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Had a little post-op bleeding in my right eye (AKA “the good eye”), and since my left eye (AKA “the previously good eye”) is still recovering from its own surgery, I was left pretty much blind all of Sunday. Now, that bleediing isn’t unusual, and it’s already washing out of my eye, so my vision should be back t what currently passes for normal soon…the fact that I can see well enough to even type this is a vast improvement over yesterday…I still need to take a little time off. Should be fine by the end of the week, if things continue as they are.
Sorry for the inconvenience (and what is probably a lot of typos) and I’ll talk to you soon.
PICTURED: artist’s rendering of the what the Free Comic Book Day logo looks like through Mike’s left eye
So I’m going in first thing the morning for what we can only hope is my final eye surgery for the time being, and as such I’ll try to keep my Free Comic Book Day report relatively short.
And in short…it was yet another highly successful FCBD event at my shop, the most recent in essentially an unbroken chain of successful FCBD events for me since their very beginning. We gave away lots of comics, saw lots of new faces, and did plenty of actual business of the coin-of-the-realm type. In fact, I had in my mind a certain amount of monetary expectations, and we easily blew right past that. Once again, Free Comic Book Day paid for itself many times over.
I didn’t do it alone…as always, my dad and pal Dorian were on hand to help out…especially needed this year since 1) my eyes still aren’t up to snuff given the last year’s travails, and 2) I was told by the doctor not to exert myself or really lift anything, so hefting boxes of comics and moving tables around was verboten. However, one of my very longtime customers, Deon, dropped by the store the day before offering his services if I ever needed them, as he had left his job to go back to school and was looking for the occasional odd job if I had any available. “Boy, do I,” said I, and that’s how Deon made the set-up and break-down of the store for FCBD such a breeze.
(Also, my girlfriend Nora had, and is still recovering from, some form of hideous plague and could not also assist, though she really wanted to come in!)
Speaking of set-up, here’s a look at the giveaway tables prior to the onslaught:
And here’s a pic I took of the back issue tables that were pushed together near the front of the shop and provided sale signage:
And here’s one of the very few crowd photos I took when I had a moment:
We were slammed from the moment we opened our doors — I knew we were probably in for a big crowd at opening judging by the huge number of phones calls and in-store queries asking when the event would begin. Before we opened, we had a line stretching across the strip of businesses I’m in, and when the doors did open, we literally had more people than could fit inside the shop…crowds were building up at the front anxiously awaiting entrance.
Nice mix of folks coming in, from preschoolers to grandmas, all taking advantage of the giveaways. And, once again, my policy of not restricting the number of different books one could take worked out just fine…as I’ve said before, when given the choice, only a few people take one of each, while others are happier voluntarily taking a smaller selection. Either way is fine with me! I did have to reassure some people that they could take more than a couple if they so desired, such as in this tweet I posted that day relating one conversattion:
“So all of these comics are free?”
“Yes!”
“And we can take one of each of them?”
“Yes!”
“And we can just walk out the door with them?”
“Yes!”
I think that poor girl still thought she was gettin’ away with something when she left.
Anyway, I said I was going to keep this short and failed miserably, but there’s not too much to tell, really. Like I said, lots of customers, lot of new people, gave away lots of comics (still have a few in a short box on the counter for anyone who couldn’t make it that day), and lots of sales. No real problems during the day…did have one fella who didn’t quite get that Free Comic Book Day was not the day to ask me to go through his collection and buy it, when, like, the store was at one of its busier points and I had a line at the register, but What Can You Do?
One odd thing…the exclusive Funko Pop for FCBD this year was John Constantine, and I ordered a small pile of them, as previous years’ exclusives went right quick. But ol’ Johnny just kinda sat there for most of the day…I was wondering it the Pop fad finally ran its course and it picked FCBD to start pushing up daisies, but suddenly in the late afternoon they started selling, thank goodness. Think I have one left…well, two, if you count the one that somehow maybe made it back to my house.
