In which Mike’s Free Comic Book Day report demonstrates why he never pursued a career as a professional photographer.

filed under Categories free comic book day 8 Comments


Well, that’s another Free Comic Book Day down, plenty of comics given away, plenty of stuff sold to help pay for the comics that were given away, and lo, the clean-up did begin, and last for thirty days and thirty nights.

My first clue that this was going to be a busier-than-usual FCBD was when I showed up at 8 in the morning to prep, we already had several people waiting outside for us to open our doors. In the past I’ve noted that when I’d open up for FCBD, there would be a brief moment where it looked like nobody would show up, that I ordered all these thousands of comics for nuthin’, nuthin’ and then the crowds would eventually build up to expectations after just a few minutes.

Not this time…soon as that door was unlocked a sea of people swept into the shop and we were packed for several hours after that.

This year we decided to try something a little different…in fact, something we’ve been wanting to do at the shop for a while now…by setting up some tables of extra stock outside for a sidewalk sale. Here are store owner Seth and Employee Timmy setting up the tables just prior to opening, while our customers patiently wait for the freebies:


I swear I didn’t notice that kid was wearing Hulk hands when I took this photo. That’s pretty awesome. Anyway, the tables worked out very well, and we moved a lot of books. Here’s a shot of the sidewalk sale in action, watched over by FCBD Draftee Chandler:


Inside, we mobilized pretty much the entire Seth’s/Ralph’s army to manage the situation, but no employee put on the dog more than the eerily-mustachioed Employee Aaron:


…Those a close second may be this mysterious gentleman who showed up to help us give away comics:


At one point he brazenly revealed his identity to the crowds, while Aaron and his wife Kempo…well, they’re up to something at the left of the picture, there, not sure what:


We also had, as a guest, longtime store friend Andy Salazar, presenting his books Pariah, MO and Spacebear to our customers:


Here’s Andy coloring some art and showing folks just how the magic happens:


And I wish I’d taken more, or at least better photos, but it was an enormously busy day, and it seemed like I spent a lot of time helping folks find a bunch of back issues. Which is great, of course…always glad to see people looking for fun work from the past, not just stuff that’s New This Week.

Probably my favorite moment of the day was a mother looking through old Disney comics with her two little girls, aged about 3 and 4. While the younger girl was good with Disney comics, the older wasn’t quite as taken. In fact, pretty much the entire time she was at the counter with her mom and sister, this is what she had to say:

“Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl. Batgirl.”

And so on. As it turned out, the mother looked through some of the Batgirl comics in the bins, and since DC hasn’t published a Batgirl comic for little kids in quite some time, she didn’t feel they’d be appropriate. Fortunately, I was able to find one of the Batman Adventures comics (based on the cartoons) that starred Batgirl, and I was Hero of the Day for, you know, at least a little bit.

There seemed to be a lot of little kids visiting the shop throughout the day, evenly mixed between boys and girls, which was nice. Always happy to see children excited about comics. Saw at least a couple of young’uns in costume, one dressed as Supergirl, another as Wonder Woman.

The actual stock of FCBD books lasted a good portion of the event…by about 3 or so we were down to about a couple dozen different titles, and by the end of the day we had a few leftovers of the DC and Marvel books, and of the Valiant “custom logo” title, as those were the ones of which we’d ordered the most. Throughout the day we supplemented the FCBD stock with that box or so of extras from last year, and some of the 10-cent/25-cent/99-cent/$1 promo comics Marvel, DC and Image had produced over the years that we still had in backstock. Plus, I thinned out a bunch of the FCBD books from my personal collection and graciously, selflessly gave them away as well. No need to thank me.

Also, Awesome Hospital‘s Matt Digges visited and brought us doughnuts. Well, he brought me doughnuts, I don’t know what he brought anyone else.

Ultimately, it was yet another successful Free Comic Book Day for us. Our sales more than covered the costs of the FCBD books, we gave away a lot of comics, we saw plenty of new faces, and we made many people happy. People always ask “does FCBD actually help?” and I think, in the long run, it does. It reminds people that comics exist, that they’re more than flying guys in tights punching each other (though those comics are fun, too!), and that there are stores out there who love comics so much, they actually want to give you a bunch of them for free to try out. And that, if they want more comics, they know where to find them.

