Arriving 7/25

Yeah, I know what you're thinking: what kind of asshole relaunches his blog, then doesn't actually post any reviews to it in the first week?

That asshole would be me!

My excuse is thus: Point-of-Sale goes live in six days (Monday 7/30), and I'm drowning in work to get everything ready for it. The database is "mostly" done (I still need to go and add distributors for the non-brokered stuff -- though I sorta am afraid if I put "COLD CUT" in that field, and there's not great news coming out after San Diego, that I am going to really strongly regret it), but I have to "get ahead" on other normal-business stuff.

For example, the new order form is due on 7/31... but if I don't finish it by, uh, tomorrow, it isn't going to get done this month, then we'll have no comics in September! Same thing with the latest subscription list, plus we had ONOMATOPOEIA to layout and print last week. Put it this way: I've been hopping.

I will (WILL!!!!) be ready come "D-Day" -- that's actually Saturday night, as we do inventory; and Sunday when we close the store to finish that, and install the database -- but every second of every day is precious right now in getting shit done.

I've barely responded to emails from Kate McMillan asking about the site, for that matter -- everything is triage mode right now. If it isn't POS related, and it will take more than 15 seconds to respond, then it is being put off!

One thing Kate did is to add a PayPal donation button over to the right -- if you like what you've been reading, PLEASE FEEL FREE to make a donation. At some point we'll probably be going to some form of advertising, but, for now, we're beggars on our knees, and if every one of you donated a buck or two, I could cut my fellow reviewers a nice check for their efforts. Think about it, will you?

Um, what else.... oh, yeah, Matt Brady finally put up the latest Tilting at Windmills on Newsarama, with some commentary on how DC's marketing has failed COUNTDOWN. Give it a read!

Mm, and like Abhay, I picture alt cartoonists on the bus, too. Except for Peter Bagge. He's on a bus, too... but he's wearing an ascot, and holding one of those Dennis the Menace pipes.

Also: am I the only one already sick of San Diego? Shit hasn't even started yet, and I find the whole exercise tiresome. I'm REALLY glad we're doing POS that weekend...

This week's books? OH MY GOD, it is a freakin' flood. Seriously, my largest invoice of the 21st Century. Not of ever, but in the last 7 years at least.

And I bet the post-SD one will be just as huge, too.

Anyway, here's what Comix Experience is getting this week:

ALL NEW OFF HB MARVEL UNIVERSE A TO Z UPDATE #3 ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #6 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #542 ANGRY YOUTH COMIX #13 ANNIHILATION CONQUEST STAR LORD #1 (OF 4) ARCHIE #577 BATMAN #666 BATTLESTAR GALACTICA #12 BETTY #167 BLACK DIAMOND #3 (OF 6) BLACK PANTHER #29 CWI BLACK SUMMER #1 (OF 7) BLUE BEETLE #17 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #5 CABLE DEADPOOL #43 CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #35 CHEMIST COUNTDOWN 40 CROSSING MIDNIGHT #9 DEATHBLOW #6 DOKTOR SLEEPLESS #1 DUST #1 (OF 2) ELEPHANTMEN #10 FALLEN ANGEL IDW #18 FANTASTIC FIVE #2 (OF 5) FEAR AGENT LAST GOODBYE #2 FUTURAMA COMICS #32 GON VOL 1 GREEN ARROW YEAR ONE #2 (OF 6) GREEN LANTERN CORPS #14 GRENDEL BEHOLD THE DEVIL #0 HAWKGIRL #66 HELLBLAZER #234 HELLBOY DARKNESS CALLS #4 (OF 6) HEROES FOR HIRE #12 WWH HIDING IN TIME #1 (OF 4) IMMORTAL IRON FIST #7 INCREDIBLE HULK #108 WWH INVINCIBLE #44 IRON MAN #20 WWH JSA CLASSIFIED #28 JUGHEAD #183 LOVE & ROCKETS VOL 2 #20 (NOTE PRICE) LOVE AND CAPES #5 MAGICIAN APPRENTICE #9 (OF 12) MARVEL ADVENTURES IRON MAN #3 MIGHTY AVENGERS #4 CWI MULTIPLE WARHEADS #1 NINJA SCROLL #11 ONSLAUGHT REBORN #4 (OF 5) QUEEN & COUNTRY #32 RAISE THE DEAD #4 (OF 4) RED SONJA #24 RIDE DIE VALKYRIE #2 (OF 3) SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN #39 SHEENA #2 (OF 5) SILVER SURFER REQUIEM #3 (OF 4) SPEAK O/T DEVIL #1 (OF 6) SPIDER-MAN FAIRY TALES #3 (OF 4) STAR TREK YEAR FOUR #1 STAR WARS KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC #18 SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #32 SUPERMAN #665 (CD) TANK GIRL THE GIFTING #2 TAROT WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE #45 TEEN TITANS #49 (AA) TEEN TITANS GO #45 TESTAMENT #19 TOP COW / MARVEL UNHOLY UNION TRON #4 ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #44 USAGI YOJIMBO #104 WALKING DEAD #39 WARHAMMER 40K DAMNATION CRUSADE CVR A #6 Of(6) WETWORKS #11 WITCHBLADE #109 WOLVERINE #55 WONDER WOMAN #11 (AA) X-MEN #201 X-MEN FIRST CLASS VOL 2 #2

