Final Order Cut-Off is the last day that shops can guarantee their orders for comics. After Final Order Cut-Off, or FOC, these books will only be available to retailers on Advance Reorder. And that is not guaranteed. So here are the highlights for Monday, 3/16/20’s FOC list.
Indy/Image
BLACKWOOD MOURNING AFTER #3 MOMOKO VARIANT – This Evan Dorkin series about a school full of the Arcane is a book I get anyway. The addition of a Peach Momoko cover makes this all the more interesting.
CROW LETHE #2 CVR A MOMOKO – Interesting series about a new Crow in a freak show. Peach Momoko is providing the regular covers and that doesn’t hurt.
TMNT JENNIKA #3 1:10 MOMOKO – Find it cheap it could turn into a good flip.
DEAD DOGS BITE #1 – Odd this is sold out at TFAW since it is owned by Dark Horse and this is a Dark Horse book… Cormac Guffin has gone missing. It’s been three days and no one has seen hide nor hair of her. The police have nothing- and the townsfolk are acting more like a funeral procession than a search party. If Cormac has any hope of being found- it rests on the slouching shoulders of her best friend Joe. Joe will need her wits about her though- because- like any story worth hearing- nothing is what it seems. From award-winning cartoonist Tyler Boss (4 Kids Walk into a Bank) comes the story of a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a candy wrapper. o From award-winning cartoonist Tyler Boss (4 Kids Walk into a Bank)
BUFFY EVERY GENERATION #1 – Every Slayer ever. The First Appearance of a new character with a familiar face who will change the way you look at Buffy and everything about her world.
DC
YEAR OF THE VILLAIN HELL ARISEN #3 3RD PTG VARIANT – Worth a grab if you didn’t get the 1st or 2nd print. I am keeping a set of covers.
BATMAN #89 3RD PTG VARIANT – Same as above, more Punchline Madness.
WONDER WOMAN #755 IAN MACDONALD VAR ED – Ian MacDonald is taking over for hot Killer B covers.
NIGHTWING #70 2ND PTG – First print is going to be a scramble, selling for multiples of cover price already. Here we have what should be an easy $10 flip once the second print hits.
CATWOMAN 80TH ANNIV 100 PAGE SUPER SPECT #1 – Other than the Joker one, which will have the origin of punchline, I wait and grab these on sale. I do like the 1960’s J SCOTT CAMPBELL VARIANT on this though. Dell Otto, Adam Hughes, JeeHyung Lee, and Artgerm also provide awesome covers
Marvel
AVENGERS #33 – Moon Knight vs the Avengers.
VENOM #25 – Something big could be coming, perhaps finally putting the Dylan thing to a rest. Love the RAPOZA VAR for the book. The Zaffino 1:50 Varint could be one to not miss.
GHOST RIDER #7 – Danny, the Spirit of Corruption, vs Johnny the Spirit of Vengeance. Looking forward to this.
POWER PACK #1 – Amazing everyone else in the Marvel U have aged but Power Pack.
Keep eye on Venom #25 POP variant. Only available with purchase of Spidey Venom POP. Retailers selling on preorder around $60 – $65. See lots of retailers selling the POP figure only to get those copies.
Decision coming from Diamond later this afternoon as to how far back FCBD will be pushed. With CDC saying no gatherings of 50 people for 8 weeks, they don’t have a choice. (I didn’t think they had a choice last week but got completely tonedeaf response when I suggested that to my rep). Called back this morning and was told they are in meetings all morning deciding on a gameplan but I could expect an announcement today. My personal guess is they will move it to August. Last thing you want to do is have to move an event twice. And it would be some level of hubris for them to announce June as good enough.
And FWIW, my shop will be reducing our shelf copy count for these April 8th books by around 90%. We reduced our April 1st shelf copies by 75% last week.
While I am still going to add a few third print YOTVHA and Batman, and some 2nd print Nightwing, there are a ton of titles where my order used to be something like 15 copies for subs and another 10 copies for the shelf and I will be cutting back to 16 copies total. There’s just too much risk that the shop won’t even be allowed to be open the week these books come out, or if it is, no casual traffic will come in to pick them up. And I would rather miss potential sales than get stuck with guaranteed unsaleable merchandise I already paid for.
A typical springtime week for us sees 500-600 shelf copies between 60-70 titles. I cut April 1st back to around 150. And I am cutting April 8th down to 60 or so. I’m much more focused on making sure I still have a store in August vs trying to squeeze every dollar out of the spring that I can.
Sound advice, TOGWOAS. Gotta do what you need to do to ride this out.
Sales numbers on comichron over the next few months are going to be interesting to look back on.
I’d expect a lot of shops to do the same…could be some low print runs on future desirable books…
My local shop is offering mail order on books. They are going to do free shipping on comic orders.
Greg Horn has some cool variants, which I think qualify as 1st cover app of Virus, and possibly 1st overall if the FCBD boks get pushed back.
Store variants rarely hold any value.