For my 5000th post...

[lighthouse]

Some "Thank You"s, a story, an announcement, a few observations, and some inane ramblings about the San Diego Con...

 

and yes, this is quite likely the longest post in the history of the forums... no, seriously... it's really, really long... you might want to get a sandwich...

 

(not so fast with the "move this thread" button there, Arch ... plenty of on-topic material within... and if don't believe me, just search for "brick and mortar" )

 

The THANK YOUs

 

Thank you, to:

 

FlyingDonut - for selling some of my excess junk on consignment over the last year. Even though he got my address wrong more than half the time, it's been amusing hearing the wife come in from the mailbox announcing "You've got a Donut!" for the last year, then standing at my side while I open the envelope waiting to see if it's a "big" Donut or a "little" Donut.

 

Darthdiesel - for endless hours of entertaining emails as we swapped ideas about which modern books to rape our customers on. There is a special kinship among Catholic-educated modern-selling perverts, and I couldn't imagine a better guy to take up the personal mission of repopulating the Earth.

 

BronzeBruce13 - for being the kind of friend I remember having in elementary school. I recall being absolutely furious with kid named Tony who lived down the street, and somehow after a couple weeks, Tony and I were fast friends. That sort of thing happens between kids, but it rarely happens among adults. Bruce had every reason to be chapped at me last year, but held no grudge, and is now a great friend.

 

dam60 - for actually reading my blathering long-winded emails. You think my posts are wordy? You haven't seen anything compared to the emails David has had to read over the last year. Even if he hadn't started the Forum Philanthropy drive, I would count him in the "good guy" column without a second thought. The fact that we have had a chance to do some business has been a pleasant bonus.

 

greggy - for... gee... where do I begin?... I could start with the graemlin posts, or the barrage of PMs, or the fact that he let me paw through his sweet, sweet DCs when I came to visit... The "forum legend" deserves the title, and not just for his choice of shorts. Crazy Charlie has no idea what's coming...

 

the five forumites listed above - for advising me on my TPB King venture, even though the only one I have met in person is greggy, a fact I hope to change in September at the Baltimore show.

 

Joanna - for not getting offended when I refer to her as the Canary in the CGC Forum Mine, for sharing Crisis with all of us, for sharing some of her "other" writings with me (including some hot lesbian porn even Darth would love) , for trusting me enough to be my friend and for letting me be hers, and for being brave enough to let this Forum help her in a time of need.

 

Joe_Collector - for being himself on the boards no matter who is annoyed by it. In spite of the occasional madness, his quick wit has cut down many a troll, and his active participation on the boards helps to cut down on the lazy thinking that permeates so many message boards.

 

MajorKhaos - for being himself on the boards no matter who is annoyed by it. In spite of the occasional madness, his quick wit has cut down many a troll, and his active participation on the boards helps to cut down on the lazy thinking that permeates so many message boards.

 

JC&MK - for failing to recognize how similar they really are, and providing us with endless amusement as a result. Heck, they both order from me...

 

supapimp - for being the spitting image of one of the most interesting employees I ever had, at least in personality. Pimpy has an Italian brother named Kevin running around somewhere, and the world will tremble if ever the two should meet.

 

bubbagump - for joining this forum and ensuring that at least one person actually understands that last comment. You'll always be "creepy" in my eyes, buddy, and it'll be good seeing you again in a couple weeks.

 

Ian Levine - for providing endless hours of amusement on the boards. I don't agree with the latest "wanted" auction, but I do hope you complete your quest. It would make an interesting indy film, perhaps Joanna would like to do the book.

 

redhook - for completing the new logo for my TPB King venture... oh wait... he hasn't yet... ... but that's okay... the dozens of humorous photos more than make up for it... and I know that it will be spectacular when it's done.

 

fantasyfootballbono - for proving just how impressive greggy's post count is, and for leaving me some of my strangest feedback yet. Let's just say that I am glad I am so tall...

 

stronguy - for buying the first round of drinks when I come to Dallas to do the Wizard World show in November. Did I say drinks? I meant lap dances. You're buying the first round of lap dances right?

 

chrisco37 - for graciously offering me a place to crash and a drinking buddy for my Baltimore trip. We'll have to make sure we take a few pictures, although I'm not sure posting them will be a good idea.