Books / Mags / Stuff 24 SEVEN VOL 2 GN 52 VOL 2 TP ALAN MOORE HYPOTHETICAL LIZARD TP ALAN MOORE WILD WORLDS TP ALTER EGO #70 AMERICA JR VOL 1 TP AMERICAN VIRGIN VOL 2 GOING DOWN TP BACK ISSUE #23 BATTLE POPE VOL 4 TP WRATH OF GOD BOMB QUEEN VOL 2 TP QUEEN OF HEARTS CHICA GN (A) CLASSIC DC CHARACTER #3 WONDER WOMAN ESSENTIAL SPIDER-WOMAN VOL 2 TP FRIENDS OF LULU PRESENTS GIRLS GUIDE TO GUY STUFF GN GOODNIGHT IRENE GN ILLUSTRATION MAGAZINE #19 IMMORTAL IRON FIST VOL 1 LAST IRON FIST STORY PREM HC JOHNNY RYANS XXX SCUMBAG PARTY TP MARTIAN MANHUNTER THE OTHERS AMONG US TP MOON KNIGHT VOL 1 ROCK BOTTOM TP NANCY DREW VOL 10 THE DISORIENTED EXPRESS SC POSTCARDS TRUE STORIES THAT NEVER HAPPENED HC PREVIEWS VOL XVII #8 PULPHOPE ART OF PAUL POPE SC SHOWCASE PRESENTS MARTIAN MANHUNTER VOL 1 TP SOJOURN VOL 5 A SORCERERS TALE TP SOUNDS OF YOUR NAME GN SQUA TRONT #12 TIJUANA BIBLES VOL 8 TP (A) TOMARTS ACTION FIGURE DIGEST #156 UNCANNY X-MEN RISE & FALL OF THE SHIAR HC WARREN ELLIS CRECY GN WILL EISNER EDGE OF GENIUS VOL 1 TP WIZARD MAGAZINE ALEX ROSS JSA KINGDOM COME CVR #191 WRITE NOW #16

What looks good to YOU?

-B

POS Follies Part 6

Woof. So, first off, thanks to those who gave me Excel tips in the last post -- yep that's what I'm using. Wish I had those BEFORE I started doing the eyeball sort, but c'est la guerre.

'sfunny, I've been using Excel for like a decade (maybe more?), and I haven't got the SLIGHTEST idea how like 75% of it functions. I generally only need it to sort, or move chunks of data around, or that level of depth -- most of those options in the, say, "Tools" menu? Don't even know what they do.

ANYway, done with the majority of the database futzing -- yesterday and today I went and scanned in most of the barcodes that MOBY didn't already have (something like 600 of them?), but that was a pretty fast process, really.

There's still TONS of stuff w/o barcodes, or stuff that HAVE barcodes, but which won't scan, no matter how much I try -- but I have to say I'm more pissed about the former than the latter. There's a couple of surprising (to me at least!) publishers, like Heavy Metal, who never bothered to put barcodes on any of their books. I really can't figure it out.

