So a guy came up to me at the Wizard Philly con with “Fallen Angel #22” and he told me he hadn’t gotten any issues since. When I asked why, he said the store manager said they’d stopped carrying it because he was the only customer buying it.
I told him that if the store couldn’t be bothered to accommodate a customer, he could order it directly from IDW.
PAD
• 
There’s nothing like customer service, eh?
And that was nothing like customer service.
You know I used to love comic book stores. There used to be a nice one here in Charlottesville, but the owner sold it and the guy who bought it knew nothing about comic book characters or the creators. He just wants to make a buck and doesn’t want to talk to you about any of the stuff and doesn’t know or care to recommend to people.
There was another one, but the selection was crap and the owner is a jerk.
I used to love going to that store to socialize and goof off, now it’s just no fun. I’d rather get subsciptions and do it that way.
Any store that doesn’t fulfill requests by customers no longer deserves that customer.
I used to work at Shinders (comic book/collectible/pørņ chain in Minnesota) before the owner got busted with assault weapons and meth and ended up in prison. I used to order single books for people all the time. I wasn’t supposed to, but I was in charge of the orders and since nobody there kept any inventory (and I mean nobody, ever) it wasn’t ever much of a problem.
There’s only one comic book store left in Minnesota worth going to anymore, and who knows how long it’ll will still be around.
That’s just stupid.
That’s a store begging to go out of business. My LCS always orders 1 of an item for regular customers if they are asked. I repeat:
That’s just stupid.
There’s plenty of good comics stores in the NJ/Philly area. Go somewhere else!
(And I’ve said it before…mailordercomics.com is the best place to buy comics.)
I vote for http://www.westfieldcomics.com. They have had my business for many years and they sent me comics in the PI and Europe when we were stationed there. I would have had to give up the hobby if they hadn’t been around.
If this person is in Northern NJ, let me recommend New Moon Comics in Little Falls. I switched to them about a year ago; they’re great, they’re friendly, they’re comics-centered (as opposed to being a gaming store that also does comics on the side), and very customer-service-oriented. There are plenty of things we get where we are either the only one or one of just two ordering it, and it’s never a problem.
Worth a look.
TWL
My LCS knows better, too. They get shorted by the distributor semi-regularly on orders, but they know better than this.
Which leads to a rant about idiot owners/managers, but somebody else can do that one.
But it just shows how much people want to read comics that we hear so many bad stories about comics shops, yet most all still in business a year or two or three years later.
Quick question that I’m pretty sure someone here can answer for me.
Will there be any more Star Trek: New Frontier books? Or is the entire series switching over to comics?
Thank you!
Yeah, pretty much the same deal everywhere. I gave up a lot of comics due to the cost of comics and the cost of living and then I ended up giving up the rest of them because I got tired of having to fight with shop owners to get them. About the only comic I read “regularly” now is The Walking Dead and that’s basically because I can buy it in TPB form every six months.
Now I feel blessed to have the comic store I do. The owner will order any title a customer requests, even if only one person wants it. It saddens me that comic stores are losing that fun atmosphere.
I second/third North Jersey. I haven’t visited the new New Moon comics location (I’ve been to the one that was in a mall, but the mall closed down about 4-5 months ago.) but the old one was nice. I also suggest Paradox Comics in North Arlington. They have 50% off sales every year, and they once had a 60% off sale!
Does anyone know of any good shops in the Hartford area? I’m going to be going to school there in September. Even though I’ll probably stick with my normal shop in Jersey, it would be nice to find a shop around my school. (not to mention that I could use a job in college ;P)
New Moon got out of that mall a few months before it died, Dave — just FYI. The owners (Rob and Vicki) are really, really nice — a pleasure to deal with. If it’s remotely convenient for you to swing by Little Falls, give ’em another look.
Dunno about Hartford, but I have friends in that area — I’ll check.
TWL
Any comic shop I’ve dealt with has had a subscriber program – even for people who just buy a few comics a month. Usually, they order enough to cover all the subscribers to a title, plus more if they think the book will be popular. If the book isn’t popular, they just order enough for the subs.
On a sad note, I just discovered that my old LCS is no more. Now & Then Books in Kitchener, Ontario closed its doors sometime last year. It was one of the oldest comic shops around. It apparently hadn’t been doing well since the original owner Harry Kremer died a few years ago. Dave Sim used to work there years ago.