 

Bugaboo - for offering me a great deal on slightly used medical supplies, and for letting me win at Connect Four, once... in 50+ games...

 

CGG - for convincing the rest of the world that my hometown of Eugene is chock full of thieves and lowlifes. The fact that "Animal House" was shot there wasn't enough. Even the shooting of "How To Beat The High Cost Of Living" at Valley River Center wasn't enough. Nope, CGG had to get in bed with one of the worst sellers on eBay. I never thought I would see the day that Springfield was the town with the better rep, but you guys have done your part to ensure that every seller from Eugene will be treated with suspicion.

 

drbanner - for being the counterpoint to all the grading complaints about eBay sellers. It's nice that whenever the conversation drifts down that inevitable path of "no one on eBay knows how to grade", your name is available as a comeback.

 

oldguy - for slowing down his posting the last month or two to keep from passing me. Awfully nice of you, buddy.

 

 

A Story, with virtually no comic content and limited reference to strippers. Feel free to skip down to the next heading if you like.

 

As many of you know, I went to Cleveland a couple weeks back. Here is that story.

 

Back in high school, I wasn't as tall as I am now. That's true of most people, at least until we start shrinking in our fifties. Most men continue getting a little taller through age 25. In my case, I was only 6-3 when I graduated from high school and have put on another 4 inches since then. I was the youngest person in my class, having started school in Santa Ana, California (site of the coatroom comic-kiss exchange) before moving to Oregon in 2nd grade. The cutoff date to enter school in California in the mid 1970s was about two months later than it was in Oregon. So when I arrived in Oregon, I was easily the youngest in my class.

 

I played basketball from 3rd through 6th grade, but by 6th grade being a year younger than my classmates started to be a disadvantage when it came to sports. And before my 7th grade year, our entire league was disbanded because 3 of the 8 schools couldn't afford the cost to field teams. The players from the remaining 5 schools got scattered around among other leagues, and being a year younger than everyone else it was disconcerting to be on sports teams with kids I didn't know who were more developed than I was.

 

I was 5-5 when I started high school, and certainly didn't look like a basketball project to anyone. It was the only sport I had played competitively, so I assumed participation in sports was done for me. My freshman year I joined the chess team, and was third board on our team that finished fifth in the state. Our first board was a kid in my own class named George who was an absolute lunatic. Very bright, great sense of humor, but also the kid who was willing to eat the banana slug someone found outside. George was also the star runner on our cross-country team as a freshman. And halfway through the chess season, he started recruiting runners for next year.

 

George had a powerful recruiting hook. "Get a letter, have a party, and watch Michelle and Dani stretch out every day." Michelle and Danielle were both in the class ahead of us, and were two of the hottest girls in school. My freshman year, there were 5 guys on the team including George (the absolute minimum you can field). My sophomore year, there were 19, including me. We had a full 7-man varsity, a full 7-man JV team, plus five extras. I got to spend two years watching Michelle and Dani stretch out every day, and eventually did get my letter. But more importantly I made a few great friends on that team. Going on a 15-mile training run can be pretty boring, and it gives you a lot of time to talk to the guy next to you.

 

The guy next to me for much of that was Ted. By the time I graduated, he was my best friend, and ours is one of those friendships that time and distance just don't separate. We can go six months without talking and pick up right where we left off. Ted is a pilot. That's not to say that's what he does for a living, like saying ffbono is a lawyer or greggy is an auditor. Ted is a pilot. I have never met anyone who was so purely the embodiment of his chosen profession. It just radiates from him.

 

Ted now flies for Continental Express, but even in high school there was no doubt where he was going. On career day, the most popular talk was given by the guy doing neon tube bending. I don't think anyone from my school ever went into that field, but everybody wanted to see the talk. But not Ted. From the time he got his private pilot's license through his schooling at Embry-Riddle to his work as a cargo pilot in Dayton, he was a pilot. I remember he spent a couple years working at CompUSA while trying to build up his hours, and at one point over 70% of his income was going to aircraft rentals so he could log more time.

 

He got the gig at Express in early 2001 and was somehow able to avoid the post-9/11 layoffs, probably because his routes were among the few that stayed profitable. But now that the airline business has turned the corner, he has cemented his place with Express, and I couldn't be happier for him. Or so I thought.

