86 thoughts on “Wednesday Open Forum”

  1. On a side note, I have noticed Mycomicshop is raising their prices on new books, especially spec books, the night before (or so) to over cover price. I think this is a bad practice and drives customers away. Does anyone’s LCS do this as well?

    1. My normal shop only sells the 1:10 or rarer at a premium, all other books are cover (with bag and board, the following week they only raise last weeks by 25 cents to cover the bag and board). Most days I can visit Dragon’s Lair, if they get the variants, they sell at cover. All comics are at cover price actually there. They don’t always get the variants though.

      1. I am ok with variants being above cover. Many times shops order more copies just to get a variant. I am fine with them bumping the price of a 1-25 when they would normally only order 20 copies of a book but order an additional 5 for te variant. Cost of business.

        1. Yeah, variants above cover is fine with me too. But I agree, raising prices on regular comics on the day of release is shady to me. I’ll stop doing business with you if you do that.

        2. That’s sort of like when Graham’s listed Wayward variant for $9.99 a week ahead and then 2 days later bumped it to $14.99 to squeeze out more. Just sort of crappy if you ask me.

      2. i preorder afterlife with archie #7 when it was 2.99
        before preorder was up issues are now 3.99

      3. NO. after preorder discount of 20% it was 2.39
        It went from 2.99 to 3.99 COVERPRICE before the issue came out.
        You guys were talking about shops doing it. This was just a case of a business doing it, and BEFORE the book even came out. Similar thing they did with the delay for issue #5 capitalizing on the demand to sell more copies because it was a hot title. Now they are doing a cover price raise and I was lucky to get my order in at a buck less.

        1. Ah your right, I was thinking these were 399 cents, not 299 cents. Was it the Life with Archie they had the $3.99 cover price tag?

          1. Life with Archie was 3.99, yes. Except the last two issues #36/37 are 4.99.
            Inflation not through speculation, sucks.

    2. We have one guy around here that will raise prices day of release. He will also raise prices as he works through his stock. He had Spread 1 up to 8 bucks before he sold out. He also seems to have the books no one else can get that everyone wants so I think that’s how he manages it. My LCS is rather large and cares more about moving books than maximizing profit per book.

    3. I recently was ordering something from G-Mart, then noticed they did the same thing. They had a note by the price, saying: “NOTE: price goes up as stock gets low” — and it went up on the comic I was ordering before I completed my order. I dropped the order right there and never went back. That’s just bad business. But it must bother enough people that they have this listed in the FAQ section of Current Issues (check out their ridiculous answer): “FAQ: Why do some recent books have high prices? ANSWER: Items marked with RED are almost sold out. Our philosophy is that selling completely out of stock is bad; we believe it is better to keep the last copy in stock at a higher price and at least give you an economic choice. Therefore even a brand new book can have a high price if it is our last copy.” How does that sound….? They give us an “Economic Choice” by raising prices of a newly released book, because “being out of stock is bad”….nice justification.

      2. I don’t buy from G-Mart on the fact their website looks like it’s from 1996 and was done with Microsoft Frontpage. Like Charles Barkley would say.. “just turrible, turrible!”

      3. Haha — that website really is “turrible!” A person could get permanently scarred by the crazy fonts, color choices, and bad sense of crammed graphics alone! (But I guess it matches their terrible business practices.) Not cool, G-Mart — not cool!

      4. I had a chance to visit the original G-Mart in Champaign, IL yesterday and picked up several issues of the last copy they had in stock and paid just cover price for it, including Wool #2. The guy said Chicago is their 2nd store and that’s who handles the (terrible) website.

      5. It was pretty small actually, they have like 2 small rooms in a much larger building… you have to go up some stairs and wind around some hallways to get to it – they have paper signs to lead the way. The first room was pretty much empty except for some posters and a table with some freebies… the inner room has racks on 3 walls and some bookshelves and maybe 4 long tables in the middle with boxed stuff. The dude working was cool. My wife was with me, so I didn’t stay too long. I did snap a few pics I could e-mail if anybody wanted to see…

  2. Teen Dog #1 1:15 variant, Rot and Ruin #1 1:10 variant, Wilds End #1 1:10 variant, and Spread #3 and it is AWESOME! The new #1’s are for me, not going to be quick flipping any of those. I passed on Copperhead after flipping through it. Went to three shops and did not find any of these on the shelves, luckily I ordered them all. All three shops, one being tucked away and smaller all said they will have Enormous on the shelves in the future though, pretty cool.

