"It’s Madness…!"
Midnight Tales #1 (Dec. 1972) – art by Wayne Howard
Tonight is the shop’s big Midnight Madness sale, with prices so low we must be suffering from sleep deprivation!
The original Midnight Madness started this way…we decided we wanted to do an after-hours sale of some kind, to unload some excess stock for cheap and get it out of our hair. The plan was, after closing at our normal time, we’d take an hour to prepare the shop for the sale (bringing out the boxes of blow-out comics, getting the toys and graphic novels and what have you that have been sitting out on the shelves in the back room, put up the signs directing you to the great deals), and then open up again for a couple hours for the fun to ensue. Now I thought that seemed like a lot of work for just a couple hours’ worth of “big sale” time, so, me and my big mouth, I suggested “hey, why not stay open all the way ’til midnight? It could be, oh, I don’t know, our ‘Midnight Madness’ sale!”
Sigh. I successfully talked myself into working an excessively long work day. I’m stupid. Especially since if people are still around at midnight happily spending money, I’m willing to stay and keep the store open until they’re done. I’ve shut the doors at 2 or so in the morning for previous Midnight Madness sales.
One time I tried to get around it by having a daytime clearance sale on Sunday, calling it our “Sunday Silliness” sale. Not quite as successful, I’m afraid.
The actual “Madness” itself isn’t really all that much work…for that hour we’re setting up, it’s chaos and confusion, but once it gets going, it pretty much runs itself. But it’s still a long workday for me…so don’t be surprised if my post here tomorrow is “too tired…must sleep…adfjadsfjkl;ads….”
