lighthouse

Bookery, they only ask for payroll because that’s the metric they are using to determine the size of loan you qualify for. $4000 a month payroll you can apply for $10,000. $200k a month payroll you can apply for $500k. You can still USE the money for payroll, rent/mortgage, and utilities. But they will only forgive up to 25% of the total for things other than payroll. If you borrowed $100k and used $40k on non-payroll, the remaining $15k (excess beyond 25% of the total) becomes a 24-month loan at 0.5% interest. When it comes time for forgiveness, they’ll need records for the non-payroll stuff (copy of your lease etc). But everyone’s qualification number comes just from the payroll calculation.

The two board members who purchased the bulk of my remaining collection in 2008 did so in person in San Antonio where the books were stored in my ex-wife’s garage (I was already living in San Diego by then). The vast majority of it was purchased by @MYNAMEISLEGION, who I went to college with three decades ago. It wasn’t a “board transaction”. It was a transaction with a friend from college who also happened to be a member of these boards. I apologize for the confusion. I definitely see how that wasn’t clear. But I contacted Sean directly to sell him my old inventory in person. It wasn’t me soliciting business through the boards. The small remainder was purchased by @bubbagump who is also a very old friend who picked up a few things in person as well. I count both Sean and Rick among my close friends. And while it was accurate to say I sold the inventory to board members, I should have made that more clear. It was a long post with lots of links to pull together. I should have expounded on that paragraph more. Thanks for giving me a chance to clarify that.

The Hall of Shame existed long before that. If you click the link above to Divad’s post from July 6, 2007 you will see that Herald2Galactus was already the inaugural member at that point.

seanfingh made a legitimate request So I spent the last four hours doing exactly what he requested, including reading 138 pages of this thread. Here's the history: I got way behind on a bunch of shipments in the spring of 2007. Most were made up well before they reached a 30-day mark, but some did go past that. The most egregious of that group was an order from AlexH that included a copy of Flash 123 that he intended to get double-signed at a rare opportunity to do so. I didn't get the book to him in time for his signing, and that pain was far worse than the money related to the transaction. I gave him a full refund AND sent the books he ordered for free, but thirteen years later I am still mad for letting him down. He put my name up for the Probation List in this post, on June 13, 2007: In response to AlexH's post, there were multiple replies indicating that folks had received their packages from me as promised, and that I was clearly losing money on the shipments as the postage was astronomical compared to what I was charging for comic bags. There were no replies indicating that anyone else had any active issues with me that would warrant them adding to AlexH's nomination (unlike many of the ongoing conversations around that time where one member would complain and several others would chime in that they were also waiting). Within 10 days of that post, I had given him a full refund, and had the books waiting for him to pick up at the post office. Damage was already done for the delay. But I at least satisfied the deal itself. AlexH never responded to any of my PMs, and I don't blame him for being upset. But when he returned from vacation and picked up the books, he did reach out to Divad (who was administrating the Probation List at the time) and let him know that he had received them. When the next round of the Probation List was released later that day, my name was no longer on it. My name does not appear on the Probation List for any of the updates the rest of July or August and into September, as my nomination from AlexH had been "resolved" and there were no other outstanding complaints. Through a dozen updates over several weeks, I am not on the list. The next time I am nominated is on September 30th, by TheWatcher: When Angelo nominated me, there was no discussion of me already being on the list in the replies. Because I hadn't been. I had been removed back in early July. Angelo's nomination was completely valid. He had sent me a box of trade paperbacks in response to a post where I had indicated I was looking to buy them. I received the trades, and I didn't pay him in a timely manner. After some admittedly humorous threats of roadtrip violence for my transgression, I returned to the Probation List at the update later that day: I am again on the list for the updates on October 5, 2007 and October 13, 2007. The update made on October 18, 2007 was the debut of Divad adding dates to the Probation List. When he did his search, he just pulled the first date found for a nomination of a member, which resulted in my status being listed with a June 13, 2007 rather than the correct date of September 30, 2007. That date error was carried forward in every update since, which results in the list appearing to indicate I have been on the PL since June 13, 2007. After TheWatcher's nomination, there are no additional complaints regarding board transactions with me. No other outstanding transactions had been pending. I had stopped making any transactions with board members well before that. In the spring of 2008, I set about making amends for any remaining harm I had caused. That led me to make the previously discussed donation of 50,000 comic books to Operation Gratitude. And it led me to go back through my board history where I discovered I had never made good with Angelo. A year after the original transaction I did exactly that. I didn't do it because I was getting ready to start selling again, I did it because I wanted to make sure that 2008-Lighthouse had made everyone whole from what 2007-Lighthouse had done. Throughout 2007 there were only two complaints registered to the Probation Discussion forum regarding board dealings with me. The one with AlexH and the one with TheWatcher. There were several other buyers who got packages later than they should, but no one else who felt I had gone beyond "understandable" delays. On June 5, 2008, TheWatcher posted to the board requesting my removal from the Probation List: Replies were mixed. Some folks agreed with Angelo. Some suggested my name should stay on. As I hadn't made good with Angelo with the intention of restarting board sales (but rather just because doing it was right), I posted that I was fine with being left on the list for the time being. I sold off the bulk of my remaining collection/inventory to a couple board members later that year, and with the exception of buying the first copy ever sold of Terry Moore's SIP Omnibus (at SDCC during move in one year while I was working the event from the management side), I didn't make a single comic purchase or sale for roughly 8 years from 2008-2016. A streak that didn't end until I started getting ready to open this shop a few years ago. In reading over the intent of the Probation List, I've been nominated by a total of 2 board members. Both of those board members informed Divad that their transactions had been resolved. I was removed from the list for 3 months after the first one. And I have remained on the list for nearly 12 years after the second nomination was resolved and the other party requested I be removed. Several times in the early stages of the list folks suggested that perhaps names should stay on the list for 30 days or 60 days or 90 days after resolution. But @divad , who was administering the list in those days, had this to say: I would ask that I be removed.