And then, after working Free Comic Book Day, your pal Mike went to the late show to see Amazing Spider-Man 2, so if you saw him looking worn out and sleepy on Sunday, please forgive him, because he’s clearly too dumb to know any better.

But if I stayed here with you, girl / Things just couldn’t be the same / ‘Cause I’m as free as a comic now / And this comic you’ll never change.

filed under Categories free comic book day 1 Comment

fcbd2014
A reminder, in case you needed reminding: Free Comic Book Day is tomorrow, so hie yourself hither to a funnybook store near you (or drive a bit and come see us) and get your filthy, filthy paws on some freebies. Also, if you can, drop a dollar or two on some stuff while you’re at the shop, because (ahem) some of us may have ordered a lot of FCBD books, and they ain’t free to shops! But you don’t HAVE to…remember what Diamond told every retailer what the sales conditions were for ordering these comics:

“By buying FCBD editions, you agree that you will give them away for free on May 3, 2014, with no purchase required.”

So if anyone offers the free comics only with purchase, tell them they’re terrible and you hates them, you hates them forever.

Pal Dorian has reviews up on his site of most of this year’s releases. I still say the Don Rosa Duck book is my favorite, but I like the Buck Rogers one a lot, too, since I do enjoy old comic strips.

I haven’t said a whole lot about this year’s event, but feel free to explore my Free Comic Book Day category in case you wanted to see what I’ve said before. I’ve worked every FCBD (except for missing a couple of hours of one FCBD, due to having to go to some jerk’s wedding), so I’ve got a lot to say on the subject. Perhaps…too much.

Anyway, enjoy your Free Comic Book Day, regardless of what side of the counter you’re on, and, um, let’s stay safe out there, I guess? Something like that.

Progressive Ruin presents…the End of Civilization.

filed under Categories End of Civilization 7 Comments

Free Comic Book Day is just around the corner, but even that happy day can’t forestall the coming End of Civilization, predicted right here in the newest Diamond Previews! Grab your copy of the May 2014 edition and follow along, why don’t you:

p. 122 – 136 – The New 52 Future’s End one-shots with 3D covers:


Okay, so ordering DC’s 3D covers last time was a pain in the ass, what with the allocations and shortages and the ensuing hoohar with people trying to grab whatever covers they could find and folks charging $10 apiece for them right out of the gate and I think you’ll agree with me that all sucked.

So now DC is getting orders on 3D covers with (hopefully) enough leadtime to (hopefully) meet demand, and given that the excessive demand last time was mostly based on customers knowing the covers were in short supply, now I have to decide what numbers will actually be enough, if the 3D is “done” and customers won’t be as interested, if overall orders will be conservative and suddenly it’ll seem like there’s not enough to go around and demand jumps again and we won’t have enough, or if everyone overorders and we’re stuck with huge expensive excesses, especially on titles like Grayson which are getting a 3D special one-shot without any reasonable idea how that series is going to sell, aside from the mostly moribund sales for the Nightwing series its replacing, and so on and so on.

Or maybe I’ll get lucky and be hit by a bus before I have to think about placing any of these orders.

p. 143 – Batman Death of the Family Book and the Joker Mask Set:


Comes with “a replica hand-painted vinyl latex mask of The Joker that features sewn-on hair and a white elastic band.” Apparently the do-it-yourself kit that just came with a knife and formaldehyde didn’t make it out of the planning stages.

p. 145 – Forever Evil HC:


Hopefully Volume 2 will include the seventh and final issue of the series, whenever that comes out.

p. 265 – Rabbids Invasion Super Plunger Sound Blaster:


Sometimes things in Previews will make me feel really, really old.

p. 290 – Life with Archie #36:


Ah, yes, the Death of Archie, which 1) I have to explain to everyone looking for it that it’s not really the end of Archie comics for all time, it’s a possible future, blah blah they’ve stopped listening already, and 2) it won’t be out for months, so hopefully you’ll still care when it finally happens this summer sometime!

And look at this totally guilty dude:

p. 298 – Extinction Parade War #1:


Does anyone ever read Avatar’s solicit text all the way through? Maybe they should sneak, I don’t know, a secret phone number in there for people to call for prizes.

p. 414 – Swampmen Muck-Monsters of the Comics SC:


Oooh don’t you tease me again with this book, Twomorrows.

p. 451 – DC Board Book Batman Shapes:


“And what does this shape look like, Batman?”