This is an aberration based on my experience, both as a comic book buyer and a provider of software to retailers.
I’ve never had anything but good experiences with strange adventures and odyssey 2000 here in dartmouth/halifax nova scotia.
Stupid retailers hurt themselves.
If the fella that spoke to PAD at the con is reading this, I’ll make the assumption that he lives around Philly. There are four and a half really good comic shops around here, the Bucks/Montgomery area. Not sure how PAD’d feel about me listing them here, so I’ll put up a blurb on my site about ’em.
I’m sorry if my post implied I write software for comic book retailers.
I don’t. I’m just extrapolating from experience with other retail business.
The comic book market is to small and poor for us.
I’ve had not but good experiences with Strange Adventures and Odyssey either (Odyssey is merely a 2 minute walk from my place), but Odyssey MUST have shot themselves in the foot somehow to lose the Games Workshop contract a few years ago.
There’s a lot of this going around. Has anyone read this piece of crap?
http://www.icv2.com/articles/talk_back/12648.html
Good God, what an idiot!
It’s irritating that a comics dealer would be so uncooperative, but the only argument likely to change his mind is loss of income. If he doesn’t want to bother with low-selling titles, he has that right; If he loses customers to the point that his income drops, he can reconsider. I’ve had this argument with someone elsewhere: He sees the distribution of comics titles as a public service, but I think it is a money-making occupation. I want my retailer to provide whatever I desire, but he has no obligation to cater to me any further than he chooses.
Echoing many comments here, there are a number of very good comic shops in the Philadelphia area – I (and clearly others) would be happy to furnish him with a list.
The funniest part is that those of us of a local persuasion can probably make a pretty decent guess where he’s talking about.
Maybe I’m missing something but is there any way that NOT selling titles, no matter how few ISN’T a money losing proposition??? Does checking off a 1 on a title suddenly make it unprofitable? I figure it takes 5 seconds and nets about $1. Give him all of 2 minutes to actually remove said comic and place it in the hold slot and an additional 2 minutes to ring it up (this is a slow out of shape retailer). $1 for 4 minutes work. That’s about $15 an hour–not chickenfeed and it doesn’t even take into account the fact that the buyer may pick up other comics to buy as well.
Seems like a no-brainer but I’m not a retailer so I may be missing something.
Gordy Toler:I used to work at Shinders (comic book/collectible/pørņ chain in Minnesota) before the owner got busted with assault weapons and meth and ended up in prison. I used to order single books for people all the time. I wasn’t supposed to, but I was in charge of the orders and since nobody there kept any inventory (and I mean nobody, ever) it wasn’t ever much of a problem.
Ive seen in the local Mpls. paper that a new shinders is opening in a couple of the old locations. I miss the old shinders. Even with the pørņ, they always had it in a seperate section of the store so it stayed pretty much kid friendly. I used to go downtown to the old store when it was on the E block. Good Times
Gordy Toler:There’s only one comic book store left in Minnesota worth going to anymore, and who knows how long it’ll will still be around.
Would that be the Hot comics chain? or The Source? Dreamhaven is a great store also.
Seems like a no-brainer but I’m not a retailer so I may be missing something.
You are. Freight.
I’m not saying that the retailer in question isn’t stupid. He is. I can sympathize with smaller retailers not buying shelf copies of books that they KNOW won’t sell; the store has to pay to get it shipped and they can’t exactly pass that cost on to the consumer. Small retailers especially can’t afford to throw cash away on books that won’t move; that wastes money two different ways at once.
Not ordering a book you KNOW someone is going to buy, though, that’s just idiotic.
