I’m entering the home stretch in the “opening a comic book store of my very own” process…hopefully next week, depending on how the custom shelving I’m having built turns out. Otherwise, all the new comics will just be dumped into an inflatable pool in the middle of the floor and y’all will just have to dive in for the funnybooks you want.

But things are going well…I’ve got my business cards, the store’s sign should be installed within the next day or two (after getting a wee bit of city hall runaround trying to get the permits properly filed…seems I’ve heard an expression somewhere about the futility of city halls and the fighting thereof), and I’ve been pricing comics like a crazy person. I mean, literally like a crazy person: I’ve been at it almost non-stop to the point where I’m just scrawling indecipherable glyphs on the price stickers. (“What’s the price on this comic?” “‘Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.'” “Um, okay…how’d you fit that on the sticker, anyway?”)

I keep getting asked “am I nervous?” and I suspect I probably am, though for the moment it’s buried beneath my desire to get fixtures installed and comics priced and stuff ordered and so on and so forth. It probably won’t be until the morning of the first day, when everything is more or less in place and all I need to do is unlock the door and let in the (hopefully) massive hordes, that the real worry of “boy, I sure hope people will shop here” will finally get its clutches around what’s left of my heart.

Well, we’ll see soon enough. In the meantime…more fixture building, more comic pricing, and, oh, yeah, should probably teach myself how to use this new cash register at some point, too.

Yesterday was my last day working for Seth’s Games and Anime/Ralph’s Comic Corner.

Today will be the first day of being at the new shop full-time, prepping it for its opening in about two weeks or so.

I’ve opened up the store’s website…not a lot there yet, and there’s still more tinkering to be done and an awful lot of white space (oddly enough, I haven’t had a lot of time to work on it, for some reason!) but go check it out so you can see Benjamin Birdie’s wonderful logo!

As I write this, it’s two in the morning. Related: when WordPress plug-ins say their Facebook integration is “user-friendly,” IT’S ALL LIES.

So basically any free time I have that isn’t earmarked for working in the new shop is devoted mostly to pricing up comics for my back issue bins, which is still going strong. As I noted last time, there are some hard decisions being made regarding what goes in the “keep” pile and in the “sell” pile. By and large, I’m being a good Small Business Owner and putting most things in the “sell” pile, including Vertigo titles I love like Invisibles and Sandman and Preacher because those will probably always be in print (or at least in print long enough for me to eventually reorder them for myself).

And then there’s the occasional moment of “why do I have this one issue of Lucifer?” until I realize “oh, it’s kind of a Swamp Thing tie-in.” (Issue #49, if you’re wondering.)

There’s still lot to do, such as getting my logo prepped (already have seen the nearly-finished version by an artist pal, and it looks great…more details to come!), plus an out-of-town trip or two to pick up some sellable goodies for the shop, such as the one I’ll be making to Los Angeles in just a few hours, as I write this. I’ll keep this short, then, and I’ll make further updates soon. Thanks, pals, and in the meantime, check this out.

The pricing of comics from the Increasingly Less-Vast Mikester Comic Archives continues apace as well, where I find myself preparing my run of Walt Simonson’s Thor for sale with some minor hesitance, while simultaneously discovering I cannot bear to part with my full run of Hex.

There is no explaining the human heart.