I can get all of the comics that don't have them -- typically small/self-published books, or from publishers that didn't believe there was enough "critical mass" of retailers USING them for the time/expense in doing them, but my life will certainly have more of a pain in the ass from the OPTIC NERVE or LOVE & ROCKETS of the world, where we still sell 3-5 copies of each and every issue, each and every month. Having to slow down at the reg to either consult the "cheat book" (a binder with a bunch of non-barcoded items in it, with a user-generated barcode), or type-and-find into MOBY to look them up is not going to be fun.

I can deal with that pain for L&R or OPTIC NERVE, but I suspect that, come, oh let's call it 2009, I will no longer stock publishers-who-don't-barcode just from a hassle-vs-profit point of view, if they're not selling L&R numbers for us.

Anyway, as things stand, I think I'll be "done" with the database, latest, this time next week. Next week has several other things that need to get done (Tilting! And the SUPER SECRET THING that will make you go "whoa!" when we announce it [Very Soon!]; oh, and, just for good measure, the blackline of PREVIEWS showed up today, so ONOMATOPOEIA is presumably next week too!), so it will be "next Friday", rather than "Tuesday, latest" it would have been otherwise.

Really, all I have left to do is to set the Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary distributors for the non-brokered publishers, which, I think, is less than 6 hours work. (It is probably 3, but I have to factor time to look-up-and-confirm-pricing on a number of books) My BIG PROBLEM with this, is there's a lot of items in the databse I'd want to set Cold Cut as the Primary, or Secondary-after-Direct-From-publisher, and I'm kind of dreading the possibility that Cold Cut might either close or drastically mutate in the next 3-6 months, causing me to have to edit thousands of records inside MOBY (not nearly as fast as Excel.... which could do it in about 9 keystrokes, total) -- in MOBY, you have to individually open each individual record of a product (or, I think, group -- which would make changing L&R, for instance, one action, rather than 20-something different ones)

The funny thing, is my orders to Cold Cut are probably poised to triple or better, because I won't be doing that ad hoc bullshit method I'd used before, but I'll now have a "one button" process to deal with it, and the encouragement to hit that button more.

I really and truly hope they find a buyer no later than San Diego, and that said buyer understands the potential they have there -- with just a couple of tweaks, Cold Cut could become a significant player, picking up the vast majority of the non-exclusive reorder business in the DM.

I want to comment on this a bit, because I think something that Dan Vado really needs to be stated again, a couple of times.

[So, in fact, let me give myself a clean paragraph break to make it easier to link, and take a deep breath to refocus my thought here]

ANY publisher who has signed a distribution deal with Diamond, that does not have exclusions, for Cold Cut or Last Gasp, or even possibly a new startup, where that publisher is sold to retailers at an "F" (45%) discount or less has made a terrible, terrible mistake that they really NEED to rectify at their next contract negotiation.

Why? Diamond assesses a 3% reorder penalty. That means your 45% discount, just dropped to 42%. Guess what? If Diamond is distributing your books, that means Baker & Taylor and Ingram has them. ANY chimpanzee, who pays on time, and places an order of 10 or more books (not of a single title, for a whole ORDER of books! Cake!), gets AT LEAST 42% off from B&T.

And Free Shipping.

And Returnability.

THEREFORE, at a 45% or lower discount -- again, that's the "F" code, or a "H" code for 40% -- it is actually CHEAPER for retailers to buy it from the Distributor that *Diamond* is selling to, than from Diamond, on a Reorder (and, in many cases, on the initial)

You want your retailers to get the BEST POSSIBLE PRICE on your wares, don't you? So they make lots of money, and buy MORE of your books, right?

THEN MAKE SURE there is competitiveness in the marketplace.

I kind of die inside when I ponder a company like Achaia -- they're exclusive to Diamond, no exceptions; They've been quietly building up a line of high quality titles with a fairly broad "real human" appeal... but because they are "Buy/Sell" with Diamond, DIAMOND DOESN'T HAVE THEIR BOOKS *IN STOCK* MOST OF THE TIME.