Eep. This isn’t short at all. Sorry about that. If I don’t get to bed soon, I’m going to be asleep the entire time the doctor is poking sharp objects into my eyeball, and I certainly don’t want to miss that! Thanks for reading, pals, and let’s do all this again next year!
The Free Comic Book Day, she is coming tomorrow, so I hope you’re all ready to get out there and get your mitts on some free comics. Also, don’t forget to drop a dollar or two or a hundred while you’re there to support your local shop, as those free comics ain’t free to us, friends! I’ve been involved in the FCBD event every year since it started, and as a result, have written a whole lot about it, if you care to check out the Free Comic Book category on this here site.
I’m pretty much ready, though at the moment I am medically precluded from tossing boxes of comics around for the time being, so my job Friday night will be pointing at where I want stuff to go while others who are kindly devoting their time to help me do the actual labor. I mean, I can still unload comics out of the boxes and fill up the display tables, so I won’t be entirely useless. But still, kind of a bad time to be told “DON’T OVEREXERT YOURSELF, DON’T MOVE OR LIFT HEAVY STUFF” when one has to, you know, rearrange one’s entire store.
Speaking of my health, Chuck V. asked in response to Monday’s post:
“You know, I don’t want to get too personal and I realize it would take away from the supposed theme of the blog, but have you considered sharing a bit more about what caused this? Kind of a public service announcement.”
Well, if I had to sum up my problems in a public service announcement, it would be “Don’t Be Like Me — Don’t Be An Idiot about Your Health.” I wasn’t taking good care of myself, I wasn’t eating properly, I was drinking way too much soda, I had enormously high blood sugar and high blood pressure, I was overweight…I was a mess, basically. I felt fine, so of course I didn’t think there was any problem, until there was.
What’s causing the problem in my eyes is neovascularization, where new, weaker blood vessels started forming as a result of my poor health and circulation and blood sugar levels. Because the new vessels are so fragile, they can burst easily, especially when one’s blood pressure was crazy high.
Now, the good news is, I’ve basically been Scared Straight. I’ve lost weight, my blood pressure is normal, my blood sugar levels are where they’re supposed to be, I’ve changed my diet (no sodas for a year now!) and I’m doing a lot better than I was. But, the damage I did to my body is still there, especially in my eyes, and needs to be dealt with. Those injections in my eye I’ve mentioned over the last few months? Those were to keep those new vessels sealed and prevent new bleeding. The surgeries I’ve had in the right eye removed (or at least reduced) those vessels, so I shouldn’t have a recurrence of that problem there.
Now the left eye had been doing fine…there was no bleeding there, despite also having those weak vessls. A couple of injections were given to keep that situation stable while work was focused on saving the right eye. But, eventually, despite improvements in my overall health, the vessels in there burst as well. My eye doctor says it could have been just a random spike in my blood pressure that broke those vessels, like maybe exerting myself a little too much, or even just a bad dream could have done it. But whatever the reason, I got bleeding in my left eye now, and I am going back in or surgery on Monday to have that blood removed.
The overall health of my left eye is significantly better than my right, which had some tissue damage. As such, the surgery should be relatively easy and result in quick healing and restoration of my sight back to about as close to normal as we can hope for. And yes, those extra vessels will be expunged as well, and with any luck my new health regime will prevent them from coming back.
So that’s probably more than you wanted to know. I should probably add an “eyeball” category to my site here.
“It wasn’t bio-restorative formula, was it?”
After the last surgery, my right eye was about as red as Swamp Thing’s eyes, so you’re close!
Okay, enough Eyeball Talk….I hope everyone has a fun Free Comic Book Day! And remember, if anyone makes buying something a requirement to get a free comic, give ’em the ol’ bra’s d’honneur and march on outta there. Then come to my store, where I won’t make you buy anything to get your freebies…but I may make sad puppydog eyes at you until you do buy something. THAT’S MY PROMISE TO YOU.
