retailing

In which Mike is all over the map.

filed under Categories all star batman, market crash, retailing

Pal Dorian told me about this cover for the third printing of Supergirl #1. It’s an homage to the introduction of the original* Supergirl, it’s charming as all get out, and it’s a darn shame it’s the exact opposite of the godawful mess that’s actually inside the book. Ah, well.

Hey, there’s some kind of giant orange lizard creature on the cover of the new Marvel Knights: 4. I hope the Thing fights it inside.

YOUR EMBARRASSING STORY OF THE DAY: Several years ago, I had a customer who, as it happened, was blind in one eye, and was wearing a patch over said eye. He asked me if we had a particular item in stock. I told him that, no, we were out of that item at the moment. He asked if we could ever get it back in stock, and if so, if I could let him know when it does show up.

I told him that I’d keep an eye out for it.

Even as I was saying it, I was thinking “maybe this isn’t the best way to say this to this particular customer,” but too late…it was out of my mouth.

Luckily, he wasn’t offended…and maybe I was worrying just a tad too much, but boy, to this day I can’t believe I said that to him.

Congratulations to Will Pfeifer on hitting his weblog’s one year mark! Go visit his site, and give him some well-wishing along with the Duke!

And vaya con pollos to weblogging mainstay Franklin Harris, who’s putting an end to his site, for good this time. We’ll miss ya, Mr. Harris!

Someone, somewhere, at this very moment, is having a heart attack over how Batman is portrayed in All Star Batman and Robin #2. But man, I couldn’t stop laughing, not so much as to the actual content of the story, but to Frank Miller’s hearty “screw you” to the fans who want their Batman deadly serious. (And yeah, I know Batman’s behavior was, mostly, supposed to be an act to get reactions out of Dick Grayson. Still damned funny.)

Okay, just when you’ve thought you’ve heard the last of this…so, about the early ’90s comic crash….

Now stop that groaning, this’ll only take a minute or two.

Anyway, we were trying to pin down if Superman #75 (the dreaded “Death of Superman” issue) came out at the same time as Turok #1 (the dreaded “Death of the Comics Market for All Time” issue). Some folks said “yay,” others, like commenter Gardner said “nay,” and, lacking easy access to our invoices of the time, I sought an answer elsewhere.

And that elsewhere was Comiclist, which not only has current new releases, but new release lists dating back to ’91, complete with a search engine. Looking there, Superman #75 was scheduled for release in mid-November 1992, and Turok #1 was due April of ’93.

Now, there were a lot of #1s coming out at the same time as that Turok, but the only really big one was Marvel’s Infinity Crusade. However, with Marvel having gone to that “Infinity” well a few too many times over too short a period, it didn’t do so well. So, basically, Turok wasn’t facing much competition from other titles that week. However, looking at these lists, I see quite a few things that most stores (including our own…we’re not innocent in this) probably way overordered. Sigh…this much “nostalgia” isn’t healthy, I’m sure.

On a (mostly) non-comic-related note, pal Scott (who is also secretly pal JP‘s brother) has had his book turned into a movie directed by Harold Ramis and starring John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and freakin’ Randy Quaid. Hey, pretty cool.

And in other movie news: “The Legend of Cabin Boy.”

* Freudian slip alert: as I was typing this sentence, I was intending to type “original,” but somehow I typed “real.” I see what the deepest, darkest recesses of my fanboy brain is thinking….

I contain multitudes.

filed under Categories retailing

COMIC SHOP CUSTOMER TYPE: The Narrow-It-Downer

“So, I’m looking for a comic I had a while back. It may have been published in the ’50s or ’60s, or maybe the early ’70s. I think Superman was in it, or maybe Spider-Man. Anyway, they were fighting some guys in costumes. Oh, and the cover was like a reddish-blue or orange color. Do you have that issue?”

COMIC SHOP CLERK TYPE: The Bummer

“Yeah, it’s too bad about the comics industry. I’m sure it’ll all be gone within a couple years. Nobody’s buying any of this new stuff, everybody complains about every new book, nothing’s as good as it used to be, sales are in the dumps, creators are leaving the industry in droves, paper prices are skyrocketing, and we all die alone and afraid.

“Thanks for shopping.”

