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If you’ve kept an eye out around the shop in the last few weeks, you’ll have noticed the display cases filling up with an assortment of vintage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman, Batman Beyond, Batman Returns, Batman the Animated Series, and G.I. Joe figures. But that’s not all, as the backwall has also gotten a big boost thanks to another collection we picked up on Monday. These mega-keys are going fast (1st Black Panther & 1st Symbiote Costume are already gone), so stop by and see us this weekend and add a grail piece to your collection!

Colton and I have had a long day loading in for HeroesCon 2024, taking place this Friday, June 14th - Sunday, June 16th at the Charlotte Convention Center, but we’re all set to go with a completely revamped and doubled con stock and shining back wall that you can come by and shop at booth #428!

While you’re down here, stop by and see old friends like Chris Giarrusso, Gregg Schigiel, Michole Miller, and more that will be tabling throughout the exhibit hall!

I’ve been spending the afternoon pricing a collection contains about half of all of the G.I. Joe Classified figures that have come out in 2020, and between seeing figures like Profit Director Destro and hearing the buzz surrounding the G.I. Joe Compendium hardcover Kickstarter, it’s hard not to want to go all in on the Real American Heroes right now!

I also can’t believe that HeroesCon is right around the corner next weekend. Hopefully me and Colton will see you at the booth in the Queen City!

Stephen’s So-Called Emo Life!

• Hacks - if you haven’t tried the Max original about a Joan Rivers-style Boomer, over-the-hill comedian teaming up with a young, woke, Millennial to revive her career, there’s three seasons ready and waiting for you whenever you’re ready. It actually gets you in the feels more-so than it keeps you rolling in the aisles.

• Star Wars Living Force - it’s like wrapping myself up in a warm security blanket to dig into a new John Jackson Miller canon novel!

• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - I was never as blown away by Fury Road as most of my friends to the point that I hadn’t seen it since the day it came out, but I thought Furiosa was possibly even better!

• Fix It Felix Jr. - we picked up an assortment of tiny arcade cabinets that are on display in our far-counter display case, and the Wreck-It Ralph tie-in has been my favorite to set high scores on during spare downtime at the shop.

I was inspired to do a Scott Pilgrim re-read this week after picking up the new Kyle Starks original graphic novel Karate Prom (with colors by my buddy Chris Schweizer), not that it takes me much to revisit one of my most favorite series of all time! Moving much faster than SP at just over 150 pages total, Karate Prom brings the same energy to a more adolescent audience, but I recommend it to anyone that dug Starks’ other work on Rick & Morty, Sexcastle, Rock Candy Mountain, and more.

Don’t miss out on your chance this week to get your hands on a FREE Spawn head sketch by Chris Giarrusso when you pick up the New Spawn U title Monolith (or Rat City if a 2099 Spawn is more your speed)! In addition to a new printing of his classic Mini Marvels and the brand new sequel to Office Clawsome: Lobster Cop, Crime Across Time, Chris also has a variant to Venom War on the way!

If you missed your chance to meet him at Free Comic Book Day two weeks ago, you can catch up with him at HeroesCon 2024, taking place June 14th-16th at the Charlotte Convention Center (and Ssalefish will be set up there, too)!

I want to start out this week with a HUGE thank you for everyone that came out for Free Comic Book Day 2024! We were completely blind-sided by the construction taking place in our parking lot in the week leading up to it, and when the rain that morning kept pouring off our tents, I had no clue how we were going to accommodate everything we had planned inside the store.

But Jay, his wife Lex, and my wife Carly kept their heads on straight and came up with a killer plan that went over like gangbusters! Hopefully you had as good a time as we did and are now pumped for everything the Energon Universe, Absolute Point, Bloot Hunt, the Ultimate Universe, Jason Aaron’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and many more storylines and publishers have in store for us throughout the rest of 2024!

If you’ve been by the store already this week, it’s impossible to not notice that our landlords chose the worst possible time of the year to escalate their war against any remaining patch of grass in the shopping center, bringing out bulldozers, backhoes, and cement mixers to obliterate the lawn in front of our storefront and Papa John’s to eventually make room for more parking spaces.

But never ones to make our problems your problems, Free Comic Book Day 2024 will continue as planned this Saturday, May the 4th (be with you) from 10 AM - 6 PM despite the mess (and forecast)! Our guests Becka Seashols, Matthew Roberts, Chris Giarrusso, and Brian “Smitty” Smith will be perfectly safe inside with the Dewey’s cake squares, we’ve got our tents to cover the $1 comics and free books on the sidewalk, and the Buy 2 Get 1 FREE sale on graphic novels, toys, and back issues is good inside the store!

See you there!

I completely free-handed the Mickey on the back of the Starcaster with the Posca marker, the only image that wasn’t done with an Illustrator/ Cricut stencil, repping my status as a Disney adult. And now I can reveal that my next trip to Disney will actually be to Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea in October!

That’s right, as a joint 40th birthday party (mine in July 2024, hers in May 2025), Carly and I are going on a twelve day trip to Japan, visiting Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, which will also be the first time I’ve missed processing a weekly shipment since July of 2018! There’s plenty of time for planning and I’m sure by that point you’ll all be in great hands with Austin, Mike and Jay.