And speaking of my store, I got some paperwork the other day regarding the nomination of my shop for the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award. Clearly some kind of terrible mistake has been made. Anyway, more on that later.
Thanks for reading, and have a good Free Comic Book Day, pals!
So basically what’s been happening is this…a year ago, during an eye exam, it was discovered that the blurry vision in my right eye wasn’t just age and a need for glasses, but in fact caused by internal bleeding and blood basically stuck there inside my eyeball and not getting flushed out. Several eyeball injections, operations, and a cataract replacement later, that eye is now well on its way to healing.
However, in the meantime, about two weeks ago I was at the shop when I suddenly noticed a lot of blood suddenly appearing in my line of vision in my left eye. The same situation that had occurred in my right eye was now happening literally before my eyes…well, eye…and I rushed back to Ye Olde Eye Doctor for treatment. One more shot put a stop to the bleeded, but now I had to wait for the blood to eventually wash out of that eyeball.
That meant the left eye, the good eye that I have been depending on all this time, the eye that let me still drive and read and such, was now more or less out of commission. I mean, I could still see out of that eye, but it was like looking through gaps in my vision, like there was a beaded curtain of blood that was parted in places that I could see through. With a little effort, I was able to kind of focus around it, thought frustratingly when I would try to directly focus on something, it was like one spiral of blood would just swing directly into my light of sight…I would almost have to look at things out of the side of my eye to see whatever it was I was trying to see.
During all this, my right eye was still healing, and was almost but not quite able to pick up some of the slack. Large images, like say watching TV or something, was fine, but looking at text was difficult…letters looked at straight on were slightly distorted, and it would take some doing, and some slow going, to read anything at length.
Then within the last week or so, I had some other complications. My right eye, which had been coming along fine, had what was described to me as “post-operative bleeding.” A little blood got in there and essentially diffused throughout my eye, fuzzing out whatever vision I had. The good news was that, since the actual gel in my eye is still in the process of being replaced post my multiple surgeries, the blood pretty evenly spread out and cleaned itself out over a few days.
The big problem, however, was early last week, when the blood in my left eye, whicih had been in those “beaded curtain” clumps, suddenly broke apart and also diffused throughout my eye, obscuring pretty much all vision there at the same time my right eye was also fogged up with blood. For a couple of days there, I was more or less effectively blind. I mean, I could see shapes and light and such, but no way was I able to, say, break down and process the new comics shipment on Tuesday, check anything off an invoice, or do the pull lists.
Thankfully my dad has been able to help me at the shop for the last week or so, and my girlfriend as well, otherwise I’d still be sitting on last week’s Diamond shipment wishing for elves to appear overnight and do my job for me. And my right eye has cleared up, so my vision is…well, not perfect yet, but I can see well enough out of that eye to function, though I’m still having trouble with low-contrast things (and I still can’t quite make out Marvel’s cover prices in this tiny tiny type without the aid of a magnifying glass). Even now as I type this on my computer at home, I have the screen colors inverted, with white on black being far easier for me to handle.
My left eye, however, is likely also going to need some surgery to properly clear out that mess in there. We could wait and see if it’ll wash out on its own, but it could take weeks and because that gel in that eye is still intact, that blood is just kind of suspended there. Apparently the fact that it diffused like it did is a mostly good sign, that it’s breaking down and possibly getting reabsorbed, but it may still take too long and surgery appears to be the bst option.
So, for now, I still can’t drive, my dad is still going to help me at the shop (and likely will need him to check things off the invoice when the new comics come in, since those seem to be printed in off-white ink on white paper)…but my right eye is improving, and I should be reasonably functional during Free Comic Book Day.
