Contest Of Challengers

New reusable tote bags. Large poster re-stock. Pop vinyl re-stock. Large all-ages graphic novel re-stock. Sale t-shirts are in. A whole bunch of new local comics and zines (thanks to Women’s Comics Month). We’re trying to put every penny back into the sore. The Challengiraffe prototype has been made by DoomCo Designs. We’ll actually have these fun 3D-printed statues available by Free Comic Book Day! Marvel’s “Generations” and Secret Empire #0. Dal has a BIG idea for changing how we rack single issue comic books. It’s different than we’ve ever done. Can we do it? Event recap!

It’s a special mid-week bonus episode as Patrick interviews artist Ashley Riot. What started as a Women’s Comics Month interview turned into a full episode! Ashley tells about growing up as the only anime/manga fan she knew and what it’s like to find other people and places of similar interests. Already a convention pro, Ashley delights in seeing young girls reading comics and loves giving drawing advice to kids and anyone with the desire to draw. Ashley’s original work includes an upcoming book called Psyche. Lots of talk of Sailor Moon, Ghost in the Shell, Doctor Who, The IT Crowd, and our deep, deep mutual love of Richard Ayoade.

This episode is a series of mini-interviews with the creators that set up for the first half of Women’s Comics Month 2017 at Challengers. Chloë Perkis Bianca Xunise Lauren Burke & Monica Ras Amber Huff Rosie Accola Sara Kloskowski Marie Enger Andrea Bell Rebecca Rothschild

NOT RECORDED IN A MOVING VEHICLE! You’re welcome. There’s a bunch of Marvel things to talk about: Legacy numbering, movie/TV advertising and geo-targeted character interaction, yet another new X-Men team book. We like SOME of this. We are 1 week into Women’s Comics Month. How is it going? 1st quarter 2017 sales are down 10% thus far. The number of brand new titles coming out in May is staggering. Will Patrick be on a Diamond Retailer Summit panel? We had a C2E2 scavenger hunt at the store. Having an actual, mailing address mailing list; not emails. Our business neighbor is now a Cards for Cash store. Read Grass Roots #1 (and Gwenpool, for Dal).

This is mercifully the last of our recorded-in-the-car episodes, on the way home from Memphis, Tennessee. Friday and Saturday of the conference in one episode. Valiant suite party. Workshop recap. The Keynote address! Stocking more Young Adult books. 32 roundtable discussions. Dinner with :01 First Second. (also, the name Patrick forgot was Miranda) Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Auction. Diamond warehouse tour in Olive Branch, Mississippi.

This is the second of out recorded-in-the-car episodes, on the way home from Memphis, Tennessee. It’s noisy and raining and you don’t have to hear us get lost this time. I mean, we DID, you just don’t hear it. It’s a full Thursday rundown of the conference. Marvel talks! How was their year? DC takes the rest of the day! Comics, trades, marketing and collectibles. Patrick only slept a tiny bit during the presentations. Lunch workshops. Patrick hosted one about store signings and Dal sat in on one about product diversification in stores. Dinner at King Jerry Lawler’s Hall of Fame Grille. Plus! A special guest appearance from 2 other Chicago podcasters (thanks to the MLW Radio Network)!

This is the first of three (3!!) recorded-in-the-car episodes, to and from Memphis, Tennessee. On the way to the 2017 ComicsPRO Annual Meeting, listen as Patrick and Dal: -Get lost on I-57! -Talk about what they expect to be doing all weekend. -Learn Bane is getting a his own 12-issue series. -Realize Batwoman, Super Sons and The Wild Storm all debuted this week. -Tell you our retail neighbor, Boost Mobile, is going away. So is Impossible Industries. -Discuss that there is going to be a new Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man series, in which Peter returns to NY and gets mustard on his dress shirt. -And remind you our Revival Wake is this Wednesday! Opening song: “Memphis” by Joe Jackson.

Can a geek-centric marketing firm reach the audiences we don’t? Cancelling FiveStars is harder than getting FiveStars in the first place. Have you seen Legion? Dal has and likes it! As we predicted many, many episodes ago, Marvel’s next big “E” event is Captain America-centric and written by Nick Spencer. Is Marvel abandoning legacy characters and going back to the status quo? Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt are coming back to Challengers! Daniel Warren Johnson is also coming back to Challengers! Gene Ha wants to show you how special comic shops are. Working harder for 25% off.

It’s SALE time! We only do one storewide sale per year and this is it! We feel like our new title good will is running thin. Like, we can’t get people to buy books just on our say so anymore. What titles do we hope people buy during the sale? Do you use lists in your everyday life? Patrick is falling behind his regular comic reading. Wednesday was Image Comics Day! 25 years of Image Comics! What did we do for it? (hint: nothing) Dal talks himself into bringing back our lapsed book club, Chattingers. We want a Brand Manager.

