SEPTEMBER 2015 UPDATE for www.graphicnovelclub.com

Hello Awesome Comix Experience Book Club Member! (more after the jump, yo)

Ah! It’s our third month, the end of our first quarter, and I feel like things are starting to slip into high gear about now. We’re really hoping that you’re digging on the range that we’re trying to bring you each month, and I think that you’ll find that this month does not disappoint!

We really value your feedback, for good or ill, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any comments or concerns, no matter how small!

Status Update

Well, we slip just a little as people moving and looking for new jobs outnumber the new sign-ups, and we fall back to 233 paid members. This brings us back to needing 101 people to join to get us to our goal (by 2017) – argh, back to triple digits (we were at needing 99 last month)

As always, if you are enjoying what we do, we always appreciate mentions on your social media (our twitter is @comixexperience) and encouraging your friends to join. Looks like I need to start working the press trail a little harder again – I slacked most of August, trying to recover from the initial push

Again, I want to remind you that after we achieve our membership goal, every 25 members over and above that we gain will yield a 25 cents per hour raise for every staff member as well. I take zero profit from the book club! There is no limit on this, and I believe we can drive the club membership high enough to have the awesome Comix Experience staff be the highest paid comic store employees in the world.

The Kid’s Club has taken a solid jump this month – we’re now at 51 members there now, up from 40 last month.

Announcing our Winner for September 2015!

Sacred Heart by Liz Suburbia

In this debut graphic novel, the children of U.S. small-town Alexandria are just trying to live like normal teens until their parents’ promised return from a mysterious, four-year religious pilgrimage, and Ben Schiller is no exception. She’s just trying to take care of her sister, keep faith that her parents will come back, and get through her teen years as painlessly as possible. But her relationship with her best friend is changing, her younger sister is hiding a dark secret, and a terrible tragedy is coming for them all. Filled with teenage loves and fights and parties, Sacred Heart is a wonderful coming-of-age graphic novel set against the threat of a big reckoning that everyone fears is coming but has no proof. Suburbia's punk-infused comics and cartooning talent have drawn justifiable comparisons to Brandon Graham and Jaime Hernandez.

Liz Suburbia's talent is on full-display in this astonishing debut novel -- the kind of work where you're glad to be in on the ground floor, because she's only going to get better from here (and this is already pretty great). We could not be more pleased to name this our September Book Club Winner!

Buy a copy of Sacred Heart here! http://mkt.com/comix-experience/sacred-heart-sep

For Club members in good standing, you should have your copy of SACRED HEART by Monday at the latest. If you’re picking up, you can pick up immediately! Oh, and even better? Every copy comes with an EXCLSUIVE signed bookplate. Wow!

KIDS club winner for September 2015

HiLo: The Boy Who Crashed To Earth by Judd Winick

D.J. and his friend Gina are totally normal kids. But that was before a mysterious boy came crashing down from the sky! Hilo doesn’t know where he came from, or what he’s doing on Earth. (Or why going to school in only your underwear is a bad idea!) . . . But what if Hilo wasn’t the only thing to fall to our planet? Can the trio unlock the secrets of his past? Can Hilo survive a day at school? And are D.J. and Gina ready to save the world?

You want Fun? You want Action-packed? You want Laugh-Out-Loud Funny? You want Hilo. That is all.

Buy a copy of Hilo: The Boy Who Crashed To Earth here! http://mkt.com/comix-experience/hilo-the-boy-who-crashed-to-earth-sep

KIDS club members should have their copies by early next week as well. If you’re picking up, you can do so immediately!

Upcoming Meetings!

So, don’t forget that our book club meeting to discuss last month’s pick, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, is on Wednesday September 9 at 8 PM PST. We’ll have author Ryan North and some special guests streaming with us, so that should be a little… nuts! Wait, I made that same basic joke last month, damn it! If you can’t make it to the store, it will be streamed live from here https://goo.gl/fw8I6T

Then we have our meeting for this month’s winner, Sacred Heart, on Wednesday September 23 at 8 PM PST. Author Liz Suburbia will also be joining us via stream, and we’re very excited to engage with her. If you can’t make it to the store, it will be streamed live from here https://goo.gl/IWe3Kv

But, that’s not all, September is a crazy month, because we also have our two KIDS club meetings: Sunday September 20^th at 1 PM we’ve got Craig Thompson live and in-person for Space Dumplins for the kids club members only. Kids Clubbers can stream it live from https://goo.gl/oeGudF. But what if you’re not a Kids Clubber? Then you can come to our open-to-everyone signing from 2pm to 4pm! Space Dumplins is a pretty exciting book!

Finally, we close out the month with our Kids Club meeting for HiLo: The Boy Who Crashed To Earth with the ever awesome Judd Winick live and in-person on Sunday, September 27 at 10 AM for the Kids Clubbers, who can also stream it live from here https://goo.gl/41Z4zP. And if you’re not a Kids Clubber? Open public signing from 11 to 1!

Also: Due to public demand for it, we’ve started a facebook page with the events and such which you can find at https://www.facebook.com/comixexperiencegraphicnovelclub, go there and “like” it, and maybe it will show in your feed (probably not, knowing those algorithms)

YOU CAN JOIN IN when we have the meeting – you just need to have a Google+ account we can invite. You do not need to have a @gmail address in order to have a Google+ account. Join G+ at https://plus.google.com. Unless you tell me otherwise, we are directing all invitations to events and such to the address that this mail is coming to.