The good news is that the poor health I was in that caused these issues has more or less been corrected or controlled…the bad news is that I still have to deal with the damage I caused myself. It’s affected my ability to work, it’s affected my ability to keep up on this site…I can’t even read comics right now, which is a terrible thing for a guy who, oh, I don’t know, owns a comic book store. But I really have no one to blame but myself.
Anyway, I’m surprised I was able to type all that. And it turns out, I’m having a less difficult time being able to read the text as I type it than I expected. It feels like my right eye has improved at least a bit since even yesterday, which is a good sign. Not perfect yet, and I’m certainly going to need some sort of glasses eventually (aside from the dollar store cheaters I’ve been depending on), but it’s certainly better than the nuthin’ I was getting last Tuesday.
So that’s what’s going on. I will be back blogging on a regular basis eventually, and I do want to post something about Free Comic Book Day, coming soon to a fairly okay comic book store near you. It may be a couple weeks before I get up to speed again, so thank you for your patience, and continuing to indulge my extended blatherings. I’ll talk to you again soon.
Going to keep this super-brief (no, really, I mean it this time) to give my peepers a rest, so let me just answer a couple of questions.
Allan wrenches out the following
“*looks at Mike’s twitter feed* Is…is that the same shirt you wore for your previous eye surgery? Do you have a lucky eye surgery shirt?”
He is of course referring to this photo, which is probably about as stoned-looking as you’ll ever see me, since the anesthesia and other assorted chemical-goodies they doped up with really threw me for a loop this time.
…Anyway, yes, that is indeed the same shirt I wore for the previous two operations. I was instructed to wear a “loose-fitting, short-sleeved shirt” and that was the loosest-fitting, shortest-sleeved shirt I had available. Also, it’s kinda oldish and worn out, not unlike its wearer, so I wouldn’t mind if, say, blood or eye-juice got squirted on it.
In response to my “new shelf at the store” post, philfromgermany imports the following question:
“The wall display look amazing. Are these mostly for trades? Do you leave the new books on the wall for a week or longer before filing them away?”
The big, long wall rack is for the periodicals (though I do have a couple books up there)…I tend to leave stuff up there for a month before filing them away, though I have enough space to keep some items up for longer if I wish. (For example, I’ve been keeping all of Doomsday Clock up there, and until just recently I had every issue of the new Uncanny X-Men series on the new comics shelf as well.) In general, the week’s new releases are on the top two rows, and the previous month’s (or so) books are on the bottom four.
The trade paperback shelves (which I was adding to with that bookshelf I just built and took that picture of) are on the opposite wall, though I have a three-leveled table near the front center of the store where I try to put all the new weekly TP and graphic novel arrivals. After that they get moved to the big bookshelf (that looks sorta like the comic racks) where they’re displayed front facing, then eventually movied to the regular bookshelves, spine out. Though some books of particular interest are kept on front-facing display (like Saga or the Star Wars books).
Matthew wonders
“Do you have a quarter/dollar/clearance section for back issues and trade paperbacks? If so, how do you decide what goes in it?”
I do! I didn’t take a picture of it, but I have a small table up near the register that holds a few long boxes of bargain comics (usually stuff acquired for cheap…or just dumped on me…in collections, or excess leftover stock, or material I just don’t think I’ll be able to get a premium back isue price for at any point in the near future). On the three-leveled table I mentioned previously, I have a section of bargain trades and graphic novels, usually items I got on clearance from one of my distributor’s regular discount sales.
OKAY ENOUGH QUESTIONS, Mike’s Eyeball needs to rest. I’ll be back Frieday…IF THE EYEBALL WILLS IT.
Third time’s the charm, with any luck, and today should be my final of a series of eye surgeries…barring complications, of course! It’s just a routine procedure, so they tell me, and I should be up and around and back to work tomorrow, and with any luck I’ll return to my blogging shenanigans here on Wednesday. So, think good thoughts about my eyeball and I should see you soon…with both eyes, finally!