“JUSTICE.”

“And this one?”

“VENGEANCE.”

“Er, okay. How ’bout this one?”

“M-MY PARENTS! A BLOO BLOO”

p. 451 – DC Board Book Superman Colors:

“And look, Superman, this one’s green!”

“Great Scott! Green (gasp) kryptonite! Feeling…weak! My powers…draining away!”

“Oh for God’s sake, Meryl Streep, it’s just cardboard.”

p. 451 – DC Super Friends Wonder Woman A Word Adventure! Board Book:


“‘It’s too what to make a Wonder Woman movie.’ It’s too what, now?”

“It’s too hard!”

“Yes, that’s right! Very good, Little Billy!”

p. 455 – The Twilight Zone FAQ SC:


“Which episode was the one….”

“‘Time Enough at Last,’ starring Burgess Meredith.”

“Well, what about…?”

“‘Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,’ starring William Shatner.”

“Okay, then what’s….”

“‘Showdown with Rance McGrew.’ Wow, no one ever asks about that one.”

p. 455 – The Big Butt Book 3D HC:


Comics, everyone!

p. 470 – Topps 2014 Chrome Wacky Packages Trading Cards:


Seems to me like “chrome trading cards” would be the very sort of thing Wacky Packages would make fun of.

p. 492 – Marvel Retro Spider-Man Limited Edition Action Figure Box Set:


Dress Spider-Man three different ways: based on the original ’70s Mego figure, with an updated costume, or as Elvis Costello!

p. 535 – Misc. 300 Rise of an Empire prop replicas:


You know, given enough time, these could be ancient artifacts displayed in a museum. “Here are the originals from approximately 500 BC…and then about 2500 years later, another now-extinct civilization duplicated these weapons and armor using inferior materials, which seemingly resulted in that culture’s eventual defeat and downfall.”

p. 539 – Zombie Magneto Mini-Bust:


why

p. 548 – Freddy Krueger Bishoujo Statue:


You know, just when I thought Freddy Krueger couldn’t possibly be made even more sexy….

p. 557 – Doctor Who Large Tote Bags:


I know y’all like to show everyone you’re a fan of the Doctor, but for the luvva Pete don’t bring this one with you to the airport as carry-on.

p. 584 – Peanuts Snoopy Keychains:


You’re Seriously Tripping Balls, Charlie Brown!

There is no way on God’s green Earth this is going in my mouth.

filed under Categories batman, misfit toys 8 Comments

It has been almost literally decades since I’ve last seen this item, but my memory of the sight of it has been with me all this time. And now, here it is again, after all these years, recovered by Ralph from one of the boxes in his office, is the Batman-Colored-As-Robin-More-or-Less blue plastic whistle:

bluewhistlebatman1

bluewhistlebatman2
Don’t know anything about it, don’t know how old it is (probably from the ’70s, if not earlier), no idea how much it’s “worth” (everyone asks me if it’s expensive, I’m guessing “no”), but it’s certainly dirty and the stickers (one on each side) have seen better days.

This is almost, but not quite, proto-Batman of Zur-En-Arrh merchandise.

Next time, it’ll just be a picture of me doing fingerguns.

filed under Categories retailing 6 Comments

1. Thanks to everyone who helped support us in the wake of this really quite annoying act of vandalism…it means quite a lot to us. And our new window should be installed today!

2. I’m beginning to get inquiries for our Retailer Edition of Valiant’s Armor Hunters…it seems only about 45 retailers reached the order plateau to receive the personalized covers, and some folks are trying to get all of them. …After looking at the others, I suppose I should have put a wee bit more effort into ours, but it has Seth’s name and Ralph’s cool logo by pal Tom, along with the website address and the all-important “since 1980” so I guess it’s okay. But it was literally like “hey, we need the art in a day or two” and I was all “(gulp) oh, yeah, art” and I had nuthin’. Next time, I’ll have something fancier ready to go!

3. So I finally got to the Steve Ditko “Killjoy” back-ups in my E-Man reading. Those comics may be the best thing I’ve read all year.