We are using G+ rather than Facebook because of their video meeting tools and integration with YouTube, etc. – you’ll be able to ask questions from anywhere in the world as our meeting is going on, and we think that’s pretty neat.

We also have a G+ closed and private Community which is located at https://plus.google.com/communities/114465333092610147099 -- this is a place where we can discuss the book each month. We invite you here to discuss our picks each month. If you can not access that group, please let me know and I will provide what meager support I can to get you going.

Runners Up For September 2015

We want to be really honest with you, this was pretty much the greatest slate of books we’ve faced so far, and we had a staggering seven titles that made the cut to get voted on by the Comix Experience Staff – all of these are worth a second look by you, we think, even if they didn’t win the vote. Some of these only missed by a very small number of points!

Material by Ales Kot and Will Tempest

The first book of the sweeping literary graphic novel series crosses from Boston to Los Angeles and from Oklahoma to Guantanamo, through the hidden, unfamiliar and forbidden spaces of the American psyche. Compared to the works of Don DeLillo, Daniel Clowes and Joan Didion, Material is the beginning of a journey into the heart of the newly born century.

Material is a book about being lost. It is about the things that let us be lost and the system that pushes us away. A group of narratives intertwine as each protagonist faces the thing that that is standing in their way. For a washed up starlet, an MIT professor with writers block, a political prisoner and a civil rights revolutionary all of this is Material.

Buy a copy of Material here! http://mkt.com/comix-experience/material-sep

Honor Girl: A Graphic Memoir by Maggie Thrash

All-girl camp. First love. First heartbreak. At once romantic and devastating, brutally honest and full of humor, this graphic-novel memoir is a debut of the rarest sort. Maggie Thrash has spent basically every summer of her fifteen-year-old life at the one-hundred-year-old Camp Bellflower for Girls, set deep in the heart of Appalachia. She’s from Atlanta, she’s never kissed a guy, she’s into Backstreet Boys in a really deep way, and her long summer days are full of a pleasant, peaceful nothing . . . until one confounding moment. A split-second of innocent physical contact pulls Maggie into a gut-twisting love for an older, wiser, and most surprising of all (at least to Maggie), female counselor named Erin. But Camp Bellflower is an impossible place for a girl to fall in love with another girl, and Maggie’s savant-like proficiency at the camp’s rifle range is the only thing keeping her heart from exploding. When it seems as if Erin maybe feels the same way about Maggie, it’s too much for both Maggie and Camp Bellflower to handle, let alone to understand.

From CE staffer Emma Munger: I felt immediately at home reading Honor Girl. I too grew up in the rustic camp environment, squealed over boy band members and developed crushes on a certain someone who was “off limits.” While those are specifics that not everyone may have experienced, I’m positive that anyone who picks up Thrash’s poignant memoir will find a piece of themselves in these pages. The vibrant water colors and excellent pacing suck you in and the brave, brutal honesty of Maggie’s “coming of age” lessons spit you right back out. I laughed, I cried, I cringed, and then I laughed some more.

Buy a copy of Honor Girl here! http://mkt.com/comix-experience/honor-girl-a-graphic-memoir-sep

The New Deal by Jonathan Case

The Waldorf Astoria is the classiest hotel along the Manhattan skyline in 1930s New York City. When a charming woman named Nina checks in with a high-society entourage, young Frank, a bellhop, and Theresa, a maid, get caught up in a series of mysterious thefts. The stakes quickly grow perilous, and the pair must rely on each other to discover the truth while navigating delicate class politics.

The challenge of a period piece is to resonate with modern readers, and Jonathan Case accomplishes this deftly by setting a traditional mystery/heist narrative within the framework of 1930's American class struggles. Case's clean illustration is evocative of the time and combines with likable protagonists to immerse you in a brisk adventure.

Buy a copy of The New Deal here! http://mkt.com/comix-experience/the-new-deal-sep

The Story Of My Tits by Jennifer Hayden

When Jennifer Hayden was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 43, she realized that her tits told a story. Across a lifetime, they'd held so many meanings: hope and fear, pride and embarrassment, life and death. And then they were gone. Now, their story has become a way of understanding her story. Growing up flat-chested and highly aware of her inadequacies... heading off to college, where she "bloomed" in more ways than one... navigating adulthood between her mother's mastectomy, her father's mistress, and her musician boyfriend's problems of his own-not to mention his sprawling family. Then the kids come along... As cancer strikes three different lives, some relationships crumble while others emerge even stronger, and this sarcastic child of the '70s finally finds a goddess she can believe in. For everyone who's faced cancer personally, or watched a loved one fight that battle, Hayden's story is a much-needed breath of fresh air, an irresistible blend of sweetness and skepticism. Rich with both symbolism & humor, The Story of My Tits will leave you laughing, weeping, and feeling grateful for every day.

Comix Experience Staffer Julie Fiveash says: I personally loved Story of My Tits for being an exceedingly honest look at breast cancer as well as an amazing memoir of a woman who's reflecting on her life and the events leading to up this moment. Although Hayden admits she's a newcomer to the world of comics, her storytelling couldn't be more detailed and thorough. Her comic is a great new voice alongside such works as Harvey Pekar's Our Cancer Year and Marisa Acocella Marchetto's Cancer Vixen and will be a pivotal comic to help further connect cancer patients and survivors to the broader culture.

