Ssalefish GSO First Look #170 for 8.5.20
Happy Umbrella Academy Season 2 Eve! I’ve got my pre-orders in for the Seance (Klaus) maquette from Dark Horse Direct, variants for the You Look Like Death: Tales of the Umbrella Academy mini series, and the volume 3 deluxe edition hardcover, and I’m seven episodes into my season one re-watch, but I’m not anticipating it as much as I was in February of 2019 (and I definitely won’t try to watch it in one sitting).
I know it’s a tired old adage, but I can’t stress enough that as much as you and I may enjoy the show, the book is still better! Compared to the vibrancy of the world and art in the comic, the show might as well be black & white or sepia, so if you’ve never tried it, grab the first trade, the stand-alone Hazel & Cha Cha Save Christmas still on the shelves for Christmas in July, or jump into the new Klaus-centric series when it starts in September.
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Ssalefish GSO First Look #169 for 7.29.20
I’m proud to share my birthday week with my new nephew, Nash David Mayer, born Monday, July 20th! Miranda, David, and the little bean passed all of the COVID protocols and are home happy & healthy with Ellie, who’s now almost two! Hopefully I’ll be able to make it up to Chicago to meet him sometime this fall, but I can’t make the quarantine period they’ve requested happen at the moment.
Tonight is finally opening day for the Yankees, as they take on the Nationals in Washington at 7 PM! The exhibition games against the Mets and Phillies over the weekend were definitely weird, but the Bombers look dialed in, especially Judgey, who hit three homers in two games. I can’t accurately express the relief of going home for the next three months and not having to wonder what I’m going to watch (streaming services are a VERY big place, and on more than one occasion since we’ve reopened I’ve searched for something that struck my fancy for half an hour before turning off the TV and listening to Talkin’ Yanks instead).
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Ssalefish GSO First Look #168 for 7.22.20
Wednesday, July 22nd - Sunday, July 26th would have been the 50th anniversary of Comic Con International in San Diego, an event I was lucky enough to have attended five out of six years between 2009 and 2015, but clearly couldn’t draw over 200,000 people those confines this year with the ongoing pandemic.
Many of the panels have migrated online, but you’ll be able to bring some of the spirit of the event home with you starting next Wednesday when we release a handful of what would have been convention exclusive collectibles into the stores! Among the available items will be the Playmates TMNT Retro Rotocast 6 Piece Set (basically exact re-productions of the original four Turtles, Shredder, and Master Splinter in a Turtle van box), the Diamond Select Muppets Band 5 Piece Set, and the Icon Heroes Star Trek the Next Generation Picard Bust immortalizing the facepalm meme!
I guess for cosplay you’ll just have to go on Instagram…
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Ssalefish GSO First Look #167 for 7.15.20
Next week begins Free Comic Book Summer, Diamond Comic Distributors’ solution to missing Free Comic Book Day on the first Saturday in May, alleviating the crowds for social distancing purposes and differing concentrated costs to retailers typically experienced on the biggest single day of the year for comic shops.
So every Wednesday between July 15th and September 9th, four to six of the titles originally scheduled to be released on Free Comic Book Day will be made available at the Greensboro store (not speaking for Winston or Concord here as their policies may differ). Because we can’t monitor how many each customer gets over the course of two months, all of the titles will be available first-come, first-served starting Wednesdays at 8 AM as long as supplies last. We have plenty to go around on large titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man and X-Men offerings, Boom’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and even last week’s Fire Power from Image, but if there’s something more limited that you’re after, you’ll want to set your alarm and join the dawn patrol!
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Ssalefish GSO First Look #166 for 7.8.20
As with most other things this year, this will be an Independence Day unlike any other, and we don’t even get cool alien dogfights with Will Smith! I’ll probably just stream the fireworks from Disney and grill myself a burger.
But we’ve gotta do something to celebrate while we’re open regular business hours this weekend, right? How about Buy 2 Get 1 FREE Graphic Novels since we didn’t get a chance to do it during Free Comic Book Day back in May? You got it!
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Ssalefish GSO First Look #165 for 7.1.20
A year ago we would have considered next week’s release slate anemic, but it feels pretty normal at this point with DC taking the week off to officially switch to their new distribution partners and Marvel only putting out trades, so here’s Robert Kirkman to the rescue, debuting both his new series with Chris Samnee, Fire Power, with both a prequel original graphic novel and the FREE first issue AND a brand-new Walking Dead story with Charlie Adlard, Negan Lives!
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Ssalefish GSO First Look #164 for 6.24.20
It’s Thursday, so I’m in that Concord frame of mind! We hung some letters this morning to indicate the new release wall from a mile away, and I like how they turned out so much and I might bring the idea back to Greensboro!
Robert Kirkman has just announced that they’re doing a special brand-new Walking Dead one-shot, Negan Lives, by Kirkman and Charlie Adlard, available Wednesday, July 1st! We’ll automatically pull the regular cover for any subscribers that purchased the final issue of the ongoing series, but anyone else that wants in on the action can let us know via our usual channels. The language was a little vague on how the gold and silver foil variants will be distributed, so we’re not taking any pre-orders or quoting any prices on them at this time.
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Ssalefish GSO First Look #163 for 6.17.20
It was SO good to dig into a BIG stack of comics this week from so many different publishers! It’s wild how Alan Burnett, Paul Dini, and Ty Templeton were able to fall right back to 1992 and make me feel 8 years old again in Batman The Adventures Continue, Die Die Die had one of the craziest first pages I’ve ever read, and Craig Thompson keeps putting out one of my favorite books even though it’s a study of the cultivation and history of ginseng! People keep asking and I’ll keep saying it’s good to be back!
And next week is Dark Nights Death Metal! I talk more about it below, but we’re going to reserve the official announcement of a midnight release on Monday, June 15th because we’ve never done one that early before! So once books are safely in hand to make it happen, we’ll shout it loud and clear!
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Ssalefish GSO First Look #162 for 6.10.20
With Batman #92 hitting next week, I wanted to reiterate a couple of points.
The three covers above are the only three editions of Batman #92 available for general sale, the full trade dress Yasmin Putri “A” cover, the Stanley “Artgerm” Lau cardstock “B” cover, and the 1 for every 25 copies ordered Jorge Jimenez “Punchline” variant. Anything else you see online is exclusive to another store and you’ll have to order them directly from those retailers.
DC new releases are available on Tuesdays now! You don’t have to wait until Wednesday to get Batman #92! Barring a cataclysmic event that affects both Old Dominion & UPS, we’ll have the biggest book of the year ready to go when we open at 11 AM on Tuesday, June 9th!
There is NO LIMIT on the number of copies you’d like to get on either of the open-order covers! Buy one for your kids, your parents, you buddies, one to read and one to put away, whatever you want!
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