To give you a good example, for the last few weeks I've been buying my copies of the MOUSE GUARD HC from B&T, rather than Diamond BECAUSE DIAMOND HAD NO COPIES, and B&T *did*. I'd kill to be able to buy, in open stock, virtually anything that Achaia produces... but because of the deal they locked themselves into, I usually can't.

Tom asked why the New Boom doesn't seem to be translating for publishers or certain aspects of retail? That's because the only publishers, on reorder, that retailers can "keystone" (double their investment) are the four brokered ones -- the ones without any 3% reorder penalty. Everyone else, you're crippled at the outset because of a regressive policy that dates from a different time of distribution. Even if you're an "E" (50%) publisher -- your Onis, your DEs -- you're 47% on a reorder from Diamond, *and* dependent on Diamond's whim of whether they *stock* your comic or not. Not "will order it, if a customer asks", but *stocks*.

Think about that VERY carefully the next time your contract comes up for renegotiation. Because I have to tell you that I think about those things constantly, and I'm the one buying your books.

[*puff* *puff* OK, rant over]

So, ah, where was I?

Right, assigning dists to the database. Quick process, I'm hoping. Then... Hm, another pass through the "series" codes (I want to make sure it understands that, say, BPRD, is actually the SAME book, despite restarting at #1 every 5th issue), and maybe futz with the author and illustrator fields a bit.

And after that, it's just another 2 weeks of scanning and looking for errors I missed before, but not the intensive 10-13 hours a day things I've been doing the last few weeks.

I figure, since I'm working from an existing database, that, of the data I'll be using (way under 10%), I'm still going to have 1-200 books with some sort of error that I didn't catch, and won't until things are running. But, hopefully, I'll be able to deal with those on the fly, and that they won't be too disruptive as things run.

But, pretty much, the overwhelming bulk of the Scary Database Project is pretty much done. There's still doing the physical inventory, and entering that data, but that will just be an ugly 8 hours that can't be done until the last second, anyway.

Right. Off to have some recreation, then back at it for Saturday...

Oh. And did I say to watch out for something Really Cool in the next few days?

Well, do.

-B

POS Follies Part 5

Just jumping in real quickly to let you know the project proceeds. Last Thursday, Friday and Saturday I spent a total of 33 hours, in those 3 days, walking the store, pulling books off the rack shelf-by-shelf and checking to see if they had records already in MOBY's database. Basically, over those three days, I've touched every single item in the store (except the back issues) at least once.

(I also pulled a lot of stuff OFF the shelves for our sale box -- so, if you're a CE customer and you haven't checked the TP sale box in a while, NOW is the time to do so; there are some tremendous deals in there! [I just made Jeff Lester spend another fifty dollars, I am afraid])

This took a whole lot longer than the inventory will take (estimate: 10x longer) because I had to pull everything off the racks, shelf-by-shelf, carry it over to the counter and the computer, and type in a bit of its title in the cntrl-F Find box, then walk the books back and reshelf them. Whee, and stuff.

The FUN part of it was that MOBY's database uses DIAMOND's database at its core, and Diamond does not... well, how to be kind about it?

It is my understanding (perhaps out of date) that Diamond doesn't have a master file of what it stocks. Instead, the individual brand managers RETYPE THE ENTIRE CATALOG EVERY MONTH. Perhaps more importantly, Diamond doesn't have an exacting standard format that they use to present information, so it is entirely possible that you'll have a series of TPs that look something like this in Diamond's database:

DWEEZLEMAN VOL 1 TP DWEEZLEMAN DWEEZLES AHOY VOL 2 TP DWEEZLEMAN VOL 3 DWEEZLES BIG ADVENTURE TP DWEEZLEMAN GN #4 DWEEZLES NIGHT OUT

(this is an extreme "example", generally speaking no one series has more than 3 schema -- and even those tend to be multi-year 10+ volume series)

Because of this, if you were to sort your list into alpha-numerical order, it would sort like this:

DWEEZLEMAN DWEEZLES AHOY VOL 2 TP DWEEZLEMAN GN #4 DWEEZLES NIGHT OUT DWEEZLEMAN VOL 1 TP DWEEZLEMAN VOL 3 DWEEZLES BIG ADVENTURE TP

Which drives me insane when trying to work with the data.