 

On April Fools Day this year I got an email from Ted asking if I was available in June to come to his wedding. Think for a moment what your response would be. Guy with no time whatsoever in his life to spend courting, who has long since outgrown his party animal phase, suddenly asks on April 1st if you can come to the wedding. Ummm... After an hour or so, I decided Ted wouldn't joke about a wedding, and I sent him a serious reply. (I mentioned this to him later, and he responded "Yeah, I would joke about my mother dying, but not about a wedding".)

 

My June schedule was extremely busy, but there was no way in the world I wouldn't be there. So I flew out a few days before, figuring I might have a chance to spend time with him beforehand, and if not I could spend some time at comic shops nearby. The wife dropped me off at the Portland airport (she was following a couple days later) and I read a book while waiting for my flight. About 10 minutes before boarding, I hear the magic words "Your flight has been oversold and we'll be taking volun..." I was at the counter before she could say "teers".

 

I was flying Continental, but it was a codeshare with Delta. So for agreeing to wait an hour and be connected through Atlanta (which everyone knows is right on the way from Portland to Cleveland) I got a $400 Delta travel voucher. Since my original ticket only cost $242, and the total delay was less than 3 hours, it sounded like a deal to me. The voucher can be split between multiple tickets, so I should be able to get 1.5 free tickets out of it.

 

The flight to Atlanta was uneventful, but the Atlanta airport was a dump. The terminal I was in is in renovation and they decided the best approach was to remove the entire ceiling and just leave fluorescent light fixtures and AC ducts dangling loose. I am quite certain I could have ripped enough metal out of the exposed framework to hijack a plane.

 

I finally got to Cleveland around 11pm. Our runway was pointed SW, and we were approaching frmo the south, which meant they flew over the city, turned around over Lake Erie and then came back across downtown to the airport. I have to say, it was quite pretty.

 

As I get off the plane, I see that the Cleveland airport shuts down before 11. We were later coming in than they expected and I would guess we were the last flight of the night. It was a ghost town. A police officer was waiting for us at the gate and escorted some former NBA star to his car. Because you know he would have been mobbed by the hordes of fans otherwise.

 

The rental car companies are all at a satellite campus, which was also mostly shut down by the time we got there. It took ten minutes before the one guy behind the Alamo/National counter even asked me if I was picking up a car. But there was a silver lining. I had rented an intermediate, and they were all out. In fact, they were out of everything. The only cars they had left were some SUVs from National. So I got an SUV for $21 a day.

 

If you remember nothing else from this post, remember this: Do not get a hotel near the airport in Cleveland.

 

I get to my Days Inn (which by the time my wife is through with them will have lost their franchise status) and crash for the night. I didn't realize just how much of a dump it was when I pulled in, but in the harsh morning light I see no less than 85 beer cans strewn in the hallway, no soap in the bathroom, a broken exterior door, a room door with scorch marks, a tv remote whose battery is held in with a piece of duct tape (no cover just the duct tape), and a Jeep parked outside my window with two slashed tires. Two thoughts went through my head: "This place is a dump" and "Strip clubs near here should be skanktacular".

 

I was right on both counts, although the 53 suburbs of Cleveland all have their own ordinances. So Brook Park Rd, which features at least a dozen clubs, runs through five different towns and the rules were different in each one. All of them had two things in common though, double entry doors that you had to be buzzed through, and liquid latex pasties (which the dancers referred to as "booby glue".) The skanktacular clubs of Cleveland saw a total of $22 of cover charge from me. I think the most shocking thing I saw was an ATM at "Amber's". Any strip club afficionado will tell you that club ATMs are expensive to use. Most have a $3-6 charge per withdrawal, and I have seen a few with a staggering $10 charge. That didn't prepare me for the ATM at "Amber's". The sign clearly stated that the ATM surcharge was $25 per withdrawal, and withdrawals were limited to $100 at a time.

 

By 2pm that day I was dead tired and decided to crash with only one lap dance under my belt. Maybe it was the no food and four Heinekens on the plane (thank you free drink coupons), or the fact that my room was something out of a bad spring break film, but I felt the need to sleep until morning.