Buy a copy of The Story of My Tits here! http://mkt.com/comix-experience/story-of-my-tits-the-sep

Heart in a Box by Kelly Thompson and Meredith McClaren

When the Man with No Name breaks Emma's heart, she wants to die. But you never die from these things; you just want to. In a moment of weakness, she wishes her broken heart away and a mysterious stranger--who may or may not be totally evil--obliges. But emptiness is even worse than grief, and Emma sets out to collect the seven pieces of her heart spread across the country, a journey that forces her to face her own history and the cost of recapturing it, and leads inevitably to a confrontation with the Man with No Name himself!

What if after a heart-break you could give up your heart to someone else who needs it? Really, what do you need it for when it is broken and all feels lost? Well, Emma is about to find out in this volume that is at turns funny, sad, and transcendentally poignant.

Buy a copy of Heart in a Box here! http://mkt.com/comix-experience/heart-in-a-box

Descender By Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen

Young robot boy TIM-21 and his companions struggle to stay alive in a universe where all androids have been outlawed and bounty hunters lurk on every planet. Descender is a heart-felt and action-packed science fiction epic, that pits humanity against machine, and world against world. Creators Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen envision their universe in a manner that is both intelligent and full of heart, illustrated with a beautiful watercolor style that will leave you breathless and wanting more.

Buy a copy of Descender here! http://mkt.com/comix-experience/descender-sep

Star Wars vol 1: Skywalker Strikes by Jason Aaron and John Cassaday

Set after the first movie, but before "Empire Strikes Back", Luke Skywalker and the ragtag rebel band opposing the Galactic Empire are fresh off their biggest victory yet - the destruction of the massive Death Star. But the Empire's not toppled yet! When a Rebel assault goes very wrong, Han and Leia will have to think fast to make their escape...while Luke finds himself face-to-face with Darth Vader! In the explosive aftermath, a humbled Luke returns to Tatooine to learn more about his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi. Meanwhile, Leia and Han undertake a vital - and dangerous -secret mission...but can they succeed without Luke?

OK, we admit it, we have a soft spot of the pulp theatrics of "Star Wars", but we also have to admit that we kind of can't imagine a more fantastic creative team than Jason Aaron and John Cassaday to tell a new story of the prime time of a galaxy far far away! It's probably not art, but we love it anyway, and you will too!

Buy a copy of Star Wars here! http://mkt.com/comix-experience/star-wars-vol-skywalker-strikes

That’s it for this month! Thanks, and please ask away at brian@comixexperience.com for any questions or concerns!

HAPPY READING!

-B

Aug 2015 GN of the Month Club Update!

www.graphicnovelclub.com is the place, and this is the August 2015 update.  There will be links here you can't follow if you're not a member, just saying.  And at least one that you probably should follow! See it under the cut!

Hello Awesome Comix Experience Book Club member!

Ah, our first month has come and gone – I hope you all enjoyed ILYA’s “Room For Love”! I see a few pick-up customers have still not picked up their copy. You should have also received a phone call. Your copy is safe and sound for whenever you are ready for it.

Now things begin to really kick into high gear, so here is your August news!

STATUS UPDATES

We’re growing at just the pace that I have been hoping, and at midnight on 7/31 we had 235 paid members – that means we have just ninety-nine more to go to reach our goal of 334. It is only a double digit number now, woo! Please feel free to tell your friends and neighbors!

Hand in hand with the membership increase, comes a fresh wage increase for the staff. As of their next paycheck, no one will be making less than $13.75, a full $1.50 over SF’s current Minimum Wage of $12.25. That’s entirely on you, so thank you one and all.

Again, I remind you that after we achieve our membership goal, every 25 members over and above that we gain will yield a 25 cents per hour raise for every staff member as well. I take zero profit from the book club! There is no limit on this, and my most fervent hope is we can drive the club membership high enough to have the awesome Comix Experience staff be the highest paid comic store employees in the world!

The Kid’s Club has hit 40 members, if you’re curious about that – tell your friends about that one as well (http://www.graphicnovelclub.com/kids.html.html). It makes an excellent gift.

BITS ABOUT BILLING

Just a reminder that we bill on the FIRST of the month each month. So, if you joined on August 2 or later, your first billing won’t come until Sep 1, and your first book will be the SEPTEMBER book.

As is typical, a few credit cards didn’t successfully charge (usually because expiration date changed), so please keep an eye on your email – I sent you a personal note as well as whatever was automatically generated by the payment company. The next billing attempt for delinquent cards will be on 8/4, then there will be a final attempt just a few days after that after which your subscription will be cancelled.

OUR FIRST MEETING, AND OUR COMMUNITY!

As I sure hope you all knew, we had ILYA in person from England to launch “Room For Love” last month – he was generous enough to do a workshop on comics creation in the back room of the store that seemed like it went over very well. We are discussing doing more “professional” workshops in the future.

We had our first Book Club meeting as well, and we liked the results well enough to make it public to any viewer and it can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrz4v_KwyIE It is about 1:45:00 long, and you can feel free to share that link to your friends if you think it might encourage them to join the club. Future meetings should be relatively similar (though not always with creator live and in-person) – but we will be keeping most future meetings private and not available to the public.

YOU CAN JOIN IN when we have the meeting – you just need to have a Google+ account we can invite. You do not need to have a @gmail address in order to have a Google+ account. Join G+ at https://plus.google.com. Unless you tell me otherwise, we are directing all invitations to events and such to the address that this mail is coming to.

