Contest Of Challengers

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.

It’s Dal’s birthday, but he has a gift for YOU. Maybe. Tech apologies for episode #287 and a preface to episode #290. That’s not too confusing, right? 3x3: Three things we’ve done wrong and three things we’ve done right. Well, right-ish… We set up at Pritzker School’s reading night and had fun. Kids sure do love business cards. “Graphic Novel” vs. “Comic Book” Do you really care what they’re called? Spider-Man #9 is not the comic we were expecting, sadly. Turns out we are not your favorite shop in Bucktown. A mobile vintage store van is…?

By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth! By the Omnipotent Oshtur! By Agamotto's All-Seeing Eye! We saw Doctor Strange on opening night, and we talk all about it! Lots and lots of SPOILERS!

17 hours in the future! Our first-ever Australian interview! An interview with Mitchell Davies from All Star Comics in Melbourne. All-Star is also an Eisner-winning shop and their ideas on retail mirror that of Challengers, from 9,674 miles away. This interview was fraught with technical difficulties, but Mitch is a wonderful guy to talk to and this episode came out great, despite the recording issues. Ever wondered how different comics retail is in other countries? Well then this episode is for you!!

Does the Cubs winning the World Series make people more or less likely to buy comics right now? Patrick is the REAL hero of the World Series. Our Civic Duty Discount is back! Street construction blows. Choosing to turn a negative customer interaction into a positive one. We now have people check their bags, but we hate doing it. A personal message from the Rough Riders for Challengers! Red Sonja #0 is 25¢ and Diamond thinks we need to order 87 copies. A brief talk of original comic art.

Oh, Marvel. Oh, oh, Marvel. We have some serious issues to discuss. Cover price. Page count. Unwanted back-up stories. Seriously, 80% of this episode is problems we have with the current Marvel product. #StandWithChelseaCain Curse Words looks great! And other new books for January 2017.

As it seems that Patrick and Terry are almost the same person, this half of the interview is more about pro wrestling and heavy metal than it is about comics, but it always comes back around to comics. Just like life! When these two get together over a bottle of Jameson (yes, there was Jameson), you never know what’s going to come out.