Blog

Today is Greensboro’s four year anniversary! Just some photos to share from the past pretty good week. The successful Jason Faunt signing last Friday. A COVID kitchen haircut gone wrong on Sunday afternoon. Fantastic Pizza for lunch on Monday. Opening day for the Yankees on Thursday. Time with the family.

It’ll be another one of those surreal experiences tomorrow, going from a kid working on a Power Rangers fan zine in Microsoft Word on Windows 3.1 in 5th grade to hosting a real-live Power Ranger in my very own comic book store! Come out and see my reaction tomorrow, April 2nd starting at 5 PM and get something signed by Jason Faunt, famous for portraying Wesley Collins/ the Red Ranger during Power Rangers Time Force! If you’re searching for the perfect thing to get personalized, we’ll have plenty of Mighty Morphin #1 and Power Rangers #1 from last year’s Boom Studios relaunch and Jason’s Power Rangers Lightning Collection figure available for purchase!

Tomorrow afternoon, I get my 2nd vaccination shot at Walgreens before I come in! I’m not sharing it in a political or even public health kind of way, but anything I can do to not have to wear a mask again for as long as possible, I’ll do it!

Last week, I talked about how Ultramega #1 by James Harren was my favorite single issue of the year, but this spread from Die Die Die #14 by Robert Kirkman and Chris Burnham is my panel of the year. Me and Jay and Kevin had our heads together pointing out characters from Voltron, Metroid, Star Wars, Looney Tunes, Mars Attacks, Arzach, Alf, street art, the Simpsons, the Nameless, Dune, and the list goes on! It inspires childlike wonder that everyone can share the same universe and get along (though I’m sure they didn’t ask any permissions and it’ll probably never be reprinted), it tugs at the heart strings with the homage to Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, sends the mind reeling like the reveal in Secret Invasion #1. So. Good.

I’m very excited about this one, because it marks exactly one year since the last First Look before the shutdown, one year since me, Bret & Colton took this picture on Concord’s second day open, emulating the band playing as the Titanic sank, when we got the word that effectively immediately, there wouldn’t be any new comic shipments from Diamond and due to government decree we had to close our doors for “two weeks”, which became six weeks, seven without a “full” week of new books.

There was definitely a part of me that thought “well, we had a good run” and we’d end up liquidating all of our stock online from my basement, especially as the goal line of our re-opening was repeatedly moved back. But y’all were there with us buying everything you could via Facebook Messenger and eBay and Amazon, and you were there ready and waiting when we were able to turn the keys again! Now April will begin our 5th year in business, and every new comic we read between now and mid-May will be even better, because last year had nothing but back issues!

I am Groot.

This late post was actually intentionally late because I “went dark” on the internet yesterday to avoid any potential WandaVision spoilers! I don’t think what I’m about to say next is a spoiler, but feel free to avoid it if you’re extra cautious!

[CLICK THROUGH TO READ]

The Vision Complete Collection, Vision Quest, Marvel-Verse Wanda & Vision, and Scarlet Witch & Vision paperbacks should all be back in print by early summer!

Falcon & Winter Soldier in just two weeks!

Several of milestones this week, our 200th week of new comics (on time every Wednesday at that ::knocks on wood::) and our longest tenured Greensboro employee’s last week at the shop (though both had some gaps along the way)!

For the last three years I’ve been so impressed by Hannah’s ability to manage 18+ course hours at school and a full time job (when I was at UNCG, I felt put upon if I was taking 12 hours and working 12 hours) and her fortitude and practicality in all situations. We knew when she graduated in December that she was destined for so much more.

In all honesty, her dependability and stalwartness has caused Jay and I to step up our game as business people (Disney is a tough resume to live up to) and personally with her resolution to social awareness and health, and she’s allowed us to live richer and fuller lives outside of the store than we had before her.

It completely slipped my mind to post yesterday because I’ve been virtually attending the ComicsPRO Annual Meeting, which is where retailers get together with various vendors, distributors, and publishers to analyze the state of the industry, see what we can do to improve for everyone involved, and get some sweet swag!

It’s interesting, while we were shut down from mid-March through mid-May and listing on eBay like mad during that time, because Carly & I don’t have kids and we don’t work from home, this is my first time using the tools that so many people have become so experienced with this year, like Zoom and Whova.

Time for another Bad Idea: Tankers #1 by Robert Venditti & Juan Jose Ryp is about mech-suited mercenaries bank-rolled by an oil conglomerate traveling to the time of the dinosaurs to ensure a richer petroleum-based future for humanity! If we learned anything from Jurassic Park, what could go wrong?!

Despite the publicized troubles in fulfilling orders for last month’s Eniac #1 with first printings, rest assured that everyone that rose up and reserved theirs by the deadline is still guaranteed the real McCoy!