It’s that time again, where I tell you what’s really grinding my gears for the week of April 17th, 2019.
Some weeks it’s mostly likes, other weeks it’s dislikes.
So what’s grinding my gears this week?
Taxes. Not paying them, just doing them. They’re so mind numbing. Anyways, on with the actual likes and dislikes for the week.
Star Wars IX
I don’t care if some of you all are hating on the new Star Wars film. I love Star Wars and I can’t wait for this next installment.
The new trailer has me pumped for this movie. Maybe it’s because I also have a slight crush on Daisy Ridley.
Watch the trailer again:
Say It Ain’t So FX!
Supposedly there are rumors that Y: The Last Man is being canceled by FX, after it was recently opted for a 10 episode order by FX.
This news, if true, just sucks.
The show has gone through so many roller coaster rides of options, media deals, promises and then falls flat.
I haven’t seen or read official word from FX that the series has been canceled, we can only hope it’s not true.
If these rumors are true, it’s still a great comic and a great read. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.
Get the entire series in Omnibus Hardcover at TFAW or Amazon which is way cheaper than buying all the single issues:
The entire Eisner Award-winning 60-issue run of Y: THE LAST MAN is collected in a single omnibus edition! This is the saga of Yorick Brown, the only survivor of a plague that kills every mammal with a Y chromosome. Accompanied by his pet monkey, Ampersand, a mysterious government agent and a brilliant young geneticist, Yorick travels the world in search of his lost love and the answer to why he’s the last man on earth.
Retailers Playing the Secondary Market Game
I love seeing retailers fail when they try to sell books at secondary market type prices.
Midtown originally set their Immortal Hulk #16 ratio variant at $125 to start off with and then they jacked it up to $150.
Well, you can still find these in stock at Midtown. I hope Midtown gets stuck with these for a very long time. They should have stuck to their normal ratio price settings and leave the secondary market to those who have to buy a retailer prices.
I just hope no one fell victim to their jacked up price for this ratio variant.
That’s all I got this week. What are you all liking, disliking this week? What’s grinding your gears?
I’m going to have to order that Y Omnibus. That would suck if they canceled the series before it even airs, if that’s the case why even air it. I’m glad we finally know when Saga is ending.
Is Saga going to issue #72? I can’t recall.
No I read an article that said 108, so we are halfway there.
Disney owns FX from the media deal with Fox studios. That could be why the cancellation they don’t promote things that are competition to things they own like Marvel.
But if they own it, it’s going to make them money. Makes zero sense if that’s the reason.
Agree. Maybe it was a little too riske for their liking….what’s going to happen when Disney takes over HBO and Skin-a-max….you know it’s only a matter of time….Disney will rule the world…
Thats the same thing that grinds my gears. I’m tired of these retailers jumping on spec trains, now selling “speculation packs” and selling them at secondary market costs. Also when it comes to cool exclusives I see a million come out for every event like dceased or even worse spec exclusives like immortal hulk 16. Makes me super angry when they have 3 sets as in trade dress 3000, minimal trade 1500, and virgin 1000. All they have to do is have a one nice exclusive with a low print run of 800-250. Instead the heard of sheep sell out the lowest print, in this case the virgin, and the trade/minimal just sit there plenty in stock. This makes all of them worth nothing and its just stupid to have so many retailers stuck with thousands of prints in the first place.
One retailer felt that, because people were angry they missed out on the virgins, they should increase the next exclusives print run. Thats the opposite way to go. People have 30 mins and sometimes 5 mins before something sells out. It’s called “be ready”. It only takes 30 secs to order. I’m tired of people mad at the fact that they were too late because they didn’t show up on time. Yet they are angry at missing the 1000 print virgins, but don’t just buy the trad/minimal that have the exact same cover.
Another thing that gets me tight is artgerm and ratio variants. I love artgerm just as much as the other thousands of cover collectors, but it would be nice to own one that I really adore that not everyone have stacks of. It doesn’t feel special to me when I have a cover I love and every livestream I watch consist of the whole group throwing up the same artgerm cover and others preordering 5-10 copies of it or just having all the artgerms in their pull list period. And when it comes to ratio they always throw a artgerm cover at cover price and have a 1:100 or 1:200 virgin of that same 4.99 book but instead they are charging $100 – $250 for it. Why have that 4.99 book there, it makes the $200 virgin not as special. It’s because they know people will order more if they have artgerm on the trades and high ratios.
……
I don’t bother with virgin variants (at hiked up prices) if they also have the same issue at cover with dressing on them.
I don’t care for virgin covers, especially when there are trade dress versions. The tend to have this “empty” space where the trade dressing is removed. So unbalanced artistically and aesthetically IMO. But if you’re getting it signed, at least it has some real estate so as not to sign over the art.
Limited trade dress covers are so much better, and DC offers these at cover price with no full trade dress options.
I have three virgin covers in my PC:
* Iron Fist #1 by Dell Otto (one of his best ever, IMO)
* Amazing Spider-Man #796 Clayton Crain (first red goblin cover, green background makes this pop!)
* Batman: Harley Quinn #1 Fan Expo Foil (just because I had to have it)
I have trade dress versions of the these and would keep them if the value was the same and sell the virgin covers.