COMIC SHOP CUSTOMER TYPE: The Magpie

No sample dialogue…mostly just says “is this free?” repeatedly as he or she grabs everything that even vaguely looks like it’s being offered free of charge. Generally buys nothing.

COMIC SHOP CLERK TYPE: The Reader

(As he’s ringing you up) “Hey, this looks pretty good!” (starts flipping through the comic you’re trying to buy)

COMIC SHOP CUSTOMER TYPE: The Spoiler

(On new comics day, a customer flips through one of the new releases) “Wow, hey, I can’t believe they just killed off Lady Dynamo in the new issue of Super Militia! Right on the last page, too. I never saw that coming!”

(Said to you, before you’ve had a chance to read Super Militia for yourself. Customer may thrust the page in question right into your face, for added effect)

COMIC SHOP CLERK TYPE: The Just-Like-Comic-Book-Guy-on-The-Simpsons Guy

Just read the quotes here and here and here. You’ve met him. Oh yes.

Sample: “But Aquaman, you cannot marry a woman without gills. You’re from two different worlds.”

COMIC SHOP CUSTOMER TYPE: The Unreasonable Mint Hound

Customer: “I’m looking for a copy of Tales from the Uncanny Valley #2. I’ve been looking for that thing for years…I can’t believe just how rare that comic is. I’ve encountered dealers who’ve never even seen an issue of this series. According to my sources, there may only be about 20 to 25 copies of that particular issue left in the world.”

Clerk: “Oh, hey, we have one. It’s in Very Fine Minus for $25.00.”

Customer: “No thanks, I’d rather get one in better condition.”

COMIC SHOP CLERK TYPE: The Giver of Too Much Information

“So, yeah, that was some fight my girlfriend and I had last night. Man, she was really letting me have it, just because she thinks I drink too much. Ah, well, it’s worth a little grief, since she’s good in the sack, know what I mean? Anyway, it all started at a party we were at earlier that day…I just had a couple beers, just to loosen up, and I tripped on a chair and really banged the hell out of my elbow. It’s still all crusty and sore…hey, take a look at that, does that look infected? So that’s when my old lady started giving me sh–

“What? No, sorry kid, we don’t sell Pokemon cards.”

COMIC SHOP CUSTOMER TYPE: The Poseur

“I see comics as the ultimate form of free, personal expression, unfettered by commercial restraints. I prefer comics that strive for this ideal, eshewing cliches in favor of originality. Please, good comic book clerk, lead me to your graphic novels, where I may find artistic beauty in its purest state.”

…And, no matter what he’s shown, he buys Wolverine comics drawn by Sam Keith.

COMIC SHOP CLERK TYPE: The Dick

“Oh, you’re buying that comic? Boy, that one really sucks. The writer on that book really doesn’t know what he’s doing. But, given the character he’s working with, I suppose it’s not entirely his fault. And that artist…has he ever seen an actual human body? Man, I can’t believe anyone actually enjoys that comic.

“Hey, why are you putting it back on the shelf?”

In which I add a title to a blog post 14 years later just so I have something to properly link to.

filed under Categories collecting, pal dorian, retailing

Sorry, no rundown of every comic title this week. I’m still recovering from the last four weeks’ worth of commentary!

To build on something my esteemed weblogging colleague pal Ian noted…I posted something* quite a while ago about how the “Giant-Size Man-Thing” jokes should probably be given a rest now that the joke has come full circle and actually been used in a published issue of Man-Thing. So, now that one of the Big Two has actually published a comic with the slightly unwieldy title of DC Countdown to Infinite Crisis, all those jokes, like the one Ian mentions, about crossovers with ridiculous names like “Atlantis Attacks the Secret Crisis of the Millennial Genesis of Champions,”** should hopefully come to a rest as well. Though, to be fair, the actual indicia of the comic reads DC Countdown.

Yes, that means I’ve read next week’s DC Countdown, since DC surprisingly included it in the retailer preview pack this week. Well, I can say that I enjoyed it for what it was: a semi-tour of current events in the DC Universe, and a lead-in to forthcoming events in various books. “To be continued throughout the DC Universe,” it says at the end. It’s certain to royally piss off people who were already pissed off by Identity Crisis, so keep that in mind before you buy it.