We are using G+ rather than Facebook because of their video meeting tools and integration with YouTube, etc. – you’ll be able to ask questions from anywhere in the world as our meeting is going on, and we think that’s pretty neat.

We also have a G+ closed and private Community which is located at https://plus.google.com/communities/114465333092610147099 -- this is a place where we can discuss the book each month. There is a very excellent thread going right now on “Room For Love”, and the value of the community goes up with every person who participates. If you can not access that group, please let me know and I will provide what meager support I can to get you going.

ANNOUNCING OUR AUGUST CHOICES

“Room For Love” was somber and sober and a hothouse personal drama, so for August we’re going almost exactly 180 degrees in the opposite direction with something a little bit irreverent and silly and packed full of superheroes: “The Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl v1: Squirrel Power” by Ryan North and Erica Henderson, set squarely in the Marvel Universe.

To reassure you (?), our plan is to only very very rarely feature super-hero comics (certainly less than once a year), but “The Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl” is both fun and funny, and those are pretty rare combinations for the genre, and while this is a “Marvel” comic, it has the sensibility very different then the kinds of things you’ll see in the Marvel movies or TV shows yet being absolutely true to the psychological heart of Marvel Comics. We think you’re really going to…. Go Nuts for it! (ow)

Now, we know that there are a few of you that are already buying “The Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl” as a serialized comic and might not want this collected edition, so we’ll make it a free swap with any of our runner-ups listed below. Just send an email with the title “AUGUST SWAP” to brian@comixexperience.com with what you’d like as your alternate, before August 15, and we’ll get you taken care of.

“The Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl” is currently scheduled to arrive to us on August 19^th, so you should expect to receive your copy the week of August 24^th. We will be having our August Book meeting on (wait for it) Wednesday September 2^nd at 8 PM PST. Author Ryan North will be appearing via video call to answer your questions about the book. I am hoping that Erica Henderson will also appear on the call, but I don’t have final confirmation of that as of yet. That meeting will be live-streamed at https://plus.google.com/events/cbtu5opo2u5f9qadvc4b64r8hkc

All members of the club will receive a copy of “The Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl v1: Squirrel Power”, but if you’re not an Adult club member, and would like to purchase a copy, or if you would like additional copies, please order below!

http://mkt.com/comix-experience/unbeatable-squirrel-girl-v-squirrel-power-aug

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Ooh, our August pick for the Kid’s Club is an amazing one! The incomparable Craig Thompson brings us “Space Dumplins”

Family is the most important thing in the whole galaxy for Violet Marlocke, so when her father goes missing while on a hazardous job, she can't just sit around and do nothing. Violet throws caution to the stars and sets out with a group of misfit friends on a quest to find him. But space is vast and dangerous, and she soon discovers that her dad is in big, BIG trouble. With her father's life on the line, nothing is going to stop Violet from trying to rescue him and keep her family together in this incredible adventure from a truly master cartoonist.

We are hoping to have author Craig Thompson LIVE and IN PERSON on a weekend in September (“Space Dumplins” ships 8/26) for the kids, and then to stay after and do a signing for the adults, so hopefully look out for an announcement very soon.

All members of the KIDS club will receive a copy of “Space Dumplins”, but if you’re not a Kids Club member, and would like to purchase a copy, or if you would like additional copies, please order below!

http://mkt.com/comix-experience/space-dumplins-by-craig-thompson-aug

THE RUNNER UPS

In picking the best graphic novel of each month, we create a pool of nominees (most months we have between four and eight options), then the entire staff votes on what wins by a ranked point system. While we can only have one winner each month to send out, we thought it might be useful to you to hear what our alternates were – we really really like these books too!. These were our runner-ups for August 2015!

“Bowery Boys: Our Fathers” by Corey Levine, Ian Bertram, and Brent McKee

When his father is framed for murder, immigrant Nikolaus McGovern rallies a motley crew of street youths in a rip-roaring coming-of-age adventure based on the period history of antebellum New York City! Against a backdrop of rampant political corruption, vicious street gangs, nascent labor reform, and ardent xenophobia, can Niko and his friends triumph in a life-or-death battle against their oppressors—or will they succumb to the engines of socioeconomic progress?

This is a truly beautiful book, and a lush period piece.

http://mkt.com/comix-experience/bowery-boys-our-fathers-aug

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“The Lion of Rora” by Christos & Ruth Gage and Jackie Lewis

In the tradition of Braveheart and 300 comes The Lion of Rora - the true story of Joshua Janavel, farmer-turned-freedom fighter, who Napoleon called history's greatest military tactician. Janavel and his fellow Waldensians battled to save their people from tyranny and persecution, the first case in European history in which subjects of a ruler rebelled to defend their religious freedom. Their fight inspired the Protestant Reformation and, in turn, the American Revolution.

One of the best things that comics do for me is to show me places and people and history and bring it alive in drama that keeps me compelled but also vividly in a character’s head – I know more life in the 1600s in Italy than I did before, and I truly admire Janavel and the Waldensians. Really great historical fiction!

http://mkt.com/comix-experience/lion-of-rora-aug

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“Nanjing: The Burning City” by Ethan Young

After the bombs fell and shook the walls of Nanjing, the Imperial Japanese Army entered and seized the Chinese capital. Through the dust of the demolished buildings, screams echo off the rubble. Two abandoned Chinese soldiers are trapped and desperately outnumbered inside the walled city. What they'll encounter will haunt them. But in the face of horror, they'll learn that resistance and bravery cannot be destroyed by the enemy.