SPECIAL EYEBALL UPDATE: the eye surgery went well, despite looking like this for a few hours after the event:
After a post-op check-up on Thursday, it looks like I’m well on my way to healing up and being back in stereoscopic action before you know it. However, it is going to take some time for that eye to clear up as it heals from the recent medical intrusions. So, in the meantime, since having one good eye and one eye’s vision temporarily obscured is a bit distracting, if not outright headache inducing, you may catch me at the store looking a little something like this:
Look, it was either that or squeezing my right eye shut for hours at t time. I mean, yes, I know, it’s good enough for Popeye, but friends, I am no Popeye. I’m not really much of a Nick Fury, either…more “nearly forgotten David Hasselhoff TV version” than “far cooler Samuel Jackson version.”
Anyway, thanks for all your good thoughts and well-wishes, here, on Twitter, via email and otherwise. I appreciate it all, and I should be back into regular blogging action next week.
Today’s the big day, so please enjoy this soothing comic cover while I’m getting the inside of my eyeball hosed out. Think good thoughts about my peepers if you can, and I’ll see you, presumably, in about a week or so. Thanks for reading!
Mister Mystery #12 (July 1953) – art by Bernard Baily
Long story short, I’ve had some recent health issues that, among other things, have been affecting my vision. No, I’m not blind or anything, but fine details and small print were suddenly out of my reach, to the point where I couldn’t read comic books (GASP!) and more importantly, couldn’t read things like, say, my weekly Diamond invoices or even the cover prices on comics. Like, even with my normal vision, I was having trouble making out cover prices set in that 2-point type some publishers like to use. But with recent events…feh.
Anyhoo, not to worry, I’ll be fine, I’m having treatments and my vision has more or less normalized. I still need real glasses, and not these dollar-store readers I’ve been depending on, but that will have to wait until one of my eyes fully heals so it can be properly tested (another long story short: I had a hemorrhage in one eye, and it’ll take time for the blood in there to be reabsorbed).
Thus, if you’ve noticed a preponderance of typos on the site of late, well, there you go. Not that life here on Progressive Ruin Isle has ever been totally relaxed and tpyo-freee, but now that my vision has recovered sufficiently improved functionality, I’m going back and noticing some egregious errors. I’ll fix ’em as I can find ’em, folks, so I appreciate your patience.
Meanwhile, this means I have a pretty good sized backlog of new funnybooks to plow through and see what everyone’s complaining about now. The thing I don’t like about DC’s biweekly schedule for some of their books is that, even though I don’t take home all that much, even a slight delay in reading the new comics, and then suddenly BAM I’m like five issues behind on The Flash or whatever. Frankly, I’ll be glad when everything gets knocked back to monthly…it’ll be so much easier to keep up. I don’t mind some biweekly books, and the way things are going, that’s where DC is basically headed anyway. In fact, now that I’m thinking about it, there aren’t too many biweeklies left. Huh.
So what did I read? Why, Doomsday Clock #7, natch:
This is it, The Big One, the issue where something finally seems to kind of happen, as Dr. Manhattan at long last makes his onscreen big blue appearance after like two something years of teasing. And yes, in answer to the question everyone’s been pondering, he does present the Full Manhattany, which would have been a first, I think, for a DC comic starring their establishing superhero characters if it weren’t for, well, you know. But all in all, a good year for penises over at Detective Comics Comics.
As I’ve said in the past, I’m oddly fascinated by this series while also recognizing the issues with it. I don’t know, I feel like Doomsday Clock is totally going to Millennium it and the final issue will be the introduction of the new Watchmen superhero team with new member Tasmanian Devil and their new leader Cyborg. …Well, maybe not, but now that the can of Watchmen has been opened, seem unlikely DC will just try to shove ’em back in there.