I guess I’ve been lucky. When I lived on Long Island, even when one store closed, I was able to find another one, and all had good reserve lists and friendly owners who knew comics and were helpful, the last one being Grasshoppers Comics in Mineola. Now in Westchester, I go to Alternate Realities in Scarsdale, and again, the owner, Steve, is a good guy with a great selection. I’ve never had any problem getting Fallen Angel! He recently had an interesting program: his son turned 18 in May, so any regular customers could take 18 comics from the back-issue bins for free.
my comic shop ordered EXACTLY what was requested. if you heard about a book later, don’t show up there to pick up something on a whim. i have actually listened to the fanboy radio (www.fanboyradio.com) podcast in my car on the 30 mile drive to my fiances, gotten there and pulled into a comic store and bought books because they were talking about them on the show. like the music industry and movie theatres, the comic industry has slit its own throat… don’t expect me to attend the funeral for a suicide.
http://www.jamesford.wordpress.com
Freight is minimal if you figure the cost per comic. I haven’t had access to an invoice in at least 5 years, but freight back then was around 1 cent per book. Even with the increased shipping today, it can’t be 2 cents per book.
Back in 2004, I wrote on this blog about a problem I’d had with the comicbook store I patronize. At the time, I discovered that The Victorian by Penny Farthing Press— which I’d had on my pull list— had not been canceled at some point in the past. Instead, my store had stopped getting it, despite the fact that it was on my pull list.
The owner told me he stopped ordering it because no one was buying it. I would have bought it had it been among my pulls, as it should have been. Instead, he must have put it directly on the shelf, where it got buried. In the end, I ended up ordering issues 9-23 (of the 25-issue series) directly from the publisher.
As I said at the time, I can understand a store’s reluctance to buy multiple copies of a title that doesn’t sell very well, but I’d specifically asked for The Victorian. I wanted to buy it.
I wonder how many people had similar experiences to the fan PAD met in Philadelphia, but who didn’t ask their shop owner and just assumed Fallen Angel had been canceled? I’d reached that conclusion about The Victorian because I neither saw it on the shelf nor among my pulls after issue #8.
Oh, and by the way, at my request, my store did order The Victorian #24 and #25, but I found the one and only copy of #24 on the shelf; it wasn’t among my pulls. Suppose I hadn’t looked on the shelf that day, but had accepted the shop owner’s mistaken belief that it hadn’t come in yet? Suppose someone else had picked up that issue in the meantime? I might have ended up ordering it from the publisher as well, and had to deal with the hassle of shipping costs.
Another bizarre aspect of that experience was the revelation that the staff of that store doesn’t consult pull lists to see how many copies of a particular book to set aside for customers. Instead, they order their usual stuff, and a few independent books, then set aside copies for pull customers based on what they ordered.
If they didn’t order it, then they can’t set it aside.
The owners of the previous two stores I patronized (both long gone, alas) ordered books from customers’ lists. They didn’t consult the lists after the fact.
I still patronize that same store, because despite their screw up with The Victorian, the owner does seem to want to do right by his customers. Plus, there hasn’t been a screw-up of that type since.
At least I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure, for example, that Mythstalkers was canceled with #8, and that my store didn’t just stop ordering it.
I haven’t seen Age of Bronze in a long time, either; but I think that’s due more to that title’s sporadic publishing schedule than through any fault of my comic store.
After the Victorian debacle, I had considered taking my business elsewhere, but ultimately didn’t.
Speaking of comics, I’ve decided to make certain changes to my buying habits. I’m switching to trades only for those titles that are being collected in trade format. Why? 1) the trade often costs less than the combined cost of the individual issues; 2) trades don’t require bags and boards, which I then replace roughly every seven years.
I might not go the trade route with Buffy, however. First, the trades are more expensive than the sum of the individual issues; and second, that title is one of the few these days to run a letter column. I happen to like letter columns.
Again, I’ve decided to “wait for the trade” with regard to those titles that are already being collected in trade format. Otherwise, I’ll continue to get individual issues.
Even so, I may cut back on what I buy. I still enjoy comics, but they’re becoming expensive, especially when you factor in the cost of bags and boards. Not only would I have to eventually replace the bags and boards I already have, but I’d be buying new ones for new individual issues, meaning I’d have even more to replace in another seven years.
Rick
If they didn’t order it, then they can’t set it aside.
Yeah, and even if they order it, that doesn’t mean Diamond will ship it to them. I had a 40% ordered but not shipped rate from Diamond. On comics that Diamond said were shipped and not cancelled.
I would order from the Diamond catalog, and give my order to my local comic store. When my friend owned the store, I was entering my order into the order book directly. I would then track EVERYTHING I ordered via data from Diamond’s web site.