 

The wife arrived around noon, fresh off the red-eye and hoping for sleep. She took one look around the room and decided staying awake was the better choice. So we got directions from the Days Inn to get to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton. Yes, that's right, we actually asked the Days Inn for directions. An hour later, and no closer to Canton, we decided to grab some lunch and took the exit for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame downtown. After a very reasonable lunch, we stopped by the USS Cod museum next door. An actual WWII submarine, it was pretty cool to walk around on, but there's a reason the Navy doesn't accept people my height, and I will never know what the inside looked like.

 

We arrived at the Rock and Roll HOF at about 4:30 and discover that it closes at 5pm. Unlike most museums, they still charge full price right up to the end, so we didn't see a point in spending $22 each to spend a half hour inside. We wandered around looking at the guitars in the outer foyer and then headed to the gift shop. I have no idea if the main museum is worth the entry fee, but the gift shop is amazing. They have one of the best selections of music for sale I have ever seen, including hundreds of imports and obscure performance CDs and DVDs. There is no genre prejudice at all. They are just as proud of their Mahalia Jackson as their Grateful Dead. And you can listed to every CD they have available. Not just a few, all of them. Scan the barcode at the headphones and listen to anything you like. I could have spent $2K there in the gift shop and would have still be leaving stuff behind that I wanted. Just amazing.

 

The wedding was at 2:30pm the next day, and I wasn't happy with what I had brought to wear, so the wife and I decided to do some more shopping. As we drove through Cleveland at 5:30pm, we were struck by how empty the city was. We love to go to restaurants at 3pm, because the food and service at off-peak hours is so much better. We joke that we would live our lives "off-peak" if we could. Well apparently the entire city of Cleveland is off-peak, all the time. We were on a 5-lane highway that didn't even have enough traffic for two lanes. At 5:30pm. On a Friday. And while it's true that the Friday in question was the Reagan memorial and many people got off work at noon, we were driving around from Noon-1pm as well and it was just as dead. I was in Cleveland for about a week and never saw traffic, anywhere. It's like 1/3 of the population is gone and there is just way more infrastructure than they need. The exact opposite of cities like LA, Seattle, Houston, and New Orleans.

 

Shopping done, we saw Riddick at a local theater. I always like seeing movies when I travel, because the crowds in different parts of the country are so different. It reminded me of being in Austin, with people yelling at the screen halfway through the movie. When the other Furian slowly dies in the scorching heat that obliterated lesser mortals, a guy behind me yelled out "Dayum, dat dude wuz a badazz!" to which a couple people replied "Hell yeah!"

 

After the movie I drove the wife to the Internet Cafe that I found the previous day. Link . Quite a cool place to hang out for a while. A regulation table tennis table, plus 13 networked computers with all the games people want. A few dozen coffee drinks, plus some smoothies, gourmet sandwiches and the like. I paid $4 for an hour of computer time, but it was as cheap as $1.25 an hour for the regular customers. While there I heard no less than eight different languages spoken, including Greek, Farsi, a couple Slavic dialects, and a southeast Asian language I couldn't place. Strangely enough, it may be video games that ultimately save the world.

 

The next day, after a leisurely morning and a light lunch to tide us over until the reception, we arrived at St Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church. Though Ted and I had gone to Catholic high school, he is second-generation Greek, and last year converted to Orthodox. We arrived at the church at 2:05pm for a 2:30 wedding, and there were only four cars in the parking lot, including Ted's which had pulled in right in front of us. Now I have only been to two weddings, mine and Ted's, (having found a way to duck every other invite I have received), but an empty parking lot 25 minutes before show time seemed a little odd to me. I gestured quizzically to the empty lot as I walked up to embrace Ted and he laughed, saying just two words "Greek Time".

 

Apparently it is entirely customary for any Greek gathering to be delayed... A lot... At 2:25, Ted was still showing off the iconography inside the church and there were only six guests in attendance. He finally took his seat hidden from view at around 2:50, the guests finished filing in around 3:10, and his bride made her entrance at around 3:20.

 

It was a stunningly beautiful ceremony. I am one of the few people I know who has not seen "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", so much came as a surprise to me. There are no vows exchanged. No pronouncement of "man and wife". Rings are worn on the right hand, not the left. Half the ceremony was in Greek, and nearly 2/3 of it was sung, with the pastor singing one part and a 10-year-old girl off to one side of the church singing in answer. It was really beautiful. Even though the maid of honor wore pants, and there were no bridesmaids or groomsmen, and three of the male guests wore flip-flops, it was still a beautiful and sacred ceremony. If you have a chance to attend a Greek wedding, I highly recommend it. Heck, you could probably crash one as long as you weren't waving a Turkish flag.