CONVERSATIONS AT THE STORE, ONE

Yesterday morning, after the new comics order has been broken down and counted, and I’m taking a moment to flip through the new Overstreet Price Guide:

Me: “I’m going to poke though the glossary and see if Overstreet has officially accepted the term ‘Bronze Age’…whoa, hold on.”***

Dor: “What?”

Me: “Not only does the definition appear without any disclaimers, they say the Bronze Age runs from ’70 to 1984!”

Dor: “What about the other ages?”

[brief discussion follows about the other comics ages, until….]

Me: “Lemme look up ‘Modern Age’ — huh? It’s ’92 to present?”

Dor: “What’s ’85 to ’91? [makes wild, sarcastic guess] ‘Copper Age?'”

Me: [after looking it up] “Holy crap, it is Copper Age!”

Conversation devolves into laughter and swearing shortly afterwards. Tape ends.

Later, poking through Overstreet, Dorian discovers an article about “Pioneer Age” comics, from the 1500s into the early 1800s. Oh dear.

I’m assuming “Bronze Age” ends at ’84 because of Crisis on Infinite Earths, probably as clear a demarcation between “eras” as you’re going to get in the early ’80s. And presumably 1992 is the start of the “Modern Age” as that’s the year Image was unleashed upon an unsuspecting world.

I’m not sure what was different enough about ’85-’91 to keep it from being listed as “Modern Age” as well…the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the subsequent black and white boom? The release of stuff like Miracleman and Watchmen and Dark Knight? The proliferation and success of certain indie companies, some of which were dead or dying in ’91 (like, say, First Comics)? Well, okay, I guess in retrospect, it was quite a different period from the Image/Wizard/speculator boom that followed…but still, “Copper Age?”****

Oh, and on the topic of actual prices in Overstreet…every time a new edition comes in, the first thing I look at is the House of Secrets listing to see how #92 (the first Swamp Thing) is doing. Looks like my copy is in the $600 range now. Cool. Er, not that I’m selling.

CONVERSATIONS AT THE STORE, TWO

Instead of a semi-accurate, partially-fictionalized transcript, I’m just going to tell you that pal Corey and Kid Chris had a discussion about Booster Gold as a Christ figure, and leave it at that.

Oh, yeah, new comics yesterday. The Manhattan Guardian, the newest Seven Soldiers of Victory spin-off, is quite good. And, well, I’m trying to keep current DC events out of my mind as I read about the adventures of the Giffen-era league in Justice League Classified, but, well, as I’ve said before, it’s kind of rough to see jokes about Sue Dibny’s pregnancy.

Ah, and I see what took New Avengers #4 so long to come out…they were busy constructing extra butt for this cover. And what’s up with the trade dress on the new issue of Rogue? The stripe across the top of the comic, with the little Comics Code Authority-esque stamp at the right hand side with Spidey’s face? A portent of things to come? Or did I just miss one of Marvel’s many press releases somewhere along the way? EDIT: Well, duh. Commenter Craig points out what should have been obvious to me. What’s odd is that I had two separate thoughts about this cover during new comics day: “hey, what’s with the trade dress” and “oh, look, it’s based on the cover to Uncanny X-Men #173.” Had the two thoughts ever encountered each other in my head at any point, I would have answered my own question. See what new comics day does to comic shop employees?

All you Jhonen Vasquez fans should note that there’s a new issue of Filler Bunny this week as well. Now with extra offensiveness! (We’re sure to sell a ton of ’em.)

The last part of the second Simpsons/Futurama crossover is out…and, well, the first series was better, I think, though not to say this series was bad by any means. Hopefully now they have enough pages to put both series into a much-needed trade paperback.

If any of you picked up the James Bond Casino Royale book this week, Dorian noticed that one of our copies was missing several pages, so you might want to check yours as well.

We also got our Free Comic Book Day shirts today, so it’s time to turn ourselves into walking billboards. Well, Kid Chris and I got ours…Dorian sprang for the tasteful polo shirt, which apparently hasn’t shipped yet.

* It’s at the bottom of the page…you may have to scroll down a bit. I hadn’t quite worked out the whole image-posting thing at the time.