I’d order something, track it, see on Diamond’s web site that it shipped, and it would never arrive at the store. My store would call Diamond and would get nothing but “Sorry.” from Diamond.
The comic book industry cut it’s own throat but Diamond is crushing the life out of what’s left.
I thought about writing open source ordering/tracking software but I wasn’t about to fight Diamond for the data.
Then lack of money forced me out of buying comics. I have money now but I’m too disillusioned to buy anything but trade paperbacks…
OK, Tony, Thacher, I WILL take it to the people.
Benjamin Bayliss wrote:
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 10:42:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Benjamin Bayliss
Subject: Re: Confessions of a Comic Book Guy—Just Say YES
To: Super-Fly Comics & Games
“So I say, let’s help them by NOT ordering comics like All-New Atom, New Dynamix, Avengers Classic, Avengers Fairy Tales, Number of the Beast, Marvel Comics Presents, Uncle Sam & the Freedom Fighters, Shadowpact, Checkmate, and Suicide Squad.”
At no point in time is the qualifier “for the shelf” added.
All I need to know about you or your shop is that an owner or worker or peon of YOUR STORE is advocating NOT ORDERING books that sell below a certain number. Does that warrants an e-mail saying you (meaning you, your store and/or whoever wrote the article) suck? YOU BETCHA! You make ALL shops look bad if this is indeed your policy currently or in the future. Best case scenario? It’s piss-poor customer service. Worst case scenario? It’s censorship.
As far as what shop I work for ? What difference does that make? I’m not officially speaking for the shop, I am expressing my personal view.
This has gone on long enough, I think your shop and your shop’s policies are crummy, you think I’m an idiot. I won’t be spending any money at your shop. The continuing go-round is pointless.
Have a great day.
Super-Fly Comics & Games wrote:
Ben, I love it. You send us a rude, condescending and ill informed email, then send us another one to say “see I told you so,” come up with no actual argument to back up those insults, and when I reply back, suddenly *I’m* the one who’s insulting. You don’t know me, or
Tony, or Steve, or our store. Not to mention the fact that you continue to be vague as to exactly what store you supposedly work for. I suppose I should just stand by and let you continue to
insult and degrade us and our livelihood in the vague hope that maybe you would come down and grace us with your presence and business. Of
course, if you did come down, you’d actually see the kind of shop we run, as opposed to making knee-jerk reactions and assumptions based on
something that you admit to not even understanding in the first place.
I will not apologize for defending my livelihood from unwarranted attacks to someone who has no idea who or what we are.
Tony, Steve and I do what we do because we love comics, we love serving our customers, and we want to make the industry a better place than it is. All I see from you is someone who decided to hide behind the internet to make snarky, insulting, inaccurate and childish comments.
Plus, both of those “I told you so” links are pretty much exactly what I’m saying. Order for file customers, maybe get an extra for the shelf, encourage people to add something to their pull or pre-order so we can get them what they want. This is what I mean when I say your remarks “inaccurate” and show a lack of comprehension on your part.
-TEC
On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 1:12 PM, Benjamin Bayliss wrote:
Well, regardless, you haven’t managed to change my mind as to what he was advocating but you HAVE managed to insult a potential customer. One who has been working in the comic book industry FAR longer than you shop has been open. Nice job. So, my original email still stands. When your shop closes (and I have NO DOUBT that it will, soon) send your customers up to Columbus where we’ll treat them far better than you apparently do.
Super-Fly Comics & Games wrote:
Ben,
I can’t tell if you’re stupid or just dense. We will order any comic for any customer that they want. Period. That doesn’t mean we’re going to get a bunch more (or yes, sometimes even one more for the shelf) to have on the shelf and hope we sell. We encourage pre-orders, we encourage special orders. We’re in this business because we love comics, and we love putting good ones in the hands of our customers.
Second that, we have to watch out for ourselves in an industry that is *still* recovering from a market crash that was caused solely by publisher speculation and mismanagement. When the crash in the 90s happened, retailers lost their stores and their livelihoods. I’d like to see something like that never happen again, but I guess that’s a little too “big picture” for some internet tough-guy who apparently doesn’t even work in a shop or have an idea how the market works.