I did indeed. Full refund of his purchase price, and shipped the books out he’d ordered for free. Far too late for the signing event he had planned. And there’s no way to make up that part of it. But a full PayPal refund and free books. Thankfully the PM chain does go back that far.

Crazy that Greggy lurked for three months before his first post. Apparently I lurked for 6 weeks before my first:

Roughly 15% of my subs are in that demographic. As am I. The popular titles with them are the same as with the other demographics over age 16. Immortal Hulk, Donny Cates’ Venom and Donny Cates’ Thor are all very well received by that group. HOX/POX drew latent mutant interest out of the woodwork but it’s honestly too soon to tell how many will stick around for the soon-to-be-dozen X-titles. The main X-Men book is still carrying more subs than any DC title including Batman. But the other five that spun directly out of HOX/POX are running half that many. (And they’re just not as good as HOX/POX was). The first two volumes of Zdarsky’s Daredevil run were bringing lots of old fans back. But none of the other Silver Age characters are carrying an audience. Just Hulk, Thor, and Daredevil. I’m gonna be selling the first few trades of Immortal Hulk the rest of my career. Five reboots from now I’ll still be able to grab that off the shelf and handsell it with a money back guarantee. But Iron Man? Cap? Black Panther? ASM? Doctor Strange? Fantastic Four? Yeah, lots of stale potato chips out there.