You need to understand how marvel/dc operates. Marvel will allow a shop to do an exclusive on pretty much any issue (as long as marvel approves) – however min of 3000 copies. DC decides which covers they will allow shops to do exclusives for. This is why with DC you tend to see much more store variants for a single issue than marvel.
300-800 copies would be nice but it would only work with non-dc/marvel books.
HBO is going to need a potential big series after Game Of Thrones ends. Y would be great. Or Saga. Either one would be great!
I’m in the minority when it comes to Game of Thrones. I don’t think I’ve even watched a minute of that show.
Me too, I’ve never watched it. I’m sure I would love it, but I didn’t start at the beginning and I’m not going to start watching now.
I guess when someone told me there’s a lot of incest in it, I definitely lost interest in it.
X-files had an incest episode…so f’d up, but I think that as actually one of their best.
Ex Machina would be a great show. That’s actually my favorite BKV book to date.
I woudn’t mind seeing Monstress.
Do any of you guys have a problem with people not leaving positive feedback on ebay? I don’t have that many sales, but it seems like only 1 out of every 3 or 4 even bother to leave feedback.
I don’t worry about it anymore and yes, from the amount of items I’ve sold over the years I should have like 3k or 4k positive feedbacks but I’m only at 800 total.
As a seller, I usually only give feedback when I’m left feedback.
That’s pretty much what I get. About 25% of those I sell to eventually leave feedback.
ask for it
I thought about that myself but I just figured most don’t care so I don’t waste time asking for it. When I review feedback, I only look if they’re not 100% to see why to determine if it’s a seller I’m willing to buy from.
Be careful what you ask for though. Lol. Make sure you are on your game and packed well and made it to the post same or next day. Check tracking and make sure the usps didn’t fumble. Then ask for positive feedback.
Leave feedback first. No sellers seems to do this ever, but end up just expecting it. Sometimes a buyer is not completely satisfied, but is keeping their mouth shut.
There’s a setting on E-Bay that automatically leaves positive feedback when the buyer does.
https://ew.com/tv/2019/04/15/y-the-last-man-adaptation-moving-forward-fx-new-showrunners/
Very nice. 🙂
Comic Series that really deserve a TV show :: Nowhere Men, East Of West, Superior Foes Of Spider-Man ..
Nowhere Men was so promising but what’s his name went and Wiebe’d himself on that book.
I would totally welcome an East of West show..
Superior Foes of Spider-man was one of the best Marvel reads in the past 5 years for me. A show would be hilarious.
Exactly .. our taste runs similar, Mr Poyo ..
It grinds my gears that some people are trying to claim that Action Comics #1002 variant cover is the 1st appearance of Naomi just because there’s a black girl on the cover. Not only are these people wrong, they’re being borderline racist by thinking it’s Naomi just because it’s a black girl.
I’d say it’s them being more stereotypical than racist. Unless they’re saying their race is better of course. But that is just absurd about the claim Naomi is on the cover of #1002..
This is the first I’m hearing about this, where are they making these claims?
I’m not sure where it started but there’s an article about it on CBSI.
Oh, that explains a lot then… 🙂
Yeah it does ?
There’s a follow up post on CBSI where Bendis clears up any speculation and confirms there is no possibility that Naomi is on the cover of Action 1002.
Dead spec…avoid.
if it looks like a duck,, quacks like a duck,, it might be niomi.. its.. the hype is real af right now
The girl on the cover of Action Comics 1002 looks like she’s about 7 years old and she looks nothing like Naomi who in her comic is 17 years old. The old similarity is that the girls are both black.
I meant the only similarity. Damn autocorrect
she aged well.. u knob what they say. black don’t crack lol.. same color clothes also, ethnic nose, ethnic hair also.. but ill stop
Calling out a local shop (Chris and Scott at PT) for sucking. Called a couple hours ago to have them hold one copy of Naomi 4 which I mistakenly told them is getting popular months ago. His answer: “oh thats sold out everywhere and that will be $15 because we have to make money.” Called my other mainstay, they have FOUR pulled for me(they had five but I ALWAYS LEAVE A KARMA COPY). Said it before, say again: Greed Kills.
I’m mildly amused at the “greed kills” comment when it comes immediately after you mentioning having four shelf copies held for you.
We don’t charge $15 for hot books the week they come out. But we don’t let customers buy 4 shelf copies either. We have 18 shelf copies of Naomi this week (assuming none are damaged, still unpacking), and we will likely hold back 2 copies for future back issue sales just like we do for issue 4-6 of most any title. The other 16 will be on the shelf, limit 1 per person, so sixteen different people can get the enjoyment of finding a copy of cover price.
I can’t tell you the number of times we have had people at 6pm on Wednesday complain that they could only buy one copy of “Latest Hot Book”. And then I tell them that if we didn’t limit quantities we would have sold out by 1030am and there would be no copies at all for them to buy. We had customers cursing out the staff the day after Batman Damned 1 came out because of the one copy limit, even though it was already selling for multiples of cover online. Complaining about the very policy that meant there was a copy available…
We don’t mind respectful flippers as customers. We have several that start calling us every Tuesday night with hot books to hold. And we do our best to accommodate them. But the smart flippers are the ones who identify when a title is hot and bump their orders then. We have one sub who has been getting 10 copies of Immortal Hulk since issue 2. He’s done quite well for himself and avoided a lot of driving around.
