the free comics first and then hitting the dollar boxes afterwards…😊

 

And that is pretty much it! Monarch Comics will be open our regular Saturday hours of 11-7 although if we are ready before 11 then I may open the flood gates a few minutes early! Additionally, if you can’t make the event we will also be open our regular Sunday hours of 12-5:30 and any FCBD titles that we have left will still be available for you to grab!

 

Have a great weekend, Folks, and I sincerely hope to see you on Saturday!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Just a quick note this week on the account that I have a million things to get done today. I have decided at this late date in my life that I am the absolute worse planner in the history of planning. I mean, I set up a plethora of non-work activities on a week where I not only have initial Diamond orders due (and this is only the second month that I have used my new initial order Diamond system which I am still working the bugs out of) and I have normal duties like this note and the subscription form and the shipping list to get done. Of course, I could (and will) lean on Brian a bit to get everything done, but he has a ton of work to get to as well what with all of the new back stock that is waiting to be processed, priced, and put out for sale along with several boxes of comics in the back room that still need to be gone over so that I can make an offer on them. Then THOSE comics need to be processed, priced, and put out for sale. Eek!

 

The good news is that I successfully completed my initial orders on Tuesday and the new system seems to be holding up fairly well. Also, Brian has done an incredible job of getting a big portion of the higher priced new comic acquisitions ready to go. I mean, we had an amazing Tuesday and Wednesday, business-wise, on a week where there was a very small shipment of new product, but plenty of “new” back issues that folks were clamoring for and I checked the showcase this morning and Brian did his usual great job of rearranging everything into an attractive mélange of great books. As a side note, I was particularly pleased that by getting things done a little extra early this week that I managed to completely avoid a Diamond website crash that apparently occurred last night when I was out to dinner with some dear old friends. Normally, I would have been at home tearing out my hair and waiting in vain for the website to get up and running again so that I could finish whatever I was working on.

 

Anyway, I will be out of the office early today (Thursday) in order to enjoy an evening out with my beloved fiancée as well as Ben and Michelle Sweetser up in Ann Arbor. We are going to see jazz great Joshua Redman in concert as well as eat out at the Blue Nile, an Ethiopian restaurant. I’ve never had Ethiopian before, but I thrill at every opportunity to go to a restaurant where I can eat with Hillman who, as everyone probably knows by now, is an avowed vegan. I am absolutely thrilled to be going to a concert again and am looking forward to a relaxing night out.

 

I was very here at the store later than usual for a Wednesday this week and may I say what a pleasure it was to see a bunch of customers whom I haven’t interacted with for a long time. It was such a pleasure that I may have to start scheduling myself a couple of late Wednesdays a month just stay caught up with everyone. I hope that the weather clears up this weekend and that everyone has a great day!

 

Ed

Hey, Folks!

 

Here we are…one step closer to 2022 Free Comic Book Day. You would think that after hosting FCBD for 21 years that I’d be used to it, but I’m afraid that isn’t the way it works. Despite having a staff now to help with the actual event and having the BEST team of cosplayers to make sure all of the visitors have a good time and hiring Card Advertising, the BEST advertising company in the world, I am still filled with anxiety and dread as we get closer to the big day. I will admit that my idea of working with Shivers to offer ice cream did take a lot of work out of the event for me personally as I no longer have to bake a quadrillion cookies and the hiring of the immensely talented photographer Kurt Nielson to handle the photography certainly helps out as well. It looks like the free comics will get here with none of the last minute headaches we had last August to make things more difficult so that’s a big plus as well. Here’s hoping everything stays on track and moves forward with no more problems.

 

We’ve got another relatively small shipment coming up next week. I’ve been joking about it for two weeks now that the 27^th (as well as May 4^th) are going to be huge ship weeks and I can now confirm that supposition. Diamond typically has a rough list of what is expected to ship out two weeks in advance and I took a good, long look at the 4/27 list yesterday. It is indeed a doozy and that is without me looking at Lunar’s website for the DC Comics list. So if there is any titles that you have been anticipating or think you may have missed…rest assured they are coming. Make sure you check out the tsunami of new merchandise that has been flowing in for the past couple of weeks. We have a ton of new POP figures, some of which I ordered nearly a year ago and are now finally showing up as well as some other fun stuff.