Meanwhile, in Mike’s collection…

filed under Categories trading cards 13 Comments

…in one of his half-dozen or so binders of trading cards, there sits these two Wizard promo cards for the Dark Horse/Valiant crossover series Predator Vs. Magnus Robot Fighter:


…numbered 3 and 4, and I have no idea what 1 and 2 were. The cards are from 1992, advertising the then-forthcoming mini-series, and there they are, 22 years later, still in a card binder, still on a shelf, no real point to having held onto them for all this time other than for using them for this blog post you’re looking at right now. Plus, it’s not like they’re in the way at home or anything…I’m not moving, like, the dining table around and saying “I’d sure like to put this over in that part of the room if it weren’t for those damned Predator Vs. Magnus Robot Fighter trading cards already being kept there.”

Trading card accumulation was a real symptom of ’90s comic collecting, where one could get in cases of Jim Lee’s X-Men or what have you and easily expect to sell through all of them. That particular aspect of the market seems very diminished now…we received the 2014 Marvel Universe cards this week, and expect it’ll take a while to work through even a single box of those. The comic collector/card collector overlap likely burnt out in the overproduction of product a couple of decades back, from both sides of the equation. I remember personally buying and collecting various trading cards, and being fairly excited about tracking down those last few missing numbers I needed to complete a set. The very act of opening packs and collating sets was a strangely satisfying and fun activity in and of itself.

And then, suddenly, that particular collecting urge within me went away. It’s not like I have any newly-found disdain for the card sets I do have: I’m glad I have my Death of Superman set, or that set of chromium cards featuring Golden Age covers, or those two sets of Berni(e) Wrightson cards (with their accompanying special Berni(e) Wrightson binders!), or any of the other oddball sets I’ve gathered. I simply no longer have the desire to obtain more sets, buy more packs, sort more cards.

There are circumstances where I would want to buy more cards, of course, but more as a subset of other obsessions, rather than “I must buy and complete this new set of cards.” If DC Comics put out a new line of cards that included Swamp Thing images, I’m sure I’d set out to track down those specific cards, rather than acquire a full run of the whole release. Unless it was a full Swamp Thing series, in which case, okay, they got me.

Until then, I’m happy with the number of card sets I do have, in those half-dozen binders, resting on that shelf, where I can occasionally pull them down and look at them. And, of course, scan ’em and show them to you.

The Shattered Ponies of Sethergarde.

filed under Categories retailing 5 Comments


So these were the windows in the left side of our storefront, prior to the events of Saturday evening/Sunday morning. Tristan, one of our customers, painted this silly mash-up illustration for us, quite possibly with the sole instruction of “make it as amazingly nerdy as possible,” and lo, he did succeed.

That window painting had been up there for a while, and granted, it was about time for a change, but “having someone smash out half of it” wasn’t really the impetus we were looking for.

For the most part, reaction was positive to it; most of our customers were amused, or bemused, by it, and there was even a mostly-positive Reddit thread about it, of all things. But there were those people who just plain objected to having My Little Ponies in the shop windows. One person even told us “sorry about the windows, but I’m glad that My Little Pony mural is gone,” and, well, that’s tact for you.

Here’s a very good reason for having My Little Pony characters in the window: it got a lot of attention, and attracted a lot of new customers. Parents coming in with their children who specifically cited that painting as the reason they stopped by. Folks who saw pics of the window online and wanted to come by and see the shop in person. That painting Got People Into The Store, and you know I think that’s important because I even capitalized the preposition.

And besides, it’s not like we’re any stranger to weird window paintings, like these examples by our pal Randy Martinez:


Anyway, right now we’ve got big ol’ wooden boards where our window used to be, and hopefully by Tuesday or Wednesday we’ll have our new and (gulp) expensive window in place, and then it’ll be time for a new mural! I thinking something everyone will be sure to love, something action-packed, like Sluggo and Swamp Thing arm-wrestling. That’ll bring in the crowds.

I also wanted to say thanks to the folks who generously responded to my request to pick up some goodies from our listings on eBay and Amazon, and even the few folks who called me up at the store (805-653-2732) to have me track down some items. Please feel free to continue to do so…every little bit helps! (I won’t be in Monday, hopefully, barring any more surprises, but I’ll be back in the shop on Tuesday.)

Again, thank you for the sympathetic response to this completely pointless inconvenience visited upon us. I’ll be back soon to talk about comics instead of just picking at this scab, I promise.

