Back issues, Swamp Thing, and druid rock.
So ex-employee Josh popped by the shop on Saturday, and he was telling me about how the shop near where he now lives stores their back issues.
Apparently, their customer-accessible back issues are stored, bagless, in long boxes. Plus, they’re shoved into the boxes so tightly that, as Josh says, you have to cram your fingers into the box and drag the comic out by your fingernails…which, I’m sure, does wonder for the conditions of the books.
Okay, if you’re a store that does this to your back issues, particularly the back issues you leave out on the tables for your customers to go through…stop it. Really, just stop. You’re destroying your own backstock, and you’re annoying the customers who actually want to buy a back issue from you…assuming you have any customers for your back issues left.
Even if you don’t want to put bags on the comics in the back issue bins (and you really should…for a very small investment, you’ll protect your books from all kinds of wear), at the very least keep the boxes loose enough to allow folks to flip though them.
I wrote about the in-store care of back issues in one of my old Comic Book Galaxy columns, which has, I think, some common sense advice for anyone trying to sell back-numbered funnybooks. So, please, feel free to follow my tips.
Or don’t. Fine with me…more back issue customers for us, then. I’ll be happy to take them.
The most comprehensive Swamp Thing website in the known universe, Roots of the Swamp Thing, has moved to its new address of swampthingroots.com. Go, visit, tell Rich I sent you.
And if you need to search for something on swampthingroots.com, may I suggest my new Swamp Thing-specific search engine AskCranius? Sure I may.