 

The reception was unbelievable. Without getting into too much boring detail, it lasted NINE hours, and the bride and groom were the last ones to leave. More dancing (Greek and otherwise) than you can possibly imagine. The father of the bride was quite a character, leading the traditional Greek line dancing when the DJ played that music, then staying on the dance floor shaking it to "Its gettin hot in here (so hot) So take off all your clothes". It was quite a trip. Several of the guests brought their own food and I will be spoiled for spanakopita for the rest of my life.

 

Towards the end of the night, I was chatting with Ted's koumbaros (the Orthodox version of a best man, also his sponsor when he converted) and we were swapping lies about all the crazy things Ted had done. Several times during the night, friends of Ted and his bride were offering to pay for stories from Ted's early days, as I was the only one in attendance who had known him more than ten years (besides his mother). I teased about giving up the real dirt, but it was all in fun. His koumbaros joked that Ted had terrible taste in friends based on picking him to be his sponsor, and I replied that Ted picked me as a friend twenty years ago, so what did that say about me? As I laughed about the oneupsmanship, he paused for a moment and got serious before saying "It's 20 years later and here you are today, I think that says a lot." I wanted to deck him. Trying to make me cry at my buddy's wedding. Sheesh.

 

We left a little after midnight, just a little while before the bride and groom, but not before Ted was kind enough to give me a drunken lap dance. It was worth it just to see his bride running around trying to find a camera to capture the moment. She finally got her pictures, and I didn't even have to pay for the lap dance.

 

We had plans to meet them the next day for lunch, so we spent the following morning driving down to Canton to finally visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Football is my least favorite of the four professional sports, but I follow it enough to have made the trip. My wife is a diehard Cowboys fan, so she was ecstatic to relive their glory days. You could easily spend two full days there and not really see everything. But we were just killing a few hours so it was a nice diversion.

 

After a 3 hour lunch swapping stories and getting to know Ted's new bride, we headed to the airport. I never did visit a comic shop while I was there. But strangely enough I really liked Cleveland. There is no way I would have ever expected that, given the city's reputation. And I know the weather would bother me, especially if I lived on the east side of town (which takes the brunt of the lake effect snow). But it was very green, very pretty. The road system made sense, and there was enough of it. The downtown has been nicely revitalized, and many of the suburbs are quite charming. There are decrepit areas to be sure (I repeat, do not stay at a hotel near the airport) but I was expecting a 3 out of 10 and instead found a 7...

 

As we waited for our flight, I joked that I might find a way to get bumped again. It was unlikely, since the wife was along. I can pick the flights that get bumped with great regularity, getting bumped around 20% of all the times I fly. But the ones she chooses for herself are rarely good candidates. Sure enough, 10 minutes to boarding the call came. I was the 2nd person in line and they bumped 3. But unfortunately, when they went to process my ticket they decided they really only wanted to bump people terminating in Minneapolis, not those continuing on. So I missed out. I have never pulled off the 2-free-tickets-from-one-round-trip masterpiece, but that's as close as I have come.

 

I spent the next couple weeks frustrated by Hollywood. The studios have ruined any opportunity for me to tell people about the trip without seeming cliche. Starting a conversation with "I went to my best friend's wedding" gets snickers from the Julia Roberts set. And mentioning that I went to my buddies Greek Wedding received the automatic "Was it Big and Fat?" comment. So I resigned myself to telling people I went to "My Best Friend's Big Fat Greek Wedding" and letting them wonder if Hollywood has spawned the worst sequel of all time.

 

But seriously, that Days Inn has a world of pain coming its way. Especially since my wife got a random survey email from the corporate headquarters asking us to evaluate our stay. She spent almost two hours on it, and has received two followup calls from their customer service dept trying to make things right. It will have a brand new "Sleep Good Motel" sign in short order.

 

An Announcement

 

This isn't news to a number of you. And it wasn't unexpected for most of the rest. But this seems as good a time as any.

 

I do not have a brick and mortar comic shop.

 

That's not a joke. It's the truth...

