In which Mike makes a brief post to let folks know he’s not dead.

§ June 11th, 2013 § Filed under retailing, swamp thing § 6 Comments

Sorry for the extended outage…I’ve been ill, and have been trying to stay away from Internetting for a few days while I recovered. I even skipped out of most of a Saturday at the shop, which I never do, and apparently that was good planning on my part as a Cardfight Vanguard event we were apparently expecting a couple dozen people for ended up attracting, like, a hundred people, and as I was at home in bed that ended up having to be Someone Else’s Problem, for which I apologize.

A portion of the crown outside our shop – photo by long-suffering Employee Timmy

Anyway, since we last spoke, while flopped on my bed like a big ol’ lump of nothin’, I watched, via Netflix streaming, the entirety of the BBC sitcom Hyperdrive, a very funny spoof on Star Trek-ian type programming.

I also read all about the new Swamp Thing action figure due at the end of the year, or rather watched all about it since I’ve only really looked at the video at that link. I think everyone I know sent me some link or another about this figure…a figure which, by the way, is going to cost about fifty bones. Good gravy, thank goodness for buying things at wholesale. I remember saying something a while back that, on one hand, not having Swamp Thing around meant less tie-in merchandise I’d have to track down and buy (yes, “have to”), while on the other hand, having Swamp Thing comics around means more merchandise, which is great but, you know, I still have to pay for it. There’s been in the last couple of years, what, three t-shirts, a statue, a Squinkie, I don’t even remember what else. Oh, yeah, and a comic book series. Man, comics, did you know they still make those?

In addition, I read more about DC Comics’ latest plan to kill me. My guess is that throwing a Justice League logo onto a Shadow Thief comic isn’t going to increase sales that much, but I have, oh, another month and half to think about that before I send in my orders. I am totally down with a Mongul comic written by Jim Starlin, however.

Oh, and this week, Superman Unchained #1 is out, so I’ll be unboxing loads of those Tuesday afternoon at the shop and sorting out the dozen or so different variant covers. I’ll probably have something to say about that comic later in the week.

So…um…how are you?

6 Responses to “In which Mike makes a brief post to let folks know he’s not dead.”

  • Brian Cronin says:

    Glad you’re feeling better, Mike!

    Just curious, with those card tournaments, what percentage of the participants actually spend any money outside of their entry fee? I imagine just the entry fees alone make it worth it, but I always wonder if those folks actually spend any extra money at the stores when they do those big tournaments.

  • Adam says:

    It’s nice that despite his New 52 comic flubbing, Deathstroke gets another bite with a villains book.

    So … so I have a continuity question here.

    Since most of the GL timeline is untouched and it is fully established that Hal was possessed by Parallax for a time, presumably this means that Coast City was destroyed. So who did it? The promos for Cyborg Superman and Mongul make both of them sound like new villains.

  • Pal Cully says:

    Starlin? Mongul? I’m in. I came by Saturday. Tim looked sad. He had gamer frenzy and abandonment issues.
    P.S. I’m re-reading Peter David “Dreadstar”. I forgot how fun it was.

  • Adam Farrar says:

    Do you watch The Venture Bros? The episode from Sunday (“Venture Libre”) featured an organization called U.R.G.H. (United Regressed Grotesque Humanity) and one of the members was Man-Thing.

  • Mikester says:

    Brian – They can be profitable…the kids usually don’t just buy into tournaments, but buy extra packs, accessories, snacks, etc. When the store is overstuffed, however, like that Saturday, it can hurt sales on other products, which is why we prefer to keep things a little more…sedate.

    Adam #1 – Oh Lordy, don’t get me started on New 52 continuity problems. It’ll have me looking back on the good ol’ days when just Teen Titans continuity screwed up everything.

    Adam #2 – Nope, haven’t seen it yet! I’ll get to it eventually. I’m so behind on everything.

  • Snark Shark says:

    ” I am totally down with a Mongul comic written by Jim Starlin, however. ”

    COOL.

    THIS, on the other hand, will sell about two copies: “GREEN ARROW #23.1: COUNT VERTIGO”