Thacher E Cleveland
On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 12:45 PM, Benjamin Bayliss wrote:
The obvious argument is that he is advocating NOT ordering certain low selling comic books. My point still stands that this is an asine way to
run a comic book shop (but not run it for long as you lose your customers due to dissatisfaction.)
Super-Fly Comics & Games wrote:
Benjamin,
That’s an apples an oranges argument. Neither Steve nor this store are advocating not ordering copies of a comic for a customer that wants them. In fact, the comics Steve’s advocating “not ordering” are all backlist-fodder super-hero titles, which have aproven track record of failure and relaunch, not smaller comics that offer a break from “super-hero mainstream” like Fallen Angel does. In fact, if you like back on his columns, you can see that he’s often advocated these types of “smaller” non-super-hero fare as the the kind of things that actually help the industry in the long run, as apposed to following the same fire and forget mentality that Marvel and DC have.
To be clear, because maybe you need your hand held here, we would and would never not order a comic for a customer that they requested we got for them. In addition, we offer Previews free to every customer an encourage placing orders with the order booklet to make sure that they get the comics they want. What we advocate is moving away from the practices of hype, spin and market flooding that publishers like Marvel use to make a quick buck and what may be the expense of the retailer.
If you want to keep throwing childish “see I told you so” emails at us, go right ahead, but figure out what the actual argument is first.
Thacher E Cleveland
Co-Owner
Super-Fly Comics & Games
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 12:29:24 -0400
From: “Super-Fly Comics & Games”
To: “Benjamin Bayliss”
Subject: Re: Confessions of a Comic Book Guy—Just Say YES
Benjamin Bayliss, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal:
This is the store’s main e-mail address. You have succeeded in contacting the store’s Owners. I will see that Steve gets this.
I’m not quite sure who you’re trying to accomplish with this message.
If you are attempting to rebut Steve’ argument you have clearly failed. You also failed to put the rebuttal in any kind of public forum, so your message can only be construed as an attempted personal attack.
Steve’s article addresses an important point. Many of our customers complain daily about the number of titles on the shelf; nobody can afford to buy them all, and we are told increasingly often that if we want to keep up we must buy them all. It is to be argued that we are rapidly approaching a market state very similar to the one just before the market crash in the 90’s. Nobody wants that, and it is very worth discussing how we as an industry can avoid that.
Your response to that argument can only be read as blind faith that whatever comes out will sell; which directly led to the market crash.
Retailers don’t really have a place at the table when it comes to what the market pursues, and the only way we can affect what comes out is
by “voting with our dollars.”
Further, the point Steve addresses refers primarily to shelf copies of titles which are not likely to sell. We, as a shop policy, give
Previews free to our file customers. We will gladly order ANY title in that catalouge ANY customer who wants it. The issue at the heart
of the article is the high volume of low-selling titles which don’t make their money back and drive readers away.
You seem to claim that you are a representative of a Columbus shop (you conspicously fail to mention exactly which one); if you are at
all informed on the state of the industry then you are wholly mistaken not to be concerned for the state of the industry.
Your assertion that our shop will close is an outright insult. You intentionally and directly malign our ability to run a store in this
very complex industry. We are all in this boat together and, frankly, to receive an e-mail this scathing from someone claiming to be an
industry professional makes me very worried for the state of this industry.
If you disagree with Steve’s points, fine. Actually take the time to form a cogent response and post it in the same public forum where the
original content was published. Don’t privately and cowardly accuse him and us of idiocy.
Have a nice day.
Anthony Barry, Owner
Super-Fly Comics & Games
134 Dayton St
Yellow Springs, OH, 45387
http://www.myspace.com/superflycomics
superflycomics@gmail.com
937-767-1445
Folks, tell me if I am way off base because I really don’t think I am.
Freight is minimal if you figure the cost per comic. I haven’t had access to an invoice in at least 5 years, but freight back then was around 1 cent per book. Even with the increased shipping today, it can’t be 2 cents per book.
This is wrong in about 14 different ways; first and foremost being that except for its biggest customers, Amazon and the like, UPS (and places like FedEx, DHL, etc) calculates shipping w/r/t both total weight of shipment and total distance from origin to destination. What one location pays for freight is meaningless to anyone else. Boxes of comic books are very heavy, god forbid you don’t live close to where the boxes are coming from, and I doubt there are more than a handful of comic shops in the United States that qualify for the kind of pricing the largest sellers get.
