The Less Blob

Hmm, I don't really have one anymore. The shop nearest me is presumably closed, not sure what to do.

I would never even consider shipping to China or the Philipines under normal circumstances. A black hole for your $ as far as I am concerned. Scammers likely outnumber legit buyers 2:1. Canadians I trust. Brits, sure.

The retailer is getting loaned $ to pay payroll & some portion toward rent is still forgiveable. Are the applications even looking at lost sales? (presumably your sales were more than payroll in the past)

Not necessarily. For stores that had to shut down with a bunch of new monthly floppies on the racks there is a good argument that they lost the opportunity to sell those at retail. Maybe in the dollar box. But those are losses. Anyway, it seems that these loans are more about keeping payroll afloat, not replacing lost sales per se. But anyway, sounds like you have time on your hands, give it a shot!

The income is lost "forever" if the book never sells.

No, not unless some potential customer dies or gets the same book elsewhere and won't be shopping. Yes, the opportunity to sell in April and may is gone forever, sure, but the same customers may very well be available looking in june or whenever.

this indicates mid-may for CA, but different models come up with different results: https://www.sfgate.com/coronavirus/article/california-covid-19-peak-models-may-15185230.php This sounds encouraging: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/04/07/New-York-reports-record-COVID-19-deaths-but-hospitalizations-drop/4751586273049/ But it may just mean more people are dying in their homes. The husband of a friend is a paramedic and spends his days picking up bodies of mainly older people family/neighbors thought had heart attacks (not sure why anyone thinks a heart attack nowadays) and he can tell otherwise. Unclear how well these deaths are getting reported in the numbers. It's now at the point where I know a lot of people who have lost parents, siblings, etc, Which makes sense I suppose as it was the same after 9/11 and there were fewer dead. Enough morose talk, sorry, I really hope things are reopening by memorial day.

I understand bookery's point. I would never go into a shop just to grab the free stuff. that's cruddy. although last one I was in I only spent $8 because that's all the cash I had and his CC machine wasn't working. I guess that's on him because I would have spent $20-$25 (and he even knocked $2 off the stuff to get me to $8....). it's going to depend on the store though. an area with a lot of foot traffic, affluent parents and their kids, etc... I can see how this brings in a new batch of people every year if you have a store that caters to a lot of stuff and you become the once a month place the kids go and are allowed to spend $20...obviously I look at that like a New Yorker because that's what I saw.

Comic shops having to pay for the free comics seems silly. At the very least you ought to get some amount free based on monthly orders. If you want more than that then pay extra.

I have a tough time believing it will be 90-100 days, but I guess the week before Memorial Day will be 60 days. Obviously Easter is pure fantasy. By taking action early California may have pushed their peak into may or june though (albeit, likely a less horrendous peak than we're about to see here in New York).

It's not lost if in June an July things come roaring back and all that pent up demand results in increased sales over the norm, just delayed, but yeah, if that's how you make a living it sure feels like lost income. And I wonder how many folks have $100K+ in stuff with MYCS and the consignment sales are what they live off (or are a major portion of their income). On the other hand, one could say the same about lost ebay sales...we just don't know yet how this is impacting those ebay sales. Nothing is stopping them per se, true. Fact is, mycs being out of the market may be propping up the rest of ebay a bit, who knows?

I blame the Tiger King

Because the plague wiped out like 10%, maybe 20% of the population. The Spanish flu was nearly that deadly in some countries.

"10,000 yrs ago a disease like this could wipe out civilization as we know it" ... no, not at all, the world survived the plague and all sorts of horrendous things far more deadly. of course, 10,000 years ago there wasn't really much in the way of civilization, so maybe you're right.

Bat soup I think was debunked. Bat to an animal in the wet market I dunno.

I thought the bat theory was debunked a long time ago? Do they think a bat pooped on some seafood at the Wuhan wet market?

I am working at home. Litigation apparently never ends. The monsters on the other side of my cases still want discovery that my clients are not in a position to give. I guess they expect them to risk their lives to get it and can't wait until May or June and the courts are unwilling to issue a complete stay. Thankfully all of my remaining briefing deadlines are in June or later.

I am in NYC. With 2 kids I am very very grateful I live in a decent size house with a backyard and we're not in the apartment we used to inhabit. Privileged. And thank g-d my teenager is on board with the social distancing. During the week when his school closed he was not and was congregating with some teen girls around the corner, but by the weekend he was following the progrsm, understanding that while he may not be at a big risk, I am. And I do pay the mortgage.

The death rate in the UK looks pretty terrible right now.

Anecdotally a friend's husband is a paramedic in NYC. He is spending his days picking up dead bodies from homes of older people families who think had heart attacks. He's pretty sure they are covid19. This guy was already an alcoholic, he must be off the deep end now. I wonder if these are being reflected in the death numbers as who has the time to autopsy these bodies of folks who had not gone to a hospital for treatment? The morgues are full. Freezer trucks are storing bodies. As for new confirmed cases...the people getting confirmed are likely desperately ill for the most part. If I just feel crappy I am not going to an E.R. to be tested where I will be exposed to a huge number of bona fide cases. I am wondering if it was incredibly stupid for me to go out and buy groceries yesterday. Of course, there were only about 40 people in the supermarket I went to, which is a HUGE place, like the size of multiple football fields.

Is "house arrest" nicer than those?

Most of us survived 2008-9, 2000-2003, 1990-1993, 1974-1981, etc.. Sure, it wasn't a pandemic, but things crashed and burned pretty good.

"Many people" not everyone, not every time. I've never seen a stoner assault anyone. Anyway, alcohol abuse causes far more damage to comics!

Also, read some more recent studies on the topic, which say the opposite. Haven't touched the stuff in 30 years, but there is a lot of propaganda.

You smoked an entire blunt. That should be shared among 8 people.