This is a heart-wrenching tale of war, loss, and defiance, and a very somber piece of historical fiction.

http://mkt.com/comix-experience/nanjing-the-burning-city-aug

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“The Surface v1” By Ales Kot and Langdon Foss

What if everything you ever imagined could come true? Welcome to Africa, 2034. The West and the East are moving in and three hackers are searching Tanzania for the place that can change the world: the Surface. When they discover it, love, imagination, and survival go on a collision course as things change beyond their wildest dreams! Welcome to the universe of a mind-bending, action SF epic.

http://mkt.com/comix-experience/surface-aug

CROSS-PROMOTION IS FUN!

Hey, this has nothing whatsoever (yet) to do with the book club, but I thought readers like you might be interested to know we have Author Chuck Palahniuk coming to sign copies of FIGHT CLUB 2 #1-4 on Saturday August 29^th starting at 11 AM and going all day long! He is an incredibly awesome guy that tells some crazy stories, and we could not be more excited! We’ll have some more information on that up at www.comixexperience.com/chuck.html in a few days.

Thanks again for all of your support, please email me at brian@comixexperience.com with ANY questions, comments, thoughts, pleas, dreams, or visions!

-B

Brian Hibbs

Head Cheese, Comix Experience

Comix Experience Graphic-Novel-of-the-month club update!

(Oddly, this was supposed to post 2 weeks ago, gr)  

We’re almost ready to launch the Graphic-Novel-of-the-Month club, so here’s your latest news!

STATUS UPDATES

We’re super-excited to tell you that the adult club has 206 members signed up – which means we only need 128 more members in order to hit our funding goal of 334 members.

Minimum Wage raised in San Francisco to $12.25 on May 1^st, but thanks to our membership, as of July 1^st we’re now not paying any staff member less than $13.50 per hour! So thank you very much for that! After we achieve our goal, every 25 members over and above that we gain will yield a 25 cents per hour raise for every staff member as well. There is no limit on this, and my most fervent hope is we can drive the club membership high enough to have the awesome Comix Experience staff be the highest paid comic store employees in the world!

The Kid’s Club is having a slightly slower start, and we’re just at 26 members today – but I really do think this has the potential for thousands of members, and we’re going to spend most of the summer figuring out the ways to get the word out there for the fall and the gift-giving season. If you have any thoughts or connections, please don’t hesitate to let us know!

Help us spread the news on your social media!

FIRST BILLING STARTS ON JULY 1^st!

We’re just about to bill, and start shipping the first books, so there's still time to join us and be in from the start! just go to www.graphicnovelclub.com to join!

OUR INAUGURAL CHOICES

Our inaugural pick to kick off our Graphic-Novel-of-the-Month Club is exactly the kind of book that we hoped it would be: smart and poignant, touching and emotional, showing the full range of what comics can do, by a real master of his craft, and, above all else, an eminently human read: “Room For Love” by ILYA.

A middle-age and washed up writer and an on-the-streets rent boy meet and have a remarkable and complex relationship. “Room For Love” eschews most standard romantic tropes for a sometimes painful, and always authentic, fully rounded study of its two characters. Like all of the best fiction, the characters are deeply changed by their encounters, and ILYA doesn’t shy away from exposing the truths at the heart of the characters and their assignations.

This is a story of opposites, and how they attract, as well as repel. This is a work of great intimacy, and is a markedly original work. We truly think this is one of the best graphic novels we’ve read this decade, and we could not possibly be happier that this is our debut pick.

All members of the club will receive a copy of “Room For Love”, but if you’re not an Adult club member, and would like to purchase a copy, or if you would like additional copies, please order below!

http://mkt.com/comix-experience/room-for-love-by-ilya

We are also EXTREMELY thrilled to announce that ILYA is going to be here in person for our first book club meeting, all the way from England – how cool is that? This is tentatively planned for Wed 7/29, but we will be confirming all of our dates in early July.

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Our inaugural pick for the KIDS club is a rollicking adventure: “Junior Braves of the Apocalypse” by Greg Smith and Michael Tanner, and Zach Lehner

The Junior Braves of Tribe 65 return from a camping trip to find swarms of bloodthirsty mutants have overrun their town, bringing death and destruction everywhere they go! With their families missing and their homes destroyed, these plucky kids must use all their scouting talents, combined smarts, and teamwork to survive the end of the world! Junior Braves: A Brave is Brave is the beginning of an exciting, new, young adult graphic novel series that is one part Goonies and one part The Walking Dead, full of zombies, adventure, and handy tips for wilderness survival!

All members of the KIDS club will receive a copy of “Junior Braves of the Apocalypse”, but if you’re not a Kids Club member, and would like to purchase a copy, or if you would like additional copies, please order below!

http://mkt.com/comix-experience/junior-braves-of-the-apocalypse-by-greg-smith-and-michael-tanner-july

The first KIDS CLUB meeting, with all three creators participating via video call is tentatively planned for Sunday 7/19 -- more details will be released soon!

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In picking the best graphic novel of each month, we usually also find several other books that we rate nearly as highly. While we can only have one choice each month to send out, we thought it might be useful to you to hear what our alternates were. These are our runner-ups for July 2015!