Other than that, you may have heard that gas is about 3x more expensive than it was 5 years ago.
I learned a lesson a year or so back when Captain America #25 came out. I had been loyal to my comics store in Staten Island for 20 years. I had been going there since I was 10 years old. Now I will grant you, most of the employees I was very good friends with had either transfered to the Manhattan store (Ok, so even without saying names, it will not be difficult to figure out which store I’m talking about! 🙂 ) or had just come and gone. At that point in time, a new regime had kind of come in to the SI store…but I had made every effort to befriend them.
Previous employees had always made a huge effort to be sure and save books for those of us who were loyal customers. There is no pre-order thing that goes on with them, keep in mind. I had heard stories in years past of the managers saving books for months for customers who signed up for the Army and were shipped to Iraq. If I was sick, or unemployed, they would hold onto books for me until I could come in and get them.
Now when Cap #25 came out, I dont think anyone realized there would be such a huge, temporary speculator boom. But whatever, it happened. I walked into my comics store 2 hours after it opened and was informed every last issue was sold out.
I asked the then acting manager if he could save me 1 copy when the re-order comes in the following Wednesday, because that next week I was going to be starting school. There was no way I was going to get in to meet “the rush”…And I was fearful that if I didnt get in when the store opened, the exact same thing would happen.
I was very matter of factly told “no”…upper management wanted to sell it on a first come first serve basis and they were not allowed to hold any books back; basically it didn’t matter to them who they sold it to, as long as they sold the book. (And this forced me to cut out of school for an hour, in order to go somewhere else toget the dámņ book)
In 20 years I have spent in excess of $20,000 at that store on comics, action figures ,shirts and statues. Probably closer to $30,000 (20-30$ per week). And over 1 book that cost $2.99, they lost a customer.
That, to me, is horrendous business. And I learned that when it comes to money, and where I spend it, there is no reason to have any loyalty whatsoever. (Just another example of stupidity by comic store owners, IMO)
Michael
Folks, tell me if I am way off base because I really don’t think I am.
Worst case scenario? It’s censorship.
Censorship? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Off-base? Just a little.
Learn what words mean before you use them.
Also, by the way, the “I work at a comic shop and I know better than you” is – as your target rightfully points out – mindless internet twaffle if you’re not going to identify yourself or which shop.
You privatly and stupidly flame a guy, then when he rebuts you very cogently you respond with “well you’re a big stupidhead!” and then, after he politely suggests you place your argument – if your lunacy can be considered as such – in the same place that the original piece appeared, you post it someplace else.
CLASSY.
How do you figure it’s not censorship? I don’t want my customers to be able to buy these books.
Wikipedia: “Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor.”
Sounds like censorship to me.
How is it not censorship? Let’s see…
He flat out stated multiple times he would order it for any customer who asked him to.
He doesn’t order for the shelf for purely financial reasons, which isn’t even mentioned in your definition of censorship.
Shall we keep going?
The original article at http://www.icv2.com/articles/talk_back/12648.html
does NOT state that at ALL. In fact it states that the shop SHOULD be unwilling to order ANY copies for ANYONE below a certain threshold. Anything said in those emails, in my opinion, is strictly spin control.
Fair enough. Now please explain in a logical fashion how that meets the standard definition of censorship.
Ray Cornwall said
(And I’ve said it before…mailordercomics.com is the best place to buy comics.)
OMG, THE BOOKS ARE 1/2 PRICE AT THAT SITE! WOW!
Joe V.
Ben:
For someone who wanted to drop the argument, your posting it elsewhere, as well as including all of our contact information, is extraordinarily rude and hypocritical.
Steve’s article does not contain the assertion that absolutely, bar none, no copies of those comics listed should be ordered for customers that want them. It has not, nor will it ever be, the policy of this store to refuse to order a comic for a customer. I don’t think a retailer with half a brain would make that assertion. I stand by the points made in our emails to you, which were until this point a private conversation between us.
I find it offensive and disgusting that you would taking emails that were intended to be a private conversation between us and post them in a public forum. I’d like to request that information and those posts to be taken down, but ultimately that’s Peter’s call since it’s his “house.”