So I was also editing titles as I went along to try and mitigate some of this. For myself, there's only ONE format that is appropriate and that's:

[Series Title] VOL [#] [Subtitle] TP ([optional notes])

I also am a total weirdo in that I like to add a zero to sub-ten-volumes entries (that is, it is VOL 01, 02, and so on to 09) -- that's because, since the volume number is in the title field (though we have a column for "issue #" as well of course) if you don't do that, an alphabetical report sorts like this:

VOL 1 VOL 11 VOL 12....19 VOL 2 VOL 20 VOL 21...29 VOL 3 VOL 30

(and so on)

(and yes, you *can* stretch this out to the 40s. No, not a manga series; Fantagraphics PRINCE VALIANT reprints reached well into the 40s)

With the "extra" leading zeroes, everything sorts the way its supposed to.

Also, this is where I hate the ABC line books -- rather than "VOL [#]" they are listed as "BOOK [number spelled out]" so that "BOOK FIVE" sorts before "VOL 05". Once someone from DC (I don't recall who, nor the context) indicated to me that they were that way because Alan Moore insisted on it, but whoever made the decision to have it that way in DIAMOND'S DATABASE should be taken out back and shot. That's not just from a POS POV -- I'm changing the titles myself, obviously -- but from an invoicing POV. DIAMOND prints their invoices in straight-alpha, which makes checking in fun fun fun.

There's also a lot of mislistings -- things categorized by Diamond as "comics" when they are actually "magazines", that kind of thing -- or bad listings. For instance, basically every book that's listed in the "book" section of PREVIEWS has in the "publisher" field the header of the category that it was listed in PREVIEWS. "How-To", "Art Books", "Fantasy/Sci-Fi" that kind of thing. Which is often annoying, but not something I'm going to fix now, because it doesn't matter *that* much, and I can always edited the important ones later.

Anyway, so that was Thur-Sat, the upshot of which is that I *could* take a hard physical inventory tomorrow if I needed. (that's end of the month though)

Sunday I vegged out.

Monday I hit the database for ~10 hours and found "all" of the things that I "should" be stocking, but didn't have on hand. This includes a lot of out of print stuff, but that will work itself out quickly. I found about 200 items. Approx 60% of them are probably OOP. Of the ones that aren't, about a quarter were on this week's restock arrival already.

I also noticed on Monday that, hm, a lot of items I have on hand don't have a barcode in the database -- this is probably because Starclipper (MOBY's "home" store) never stocked them (Diamond's database doesn't provide barcodes in advance, except for a very small handful of publishers). I hadn't realized that I was going to fill in quite that many holes, so I sorted the list of on-hand by barcode and made a sublist of the ones I'd need to scan in. About 800-ish titles.

Tuesday morning I started in on it, and got about 10% of the list done in an hour (which reminds me, I'm going to need to make another list of things that will need to have barcodes generated FOR them...), but then it was time for the New Books to arrive, so clearing that up will be Thursday and maybe Friday in the store.

Today I am at home and, literally, staring at columns of numbers. MOBY has separate data fields for "MSRP" and "MOBY price" -- that is, what the "price" is, and how much the program will charge you for it. But Starclipper, over the years, has put some number of objects on SALE... so I've got to go through and compare column A to column B.

THAT's why I'm typing this essay, BTW -- comparing two columns of numbers on a computer screen is not easy on the eyes, so every 5 or 6 PageDWNs I flip over here and type a paragraph or so.

The way I am doing this, I *know* I am making mistakes (or, at least, not catching some) -- if there's a $12.95/$12.99 discrepancy I won't be catching it in most cases (though I caught one!), and maybe not a $15.99/$19.99 one either. Thankfully, on the few occasions where it's a Starclipper-putting-it-on-sale situation (as opposed to data-entry mistake) they're generally cutting the price to half, making 5/9.99 easy to spot.

Right, so that's done, thanks for listening while I distracted my eyes. Off now to start messing with reorder points!

