Blog

With things settling into a nice rhythm around the shop for the summer in the wake of school ending, Free Comic Book Day, the Buying Day, etc., I thought I’d take things back to basics and give a look into the good ol’ Stephen’s So-Called Emo Life where I talk about a few things that I’m looking forward to or enjoying outside the shop. So…

Feeling a little burnt out today after all of the excitement of the last two weekends (and I need to rest up to babysit on Saturday), so for now I’ll just share a picture I did of our younger cat, Wednesday, while we were down at the beach the week before Free Comic Book Day. Everyone knows and loves Lois, and no one fits that bill more than me, but we still have two kitties at home, too, Wednesday and her older sister Lydia (they’ve been to the store twice while we had a pest treatment done at home and they hated it), so I thought I’d work on repping them with stickers or picks soon. I did one of Lyd as well, but I failed to really capture her soul.

We’re thrilled by the response to our first ever Buying Day event taking place this Saturday, May 14th! This is something we’ve been talking about doing for years, rather than just waiting around to see what walks in the door, let’s actively invite you to bring things in, of whatever quality and in whatever quantity, with cash money in our hands and we’ll see what happens. Our Free Comic Book Day windfall mixed with working towards a Ssalefish project of epic proportions means that this is the perfect time see how it goes!

We’ve been getting quite a few questions about it, and my first impulse is to say don’t overthink it. If you have a box of toys that have been in a closet for years, or need to pair down your single issue collection to make room for all the new books you’ll be pre-ordering, or are wondering how three rooms in your house have been taken over by Funko Pops, bring them down and we’ll do our thing. If you’re looking for 80% of market value for your Hulk #181 9.0 signed by Stan Lee, that’s not really what we had in mind in this case, but we’re still interested in paying 60-70% for blue chip keys.

To help you out, here are some ground rules!

BIG WEEK! I scored the Shop Disney exclusive Ahsoka Tano Rebels lightsabers yesterday for May the 4th, I’ve got tickets to Doctor Strange & the Multiverse of Madness for tonight at 7:15, we drop off our Comics for Kids donations tomorrow afternoon, and then Free Comic Book Day 2022 on Saturday!

For FCBD, we’ll be rolling out our regular business hours of 11 AM - 7 PM, complete with FREE COMICS (each person can choose up to 8 of the 41 available titles), FREE Dewey’s Bakery cake squares (limit one per person), FREE Face-Painting by Munchie & Me, FREE Raffles taking place every hour (with an additional entry for everything $10 you spend in store), and a SALE for Buy 2 Get 1 FREE on all action figures, Funko Pops, standard back issues, and graphic novels*!

I love this portrait that Evan Harris did of me and everyone’s favorite shop dog while we took a break from processing this week’s shipment to “read” one of Lois’s favorite comics! It’ll be part of his AP Art portfolio at Western Guilford High School, and we were honored to be part of it and thrilled to have something that my mom can get printed and hang in her house for years!

Me and the gremlin are down at Myrtle Beach this weekend to charge up before we go full on into Free Comic Book Day prep next week!

Two hundred and sixty posts divided by fifty two weeks in a year means five years of new books at Ssalefish Greensboro! We would have gotten here about four weeks sooner if not for the industry-wide COVID shutdown, but we made it anyway! And what a week to take note of it with the final issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Last Ronin, the 2nd Amazing Spider-Man debut in our tenure, the Death of the Justice League, and massive milestone issue of Thor! It’s like Free Comic Book Day week came early (but you’ve gotta pay for these)!

We’ve extended our counter by another 4” section to give us another workstation out on the sales floor, so we can be more attentive to questions and discussions than when we’re working out of our back room half of the time. Rearranging and reworking how we feature our supplies and figures, acknowledging that we still have room to improve and grow five years down this road, along with Jay and Mike, felt extremely refreshing yesterday. Sometimes it’s the little things in the retail game!

For 2022, Free Comic Book Day returns its rightful date of the first Saturday in May, which means it’s just one month from today! Marvel will have four titles instead of their usual two (including one with a first appearance of a brand-new character), DC will answer with three, and there’ll be another 39 titles for you to choose from! Add to that an awesome poster designed by our very own Austin Sellars, FREE face-painting by Munchie & Me, door prizes, sales, a matinee of Doctor Strange 2, and MORE, and you’ve got yourself the makings of one of the best days of year!

As we add to the festivities in the interim weeks, we’ll keep you updated!

We didn’t get the collection of our wildest dreams, that’s still pending. But we did get the collection we’ve spent the most money on ever, and a TON of those books are making their way to the backwall as we speak (small sampling pictured above)! In the next week we’ll be completely redoing the New Arrivals section of the back issue bins, which if you didn’t know is the first six boxes facing the door! And we’ll still have enough left over to share the wealth with the Concord store! Our cup runneth over!

Next week it’ll be turning the page to Free Comic Book Day promotion, back to its rightful date on the first Saturday of May!