There’s no perfect way to run a comic shop. Just as there’s no perfect way to be a collector or speculator. We are all just doing the best we can spreading the love of the hobby.
18 days to Free Comic Book Day!
I’m on Chandlers side about the $15 for a book that hasnt hit the store shelf yet. If a shop wants to play the secondary market game, they should stand in line with the rest of us who dont have diamond accounts.
Now I also abide by the shops rules when it comes to new books myself (one of my shops limits new books to 3 total) so if a shop is willing to sell 4 copies out of the 5 total to one customer, then so be it and let the shop take the heat from the customers who missed out I say.
I will say if I ran a shop, the books that are hot before release I’d probably limit to 1 per as well so everyone gets a chance.
Thats my two cents….
Day 1 of a comic book. That’s usually the 1st of the month when Diamond puts the code active to accept orders and the catalog’s and Previews are available for you, the consumer to have all you want ordered.
Day 20 something. Initial Orders are due in to Diamond. Some items and incentives can only be ordered with the initial order, others the store has now committed their budget and may not be able to make large changes to accommodate.
Day 60 or so, Final Order Cutoff. You’ve now had 60 Days to decide you want it and let the store know how many to order for you. If the store has additional money they may choose to gamble and buy extra copies at this time, maybe not.
Day 61 to 83, Diamond decides how many extra copies to order, the books get printed and extras may or may not sell out at Diamond and be available for additional orders.
Day 84, the books arrive at the store. If the store wants to raise the price to what the book is actually selling for at this time if it sold out at Diamond and went HOT, they have every right to and I expect in todays economic realities, probably plenty of reason to as well. At the very least limiting copies to make as many procrastinators happy as possible.
Why do you wait until day 83 or 84? If the store gambled extra money to buy extra copies it’s their books, not yours. If they make extra on a book this week, I’m sure there’s a book they bought last month no one wants at any price, probably more than one.
———————————————–
Immortal Hulk 16 in particular was FOC’d before the price went crazy. It was getting PRESALES in the $125 to $175 range after FOC. That’s not Secondary Market. That’s actual stores selling books that have never had an owner. That’s Primary Market and Primary Market Prices.
In that one case, if you think a 25 qty variant should sell for $25 then it was getting 5 times that. What that means is, it’s almost impossible for any store to have that be a failure. You only needed to sell thru as little as 20% of your copies to make what you were hoping to make when you gambled and made the financial commitment to Diamond you COULDN”T GET OUT OF. If you have some leftover, that’s a pretty normal desire and not actually a failure. There are copies today on e-Bay for $199 so $150 isn’t out of the ballpark or really even that excessive. Raising a price is sometimes the only way to prevent selling out so you can have some copies on hand for new customers in the future that would want it. More likely is that people know they are there and will probably wait until the next big sale like maybe FCBD where the $150 items may get significant discounts but still sell for triple or more than originally hoped. Nothing in that could be considered a failure.
Do your homework, visit sites like this to learn what you should be gambling on ahead of time so you can have all you want ordered while it’s still possible to do so.
Don’t wait until DAY 83, get in there as early as possible, even if Diamond’s sold out they may be willing to Wishlist it for you and a miracle can happen. 1st “Savage” Venom in Venom #13 is back available to order right now at Diamond in the standard cover. Don’t wait until next Tuesday night to hope it still is. Pull the trigger now before they’re all gone.
If the price goes up, great, you’ve already had 70 some days to shop for it at lower prices.
If you don’t like it, open your own store, gamble your own money, health and future and see if you want to give away every copy of a book you know is selling for $15 to the 1st person in the door Wednesday at $3.99 each. If you want better pricing, subscribe at the store of your choice. Make the same commitments the store has to to get it for you. Gamble your money and most stores offer some type of discount if you do so it costs even less.
Hahahahaha. You know why Im laughing? Because I think flipping comics sucks(never have). Ive got a boatload of good s#!+ Im willing to help folks out with. Problem is they are going to take my efforts/deals and go flip on feEbayt. Youre talking about opening a shop?!!! I just might because the real money is in flipping REAL ESTATE!! Im a farmer who bought this house and farm for $243,000 and worked it for 6 1/2 years while fixing up house. Paid myself NOTHING(dont preach to me about greed). I work as a custodian and collect comics for me and my 3 kids(Naomi x4). Our place goes on the market next week at $499,000. We sell anywhere near that and we have paid off this mortgage and can buy a “new” home outright. Retired comic reader at 43….flip those apples.
What grinds my gears are people complaining about local comic shops raising prices on valuable books. Oh no my local shop is trying to charge me $15 for a book that’s selling for that and more online. Whatever will I do? There’s nothing wrong with local shops trying to make money, unless you’d like to see them go out of business and the. Goodbye LCS.
If the books been out for more than a few weeks… Yup, they have every right by then to adjust their prices based on new going values.