-B

POS Follies part 4

Right, so where was I? Last Friday I lost a few hours because the firewall router I was trying to install wasn't working with the modem for some arcane reason I can't begin to understand. I had my dad come (over three tries) and get it going (he was a network guy for PacBell before he retired), but that cost me some precious computer time on Friday.

Saturday, Sunday, and much of Monday were lost to me because I kinda forgot it was "that time of the month" -- order form for August, and subscription set up for July, and the general "end of the month blues" of paying bills, etc.

Tuesday, the comics arrived. Can't sell them until Thursday, but we have Tuesday delivery, and since Wed was the holiday, it was either Tue-for-Thur, or Thur-for-Thur, and I chose to have the piles of boxes in the store, thanks.

Wednesday.... well, despite the holiday, I HAD to get back to the database. So I did. All day. "Finished" the comics section of it. And the magazines (though, come on, how much work really needs to be done there?)

Thursday was today, and it was New Comics Day. And I worked it alone, because Sue is off at a wedding. And yet I still mostly managed to deal with the Book part of the database for most of the right hand side of the store.

Friday is tomorrow, and I'm hoping to finish off the right hand side of the store, and maybe (MAYBE) the center too.

I'm piling up a bunch of books to put on clearance, too -- nothing like touching every book in your store to go "and these must go away!". I'm hoping those will be put into the sale boxes by Saturday, but who really knows, might not be until Tuesday.

Saturday will be my normal weekly reorder pass, but if I haven't finished the center-of-the-store, then I'll have to do that as well, being wholly under Rob's feet. He'll like that.

Sunday... well Sunday, I'm hoping I can rest.

Monday, all day at home working with the books inventory of all of the things we DON'T have in stock, and setting up primary and secondary and tertiary distributors for them, as well as reorder points for the stuff I actively want to stock, and so on. Unlike the comics, where there is necessarily a reorder point except "huh, sold out, get more", basically every book needs to have a decision made about it about HOW MANY I want to keep in inventory at all times. That will take me 3 (?) days... so, since Tuesday is Comics-arrive, I'm planning on being done by Thursday early AM (Because, damn it, I have to have time to take Ben to the park!!!!). Then next Friday (a week from tomorrow) will go towards all of the "behind the counter" (T-shirts, toys, whatever is in the case) stuff, which, hopefully, is only 3-4 hours work, max.

Then normal-weekly-reorders on Saturday, rest on Sunday, then start thinking about writing a TILTING around 7/16, to run on 7/20.

There's also something else going on on Monday 7/16, but you'll hear more about that a little later.

On 7/28, Mark Richman, programmer of MOBY, is coming to SF to reimport back our now edited version of the database, and to train us on the system, Unless something goes categorically wrong (and, hey, shit does, in fact, happen), we should be trained on MOBY on Monday 7/30, and POS is "live" as of that point, just before my "Dream Date" of 8/1. So, fuck yes.

That also means that, between (let's say) 7/16 and 7/28, I HAVE to get the database finished, no screwing around. I think that's an easy deadline (unless I biffed something hard I really should be done with a week to spare), but it IS a deadline, and I have to remain aware of it all the way along.

And somewhere in there is the new ONOMATOPOEIA (I'm guessing we'll have the "blackline" of PREVIEWS on the 17th or so, for a we-photocopy-it date of 7/20 and PREVIEWS street date of 7/25, but I never keep PREVIEWS dates straight in my head)

OH, and the deadline to Turn In next month's orders is 7/31, which means that I can't possibly work the order form in the 7/28-7/30 window I would normal do.... because we're being trained in MOBY right then. Gonna have to figure out a way to do it all on Wed 7/26, because there's not a whole lot of other day options available to me right now.

And, the normal end-of-the-month functions (like bill paying!) seem like they're going to become first-of-the-next-month this cycle, whooops.

So, this is what July looks like to me, wheeeeee. But at the end, I'll have POS and a much better control of my inventory, so this "Lost Month" will be all worth it, I think.

Anyway, just letting you know I'm alive, and why I'm leaving Graeme out to fend for himself right now (Sorry, G!) -- and why my wife hates me because she's having to shoulder like 96% of the entertaining-Ben duties (Sorry, Tzipora!) -- but it's just going to be an ugly July.