 

I have had three comic shops in the last five years. And I will have a fourth within the next 4-18 months. I did have a brick and mortar shop for much of my time on these forums. But I do not currently have a brick and mortar store. I actually have not for a little while now. I still have a Diamond account, and will continue to have a Diamond account throughout this period of being brickless-and-mortarless. I maintained my Diamond account during the few months between the shop in Texas and the shop in Oregon, placing orders and receiving products as normal. I will continue to do so until my next shop opens, just as I have been doing for a while now.

 

The store didn't close because I was losing money, or because I got busted for hiring underage strippers, or because I was caught cheating on my taxes, or because I lost my lease, or because I was abducted by aliens... Any of those stories would be more interesting than the truth, but none of them are.

 

The store closed because sometime in the next 18 months there is a good chance that my wife will change organizations. It's not guaranteed, but it's quite likely. She has done wonders with her current organization, but she is approaching the point where she needs a bigger challenge. People in philanthropy change jobs every 3-5 years. That's just the nature of the business. The assistant director of the American Heart Association chapter this year may be the director of the Boys and Girls Club four years from now, and may be the executive director of the American Cancer Society five years after that. Because the area we live in now has few organizations that need someone of her caliber, there is a good chance we may be moving. She moved 2000 miles to take this job after they performed a national search. It's likely her next job won't be anywhere near here.

 

So after lengthy conversations about the potential move, I closed the current shop to make her decision easier. With my shop open, she is limited in the opportunities she can explore, because it takes 3-6 months to properly shut down a comic shop. We lived apart for 8 months when she took her current job, and neither of us wants to go through that again. So this time, we will move simultaneously (assuming we need to move) and I can open again within a month or two of our arrival.

 

I still have all my display fixtures, my equipment, my bulk inventory, all that stuff. There's an entire comic shop worth of stuff sitting in one of my many storage units. I could unload that stuff into an empty space in a strip center and in two days have one of the best shops in most any town in the country. There are probably 200 shops better than mine in the country, but there are 2500 that are worse. So I am not worried about where I wind up.

 

The reason I didn't make a big deal of the closing when it happened is that my wife doesn't need the grief at work. She has a very political job, and she didn't need to spend two months with folks at work asking her if she was leaving once they heard I was closing up shop, only to have her actually leave a month later. If I told the forum I was closing in preparation to move, it's not as though she could keep them from hearing that. As it is, the shop has been closed for a while now, the questions have long since died down, and when the time comes people will understand her choice to leave. They hired her away from a group 2000 miles away, they know it's likely to happen again. The timetable of my shop closing isn't directly related to her job search at all. She may stay six months or eighteen months or five years. And once I know where I am going to be long enough to justify signing a new lease, I will open another shop. If it turns out that over the next year, she makes the decision to stay here for a longer term, I will reopen here. But otherwise I will open again when we move.

 

Very little changes as far as my forum customers are concerned. Diamond still ships me stuff every week. I still place orders every month. In fact, since the TPB King venture started taking off my orders have been higher than they were when the shop was open. My Diamond rep tells me I am one of the first accounts he's ever heard of to increase its orders as a result of closing a location. The last several months have been very hectic for me, while dealing with the changes and the subsequent lack of employees, in addition to the family health issues. But things have largely settled down now.

 

The only truly unfortunate thing for my forum customers is that I was unable to order any FCBD books this year, because it is a firm requirement that participating retailers have a storefront. So I was not able to order a few hundred extras to offer you guys.

 

Will my next shop be in a town near you? Maybe... Will my next shop be chock full of strippers? Quite possibly... Will my next shop carry Yu-Gi-Oh cards? Only if I have to... Will my next shop be brightly light with wide aisles and ample signage? Yeppers... Will my next shop include an internet cafe? You know what, it just might... Will my next shop have a catchy name that's easy to spell? Of course... Will my next shop be seeking new investors as silent partners? That's a question for another time... Will my next shop be better than your current LCS? I'd say there's a pretty good chance, although I wish that was a higher bar to reach... Will my next shop have a thrashed copy of Incredible Hulk #1 on the wall? The Magic 8-Ball says "yes"...