 

Thanks to everyone for all the kind words and compliments regarding the new Monarch Comics commercial that I debuted on the Facebook page Tuesday afternoon. I was personally delighted with the end result and once again send HUGE kudos to the staff of Card Advertising for producing such a fun and wonderful TV spot. Seriously, CARD ADVERTISING are an amazing team and you could not find a better company to handle your advertising needs in the Toledo area. Also, thanks again to the Monarch Avengers and their very special appearance in the commercial. We couldn’t have done it without you.

 

Well, I suppose I should get this posted along with the new Shipping List and Sub Form! I hope everyone has a great weekend and that we finally get some warmer weather with no more rain!

 

See ya in the Funny Papers!

 

Eddie

Hey, Folks!

 

Well, thanks to the good works of Card Advertising and the very special appearance of the Monarch Avengers we got a new commercial shot for the store! I thought it would be a whole lot more difficult to have a commercial filmed here in the store, but the crew brought in by Card made everything pretty simple and despite the fact that yours truly has a starring role in the spectacle I do believe it will turn out okay. I mean, it’s kind of hard for me to say as I was one of the ones being filmed, but the spectators all seemed sold on it. I should have the finished product ready to unveil in a few days and I am currently planning on having a Facebook Live video to show it everyone. I’m imagining something along the lines of the old MTV days when they would show a new video for the first time. I don’t know…maybe I am dating myself by using that particular analogy…lol.

 

Everything is currently a big GO for Free Comic Book Day. I mean, I’ve arranged for Kurt Nielson, photographer extraordinaire, to make an appearance with his mobile photo booth and we will once again be handing out coupons for free ice cream cones from Shivers. Obviously, the Monarch Avengers will once again be making an appearance with some new characters joining the fold this year. And, of course, there will be a ton of new comics including the big lead-ns for D.C. and Marvel Comics big summer storylines. Frankly, I couldn’t be any happier that the event is back to its first Saturday in May (May 7^th) time slot and I’m glad that it is paired up with the release of the new Doctor Strange movie! This comic book summer is certainly shaping up to be a good one!

 

You may have noticed that the new release rack has looked a little, well, anemic for the last couple of weeks. I wanted assure everyone that it isn’t a harbinger of problems in the comic industry or with Monarch, but rather I do believe it is a reaction to FCBD. I noticed that a couple of tent pole comic projects (including Amazing Spider-Man #1) have been pushed back for an April 27^th release which is the week before FCBD. In fact, I’m thinking that 4/27 and 5/4 are going to be come of the biggest ship weeks that we’ve seen in recent memory between comic books and collections. All the companies are going to want their biggest projects out and on display as comic shops around the country welcome tons of new people into their doors. It should be an interesting time trying to get it all out on display in our New Releases sections, but I didn’t take this job because I thought it would be easy.

 

One the changes I’ve made since taking over ownership of the store has been to increase the amount of back issue stock we carry. I mean, we really had no choice even before Steve retired as it took several months for the comic industry to get up and running after the shutdown of 2020. I started off by bringing a bunch of stuff in that was in storage, both comics as well as trades and hard covers, and when that material did so well then I started opening up to buying more stuff that came in the door. Of course, hiring Brian to work behind the counter crystallized my decision as he is really quite good at processing comic book collections as they come in and our working relationship on such matters has only gotten stronger. I’ve been trying to make posts on our Facebook page about any new back issue stock we get in both generally and specifically (usually in regards to higher priced items in the showcases). There is new back issue material being added to the boxes all the time so please feel free to ask about it when you swing by the store.

 

Okily dokily…that’ it for me this week. Brian is currently out of the store and off this whole weekend so I will be here all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday this week. Stop on  by and say, “Hi!”

 

Eddie