** Actually, that was kinda fun, making up that title!

*** In retrospect, I think I already did know that Overstreet had accepted the Bronze Age term…I just have the old price guide caveat of “Bronze Age is an informal definition” stuck in my head.

**** Yes, I realize how nerdy and obsessive this all sounds. Honestly, I don’t worry that much about it…my time’s better spent keeping track of all that obscure Swamp Thing trivia.

New comics and new magazines about old comics.

filed under Categories retailing, sick day, this week's comics

What stinks about being sick is that I suddenly have more time to read, but I’m not able to easily concentrate on what it is I’m reading, which makes things a little difficult. So, of course, both the new issues of The Comics Journal and Alter Ego come out. I’m feeling a little better now, but there was no way I was going to be able to read these last night. Oy. TCJ contains a series of articles about Cerebus and its creator, Dave Sim, plus an interview with Ed Brubaker and reprints from George Carlson’s Jingle Jangle Tales. I own a handful of Jingle Jangle Tales, and they’re all demented and brilliant…if you’ve not seen this comic before, you have to take a peek at the new TCJ. Anyway, this new issue looks interesting, but I haven’t been able to do more than just skim it, unfortunately.

The new Alter Ego has more stuff about Frankenstein’s Monster in comic books than you’d ever want to see, ever…it does has a short Frankie-focused interview with Bernie Wrightson, plus a look at a comic I haven’t read enough of, Dick Briefer’s version of Frankenstein. This issue includes 25 daily strips by Briefer for a proposed Frankenstein daily, and they’re really something else.

Other new arrivals (possible SPOILERS):

Mad Magazine #447 – Sergio Aragones brings us “A Mad Look at Politicians,” which is great, as Aragones always is. The mag also includes a pull-out Alfred E. Neuman for President poster. Look for the Mort Drucker George W. Bush as the Cat in The Hat cover.

Punisher #12 – okay, okay, the story’s finally over, for all you people who got tired of it. I enjoyed it, myself. Sometimes I need a little morally-abhorrent mayhem in my comics reading, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

Astro City – A Visitor’s Guide – eek, $5.95? But there’s a lot of material packed into this comic…lots of text pages that I’ll have to read later when I’m not so sick, a short comic by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, and Ben Oliver) and an extensive gallery of Astro City’s inhabitants by a variety of artists (including Howard Chaykin, Kelley Jones, Dave Gibbons, and Bruce Timm). I think you’ll get your money’s worth out of this funnybook.

Fallen Angel #16 – good as usual, and equally good is the news that Fallen Angel sales have bumped up a bit, with the possibility of a second collection. The promo comic helped, but I’d like to think a little online word-of-mouth (via comics weblogs and elsewhere) helped a bit, too.

Action Comics #820 – I read Superman comics, so you don’t have to…the art on this issue by Carlos D’Anda is nicely done, reminding me a bit of Art Adams (appropriate, given Adams’ work on the covers lately). But, really, the story didn’t really do anything for me…the villain’s M.O. seemed different from what I remembered, and the sudden focus on the guest-hero near the end of the book was admittedly interesting, but out of nowhere and out of place, I think.

Also: JSA #66 (a happy ending all around, I guess, as one of the “mistakes” of Zero Hour is corrected), Fables #30 (Snow White finally gives birth, and the winner of the Fabletown election discovers the cloud in his silver lining…very amusing issue), Ex Machina #5 (really, you need to be reading this comic), Challengers of The Unknown #5 (there’s nothing quite like a Howard Chaykin comic), and Tom Strong #29 (it’s an “everything you know is wrong” story, but at least for once there’s no pretense at trying to fool the reader that really everything we know is wrong).

Other arrivals: the SPX 2004 Anthology (the War issue, which has an alarming cover by Steve Lieber, featuring a tank rolling over the remains of comic characters, Charlie Brown’s shirt fluttering on the barrel), Secret War #3 (just took a brief glance through it…is it really half “S.H.I.E.L.D.” files?), and X-Force #3 (…I’m just still amazed this is actually happening).