So much for a relaxing Easter.

filed under Categories idiots, retailing 7 Comments

windowbust

Well, someone overnight decided to bust one of our big windows in the front of the store, which is going to set us back a pretty penny…on top of some recent big Diamond invoices and other large expenses, this is almost a bridge too far, here.

So now would be a good time to take a look at our eBay listings, our Amazon listings, or just straight up call me at 805-XXX-XXXX [EDIT: links and phone number removed — the old store is closed] after noon today and order something.

I’m not terribly happy at the moment.

revised 1/2025

Eight out of ten ain’t bad.

filed under Categories collecting 7 Comments

So I made good on my promise…well, my passing whim, at any rate…and dug deep into the back issue bins at the store to pull out a set of the 1970s Charlton run of E-Man. Most of it, at any rate. We had several copies of some issues, in a wide range of conditions, but alas, issues 8 and 10 were not to be found. Sure, I could have settled for the reprints of those original issues First published later, but given the choice, I’m going for the older books, what with the swell covers and the tanned pages and the terrible ads and what have you.

I’m not much of a stickler for condition; so long as they don’t fall apart in my hands or smell like gasoline I’m okay. Most of these were in the Very Good to Fine range, and the worst condition copy was #2, which was in Good (i.e. “the eBay ‘Fine Plus'”):


Speaking of the eBay, it’s probably to the Internet auctionings I go to fill out the run, unless I’ve got #8 and #10 hiding in the backroom of the shop somewhere (and given the “abandon all hope, ye who enter here” state of the backroom, it’s not unlikely).

It does look like we have all of the First Comics series, and then things get a tad complicated after that, looking at the Wikipedia page. Then there’s all the Mike Mauser stuff, Mauser being a private detective supporting character in E-Man and having his own back-up series in Charlton’s Vengeance Squad. I think we have those at the shop, but those are also reprinted along with the original E-Man stories by First Comics, and that series also has some previously unpublished work and now I’m thinking I should have just taken home the reprints instead.

AAARGH. Now I’m waffling. I may bring back the originals and go for the reprints. But the originals have the cool Ditko back-ups. Man, these big decisions are the worst. I’m going to end up buying both versions and hating myself. LOOK WHAT YOU’VE MADE ME DO.

There was also a series teaming up Mike Mauser with Ms. Tree, Ms. Tree being a series I did read and I tell you right now, without checking my inventory list, I couldn’t tell you with any confidence whether or not I own that mini. I’ve seen it at the shop plenty of times, but my memory tells me I didn’t pick it up because I wasn’t familiar or just indifferent to Mauser, but my collector-fanboy-sense tells me I did pick it up because it’s a Ms. Tree tie-in. I have no idea. Okay, hold on for a second, I’ll check.

[tempus fugit]

Looks like I don’t have ’em. Well, I guess if reading E-Man is going to turn me into a Mike Mauser completist, I guess I’d better pick those up at some point, too and fill out that Ms. Tree collection at the same time.

Now, all I have to do is find time to read all these. I’m sure that’ll be no problem. I’ve almost made it through #1!

I swear to God, this is something that actually happened.

filed under Categories wood eye 3 Comments

I posted a few scans from my mini-comics works on the Twitters the other night, some of which I’ve probably featured on this site at one time or another and I will eventually track down and link to with my new “wood eye” category. (Wood-Eye being, of course, the name of the anthology comic most of my mini-comics appeared in.)

After doing Wood-Eye for a few years, in 1998 I put together a solo book reprinting my strips from that anthology along with new strips. That book was called Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin, which is where this website got its name. (You can read more about my mini-comic days, and see a wee tiny scan of the cover for that book, in my very first anniversary post.)

Anyway, one of those new strips was the following, which isn’t so much based on a true story as an exact transcription, and I don’t think I’ve posted it online before, but if so, here it is again:


I was between finals, walking from one building to another on the UC Santa Barbara campus, when that fella came up and said that very thing to me. I had about 40 cents in my pocket, which I handed over to him because you know, what the heck, and now, a couple of decades later, I’m posting a comic strip I drew about it on my website. 40 CENTS WELL SPENT, SEZ I.

Kinda wish I still had that little “Evils of Money” pamphlet. Wonder what happened to it?