I applied for the SBA Paycheck Protection earlier today. My understanding is that individual banks are rolling out on their own schedules. Mine happened to be ready before noon eastern (I know some aren’t ready yet at all). My bank indicated they were processing all account holders first (before taking applications from non-holders). So if at all possible, reach out to the folks you bank with before automatically picking a lender by name. There’s no risk to the banks for these loans, so they are definitely excited about loaning money. It’s not like a car loan that comes with risk. They’re a middleman collecting an automatic payday and they WANT to loan you money. Because it was the first few hours, it was an irritating RPG quest. I did the first two pages of a DocuSign portal 47 times before I could progress to the third screen. Even after starting the actual application it crashed out in the middle twice. Sending me back to the beginning again with a blank form. (Though thankfully not to the first screen I faced 47 times. At least it saved that progress). The application itself was incredibly easy. I provided my average monthly payroll for 2019, multiplied by 2.5 for the amount I was requesting, initialed all the normal agreements (including the one saying I will buy American whenever possible). Attached my four 941 quarterly reports from 2019. Attached a payroll register as of February 15, 2020. Digitally signed. Done. Ignoring computer glitches the whole process took 20 minutes tops (with glitches it was almost 3 hours of aggravation). No other tax forms to add. No personal 1040s (though you would if you’re a sole proprietor). It’s not the giant pile of documents a typical disaster loan requires. Just payroll summaries for 2019 and payroll status as of 2/15/20. That’s it. They’ll forgive every dollar you spend on payroll in 60 days after the loan, and up to 25% of that on non-payroll like rent. So if your average 2019 payroll was $8000 a month, you’re eligible for a $20,000 loan (2.5x). You can use up to $5,000 of that $20,000 to pay rent or mortgage and still get it forgiven. If you use all $20k on payroll, all forgiven. If you use $15k on payroll and $5k on rent, all forgiven. If you use $10k on payroll and $10k on rent, $15k is forgiven and the other $5k is a 24-month loan at 0.5%. It’s as close to free money as you’ll ever get as a small business owner. Just don’t yell at your screen as many times as I did. Or do. It’s kind of cathartic. I would hope that EVERY comic shop in the country jumps through these hoops. I know some shops are closing because it was about time to retire anyway, and others because they weren’t ever viable in the first place. But I’d hate to see an extra 200 shops close that wouldn’t have had to if they just completed this simple (if annoying) RPG quest.

I did a post in 2009 or 2010 about the charitable donation I did of 50,000 comics to Operation Gratitude. That was roughly two years after the 2007 meltdown and I was very clear in that post that if anyone had any outstanding debts that I’d missed (because I was confident there weren’t but allowed for the possibility I was wrong) to please let me know so I could address them right then. No one came forward then, and it was a lot fresher in everyone’s mind at that point. And I’ve made standing offers every couple years when I’ve drifted through here again that I would make good on anything that somehow got missed over the years. I’ve never tried to run from my past or hide the temporary harm I caused back then. I earned my custom title. Like an alcoholic who never wants to return to drinking after 13 years sober, I don’t ignore what I did. I wake up every day choosing not to be that guy. But I wasn’t a Hall of Shame member. I was a Probation List member. The way I read those rules, I’ve made good and am eligible for removal (and have been eligible for over a decade). I’d never asked for the status change because my shop moves enough comics in person that I never planned to do mail order ever again. But now we are likely closed for 3 months. Maybe longer. So I’m here.

I’ve been hearing this song for two decades now and I’ve never found it to be true. Just like Shadroch has been predicting the impending demise of the entire comic industry since at least 2003 (I luv ya Shad, and you’re bound to be right eventually but we are at 17 years and counting), I’ve heard this song about comics being inaccessible to new readers since I opened my first shop in 1999. I sell folks the first comic they’ve ever read at least once or twice a week. There are dozens of accessible entry points to the hobby. From little girls stunned to discover there are My Little Pony stories featuring the Mane 6 they’ve never seen on tv, to folks of all ages trying out Star Wars Adventures or Sonic The Hedgehog. Families coming in raving about how much they loved the Into The Spiderverse film, overjoyed to see there are Marvel Action Spider-Man comics that feature Miles, Peter, and Gwen all working together. To folks who can’t get enough of the Firefly or Buffy mythos and jump headfirst into the new Boom titles. And don’t even get me started on the Critical Role podcast fans that sent me reordering the Dark Horse miniseries five times (a total of 110 copies of issue 1 off my shelves). Or the Rick and Morty fans discovering there are 100 R&M stories they haven’t seen yet. And for the multitudes of “I’m not really into superheroes” folks, I’m ready to start them on Saga, or Walk Through Hell, or Ice Cream Man, or Middlewest, or Undiscovered Country. Or hand them classic options like Maus, Blankets, SIP, Transmet, or 100 Bullets. Marvel and DC combined for less than 70% of the comic market last year (40% and 29% respectively). There’s a TON of other options that bring folks into the hobby. I could crunch the numbers, but I’d bet a third of my subs don’t have a single superhero title on their pull. And they’re just as desperate for me to reopen as the folks waiting on Batman 92.

