So, Monday, we meet again.
Another quickie post for today…would you believe this will be the third Monday in a row that I’m expecting those workers to come to the house to do repairs? And it’s not like I can hire different people…these are the workers from the house’s builder. Sigh. And it’s raining today, so I wonder if that’ll be the excuse for not showing up this time (even though 99% of the work is inside the house).
Ah, well…so once again you get random thoughts and links (yeah, I know, “as opposed to what, exactly”).
I’m also thinking about a response to Ringwood Ken’s thoughts on the Comicsweblogosphere — well, “response” is too strong a word, it’s more like “my own ponderings (mostly regarding my favorite topic: myself) piggy-backing on Ken’s hard work.” Hopefully I’ll get to it this week.
Employee Nathan: “You think Marvel Comics ever considered doing a iron-plated cover for a special issue of Iron Man?”
Me: “Boy, you think retailers complain about Diamond’s shipping charges now….”
Actually, my initial comment was “Marvel can’t afford iron,” but that wouldn’t be very nice of me to say.
Things noticed during my Sunday reorder session:
Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures digests #1 and #3 haven’t been available through Diamond’s reorder system in months. Surprisingly, Star Wars books are still selling…but I bet I could sell more of #2 and #4 of the CWAdv books if #1 and #3 were around.
Remember what I said about Marvel Zombies still selling well, due to availability of previous issues? Well, forget it…only #2 is still available for reorder now. Here’s hoping for more reprints. Like I noted, people still seem to pick up later issues even if they can’t get the earlier ones, unlike most Marvel minis, but lack of availability will probably curtail any increased sales on later issues anyway. It was nice while it lasted. EDIT: Commenter Don tells me that orders are being solicited this week for reprints of #1 and #3. I stand corrected. (I would have noticed that eventually…I hope!)
Not to turn this into “picking on Robert Kirkman books” or anything, but we finally moved a few more Walking Dead books after a few weeks of moribund sales. For a while there I was having to restock these books every week, then…pfffft! Nada movement.
And, despite what I said about our customers’ skepticism regarding the Spider-Man costume change…we sold through all copies. And are getting calls for more. Luckily I called in our reorders early on this, since looking at Diamond’s most recent stock list…there are none to be had.
Boy, that Mouse Guard sure came out of nowhere, didn’t it? It’s sold fairly well for us, too.
And we’ve had a sudden rush on Batman books again. We’ve also had more requests for Killing Joke, which is now no longer available on its own, but rather in a trade paperback I don’t really want to reorder until they fix its problems.
Due out this week:
Man oh man, I can’t wait. And no, I’m not being sarcastic. This Watcher figure rules.
See, I can be a fanboy sometimes, too.
“I have always wondered why really powerful superheros ie. superman dont train and learn how to fight. If sups took some kung fu from batman he would be able to handle people like doomsday.”
“If you throw Karate master on top of being the most powerful Super hero then the guy could conceivably just walk through any bad guy he comes up against with no challenge.”
“There was this really bad live action 70s show where Superman gets depressed because he’s different, and he meets up with 2 hippies who tell him its OK to be different. Anyway, he uses karate in that.”
What show is that last person talking about? Just wondering, because it sounds fantastic.
One of the things I’ve never covered on this site, because I figured everyone already knew about it, was “The Day Mark Gruenwald Stole The Flash,” in that one issue of Quasar. Basically, Gruenwald took DC Comics’ deceased Barry “The Flash” Allen, and revived him in a barely-disguised form in the Marvel Universe. A good joke, and an amusing, and slightly touching, tribute to the classic Silver Age character.
Well, it so happened that I mentioned this story in passing at the store a few days ago, and both Employee Nathan and Employee Aaron had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.
So, if you didn’t know about this before, you can read this synopsis or you can get your mitts on a copy of Quasar #17 your own self. Actually, even though it sort of fell apart right near the end, Quasar itself is a pretty good superhero comic throughout its run, particularly if you like Marvel’s cosmic characters.
For reading this far, you get a picture of a vampire reading an issue of Ghost:
