Contest Of Challengers

We were guests on the Graphic Novel TK podcast! It was a fun time. Maybe check it out? Some days Twitter is harder to understand than others. Peter Cannon Thunderbolt #1 is a good read. If we thought LAST week was slow due to the cold weather… What to eat when working on a day when over 200 Chicago restaurants are closed? Our 25% Off Storewide Sale starts on Thursday! Are $9.99 graphic novels effective? Have we considered connecting to buyers through the shop owners they like? The Captain Marvel movie wave Marvel Legends figures are in, with some interesting figure choices.

So cold in Chicago nobody’s coming into the shop. We’ll soon have a new retail neighbor and we have a new security system in place. Little Bird and Assassin Nation are 2 new Image books Patrick really likes. Administrative shake-ups in the DC Comics offices. Initial orders vs. final orders-- what’s the best way to order new comics?

Dal and Patrick were both jurors for CAKE (Chicago Alternative Comics Expo) applicants again this year, and our scores were due today. Image Comics is offering full returnability on some of their upcoming #1 issues, and an earned higher discount on issue #2’s. Dal tricked Patrick into watching the Spider-Man Far From Home trailer, and he wasn’t even trying to do so. Dark Horse’s upcoming INVISIBLE KINGDOM from Berger Books is really, really good. More on it next week. We had yet another Challengers customer visit All Star Comics in Melbourne this week. Big Bang Comics from Dublin had a really interesting Twitter thread about today’s comics retail market and how retailers don’t seem to blame themselves. Kelly Thompson should not be the only one promoting her new digital release from Marvel. No, we won’t sell you 15 copies of Ironheart #2 on the day it comes out. Marty + Sarah (Love Wrestling) are coming to Challengers on Easter Sunday!

We appreciate the few new ratings and reviews we’ve gotten on iTunes. Please keep ‘em coming! Thank you for the past 10 years, Donovan! An in-depth look at the graphic novel sales of 2018. An even more in-depth look at 2018’s single issue comic sales. Dal has a very progressive (and perhaps polarizing) suggestion for the future of Marvel and DC single issue comics. Listener questions! How do we think the break between story arcs help Image comics sales? And why don’t we make comic sets of grab bags?

Do you think the Bears will make it to the Super Bowl? Against the Chargers? (EDIT: Um... no) It’s January, so that means it’s once again time for others to predict the death of the direct market! Graphic Novel sales seem down in stores across the country, but not at Challengers. DC’s Zoom and Ink are a good idea but we don’t know that they’ll land with our customer base. The white-washing of Damian Wayne. Yes, the industry is evolving, but it needs to evolve. All the problems retailers are identifying now feel like things we’ve already been thru. 2018 sales by category vs 2017 sales. Patrick’s niece was in Australia on her honeymoon, so we asked her to swing by All-Star Comics in Melbourne and give them a little Chicago care package. We’re pretty excited for WrestleKingdom 13, but it’ll have happened by the time you hear this, so never mind. Post-credit tribute to Mean Gene Okerlund (from CoC #314).

Diamond Comic Distributors catches Patrick’s ire one last time for the year. Some customers only see what they want to see. Some stores got next week’s book’s last Monday. We still don’t have them. Specifically nerdy Christmas gifts we received. With almost nothing new on the shelves the week of Christmas, people are finding some older comics, and that’s neat. Keep Reading Comics n 2019!! At the start of 2018, we tried to plan more experiences than signing. That did not work. Lucy Knisley returns to Challengers in March! As does Women’s Comics Month.

It’s a Christmas episode! Just by the fact that it’s recorded in late December. Also, Santa has a cameo, and so does Stan Lee. Another long-running comic shop is calling it quits. Santa came to hang out and spread some Holiday Cheer this Wednesday, and he made a video to remind subscribers to pick up their comics. And then we decided to share it with other stores… Marvel’s Stan Lee tributes make selling those comics just a little bit harder. New Comic Releases for the next 2 weeks are kind of weird; the content and the actual shipping dates. An audio transcript of the ‘Email Primer’ we’re giving out to all subscribers in 2019. The Christmas Eve release of the newest Dogman graphic novel. #joinin And, unlike the Aquaman movie, this episode has a post-credits scene! (Aquaman has a MID-credits scene, but not a POST-credits scene)

Why, as a small, retail business, would you not offer gift cards? Once again, our Peoples Gas account was swiped by a condo resident in our building. The Record Store in Howell, NJ, is going out on their own terms. Oh, Border Town... (This segment is what this episode’s title refers to). “TKO does things a little differently than most publishers.” True, but that isn’t necessarily different GOOD.

I dunno, how do YOU swipe credit cards thru the card reader? An update to a prior subscriber story, and Patrick’s 2 favorite ways to overreact. Sending comics to prison. For inmates; not to punish the comics themselves. Our lateral back issue filing cabinets are now fully functional. The Avengers Endgame trailer is out and Patrick will not watch it. But Dal will. And did. The effect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Marvel Comics. There is going to be a 3rd Conan series, and he’ll be in Avengers No Road Home.

400 episodes of this? Damn. We “acquired” 2 new back issue cabinets. After days of work, they’re not what we expected. November was not a great sales month and it ended on a really bad week. Construction + snow = a less than $100 day (for the first time in many years). Patrick’s car need over $1900 of work done in November. Subscriber visits over the Holiday season and the GoFundMe for Cave Comics. Speaking if subscribers, it’s time to drop more of them out of our pull and hold service. The Mutiny, a Chicago icon dive bar, is closing after 30 years. The new Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic looks pretty good. Publisher output the week of Christmas is not that great this year.

Working Hard vs. Hardest Working This episode was recorded immediately following our 2018 Black Friday sale. We never seem to sell out of the stuff we want to get rid of. Getting burned when subscribers have books on hold for months that they never wanted. Reminding subscribers, in person, the value of our weekly emails. The detailed account of either a subscriber losing 2 comics or us making 5 mistakes 2 months in a row. How Monday pick-up was taken away from us. Are customer attitudes regional or national? One final Lumberjanes Day reminder. Christmas shopping as customers, not retailers.

Rest in Peace, Stan. Recorded live from the show floor of ChiTaG, the Chicago Toy and Game Fair, the worst we have ever done at a convention. This one almost broke us.

The level of engagement we feel defines Challengers. When trivial information becomes exceedingly useful. “+ Conversation” doesn’t apply to movie theories. Selling some 1978 Marshall Rogers Detective Comics for 99¢ we didn’t know we had. Store signage only works if people are willing to read signs. Or see them. Changes to our personal work schedules for the first time in years, and why. ChiTaG is one week away and we THINK we’re ready. Grant Morrison’s Green Lantern #1 came out this week. Lumberjanes Day is coming up! So is our Black Friday Sale and more events!

The Isola collection available in comic shops doesn’t have the prologue story that the Barnes & Noble edition has. Somehow we missed ordering 3 issues of Die! Die! Die! The 50 Most Favorite Comic Shops in the US (not the Best; the most Favorite). Sincere regards to Barry and Jayme of Southern Fried Comics as they’re choosing to close their shop. Patrick has 2 similar ideas for plastic and tote bag usage in the shop. We now have an actual comic book spinner rack of $1 comics. What if we really made a go of Halloween Comicfest in 2019? We have a new Lumberjanes Event coming on December 1st with multiple creators. The Mark Waid Legal Defense Fund.

Patrick talked to Aubrey Sitterson and Chris Moreno about The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling. And the recording turned out to be virtually unlistenable due to technological issues. So… Patrick recreates the conversation entirely in his voice, minus most of his actual dialog. Sound weird? It is! But it was too good of a conversation to not share. Now it’s a monologue! Bonus: the actual nigh-undecipherable interview is included. Sorry, Aubrey! Sorry, Chris! Curse you, Pamela (the program; not a person)! Including: The democratizing of opinion sharing; “Worth”, their previous graphic novel collaboration; pro wrestling, of course! Not mentioned: Aubrey and Patrick each wrote dialog for Mike Norton’s “Battlepug” and for the same characters!

Just like episode #177 from 4 years ago, Patrick is recovering from surgery so Dal has to work every day. That leads to asking if time away makes one like comics more or less than being at a store all the time? If we become millionaires (outside of comics retail, of course) would Challengers still exist? Trying to keep all-ages single issues in stock. So far there are 2 Christmas gift-worthy graphic novels for the season. There are so many Tillie Walden books available! 2 comics of note this week are Exorsisters #1 and Shuri #1. If you like Monstress, do you want more books like Monstress? Or just more Monstress? We held 3 events in the past week. Dal recaps his Ace Comic Con experience. Are you excited for DC’s new creative teams on some of their core characters? Is John Byrne coming back to the X-Men?

This episode does not contain an interview with Aubrey Sitterson and Chris Moreno from The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling, and we tell you the unfortunate reason why. Hopefully, the end of the continuing story of Challengers and our alarm company. Paperwork and bureaucracy! Ace Comic Con Chicago is happening. Great for celebrity photo ops! No so much for, you know, comics. Jook Joint #1 is pretty brutal, but certainly worth the read. It’s pretty ballsy of Marvel to pay tribute to Ghost Rider creator Gary Friedrich.

Good news-- we did not get broken into this week! So that's 1 week in a row! The continuing story of Challengers and our (for now) alarm company. Add that to our wonky A/C bent front door and we have 3 too many maintenance issues at the moment. More security measures will be put into place. The New York Comic Con was going on as we recorded this, so we talk about some of the announcements that had been made. And then… things take a slightly dark turn as we’re not really excited by the slate of announcements. And by ‘not really excited’ we mean pretty much straight up angry.

Dark Matter has a new retail coffee shop right across the street from Challengers. We got broken into and robbed… again. We loved Heroes in Crisis #1 and don’t understand people that are so anti-Tom King. Dal is looking forward to Gran Morrison’s Green Lantern. Patrick, not so much. More love for Man-Eaters #1, now that it’s actually on sale! Doctor Strange has been really good and just had a neat twist. Batman Damned is now quarterly and #1 is not being reprinted at this time. We hope that decision changes…

It’s almost time for our health insurance plans to be cancelled! If you complain that comics cost too much, maybe reevaluate your buying choices. What if a creator you love did something you have a serious moral objection to? And yes, there is a comic that shows Bruce Wayne’s penis. If you want it for that reason alone, just own up to it.