The other problem is that Walmart would expect returnability. And the bean counters on both sides of that deal would reject it. Walmart can do the math on how profitable periodicals have been for them in the past. Disney can do the math on how profitable returnable newsstand distribution has been in the past. Neither side would want it. Certain products need champions selling them to be successful. Comic books have more in common with cigars, recumbent bicycles, plus size lingerie, cutting edge running shoes, premium camera lenses, aluminum wheels, or high end cowboy boots than they do with bananas. Walmart could distribute any of those items, could display them, could restock them, could scan barcodes and take payment for them. But they couldn’t “sell” any of them in the way their respective specialty stores can. All those items are very profitable for the stores than sell them well. But they’re not items that do well using Walmart’s business model.

The exact same incentive that landlords have not to boot Cheesecake. There is no ready replacement for Diamond. Rich Johnston would have you believe that PRH could just immediately step in and distribute comics for these publishers. The thought is ridiculous. Yes PRH distributes books, and yes comics are also printed material. But the scale differences are enormous. B&N is the largest bookstore chain in the country. If you go to their website, and check “new releases” and sort by date, you’ll find that they average 30-60 new releases coming out each week. That’s 30-60 new book SKUs that need to be tracked. Add in some reprint editions, some hardcovers transitioning to softcover, and the largest bookstore chain in the country is getting in roughly 80-100 newly published SKUs each week. If PRH were supplying all those books (they aren’t), they’d need to make room in their warehouse for 80-100 new SKUs each week to go out. Pallets and pallets worth. Thousands of pounds. All of very durable material that isn’t terribly fragile. And items large enough that new orders are in full case quantities and even small batch reorders will rarely have more than 15 different SKUs in a single box. A typical week for Diamond sees 300-500 newly published SKUs (the current FOC week has 385). Perhaps 10% of those are durable items similar to what PRH is used to handling. The rest are fragile and are being sold to condition sensitive customers. Boxes of new orders will routinely have 60 different SKUs all packed in the same box. Every one of those SKUs needs its own separate picking location. Items are easily misidentified. It’s not like pointing at a stack of pallets and saying “there’s the new Nora Roberts”. It’s “there’s the new issue of Spider-Woman with 17 different covers and some of those retail at $200 for a 2oz item that loses half its value if you grip it too tightly when taking it out of the box”. DC knows this. Marvel knows this. Image knows this. Just because PRH can distribute pallets of books doesn’t mean they are prepared to distribute comics to the direct market. Could they get there in 6-8 months, build all the infrastructure, train all their people, develop a new supply chain? Of course they could. Could they set up separate warehouses to handle the non-printed merchandise, and process orders for 500,000 SKUs of toys and shirts and statues and the rest? Of course they could. So could the publishers have a viable replacement for Diamond in 6-8 months? Sure. They could also take Diamond to court for their back money and just stop publishing altogether. But I think it’s far more likely they let Diamond slide for a while. Because the transaction cost of finding a replacement (or in this case encouraging a replacement to spontaneously develop) is enormous. This isn’t like loaning money to a meth addict who smoked up the money you loaned him last week. This is like John Deere letting payments slide from a farmer whose spring crop burned this season, but has loyal customers waiting to buy his summer harvest. There’s reason to believe he has the means to make good in the future even if he’s broke now.

That article starts sentences with "Could this be their chance to" and "It is quite possible that". I could write an article saying "Could this be Greggy's chance to move into Steve Geppi's basement?" and "It is quite possible that Greggy owns eleven copies of Action #1". That wouldn't make them true. That website is devoted to getting advertising clicks. Rumor-mongering gets clicks. He's so notorious for not fact-checking his stories that Diamond placed a ridiculous fake story on its own site to see if he'd post it on his site, and he did. https://bleedingcool.com/comics/scoop-marvel-and-dc-to-publish-new-twelve-issue-crossover-spider-man-batman/ But regarding the "half of Diamond's business" question, Comichron reported that DC was 29.23% of the print market in total dollars last year (Marvel was 40.3%). Given that Diamond sells a lot of toys, statues, apparel, etc, I doubt DC's print business exceeds 20% of Diamond's total revenue.