“Mike’s Place: A True Story of Love, Blues, and Terror in Tel Aviv” by Jack Baxter, Joshua Faudem and Koren Shadmi

Writing about Middle Eastern conflicts is tricky, because the roots of those conflicts are deep and divisive, and those of us who aren’t a part of it probably know very little of what we’re talking about. So I, for one, always welcome a new insight from involved parties. Co-author Jack Baxter is an American filmmaker who was making a documentary about Mike’s Place, a bar in Israel, when a suicide bomber detonated a bomb out in front, killing three and injuring fifty, including Baxter. This is a comic of the inspiration for the making of the documentary and then the event and the aftermath that was filled with both triumphs and tragedies. Baxter co-wrote the story with Joshua Faudem, who was the cameraman for the documentary.

There’s something extremely compelling about first hand recollections in comics, and this would be a solid entry for your autobiography shelf.

http://mkt.com/comix-experience/mikes-place-a-true-story-of-love-blues-and-terror-in-tel-aviv-by-jack-baxter-joshua-faudem-and-koren-shadmi

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“The Divine” by Boaz Lavie, Asaf Hanuka, and Tomer Hanuka

A civilian bomb consultant reluctantly accepts an off-the-books mining contract into an obscure Southeast Asian country, and becomes embroiled in civil war led by twin 10-year old guerillas wielding what about to be supernatural powers. Oh, and then there’s the Dragon…

This is a lovely lovely comic, filled with all the shimmering colors of a verdant paradise torn by war. My favorite sequence is set in a cave where the predominant color used is an inky purple, and yet the action and movement can clearly be followed. “The Divine” is the most action-driven comic in our July runner ups, and also, by far, the best drawn.

http://mkt.com/comix-experience/the-divine-by-boaz-lavie-asaf-hanuka-and-tomer-hanuka

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“Long Walk To Valhalla” by Adam Smith and Matthew Fox

Rory would love to forget about most of his life in rural Arkansas, maybe even including his brother Joe who has fits and sees visions in the fields and woods. When Rory’s car breaks down, he is befriended by a young girl named Sylvia, who emerges from the corn fields. Sylvia is a Valkyrie, sent by Odin to escort Rory to Valhalla. On their journey, Rory needs to confront the secrets of his life and family and come to learn the truth about Joe’s visions.

Sometimes you get a debut graphic novel that makes you think “Wow, I really have to keep an eye on those people!” The rhythms of comics are hard to master for people who have been doing it forever, so to see a first-time project done with such skill and assurance and verve, it thrills you to wonder where they’re be when they finally master their craft? Smith and Fox are two to watch for as this book missed being our Selection for the month by only a single point in the voting (out of forty possible)

http://mkt.com/comix-experience/long-walk-to-valhalla-by-adam-smith-and-matthew-fox-july

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We really think that ROOM FOR LOVE is a superb book, and there's still time to join www.graphicnovelclub.com and be a part of our meetings, including ILYA live and in person in late July!

We hope you'll join us!

-B

AND THE CHILDREN SHALL LEAD: Comix Experience expands GN of month club to kids!

Announcing the Kids' Graphic Novel Of The Month Club! www.graphicnovelclub.com/kids

Comics are going through an incredible renaissance at the moment, with more astonishing tales being produced than the average person could possibly hope to keep up on. One of the most explosive areas of growth is comics aimed at kids!

Kids love comics - our 26 years of running a comic book store can attest to that. But parents usually don’t know how or where to start. Parents want books that they can trust, so they usually fall back upon the same few characters and licenses that they see in other media, not knowing or having the time to figure out which are the truly special and thoughtful books with a passionate creative vision. And that's understandable! How can you have time to stay up on children’s literature when you barely have time to stay current with your own likes?

That’s where Comix Experience comes in – we eat, live and breathe comics, and while we’re mostly adults, we’re all kids at heart. Similar to our just-announced Graphic Novel of the Month Club, we're introducing the Kids' Graphic Novel of the Month Club to help put the best comics for kids in your child's hand every month. Plus, the Kids' Graphic Novel of the Month Club will have an 11-year-old on our advisory board – Ben, son of Comix Experience owner Brian Hibbs!

Beginning July 2015 we’ll send your favorite kid an amazing, compelling self-contained graphic novel every month that’s going to light their mind up and leave them wanting more! This pick will be a newly released book that month, so you don’t have to worry about them already having it. And each pick will be suitable for a typical 8-13 year old.

But wait, there’s more!

In addition to a great graphic novel they’ll also get:

● Access to a monthly live-streamed book club meeting where kids from all over the country will be able to discuss the graphic novel they’ve just read.

● Whenever possible, we’ll have the writer and artist of the book involved in the video meeting, there to answer your kid’s questions. And when we have the authors actually in-store, we’ll have a special club-only mixer for your kids to meet.

● We will start an invite-only and moderated message group where kids can write their own reviews of the books we send, and talk about it amongst themselves. Every kid who writes 10 reviews will earn a free book!

● We’ll also offer cool swag for the book, like posters and bookmarks, whenever available!

The whole thing is just $15 a month, the average price of a kid’s graphic novel. If you are local in San Francisco you may pick the book up, otherwise we can ship it for a nominal charge. Ways to Join the Club

Kids' Club membership is available on a month-to-month basis. You can sign up today by clicking the buttons below or by calling either of our stores:

● Comix Experience on Divisadero St. at (415) 863-9258

● Comix Experience Outpost on Ocean Ave. at (415) 239-2669 Club FAQs

Q. When does the club start?

A. We’ll start shipping book as of July 2015.

Q. What books will I get?

A. Some months we might send you a more expensive book, perhaps a nice hardcover, while some months it may be something less expensive – but every month you’ll get an accessible, compelling, and fun piece of original graphic fiction aimed at an 8-13 year old audience.  We will seldom pick stories based on movies or television shows, except when the book is truly exceptional. The value of the book should average out over the course of a year to the price of the membership.