It’s the 300th episode of Contest of Challengers! And we celebrate with… a regular episode. You’re welcome. When is a collection complete? The New York Times is dropping their regular list of Best Selling Graphic Novels and we are NOT happy about it. A major international comics creator is interested in coming to Challengers. Who is it? Greg Rucka has a new Image title on the way. What do we think about Old Guard?

We start with a weird and unresolved issue with 2 Saturday shoppers. Our internet went out and Comcast had many ideas on the issue. Patrick disagreed. Resist! We can’t help but talk about all of the weekend’s marches, but we keep trying to tie it to comics. Believe it or not, talking about the Inauguration actually segues into how well we think Tom King is doing on Batman and specifically with Bane. Event rundown!

It’s a numbers game this week as we run down the best-selling graphic novels and the best-selling single issue comics of 2016. How many super heroes have parents that are still alive? More upcoming Marvel titles are announced (of course there are, as it’s a week in the year). We dump on Spider-Man. Again. Quick talk about Pulls Lists. Patrick wants a progressive discount. You may not have heard of “Extremity” but when it comes out in March you’re gonna love it!

Everything is new! It’s a New Year! We have a new website! The interior of the store has been rearranged! All new for you! Here’s a little explanation as to why we’ve changed stuff. Ten 2017 comic industry predictions. #boostyourLCS, with guest audio from Ross Richie 2016 total sales vs 2015 total sales. Matt Kindt is coming back to Challengers! Gene Ha is coming back to Challengers! The brand new Unstoppable Wasp #1 is really fun and we both enjoyed USAvengers #1, too!

Recorded in the final days of 2016. Mac McCaughan from Superchunk sums it up so much better than we can. Yes, we sold CD’s at one time, so we can justify talking about music on a comics podcast. Midwest Merch, our on-demand t-shirt provider, is going away. We’ll miss them. Love is Love is a great book doing great things for worthy people. So, of course comic retailers have a problem with it. When asked by the creators to NOT sell Saga #41, what do YOU think retailers do?? Is Patrick a professional comics industry apologist? Our website is getting a face lift. Why do vacuum cleaners come to Challengers just to die? The brand new Hulk #1 is really good, and a worthy successor to the Charles Soule She-Hulk run.

SPOILER ALERT! We talk all about the brand new Star Wars movie, Rogue One, and that includes major plot points, so consider yourself warned. Lots of spoilers! Dal loves all movies Star Wars! Patrick is indifferent. One of them fell asleep during the movie! One of them has seen it twice in the first 24-hours of release and once or twice more by now. Can you enjoy this movie without knowing what WE think of it? Probably, yes.

Happy Holidays from Challengers! The Holiday buying season is in full swing! How do YOU shop for gifts? In-store? Online? Outsource? Gift-giving is way more Patrick’s thing than Dal’s. Helping people find Christmas presents, especially when they’re not familiar with comic shops, is kind of the best thing. You should totally eat at the Haywood Tavern!! The best way to ask if we have something in stock is to call the store, not to hit us up on social media. Patrick figures out the % of subscribers that have yet to be in in December. Patrick finds a thing on Walmart.com that is on sale for $19 when Challengers has it for sale at $75. What does he do? It wouldn’t be Christmas without a missing box of product! Thanks, UPS! Have you seen Justice League Action?

Happy Holidays from Challengers! We maybe start out by talking about Christmas music for a little too long… And then we maybe talk about toys for kinda long, too. 2017 is starting off great for events at Challengers! Ryan Browne and Ashley A. Woods, and Amber Benson and Sarah Kuhn, all in January. Women’s History Month = Women’s Comics Month We talk a lot about Marvel’s October 2017 title sales vs. Challengers sales of those same titles. Lastly, slow sales are being felt all across the industry. Some suggest diversification, but what diversification do they mean?

Sandwich indignity! Buncha movie trailers have just been released and they mostly look good! It’s hard out there for a pimp comics retailer. Retailers around the country are vocalizing their current difficulties. What do comic readers and fans OWE comic retailers? What do the creators and publishers owe retailers? What got the comics industry out of the slump 20 years ago? We’ve got something planned for March, to coincide with Women’s History Month. Curse Words #2 is even better than Curse Words #1! Is Curse Words on your radar? We end with a brand new Holiday song!

We have our first ever Holiday sale next week. Sales are trending down across the industry because readers are no longer engaged. Event recapping: Local Comic Shop Day and Art Baltazar. Were YOU there? What could make Local Comic Shop Day a success? How would we engage people without the internet? Rounding up for charity, and why we won’t do it. All the new X-Men titles and creative teams from Marvel. Wicker Park has a new hotel and hopefully we can use it! 250 prints in 10 separate boxes.

Uploaded early for your long Thanksgiving commute! A long and noisy interview with fellow comics retailer Alli Alleman of Collector’s Paradise in LA. Well, that’s where she works NOW. See! the comics industry thru younger eyes. Experience! comics retail from a woman’s perspective. Marvel! at her Rick Remender story from San Diego this past summer. Learn how similar experiences are for most people that spend their days behind a comic shop counter.