It may also be a simple matter of them choosing a different path with their terms. They might have 1% 10 net 30 terms and they are simply choosing to forgo the normal discount they take advantage of by paying in 10 days, while still being well within their terms. Could be 2/10 net 45, 2/10 net 60. Could be a hodgepodge of different terms with different vendors. But them skipping a "normal" week's payments doesn't automatically mean they are too broke to pay.

I doubt there is all that much business in slabbing newly released coins, and NGC seems to be doing just fine. Yes, there would be a huge volume dropoff from the "brand-new 9.8 prescreen" game, but turn times would likely improve on all other service levels, and that might well coax out inventory that doesn't currently make the trip to Sarasota because the TAT makes the process less attractive. At any given time I probably have 500-1000 books in inventory that might benefit from that trip. But if I can turn over raw inventory three times at a XX% markup in the time it takes to get a book back that might see a net YY% markup after slabbing, the math doesn't always point to shipping them out.

I wouldn’t read too much into Diamond not paying its vendors this week. My guess is most of its vendors expected that. And really what recourse do they have? It’s not like a competitor is ready to swoop in and take over those accounts and buy all the merchandise. Cheesecake Factory announces they’re not paying rent this month. It’s not like all their landlords chain up the doors. They know the transaction cost of replacing them as a tenant is orders of magnitude bigger than missing a rent payment or two. They’d rather eat that cost, have Cheesecake back as a viable entity on the other side of this, and perhaps use a tiny bit of leverage in the next lease negotiation for their largesse. Hasbro, DC, Marvel, Image, Graffiti Designs, TMP, Sideshow, Funko, Kotobukiya... none of those are companies that are going to kick Diamond to the curb over a week (or even a month) of missed payments. Every one of them would rather wait and have Diamond viable at the other end. One of my three biggest subs, a guy who gets 100 titles a month with multiple covers of many of them plus a slew of trades. He’s pretty consistent about coming in every 2-3 weeks. And he always picks up his entire pull (a transaction that usually takes 40 minutes just to ring up). About twice a year he’ll have some family stuff going on and he’ll be in Europe longer than expected. And I give him a couple very polite courtesy calls or texts checking in. If he thinks his absence is going to run longer he’ll usually load a gift card over the phone for $1,000 and burn it off when he comes in. Do I let that guy go past my stated official policy of when I’ll stop pulling books (and later, when I’ll empty the box back to the shelves)? You bet I do. Do I get a little nervous each time it gets to week 4 or 5? You bet I do. Am I going to cut him off? Heck no. Now imagine instead of 100 titles, he was half my entire pull by himself (as Diamond is for those statue and t-shirt companies). Yes I’d be more nervous if he got behind. But if he was upfront with me about it, and I believed he intended to make good (and he’d pretty much never been late before)? Do what you need to do. We’re all in this together. This isn’t a Borders/Crossgen scenario. At least not yet.

My favorite line is the second to last one. Indicating that it will be weeks before they even announce a revised date for the April 1st books. Finally accepting the reality of the situation. As a reminder, 19 days ago my Diamond rep called me wanting to confirm whether FCBD books should be coming UPS or LTL. And that rep was in disbelief when I replied that it would make more sense to push back the date for FCBD altogether. That was only 19 days ago.

A Message from Dan Buckley President, Marvel Entertainment To all our partners in the retailer community, Thank you for all your notes, discussions, and the absolute resolve we have heard and seen from you over the past weeks. This situation has been challenging for everyone, and the safety and well-being of you, your families, and your communities continue to be at the front of our minds. As you know, unfortunately there will not be any new print titles available at your shops this week. Marvel will also not be releasing any new comic book titles digitally on April 1. This is a fluid situation with details changing every day, so we appreciate your patience and understanding as we all navigate our way through this. As soon as more information is available, we will outline our longer-term plans and opportunities to support you and the industry. If you have any questions in the meantime, please continue to reach out and share your feedback. Revised release dates for our April 1 titles will be shared in the coming weeks. Please stay safe and well. Dan Buckley President, Marvel Entertainment