We also received our incentive packs for our orders on the Dreadstar reprint volumes. Fortunately, we were going to order quite a few of the Dreadstar books anyway, so it’s not like we had to bump up our orders a lot to reach the incentive plateaus (like we had to on that most recent issue of Wolverine in order to get the variant…which arrived this week, finally). And it’s a good thing we didn’t, because we would have been pissed…included in the packs were four copies of the Battle of the Planets paperbacks that reprinted the Gold Key comic book series. You remember, the books that featured such terrible black and white reproductions of the comics that the publisher had to take returns on them? This is apparently how the publisher is getting rid of them again. Well, crud.

"I will pick up your dirty bird!"

filed under Categories retailing

1. Finally, after months (well, days) of me badgering him, pal Dorian has posted photographic proof of the Baby Huey movie.

2. All I have to say about the most recent episode of Justice League Unlimited – God bless you, Paul Dini, for giving us an animated version of B’wana Beast. I even got a kick out of his “surfer” accent (and somewhere, The World’s Biggest B’wana Beast Fan is writing a letter of protest). The episode as a whole was a lot of fun, and very much played for laughs…that was original Not Ready for Prime Time Player Laraine Newman as Medusa! Also, they’re still playing with the romantic connection between Batman and Wonder Woman…when did this whole Batman/WW romance Zeitgeist start going around? It’s been popping up in the comics over the last couple of years, now it’s in the cartoons…somehow, this is all Grant Morrison’s fault, I’m sure.



3. That panel to the right is from the infamous Iron Man #157, as described in detail over on the Comic Treadmill. And yes, having now perused said funnybook, it’s as incredibly average as H says. Really, the most you can say about it is that yes, it fills 20 (or however many) pages, thus allowing Marvel to publish an Iron Man comic that month.

3a. And yes, H and Mag, I do indeed have more copies of this comic available.

3b. Speaking of the Treadmill, did you see this panel Mag posted? If you like out-of-context comic panels, like I know I do, then you really need to check it out.

4. For those of you who had a hard time believing that people treat our store like a day-care center like Dorian said, let me relate a story from Sunday: so I was working at the back counter, putting together some reorders, when I spotted a couple of little girls (about 3 and 4, maybe) wandering around unattended. They were running (which I had to put a stop to before they fell and got hurt), they were spinning one of the comic racks around as fast as they could (I had to put a stop to that too, being the mean old man that I am), they were coming to the counter I was working at and grabbing papers, tape dispensers, what have you, off that counter, and just generally getting underfoot (particularly in employees-only areas). No parents in sight, mind you. After a few minutes of trying to be patient with them, I finally had to draw the line when the older girl grabbed one of my pencils and attempted to write on some of the comic boxes.

Well, that was enough. I finally tracked down their parents, who up to this point had made no attempt to keep tabs on their kids, on the other side of the store (we have a fairly sizable shop) and informed them that they’ll have to supervise their children. The mom’s response? “But I’ve been supervising them all day.” Yes, I swear to you, she actually said that. I’m sorry if asking you to do your job as a parent is an inconvenience, but unless you’re going to pay me some babysitting money, I’m not going to take care of your children for you.

5. And here’s something incredibly immature of me to post, but you know kids were giggling over these panels 35 years ago:




from Huckleberry Hound #38 (July 1969)

In which I talk about my faovorite subject, me.

filed under Categories collecting, retailing

1. Courtesy pal Tom again…more reviews of Green Arrow’s arrows. Hey, I think it’s funny.

2. Word on the street is that Thought Balloon’s Kevin Melrose has a new site, Scryptic Studios, for “aspiring, semi-professional, and professional comic book writers.” Neat! (I particularly like Kevin’s confession on this page.)

3. THE MEME: From the Comics Journal message board, a list of questions regarding comic stores and comic-buying habits…I see pal Ian answered those questions — that’s my place of employment he’s talkin’ ’bout, brother! I thought it might be at least a little interesting (well, for me, anyway) to answer these, at least from the perspective of someone who manages a comic shop:

A. Do you tend to go to the nearest store, the best store, any store, or does it matter?

I go to the store I work at. Actually, before I entered my indentured servitude, that was my store of choice since first shopping there over 20 years ago.

B. Ladies, what books do you tend to purchase, or what kind would you like to purchase (if you are a male please leave blank or supply what a girlfriend reads)?