This isn’t “taking it to the people.” This is you, after saying that you were done having this discussion with us, taking it elsewhere without our knowledge or permission to try to make my business look bad. This is how I make my living, this is how I pay my rent and feed my family. You have no right to run around and attempt to sabotage it.
I find your actions here, and your overall demeanor from the first email you sent us, to be disgusting, cowardly and wholly without merit.
Thacher,
The only part of Ben’s argument that I think has merit is that the original article on ICV was somewhat poorly written — it would be very easy to read it as “no copies will be ordered regardless of customers’ wishes” rather than “no shelf copies will be ordered.”
I completely believe that the latter is what you and the author meant, but can you see how it would be read the other way?
Apart from that — Ben, Thacher’s right. This is not censorship, and you’re posting private e-mail without permission. I doubt it’s actionable, but it’s certainly very high on the “tacky” and “socially unacceptable” lists. You’re not doing your point any favors by pursuing this.
TWL
Tim:
Yes, I can see that point of view. Steve is currently on vacation and out of contact, so we’ll have to wait a little bit before there can be a clarification put in there.
Other than that, his actions are indefensible. I find his attacks on my business character baseless, and now have to ponder the ramifications of his slander and how they’ll affect my business in the Columbus-area community. I also notice that he left his personal information, which was included in the signature file of his emails, absent. It’s unclear from there what, if any store, he’s associated with.
For trade paperback buyers… I tell you, I couldn’t be happier with http://www.instocktrades (add the “.com) to buy trade paperbacks. Great prices at instocktrades– 37% off Marvel/DC/Image trades with NO pre-order. I order books on a Wednesday morning and they are shipped out Wednesday afternoon like clockwork in double-walled boxes (filled to the brim with cushy packing material) and FREE SHIPPING for orders over $50.
No gas charges, no travel time wasted, no hassles… I can’t recommend them HIGHLY enough! Plus their on hand back stock is phenomenal.
In this political year, I would like to stress I am NOT a paid endorser of this site… Just an extremely happy weekly customer!
In South Jersey, might I suggest:
Joker’s Playhouse on Rt. 9 in Northfield
Stormwatch Comics on Rt. 73 in Berlin or
Hall of Heroes in the Hamilton & Cherry Hill Malls
There’s plenty more great shops out there. Someone else out there will be more than happy
to supply Fallen Angel (and all the other books you might want)
Thinking about ordering stuff from shops, reminded of something that happened to me and a friend of mine at an LCS. We ordered stuff, then never heard anything. So, I went in, and lo and behold, the shirt I’d ordered was hanging on the rack with all the other un-ordered shirts. Seems when one of the people working there would open a box, he’d not check to see if it’d been ordered for anyone specific.
When my original store went out of business, Village Comics RIP, I started going regularly to a store that had been my secondary store whenever store #1 sold out of something. While the secondary store, which is now my primary store, is pretty good at getting what’s on my pull & hold/reserve list, there are a few comics & magazines that I buy regularly that they don’t order. Since switching over to them, I’ve had to gently prod them into ordering the books I get that they don’t order(Femforce, the DC comics based on the animated series, and 3 of the magazines that TwoMorrows publishes). They’ve stumbled but are doing a better job at it.
When my original store went out of business, Village Comics RIP, I started going regularly to a store that had been my secondary store whenever store #1 sold out of something. While the secondary store, which is now my primary store, is pretty good at getting what’s on my pull & hold/reserve list, there are a few comics & magazines that I buy regularly that they don’t order. Since switching over to them, I’ve had to gently prod them into ordering the books I get that they don’t order(Femforce, the DC comics based on the animated series, and 3 of the magazines that TwoMorrows publishes). They’ve stumbled but are doing a better job at it.
When my original store went out of business, Village Comics RIP, I started going regularly to a store that had been my secondary store whenever store #1 sold out of something. While the secondary store, which is now my primary store, is pretty good at getting what’s on my pull & hold/reserve list, there are a few comics & magazines that I buy regularly that they don’t order. Since switching over to them, I’ve had to gently prod them into ordering the books I get that they don’t order(Femforce, the DC comics based on the animated series, and 3 of the magazines that TwoMorrows publishes). They’ve stumbled but are doing a better job at it.