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A couple of quick comments regarding this week's books:
Hanging Out With The Dream King, the new book of Neil Gaiman themed interviews, has black bordered pages. Y'know, there is such a thing as being "too goth."
Freedom Force a video-game tie-in from Image came out this week, and I never need to see another Kirby pastiche in a comic ever again. I'd much rather people learn to draw in their own style than continue to ape his after all this time.
We had lots of people looking for the first issue of Arana this week. And by "people" I mean "adult males over the age of 30." And yet, Marvel seems to think that this book is hot, hot, hot amongst the teenage girl set, especially the Hispanic teenage girl set, to judge by their hype for the book. But it's only selling to the usual suspects.
The final issue of Wanted finally shipped with four different covers. I don't remember it being solicited with variant covers, but in any case, our customers showed a decisive preference for the J.G. Jones cover. So, now I've got lots and lots of the other covers lying around. I'm sure they will sell eventually...but man, I've never seen such a marked preference for one particular cover before.
Your cynical observation of the day: Every once in awhile, somebody who, and I mean this generously, comes in to buy an indie comic or some art-comix, and from my conversation with them, or their previous buying habits, I become convinced that they have no intention of actually reading the comic. They only want it because it's the hot new accessory to impress all their friends with. In that sense, the self-consciously hip are not so different from the super-hero fanboy who buys a comic that he knows is utter garbage, but it will complete his "set."
On a related note, I can't be the only one who gets the Comics Journal messageboard and the Newsarama message board confused, can I? I mean, they're both nerds arguing about things that ultimately aren't important, so it's an easy mistake to make, right?
Customer stories:
The phone rings and the nice lady on the other side asks me if we carry any life-size card-board cut-outs of John Travolta. To which I reply no. Well, she asks, do we carry any posters? We certainly do, I say. Do you have any of John Travolta, she queries. No, sorry, we don't I tell her. Well, what kind of posters do you have, she asks triumphantly. Comic book ones I tell her. Well, is John Travolta in any of them she asks. No, I tell her.
Apparently I missed the notice that all posters are now required to carry an image of John Travolta on them.
Another phone conversation:
"Do you carry back issues?"
Yes we do (as I look at the several hundred boxes of back-issues we have).
"Well, there's this company, they're kinda obscure, and I'm wondering if you have any of the comics they published."
What's the name of the company?
"Marvel."
...Yeah, I'm pretty sure we might have one or two Marvel back-issues lying around.
The moment in which I almost became a caricature of a comics retailer:
"Dude, they got poker chips with, like, chicks on them."
Oh, that's our Bettie Page poker set. Pretty cool, huh?
"Bettie who?"
(I swear, the phrase "leave this store" almost passed my lips...)
Note to people trying to sell me their really valuable, hot comics: If I've never heard of a comic called "Return of S***", and Mike has never heard of a comic called "Return of S***", and we get down the back-issues for the other "S***" comics and we go through it and can't find any copies of "Return of S***," and it's not listed in any of the four different price-guides we have in the store, it may just be possible that the book isn't actually called what you think it's called. I swear, Mike and I aren't trying to confuse you by pretending it doesn't exist.
So, I got linked by TotalFark and the Steve Niles Forum, but I can't actually access the pages that link to me. Anyone want to help me out and at least tell me what was said?
It's the little things that make life worth living: A big, huge collection was purchased recently, so Mike and I have been having all kinds of fun going through the comics, sorting them, seeing what we need and what we don't, finding cool stuff for our sites, finding cool stuff for our collections (Wildcat appearance in Spectre and House of Mystery 100-pagers are being eyed by yours truly). Mike picks up a comic, flips through it, and says "Hey, I bought this comic off the rack when it was new." I take a look at it, check the publication date...
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