Finally sanity from Marvel:

The novelization of Phantom Menace was on the shelves four weeks before the film came out. It had no real impact on the ticket sales for the film. Having digital copies of comics released before the floppies will certainly affect the speculator interest in the printed versions (both up and down). But for readers and collectors I doubt there’s much impact. I have customers all the time telling me they saw this comic or that one posted on Reddit or imgur in its entirety and they liked it so much they wanted to find the real thing. We have several subs who only collect trades and hardcovers. They obviously could read any of that material digitally long before the collected editions are out. But they don’t care. It might move a small percentage from print to digital. And will absolutely play havoc with the flipper/speculator market. But I don’t see a big impact from folks with stacks of short boxes at home.

Over maybe 3 months? And it wasn’t as though it disappeared entirely. It went from “people who enjoy the game plus literally everyone else that age trying to not miss out” to “people who enjoy the game”. The folks who genuinely enjoyed playing or collecting continued. It was the folks who were only buying because they needed to be part of what was cool that disappeared. (Likely the exact same story as baseball cards in 1986, football cards in 1990, comic books in 1992, etc).

The mild winter meant February 2020 was up 70.3% over February 2019 for us (we are in an outdoor mall and weather is a major factor in casual walk-in traffic). On the day the pandemic closed our doors we were up 44% YOY. Sigh.

I think the answer to this question really depends on what kind of store you are/were in the years in question. Because for some, the best years would be years where the economy was in shambles and they were able to scoop up valuable collections right and left for pennies on the dollar. For others it would be when the economy was so good that people spent money on worthless detritus. But I will toss out an unexpected answer: May 1999 - April 2000 Every shop that existed in 1999-2000 that had any kind of reliable distribution was printing money with Pokemon. At one point that fall I had a spiral notebook with probably 300 phone numbers from moms who had to have packs for their kids. Didn't matter if it was retail price or double retail or triple retail. Didn't matter if it was a 2 pack per person limit or just one. I had a couple hundred numbers I could call and folks would race to the store to give me money. Between Jungle and Fossil, I was routinely doing 2x rent in margin every month just from Pokemon booster packs. If I misordered a comic series here or there it was irrelevant because the Pokemon gravy train was nuts. It eventually died of course. But it was awfully easy to own a comic shop that year, when a product that took up less that 5 sqft of floor space covered double your rent every month.

DC definitely doesn’t stand for Damage Control. Woof. Personally I’m not going to make a blanket statement that I’ll never stock shelf DCs based on one terribly worded and vague email. But I can tell you that I already shelf more copies of publishers that treat me better. Valiant calls me 5 or 6 times a year to chat for a half hour about what’s selling my shop, what’s going on with their storylines, movie plans, etc. Image calls at least a couple times a year checking in. Last time it was about how I felt about the way they solicit “frontlist” and “backlist” stuff, but that meandered into an hour on the phone about TMP t-shirts, Skybound merch, MillarWorld collections and anything else I wanted to talk about. Heck, when I had a problem with misprinted Monstress shirts, Skybound didn’t even make me jump through Diamond hoops. They sent me replacements themselves that arrived 3 days later. Didn’t even charge the freight. DC’s never called my shop once. I get the same 55% discount from both. But guess which company I more enthusiastically recommend? I’ll wait and see what the “revised” DC stance is. But that was an ugly ugly first draft.

You didn’t misinterpret. It was intentionally sensational. I won’t call it clickbait because it doesn’t quite go that far. But Bleeding Cool frequently stays just this side of South Park reporting cannibalism, because they know it will get them ad revenue. My BIG takeaway from this is that DC is committed to continuing to print floppies. If Diamond folds (unlikely) they’re willing to explore other avenues to keep publishing. It’s not like Lee’s Comics where recent events are enough to bring an end that was likely coming anyway. DC seems to be signaling they’re willing to endure some pain to get to better times down the road. It’s easier to say that at week 3 than at month 3 so it might change. But ending their radio silence gives me a bit of hope.