More as I have time -- now to take a shower, and maybe pretend I'm a human being entertained by some recreational activity for an hour or two before I sleep...

-B

POS Follies part 3

Well! I *finally* got the pre-populated database for MOBY (took nearly a month because I had some fussy requests for them, and I wanted a go at the data without having to use MOBY itself to access it -- MOBY is nice as a POS program, but kinda of mediocre as a let-me-edit-100k+ items; I'm using Excel to manage the data), so this is now my life for the next 2-4 weeks. The MOBY database goes back something like 5 years, and has something on the order of 140k items in it. Now, of course, AT LEAST 70k of those items aren't things I'd EVER stock in my store of my own volition (like, say, games, or cards, or XENA t-shirts), but it's nice to have them in the database on the off chance that anyone might want them one day.

Of course, 140k items? Yeah, that's a LOT.

So, step #1 was to hack that into more manageable chunks -- I started by sorting out the database by Diamond "category" codes: code "1" is comics, "2" is magazines, "3" is books, and so on. 1, 2, and 3 each have their own files right now, so I don't "cross the streams", while the final 12 or so categories I split into two files. For the most part, I probably will barely touch the final 12 categories (since we're, pretty much, a PURE comics shop), but I'm still going to have to at least look through each and every item to make sure.

Step #2 was to loosely sort the "chunks". Actually, that took all of five minutes per file, if that -- sort the "comics" by publisher, then by title, then by issue #, so that, say, all of the DC books are together, are alphabetical within the "DC" listing, and are in proper alpha numeric order.

This, of course, assume that the data is both accurate and complete, but of course it isn't precisely. Probably 98% looks pretty perfect, but there are definitely holes and problems and miscategorizations. As an example, it appears that every book with a "APR07" code either lost, or never was given its "publisher" field, which means that sorting through data is a two-step process: step a: look at the publisher's bit; step b: look at the "no publisher listed" bit. Oh well, shit happens.

Step #3 is where I am right now: going through those files and looking for things that do or will have. For example, the "comics" file has 36,298 items in it. I'm going to get that down to probably under 2k items, really, since "Back issues" aren't going to be individually tracked through the POS.

So, today I started going through the store with two goals: a) strip some of the "sludge" from the racks, stuff that's been sitting there for (likely) a year or more, almost all of that "indy" or "alternative" books, because, generally, a book comes OFF the rack when the "next issue" is there to replace it. Much of the "indy" stuff never GETS a "next issue", so it tends to accumulate longer. This goal is "pretty much" done (for COMICS) in the 4 hours I was at CE today -- I ended up with a shortbox of "unsalable crap" (estimate: $400, my cost)

Goal b) was to set up a new column in the database that's basically either a "1" or a "0". "1" = "do inventory on this". I almost finished the comics on the right side of the store. I'm going to go in 'round 9am tomorrow to take advantage of 90 minutes or so of no-customers-underfoot, but I'm hoping by, dunno, 3 PM or so I'll be basically finished with the "do we have this in stock/do we anticipate it being in stock soon" marking up of the comics file.

Once that's done, then we move to Step #4 which is going through and editing what needs to be edited in the portion of the comics list I'm "keeping" (we'll keep the data of the OTHER 34k-ish items, but basically trusting "MOBY Defaults" are all correct) -- there I'll be setting reorder points, primary/secondary/tertiary distributor, genre and so on.

There are, by the way, 52 (!!!) columns in each row of the database that I could edit if I wanted/needed to. Though I doubt I'll edit more than 5-10 of them for most items.

There's also Step #5: Look for things that I DON'T have on my rack, but that I WANT to have, and have "slipped through the cracks" over the years. That's a day's work, I think (I'm doing that semi-concurrently, and have finished all of the publishers that begin with an "A")

Then after that, is Step #6: printing a list, organized by rack (genre), and doing a hard physical inventory; followed by Step #7: entering that data into the computer; followed by Step #8: POS goes live (#6 & 7 will happen "concurrently", hopefully in one single day. #8 should be the day after)

I have to do much of those same steps for the "magazine" and "book" files. (much less for the two "everything else" files)

Mags will be pretty simple, actually -- again, don't carry most of that, and I think Books will go smoother as well because I won't have to keep running to the rack to say "Wait, what issue is this on?". Books are largely binary in "do I carry this or not", while periodicals are "I carry this, but not issues six months back" (or whatever), and I have to constantly keep checking, for instance, "what issue is WONDER WOMAN on?"