    1. Enormous issues have been kind of exclusive and really hard to find. I liked being in the club with multiple copies. Submitted some to CBCS since they were doing a 30% off grading special. Grading of moderns valued at less than $250 was only $10. They did won my business over with that.

  3. Constantine ,Batman,Suicide Squad 3D covers..Spread #2 Second print..Zombie Tramp..Annihilator#1 ,Rot and Ruin..wilds End .Death of Wolverine #2

  4. My Pickups:
    Terminator Salvation Final Battle #9 (serial killer in charge of killer robots = bloody good)
    Superman Unchained #8 (wish this one was more frequent)
    TMNT New Animated #15 (yeah yeah, I get the same looks when I pick up My Little Pony for the 6 year old princess at home)
    Copperhead #1 (Vaughn likes it. I like Vaughn. I will probably like this as well)
    East of West #15 (Hickman, nothing else needs to be said)
    Ghosted #13 (this one is like Five Ghosts, just good fun)
    Sheltered #11 (awesome, too bad it’s ending soon)
    Spread #3 (if your not reading it, well, shame on you)
    Velvet #7 (love Brubaker)
    Walking Dead #131 (Hopefully this new journey is Carl learning to not be so annoying from now on)
    ASM #6 (it’s spider-man, I love spider-man)
    Hawkeye #20 (bring back what the first 10 issues brought us and I won’t drop you)
    Caliban #6 (great sci-fi thriller)
    Wilds End #1 (after skimming, set my expectations higher, hope it doesn’t disappoint)
    Bunker #6 (leaves me wanting to read more to know what’s going to happen next)
    My Drops:
    MPH (meh, too predictable and getting cheesy)
    Batman Eternal (last issues art kind of sucked and story is getting too all over the place)
    Coffin Hill (story line could be better but not enough to keep me buying)

      1. Yeah, I don’t plan on buying Jupiters Legacy (if the next issue ever comes out, I’ll probably be a grandfather when it does). The only one now I’m on board with is Starlight. I hope it doesn’t start having big gaping holes in it’s release dates, I’m actually enjoying it tremendously. Other than that, Millar can suck it! 😉

      1. I was digging it for a while, then it started jumping around too much, now it’s just nonsense, had to be dropped.

  5. Many of the Houston area shops raise up the variants that force them to buy bulk which is understandable, but the smaller variants are always at cover for a 1:10 or 1:15 variant. Never came across a new #1 spec book raised up though unless it was a very sought after variant. That is pretty dirty, and does not help out the creators at all to push people away charging more than cover for a unknown story.

    2. I loved Wild’s End. Copperhead was great, and I’m looking forward to reading Annihilator next – and another five or six of the usual books.

  8. I have been so sick that I haven’t gone to any comic store in almost 2 weeks! Didn’t even pick up my pull list from last week. So here’s what awaits me:
    Nailbiter #5
    Rocket raccoon #3
    Southern bastards #4
    Bunker #6
    Hawkeye #20
    Spread #3
    Velvet #7
    WD #131
    And Rot & Ruin #1 incentive from DCBS
    And of course I play softball on Wed nights after work all summer, so been going to the LCS on Thursday’s…No hot books for this guy.

  9. My pickups this week:
    Suicide Squad 3d – (intermediate to long term spec)
    Vampy/Dawn 1 – (love JML, nuff said)
    Magnus 6 – (have every comic the Robot Fighter has appeared in going all the way back to Gold Key)
    Weird Love 3 – (love to read old comics from 40s & 50s, some of these can be quite funny when compared to modern day norms)
    Wilds End 1 – (the gimme for the week)
    Rot and Ruin 1 – (another zombie spec)
    Copperhead 1 – (like futuristic westerns so let’s see how this goes)
    Ghosted 13 – (just an enjoyable read for me)
    Invincible 114 – (Com’on it’s Kirkman)
    MPH 3 – (story is meh so far, but the completist in me needs to finish the series)
    Spread 1 2 3 – (Big fan of this book!)
    WD 131 – (another stick in the long box and forget about for a while…)
    ASM 6 – (keeping up w Silk, will prolly drop after that)
    United States of Murder 5 – (great mobster read for me)
    Annihilator 1 – (Curiosity bought this one)
    Oh, also at the last sec picked up a Constantine 3d. More of an impulse buy. He was one of my fav characters until Keanu made him a disaster. I thought that movie was so bad it turned me off of the character. I’ve got high hopes for the TV series, tho.

