Blog

This Disney trip was probably the most stressful of the three I’ve been on in the last two years. We crammed in 18 rides across three parks in one 12-hour day on Thursday (the Mouse feels if he can get you on 7.5, you’ve got nothing to complain about), which was probably a little too much straight out the gate. Then the Florida sun got the best of us on Friday morning, but we booted and rallied back at the campsite and retook Hollywood Studios that evening. I didn’t get a boarding group for Rise of Resistance this time, but there will be plenty of other opportunities in the future.

I’ve watched the first two of the four episodes of Y the Last Man that were released as the premiere. It seems like they took fewer liberties with it than other recent Vertigo adaptations like Preacher and Sweet Tooth, but overall it seems like they’re going for a very Walking Dead feel with the gore and cinematography, which I guess will have to get better the further they get from the event, but still isn’t what I’m in the mood for at the moment.

Coming to you live from Disney’s Animal Kingdom (after hopping over from the Magic Kingdom at 2 PM)!

If you’re someone that’s very plugged into the comics world, you might already be aware that this is the first week that we’ll be ordering our Marvel titles from Penguin Random House instead of Diamond Comic Distributors, where the House of Ideas has been exclusive since the late 1990s. While we hope this doesn’t effect you guys in any way, shape, or form, it does mean we’re adding a third new comic distributor in less than 12 months and this one, despite being one of the top 3 book distributors in the world, has no experience dealing with comics, so there will certainly be a learning curve involved for us and them! We’ll find out just how steep together on the first Wednesday in October.

To say that the balance of power in this industry has been completely turned on its head since the pandemic started is in no way an understatement.

On Saturday, I finished my first marathon! I woke up one day in March and just decided it was something I could probably do and got after it. 21 weeks of training on a 16 week program because I had to reschedule at the last minute around Free Comic Book Day and at one point I got bit by a bug on my ankle while mowing the lawn and it swelled up like a grapefruit for two weeks. Now it’s done, 400+ miles under my belt. I was a little disappointed in my time, I thought my training runs had prepared me to get in under five hours for sure, but I hit the wall at mile 18 and everything slowed to a crawl. Then I googled the average finish time of the Disney Marathon in 2020 (it was 1.12 before the pandemic and I’m already registered for 2022 in January) and it said it was 5:48, so I still would be in the top half and that made me ride a high the rest of the day.

On the comic front, I started re-reading James Robinson’s Starman, inspired by the compendium that came out last week. Any fears about how the 27 year old series would hold up (I was recently jilted by Justice League International) were assuaged in page one, panel one. It’s such an amazing, grounded survey of the entire DC Universe and I’m already more connected to everything of himself that Robinson put into Jack Knight than ever before.

Things have been pretty standard for me since FCBD, just counting down the days until Disney. I’ve been outfitting the fam in preparation, using my Cricuit to make iron-ons for the first time.

I went a little crazy on Reb Bubble buying up I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson stickers. Karl Havoc is my spirit animal.

The Yankees have won 12 straight, but now they’re on a west coast trip and I go to bed waaaaay too early to stay up for any of that.

I finally beat Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword with the HD re-release for Switch, so I guess it’s time to dig up the WiiU and unwrap the HD copy I’ve been sitting on for five years.

I’m down a bit of an Expanse rabbit hole, watching the show on Amazon Prime and listening to the audiobooks.

Thanks to everyone that came out and made our first Free Comic Book Day in over two years a big success! Our sales were about 80% of what they were in 2019, but given the extreme heat, the change of date, no Marvel movie to make a comic-themed day of it, a threat of rain, and it being the weekend before school started back, we’re very happy! Concord also did just $300 less during their first FCBD than we did here back in 2017, more proof that they’re heading in the right direction despite literally opening on the worst day possible, and their Power Rangers guest Rorrie D. Travis said he’d like to come back again!

Personally, this one, my 15th, meant more than usual because not only having my parents on hand to help out as usual, this was the first FCBD that my brother has been to, and he got to bring his whole family along! I’m also floored that Miranda has them watching all of the Star Wars movies in order of release, including the prequels, before our trip to Hollywood Studios together in two weeks with the same enthusiasm she had for rewatching the Harry Potter movies before we went to Universal in January.

This year’s Free Comic Book Day will obviously look different with Guilford County’s indoor mask mandate going back into effect on Friday, but we’re going to bring as much of the fun you’ve come to expect to the biggest day in the industry! FREE Comics! Buy 2 Get 1 FREE SALE! FREE Raffle Tickets! FREE Face-Painting! $1 Comics! Exclusive Merchandise!

And if you can’t get enough of the Power Rangers after our Jason Faunt and Jason David Frank appearances in Greensboro, you can visit Colton and Rorrie D. Travis, the Red Ranger from Power Rangers Beast Morphers, at the Concord store!

Of the Free Comic Book Day titles, I’m of course partial to the High Republic Adventures (first appearance of Ram Jomaram) and Balance manga preview, but others like the Something is Killing the Children spin-off Enter the Slaughterhouse and Donny Cates’s first issue of Incredible Hulk & Al Ewing’s first issue of Venom are sure to pique your interest for upcoming new releases!

Me and Jay finally got around to rounding up a set of our Batman #50 Joshua Middleton exclusive variant from 2018 in CGC 9.8, something we’ve been wanting to do for over three years, but in the initial batch as sold too many and had too many damages to have any sure thing NM+ candidates left over, and then it kept slipping our minds from there.

We should have some new trophies to add to the wall come September 1st, with our exclusive to the Ultimate Fallout #4 Facsimile Edition featuring a virgin version of the original Marko Djurdjevic 1:25 variant and (this is a GSO First Look first) our exclusive Dark Ages #1 variant by Tony S. Daniel, paying homage to the classic Mick Zeck Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars #1 cover! UF4 will be $34.99 locally (we’ve already sold hundreds for $49.99 online) with no limit as to how many you can purchase, and Dark Ages #1 will be cover price or FREE with prepayment for the rest of the Dark Age mini-series ($20.99 total for all six issues)!

This Sunday, August 1st from 10 AM until 5 PM at Charlotte Comic Con, right across the street from the Concord store, witness the full might of the combined Greensboro, Concord, and Winston Backwall, plus brand-new, never-before-shopped Dollar boxes and more!

We’ve got a huge announcement coming up this week, too! Batman #50 Joshua Middleton variant HUGE!

There was a time I hated playing Dashboard Confessional just cause I was too lazy or nervous to tune to half a step down or Open D, but a fresh set of strings is sometimes all you need to get back at it.

Lots of little notes around the shop this week! We’re back in stock on all basic BCW supplies, meaning Current, Silver, Golden, and Magazine bags & boards and Short, Long, Graded, and Magazine boxes, plus resealable Current & Silver bags & boards and Short & Graded bins!

We’ve got some truly rare books back from CGC this week and they’re all available on the Backwall right now (notations can be found on Instagram). Books like the Spider-Man #1 Platinum Edition are so hard-to-find, Jay and I have only come across one in all of years in the business!

It’s my 37th birthday on Sunday (37?!) and I’ve already gotten a Herschel Mandalorian bag, Behind the Attraction on Disney+, and Ted Lasso on Apple TV+!