The girlfriend really, really, really likes Spider-Man…she was also a fan of Marvel’s G.I. Joe series.

C. What one thing would you add or change about your most frequented store (i.e. What is the worst thing about the store)?

I would change the backroom organization (i.e. less stuff), and get even more shelves for the front of the store. Ideally, I would love more space…we may have to wait for one of our neighboring stores to move out so we can knock down a wall and expand, because I’ll be damned if I’m moving the whole store again. (After our last move into a larger location a few years back, I had dreams about moving boxes of comics for months.)

Oh, and I’d also change my salary to a million dollars a month.

D. What one thing would you not change (i.e. What is the best thing about the store)?

The wide and varied selection of new and old funnybooks! And our customers…despite my recent gripes about certain types of customers, we’ve got a pretty good clientele with several cool and nice people.

E. Do you read any small press comic books currently? Which one(s)? (examples: Lone Star Press, Avatar)

Yes…I’ve been a long supporter of independent comics, stemming in part from being exposed to a wide selection of indies at my shop of choice from the very beginning of my comic-shop patronage. I’ll check out just about anything from Fantagraphics, Slave Labor, and, oh, that AiT/Planetlar company too, I guess…and I’ll poke through any indie that happens to grab my attention.

F. What back issues do you buy?

Mostly DC’s funny animal stuff by Shelly Mayer, as well as his Sugar & Spike, Nancy comics, the Dell/Gold Key Peanuts comics (still missing a couple!), Turok (the original good stuff, not Valiant era), any fun-looking Silver Age Superman-family comics, 1950s and 60s-era Archies, Herbie, and old fanzines.

G. How do you decide what comic book to buy? Writer, artist, character, word of mouth, etc?

All kinds of things…I notice that I’ll buy DC Comics based on character, while Marvel books I’ll buy based on creator, more or less (though I’ve been buying Hulk for decades, through thick and thin). Word of mouth usually doesn’t convince me to buy comics, but all that talk about Street Angel online got me to try it out. Mostly…if it grabs my eye, it’s halfway there to getting onto my purchase pile.

H. Do you buy strictly current age comic books or do you buy older comic books? What kinds?

I mostly buy new comics, if only because I’ve been buying comics on a regular basis for the last 25 years…if I wanted to read it, I would have bought it off the shelf when it was new.

I. How do you feel about graded comic books?

I’m assuming this means those slabbed, “professionally-graded” comics you see people paying too much for on eBay all the time. I don’t know…I can understand the need for such a service, given most auction sellers can’t grade their way out of a paper bag (to use one of our favorite nonsensical expressions)…but the end result is people paying far too much for items that don’t warrant such prices. People investing too much money in overpriced slabbed books are people that won’t be in the hobby much longer, once they realize they’ll never get back the money they’ve spent.

J. What comic book related merchandise do you buy?

Not much…I do occasionally pick up a single HeroClix of certain characters (like Swamp Thing, natch), and I’ll buy the DC Direct Golden Age character action figures, though they’ve mostly dried up lately. Also, I am still sort of semi-looking for that Fin Fang Foom figure Toy Biz put out a while ago.

K. What do you read if you are not reading comic books?

Geez…just about anything. I’m a voracious (and fast, thankfully!) reader. Just finished The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (lent to me by a customer, who had also let me borrow his run of Flashman novels). Also just read Coalescent by Stephen Baxter (who for once didn’t end his science fiction novel with “we’ll never interact with other worlds in any meaningful fashion, we’re pretty much stuck on Earth, and there’s no escape from the entropical death of the universe. The end”). On the waiting to read pile: Death Rat by Mystery Science Theatre 3000‘s Mike Nelson. I also have a subscription to Macaddict. And I’m slowly working my way through The Old West history series from Time/Life Books that my parents subscribed to in the early-to-mid-70s, and have just recently given to me. And, sometimes, if I’m waiting for something on the computer (like for a CD to burn, a restart, etc.), I’ll pick up the dictionary that I keep on the desk near my Mac and just randomly go through a page.

L. What do you buy at comic book conventions?

I haven’t been in years…when I did go, I just mostly poured through the dollar boxes looking for bargains. My best find was someone selling 1960s Archie comics three for a buck. Woo-hoo!