We plan a mixture of genres and styles – sometimes it will be adventure fiction, sometimes it will be non-fiction or history, sometimes it will even be slice-of-life – but always chosen for the sensibilities of your kids.

Q. What if I don’t live in the Bay Area – can I still join?

A. Yes, absolutely! We’ll just have to add $6 a month for shipping and handling for sturdy packaging in a domestic US priority mail. We can offer this outside of the United States, but the shipping costs are pretty horrible (more than the cost of the club, sadly).

Contact us if you’re interested in international shipping.

Q. What if I can’t make it to a meeting or I live out of town?

A. We will also record all club meetings so if you’re out of town your kid can still watch.

Q. My child is really sensitive; will this be right for them?

A. You’re the best judge of what your kid can handle, but we’re aiming at an “average” 8-13 year old. We will sometimes choose work that is more slightly more serious in nature, but we’re vetting every choice with our in-house eleven year-old who has a pretty gentle personality.

Q. Is this for boys or girls?

A. We find that most kids are looking for compelling stories, regardless of the gender of the protagonist. Having said that, we’re going to aim for as even of a mix as we can possibly manage over the course of a year, dependent on the books that are actually released.

Q. Why are you doing this?

A. We have a Graphic Novel Club aimed at adults, and a teacher who joined wrote us asking if our choices could be freely shared with her students. We had to admit that 100% of the choices would not be sharable, but that made us think that putting together a package aimed directly at the kids made a whole lot of sense!  Teachers: Always the smartest ones in the room!

Q. What if my kid hates the book?

A. You can cancel the monthly plan at any time, and if you’re dissatisfied with any of our choices just return the book, and we’ll give you a full refund.

Q. Can I give this as a gift?

A.  Yes! In fact that’s our main intent with this – introducing the joys of comics to kids you know all around the country.

Q. What if I wanted a bulk subscription for my school or organization?

A. We can accommodate you! Please contact Brian Hibbs directly at brian@comixexperience.com to discuss bulk subscriptions.

Hibbs' crazy week

I know that I am just about the worst owner of a review site, ever, but I honestly, genuinely have a solid plan to get back to regular reviewing once I get all of this Graphic Novel of the Month Club stuff (www.graphicnovelclub.com) squared away, that I think you're going to like a lot. I just want to recap what is likely the craziest seven days I have spent on the earth:

Last Friday morning, on May first, just inches past midnight, I took a major header when getting off the bus, requiring 10 stitches in my head, and five on my hand.  I'm fine, but wow.

This week, I have been featured in BOTH The National Review (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417763/when-minimum-wage-hikes-hit-san-francisco-comic-book-store-ian-tuttle) as well as Mother Jones (http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/05/small-businesses-exemptions-minimum-wage) -- all I need now is a Libertarian magazine and an Anarchist one, and I will have completed the political spectrum!

Comix Experience also got a "Best of San Francisco" from the SF Weekly for "Best Response To Rising Minimum Wage" (which makes me so happy because it wasn't prompted on my end like those first two) -- http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/best-response-to-rising-minimum-wage/BestOf?oid=3593624

This week was ALSO Free Comic Book Day, which I spent (other than being in agony from the fall) providing on-street security for Darth Vader (they can't really see in those costumes) -- I love the 501st Legion (http://www.501st.com/) -- it's weird "protecting" The Dark Lord!  The best part is at the Ocean street store, people are stopping, and gawking, and honking horns and being all excited, while on Divisadero with all of the Hipster tech people, like 90% of them strolled past without even looking up or reacting in any visible way.  Hysterical!

Also, I ran downtown to pre-purchase Avengers tickets because I was taking eight sixth-graders to the show. I waited for the subway to take me back home, and one pulled up with half a dozen cops riding on the front half.  I shrugged, got on the second half, and sat down and pulled out a book.  Then I looked up, and realized I was sitting across (on an otherwise passenger-less car) from Ed Lee, the Mayor of San Francisco. I realized this was my one and only chance to get The City to be aware of my situation, and Mayor Lee was extremely gracious to listen to me spin my tale. But, yeah, random private 15 minute meeting with the Mayor on Muni, and The City has already followed up with a few ideas of how they can help.

Then I ended the week yesterday with an appearance on Fox Business News, which you could watch here if you wished to (http://mediaoneservices.com/brian-hibbs-05082015/) (no embed, sorry)

Exactly at the one month mark, the GN club hit halfway to our 334 goal.  Now I'm counting down to hitting 200 exactly -- which we need (right now) 25 more people to hit.  Spread the word about www.graphicnovelclub.com!

And look for a cool new announcement on Monday!

-B

Help Keep Comix Experience Alive!

HELP KEEP COMIX EXPERIENCE ALIVE!  

San Francisco is about to raise minimum wage to the nation’s highest at $15/hour over the next three years – a 43% hike. While we at Comix Experience absolutely support a living wage, this unprecedented increase will put a huge pressure on small businesses like ours. To put it into raw numbers, given our current staffing (and we run very tight), we will soon have to generate an additional $80,000 a year in sales just to meet the rise.