Oh, another specific point about this issue: wasn’t one of the points about Manhattan’s character originally that he witnessed what was happening around him but couldn’t act on it, that he was “a puppet who could see the strings,” resigned to the inevitability of the actions he’d relate from the past? That the entire premise of Doomsday Clock and how it all relates to DC’s “New 52″/”Rebirth” universe(s) is based on him changing something he’s observing in “the past” (which for him is just as “present” as “the actual present” due to his unique perspective unbound by linear time) seems…a bit odd. I mean, I suppose technically one could extrapolate Manhattan’s ability to change things in the past at various points in the timeline as he experiences it, but…that seems contrary to how he’s presented in Watchmen, where he’s locked into a pattern he can’t change, only observe as he exists through it.
But then again, at the end of Watchmen he seems to be more willing to fiddle with things, so maybe “let me go into what you normies think of as ‘the past’ and futz it up a bit” could come from there. Then maybe he can dip into his own past and prevent that guy from stepping on that watch, preventing the whole accident that made him Dr. Manhattan in the first place. You know, so long as we’re low-end Quantum Leap-ing things in this joint.
So anyway, Doomsday Clock, it remains a thing. I was going to cover a few other recent books, but…well, let’s save that for next time.
So, always on the lookout for the latest and freshest Popeye news as I am, I spotted this story about a company about to debut brand new cartoons starring our favorite rough ‘n’ tumble one-eyed sailor with a heart of gold on his official YouTube channel. Well, first I was all “oh hey, new Popeye cartoons, cool” before it dawned on me that “oh, wait, there’s an official YouTube channel?” which I had no idea even existed (putting lie to my initial claim that I”m always on the lookout for Popeye news, I guess). Anyway, there it is, right now mostly heavy on the (relatively) later color Popeye cartoons post-Fleischer Studios, including a number in Spanish and, um, a Beetle Bailey cartoon for a reason not immediately obvious to me (though I suppose there is one if I bothered to look).
According to the article this studio is going to “take over” the YouTube channel once the new cartoons are ready to go, so I have no idea how long the currently-available offerings will remain so. Go watch ’em while you can, I guess. I did sample one myself, “Sky High Fly Try,” which featured the following sequence right at the beginning:
Here’s Olive, cookin’ up some hot dogs at her concession stand:
And along comes Popeye, wearing his traditional pilot gear outfit with which we’re all so familiar, pokin’ his nose right on in there to get a good gander at those wonderful wieners:
…when Olive, in her hot dog preparation exuberance, reaches over with the tongs and inadvertently grabs and yanks Popeye’s nose into one of her buns, resulting in this surprised expression:
PLEASE NOTE: THERE ARE TWO EYES.
“THERE…ARE…TWO…EYES!”
Okay, given the limitations of the animation in question, all we can really determine is that there is a black dot where Popeye’s right eye should be…it could represent an empty, black pit, a hideous scar forever reminding him of whatever unknown tragic incident in his past (this notwithstanding) robbed him of that precious orb. However, I think it’s not entirely unreasonable to assume that it in fact represents an actual eye (otherwise, there’d be, I don’t know, an “X” as shorthand for the missing eye, or more likely not have bothered in the first place with briefly doing away with the squint).
Or maybe it was just a one-off gag done for the larfs, and not some kind of secret revelation that Popeye had maybe a scratched cornea, or a persistent stye, or similar, which is why he just kept that eye shut all the time instead of getting some Visine or even, like, an eyepatch.
Anyawy, just thought that was interesting. I’ll try to keep tabs on that YouTube channel for when they start cranking out the new cartoons…I’d like to see what they’re gonna do with it.
Speaking of Popeye, the Funko Pop! Popeye (or Funko Pop!eye, as it should have been called) just came out:
…and it’s just as adorable in person. Yeah, yeah, I know I’ve said before I’m not a Pop! “collector” but occasionally the right one (or, um, three or four, as in the case of the Swamp Thing Pops) comes along and I gotta have it. And yeah, it’s pretty amazing. Here’s hoping they eventually get around to Nancy and Sluggo…they seem like naturals for this particular format.
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