 

A Few Observations

 

Marvel and DC are going in very different directions right now with their publishing business. For most of the 1998-2001 cycle, Marvel completely ignored the trade paperback business in favor of the monthly pamphlets. Rather than release reprint collections from their catalogue of previously published material, they focused on trying to retake the top spot in market share of the monthlies. DC had overtaken Marvel in the late 90s after completing its buying spree and bringing Wildstorm and the rest under their banner.

 

That didn't sit well with Marvel, which had held the #1 spot for nearly a decade without interruption. So Marvel lured top creators to revitalize the ongoings, launched dozens of new miniseries to pad the cumulative sales totals, sprinkled in a few variants (like the 2 for #2s), and retook the #1 spot. During that push, they published very little in the way of TPBs, while DC quietly cranked out trade after trade, every six to eight months for dozens of titles. For quite a while, it looked as though DC didn't care whether Marvel was the top publisher of monthlies, they were content rolling in fat bank by blowing Marvel's doors off in the TPB and HC market...

 

That all changed in 2001. Marvel suddenly woke up and changed their entire publishing paradigm in favor of TPBs. They started releasing collected editions of older material, new volumes of Essentials and Masterworks appeared, older versions went back into print, and more importantly the mandate went out to all of their creators that they needed to copy the Vertigo model and write everything so that it made for logical trade paperback editions. No matter what else was going on, there had to be a logical place to break between collected editions every six to eight months. The Vertigo-izing of Marvel went better than most expected, in part because several of the guys from Vertigo had been hired by Marvel. Morrison, Ennis and the rest were already used to writing in TPB-length story arcs. And Bendis wrote every other title for Marvel so they didn't have too many guys to train.

 

In the last couple years, Marvel has published nearly half-again as many TPBs as DC. Both publishers have been cranking out trades for the ongoing titles, but Marvel has also been mining its backlist at a fevered clip. New Masterworks, new Essentials, new Visionaries, you name it.

 

But a funny thing happened last year. DC suddenly decided they cared about being #1 in the monthlies again. No matter what the cost, DC has a mad-on to be ahead of Marvel in the publication of the pamphlets. And they are doing it the exact same way Marvel did just five years ago. They lured top creators to revitalize the monthlies, started launching new limited series to pad the stats, and a downpour of variant covers (under the guise of new printings). The total sales numbers for Superman/Batman and Teen Titans are insane when you add up the printings, and the Lee-Turner variants have been carefully chosen to barely keep DC at #1.

 

To be honest... I don't know why... Being the #1 publisher just doesn't mean that much... Oh, it might matter if there was 15-point difference in market share, but with them bouncing back and forth with just a couple points between them it just doesn't matter... There isn't a prize given out at the end of the year. The bragging rights can't matter that much, because really, who are they going to brag to? No one would listen! The only possible people who might be impressed are comic creators looking for a company to work for, and most of them work for both anyway... The ones that don't certainly won't be won over by a "We beat Marvel by 2 percentage points" pitch... So why bother?

 

The only "black helicopter" theory I can suggest is that they are terrified of losing market share to the other companies, and like Coke and Pepsi, they advertise like crazy to make sure no one drinks RC... But in this market that just doesn't make sense... Crossgen imploded all on its own... The guys at Dark Horse have no ambition to be in the top 2... And Image has quietly cemented itself as the largest small press publisher, where once it competed for dominance. It's a good thing Image now gives its discount based on total orders rather than orders of Image product, because last month I ordered a whopping $100 retail from them. There was a time I got 100 copies a month just of Powers. Now Image is lucky if I order 30 copies from the whole company. I could go back and look but over the last year I may have ordered more Dreamwave books than Image books...

 

So why does DC care so much about being #1 in pamphlets?

 

Some Inane Ramblings About San Diego

 

After an aggravating screw-up with my booth registration for San Diego, and spending two weeks questioning whether they were going to have space for me or not, I finally got a call this morning confirming they have straightened out my booth assignment. Barring a major catastrophe (which my wife assures me will not happen, bless her heart) I will definitely be in San Diego this year.

 

For those keeping track at home, I will be in booth 531-533.

 

I have eight exhibitor badges coming to me. Three of those are spoken for (me, bubbagump, and my former assistant manager from Texas). The other five are potentially available. A couple folks here have potential dibs (you know who you are) but there are absolutely some badges available. In addition, I receive two free badges as a Diamond Retailer. Those are retailer badges, so they won't let you skip the line, but they do permit free attendance for all four days. Neither of those is spoken for at this time. In addition to those ten badges, I can purchase up to eight more exhibitor badges for $60 each. That doesn't mean I will sell them for $60 each, since they are clearly worth more than that. But I am pretty reasonable. Just don't expect me to sell a badge to someone I don't know. You'll be walking around the show wearing my company name and I like to know the folks doing that.