  11. I’ve been lucky as my lcbs usually just puts the variants into the boxes of those who subscribe to that title and sells the extra for $10. Today, though, that was not the case as the Deadpool variant was sitting out for $100. I’m enjoying Spread and The Bunker. I picked up Y The Last Man 37 with the DMZ preview for cover price.

    1. I kick myself for selling copies of DMZ DC Nation Convention variants in dealer lots years ago…. That is why I hate doing overstock blow out sales. Was picking them up in bulk at conventions years ago…..

  12. Oh my, next week is going to be a slow one.. from what I can tell, my pulls next week will only be 7 total. This will be the first time in a long time where I picked up less than 10 titles in one week. My wallet likes next week.. 🙂

  13. My only pulls were the 3 different spreads. #1 3rd print #2 2nd print and #3.
    Also C.O.W.L. #4
    Been cutting back lately, especially as silver goes lower. X_x

      1. Lately I do not buy junk silver in old usa change.
        I’ve been sticking to bullion in the forms of Johnson Matthey 1oz bars while they are still making them. If they stop one day I expect them to have a higher premium.
        I also get silver eagles and maples.
        Also I picked up a few limited edition 1/2 oz coins not far above spot from the perth mint. But just a few. I’d like to get more since these are limited edition and from Perth, Perth usually has a high premium above spot, but these are not so bad. http://www.apmex.com/product/81351/2014-1-2-oz-silver-australian-great-white-shark
        Only 300,000 minted so I figured I dont mind paying small over spot for a decent coin that should be in demand for a long time to come.
        Ok i’ll stop now this is starting to sound like an advertisement, heh.

          1. Check out some JM 1oz bars too. They come in Sheets of 20 bars that pop out individual plastic pods for each 1oz bar. From my research they are often the highest quality bullion to lowest over spot you can get. Other than getting rounds for like 80c over spot, much more wise to get JM bars for around 1.5$-2$ over spot if you search around.

            If you buy a sheet the cool thing is that the serial numbers are in sequential order.

  14. Anyone who missed Spread #1 3rd print or Spread #2 second print. It’s back on TFAW for backorder.

  16. Walking Dead #131 introduces a new character that might be a potential love interest with Maggie if he doesn’t die soon, having a more major role in the comics. Gotta watch out for new characters with WD, they prove to be flip worthy every stinkin time! 🙂

  17. I picked up:
    68 Homefront
    Ahhihilator
    Copperhead
    Dawn Vampirella (have never read either, figured I’d try it)
    Rot and Ruin (all 3 covers)
    Spread 1 (3rd), 2 (2nd) and 3 (really like this one)
    TWD 100 and 131
    Whedon Three Way Oneshot
    Wild’s End
    Zombie Tramp 1 and 2 (figured I’d try it)

  19. Deadpool 34 3d cover is awesome. Copperhead was shockingly good, give it a shot. Rot and Ruin was pretty good. Which is the 1:10 cover? Wild’s End#1 was just ok.

    2. I was also surprised I liked Copperhead as much as I did. I also liked Rot and Ruin and I love Spread! 68 Homefront was eh…

  21. It’s pretty annoying buying a book from an online retailer and then having them cancel the order because they can’t fill it. That has happened a few times on certain variants and low print runs.

      2. I can imagine it’s hard to list online and then people buying in person. I think some shops just enter in the total amount they have instead of say, setting aside the comics they list as “in stock” online. So when they go to pull the comics from the shelves to fulfill an order, a customer might of already grabbed them. Also consider they might put in the total number they expect but might cancel due to them being damaged cause they were sent back to Diamond.
        It sucks but I’m sure there’s always a reason and that’s the downside to buying anything online, it’s never a guarantee.

  22. stuff i picked up this week:
    Hulk #181 7.5 CGC
    Amazing Spiderman #361 9.6 CGC
    Deadpool #34 3D variant cover
    X men #5 7.0 CGC
    Uncanny Xmen 137
    Spiderman #1
    ASM #361

Comments are closed.