Absorbing that kind of wage hike on our single biggest business cost (our talented people) is going to be a challenge. Historical rates of growth and the nature of selling comics (what we sell has a fixed cover price set by the publishers, therefore we can’t raise prices) means that it will be virtually impossible to raise that additional income organically.

Comix Experience is a healthy business, and has consistently been that way for all of the 26 years of its existence. However, like most small retail businesses, every dollar that is earned is invested directly back into the business. That means we will have to do something radical to generate the additional $80,000 in annual sales to meet this payroll mandate.

A Solution that Reflects our Core Values

Many other stores in San Francisco are obviously faced with the same issue, and each are approaching it in a manner that works for them. Some stores may choose to downsize, or cut staffing or even close all together. Others, like our compatriots at Borderlands Books, have turned to sponsorship to alleviate their issues.

When deciding what path to take to increase sales to meet the new wage requirements, we kept a few of our guiding principles in mind.

1. Comix Experience would strongly prefer to figure out a way to let the market solve the problem rather than raw patronage. While we have no problem with a fund-raising type approach, for us creating a way to generate new customers and provide our loyal patrons with added value is better.
2. Our solution would need to reflect the passion and curation we offer to you every single day. We don’t sell comics merely to make money from them – we sell comics because we literally can’t think of a better way to spend our days than communicating the boundless love we feel for great comics and their amazing creators! And we don’t just love comics – we really know them as well; we get the secret alchemy that makes the best comics so. Every member of our staff feels just the same way: We burn for comics, and we want to ignite your passion for the best that our medium has to offer!
3. We want to build on our efforts to foster a build community through our stores. We seek to build a safe space so that regardless of your circumstance, regardless of your race, gender or creed, you’re welcome and participatory in your own fandom.

Therefore the path we’ve hit upon to try and save Comix Experience is this:

Comix Experience’s Curated Graphic Novel of the Month Club

Beginning in July 2015, every month the staff and I will use our passion and experience to choose the single best brand new graphic novel to give you. This book will always be either a stand-alone experience, or the first volume of a new series. As a member of the club, you’ll also be entitled to unique benefits that won’t be offered to anyone else:

• A curated selection of the best new graphic novel each month
• An invitation to a monthly live book club meeting and social event to discuss that book. We will record and stream the in-store meeting so club members all over the world can also participate.
• We will regularly have the writers and artists of each of our picks participate in our monthly club meetings, (e.g. in person, speaking and doing a live event, or a video chat to answer questions).
• For select in-person appearances at the store, you’ll receive an exclusive club-only invitation to attend a private after-hours event with the guest.
• We will create a social media group for members to discuss the book internationally
• Finally, we will provide you with nice swag (like posters or bookmarks) for the selected book wherever possible

Ways to Join the Club

• Month-to-Month: If you would prefer to take it one month at a time, the price will be $25 a month, a tremendous value considering all the benefits we are offering.
• Annual: If you are willing to commit to a full year, the price drops to just $20 a month! You can quit at any time for a full refund on your unused balance.

You can sign up today at www.graphicnovelclub.com or by calling either of our stores:

• Comix Experience on Divisadero St. at (415) 863-9258
• Comix Experience Outpost on Ocean Ave. at (415) 239-2669

Club FAQs

1. When does the club start?
2. We’re launching this today in order to start monthly shipping of books for July – the month that the first (and largest) of the mandated wage hikes kicks in.

1. What books will I get?
2. Some months we might send you a more expensive book (If we had started this in February, the pick would have been Scott McCloud’s excellent “The Sculptor," which is $29.95), while some months it may be something less expensive – but every month you’ll get an accessible, compelling, and thoughtful piece of graphic fiction, and the value will be equivalent to the average price of a graphic novel over the course of the yearly plan.

1. What if I don’t live in the Bay Area – can I still join?
2. Yes, absolutely! We’ll just have to add $6 a month for shipping and handling for domestic US priority mail. We haven’t yet figured out a “one size fits all” solution for international shipping, but if you’re outside the US and you want to participate, call or e-mail, and we’ll work out an individual shipping solution for you.

1. What if I can’t make it to a meeting or I live out of town?
2. We will also record all club meetings so if you’re out of town you’ll still be able to enjoy that benefit.

1. What happens if you sell more memberships than you need to meet the wage increase?
2. In order to fully cover the shortfall, we need to sell 334 memberships at the yearly rate. If we beat that goal then we will use it to pay our excellent staff more than the minimum wage hike requires. This means we could really use your participation.

Looking Forward to Having You as Part of the Comix Experience Family

Our belief is that there are a lot of people who like comics, like the store, or simply want to help keep San Francisco iconoclastic and support small business. Perhaps you just don’t have the time to get into a comic store every month to stay on top of new releases.

The comics medium is truly in a second Golden Age right now, but with so much top notch, innovative work being released, how can you tell which new releases are the best? We are going to provide that curated experience for you.

I urge you to join us. If you know someone else who would like to subscribe, I also urge you tell them about this service (or give them a gift subscription). Please help us spread the word! Each and every person truly matters in reaching our goal, and keeping Comix Experience alive to continue to take comics into a better place well into the future. On behalf of myself and the staff of Comix Experience, thank you so much for your support!

If you have any questions, please feel free to call either store, or reach out to me directly.

Brian Hibbs, Head Cheese, brian@comixexperience.com