 

I'm not out to make a fortune selling badges, I'll be there to sell trade paperbacks after all. But if I can cover a little bit of my expenses, get a little assistance with my booth, and reward some of the folks here for being pretty damn cool people, that works for me. Deathlok, you're welcome to a free exhibitor badge, no strings attached...

 

As of right now I would say there is an 90% chance I will be setting up at the Baltimore show in September. Marc Nathan doesn't answer any of my emails, but I have already registered for the Diamond Retailer Summit that follows the show, and I fully intend to meet a bunch of forumites at the show. It's unfortunate that my tickets to the Oregon-Indiana football game will go to waste, but if the Baltimore show goes well I might just make a trip to Norman to watch the Ducks play Oklahoma the following weekend.

 

At this point, it's about 80% likely that I will also set up at the Wizard World Texas show in November. Again, to do so I have to let Duck football tickets go to waste, but it's been a while since I challenged stronguy to a squat contest...

 

 

 

 

So there it is... my 5000th post... and it may have more words in it than the last 5000 of greggy's posts combined... Wanna place bets on whether the first reply is someone posting this graemlin ?

 

'House

[ultimatevenom]

Congatulations on 5k

 

Man that post is long.

[NewtSamson]

Lighthouse is da man

[Scarlet_Spider]

Man that post is long.

 

It's that long and then some. It's almost a novel!!!

[dam60]

dam60 - for actually reading my blathering long-winded emails. You think my posts are wordy? You haven't seen anything compared to the emails David has had to read over the last year. Even if he hadn't started the Forum Philanthropy drive, I would count him in the "good guy" column without a second thought. The fact that we have had a chance to do some business has been a pleasant bonus.

 

'House, one of these days I wish you would believe me when I tell you that I LIVE for these brick and mortar retailer stories that you tell!! (although now should I say "guy with a diamond account stories" )

 

Thanks for all the help with the Forum Philanthropy and thanks for keeping me well stocked with some of the best damn reading material ever!! Not only the emails / posts but the TPBs

 

Here's to another 5K posts (at which point I reckon that you will still have ~25% of the posts of Greggy )

 

DAM

[Red Hook]

Congrats LH! And....um.....end of July dude. End of July.

[chrisco37]

Big Ups!

[Zonker]

I was afraid the "announcement" might involve some bad news, but from what I can tell from skimming through (Man, them's a lot of words!) It's All Good !!!

 

Except perhaps for those now-under-employed strippers in Eugene. Oh, well, maybe they'll now be even more 'motivated' at the more-lucrative of their 2 vocations.

[ArAich]

mmmmmm...that was a good sandwich....

[Rocketeer]

....Very interesting post,...I guess my only question would be...,

When the frick are you going to ship the book I won on E-bay from you a month ago,.....

[burntboy]

congrats on your 5000th - i read it all except the novella

[greggy]

There's at least one typo in this post...and yes, I read it.

 

Now...where's my SD pass?

[deathlok]

There's at least one typo in this post...and yes, I read it.

 

Now...where's my SD pass?

 

You're an auditor not a proofreader, leave that to the professionals.

 

[AlexH]

I didn't see you giving any thanks to the packmule.

[seank]

Where's my OS price guide?

[dudesim]

Great 5k post..good reading

[bubbagump]

Congrats on your 5000th post.

 

House really was abducted by aliens. It's the only reasonable explanation for him.

[Drummy]

When I started reading this post, it was July 7th.

 

I just got finished reading it today, on August 3rd. The San Diego Con is over. How'd it go?

 

Dan

[kryptonitecomics]

5,000 words for you 5,000th post....cool idea

 

 

Congrats man

[Darthdiesel]

I thought you were announcing your decision to "buddy up" with the Eugene CGG posse and become their PVC taste tester

 

 

Look forward to seeing you in Baltimore. If you'd like to stay somewhere where you will not be competing for bedspace with a harem of Chrisco's leftover used crusty skanks, I'm right down the road