Based on my progress today, I'm going to tentatively believe that I can accomplish all of this over 3 weeks or less, and my HOPE is I'll be able to "go live" with MOBY on or about 8/1. (I actually *think* I can get it done in around 10 days, and *could* be "live" by 7/15, but I'm still going to settle for 8/1 or later, because "pad" is always better)

So that's what I'm doing, work-wise, for the 11 of you that care. Lots of pain now in exchange for some powerful tools for the future.

I'll try to get in 1 or 2 reviews this week, but don't count on it, given the above.

-B

Excuses excuses.

In lieu of a review today - Writing Onomatopea and another dental visit (I can eat again!) this week has kind of killed any chance for me to write about the various Spider-Man books today like I wanted to - I'm going to point out that Hibbs has a new Tilting At Windmills up at Newsarama today, about this very store: "I opened Comix Experience in 1989, when I was 21 years old, and I’ve seen the market change a whole lot in the meantime. I still have a copy of my first Diamond order form, all of 32 pages long in 14-point type, while now the order form (not Previews, but the order form) is usually over 130 pages in something like 8-point type.

"There were less in-print graphic novels back then than how many that come out in a typical week today. You could buy an entire month’s output of X-Men or Batman family comics, and still have plenty of change left over from a five-dollar bill.

"So, yeah, a different world.

"There was a time where it was not only easy to keep track of everything by pen and paper, it was actually probably easier that way – there weren’t that many SKUs, most books were ongoing, not minis or one-shots or whatever, so why not have a streamlined data system?

"But, things change.

"I’m going to be making the move to a Point-Of-Sale (POS) system this summer, because we’ve reached the tipping point to where it is no longer practical to have a diverse and wide-ranging stock, and not be computerized. Honestly, I should have made the move a year ago, but I thought I could still handle it."

More in the link, as they say.

Young at Heart

So, I'm 40 today. Jinkies. (perversely, I was really hoping to make Spurge's birthday list -- but all props to my shared date mates Don McGregor, Brent Anderson... and, uh, PAD's 1000th comic) I don't really feel any different than I did when I was 20, though I never really thought I'd make my 30th birthday, let alone my 40th.

I promised I wouldn't do anything comics related today (I'm going to play video games all afternoon, damn it -- because I never get to screw around during the afternoon), but I did want to mention the best OGN I've read this year: Minx's second release, RE-GIFTERS

There's a perverse number of perceived barriers in creating fiction and art -- things are aimed at one target demographic or another, and we moan and cry that there's just not enough comics for kids or girls or Alsatians.

Minx is DC's effort to target girls, specifically tween girls, but, to me, great comics are great comics regardless of who they're aimed at. Not even comics, really -- some of my favorite fiction or films are "aimed" at a different audience than me -- WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY is in my Top 3 films of all, and THE LITTLE PRINCE is in my Top 10

All of which is a longish and roundabout way of me saying: Tween girls may very well love RE-GIFTERS, I dunno, I'm not a tween girl -- but here's one 40 year old bearded white middle-class male who thought it was a very strong tale, with compelling and vivid characters, dealing with a range of human emotions and human feelings, and still having enough action and drama to entertain virtually any comics reader, regardless of age or sex.

RE-GIFTERS is EXCELLENT work, and is, I think, Eisner-worthy when it comes to next year's awards cycle.

There is just two small problems with it, both of them, I think, editorial more than anything else. The first is the chapter note on page 70 (and, digression: HURRAY for page numbers in books. COmics too often skip them) saying "just skip to page 71", when what I think they mean is page 74. It's probably the 71st page of script, where Carey didn't know with certainty of how many "pre story" pages the book would have.

The second one was the double page sequences on 96/97 and 98/99 where the panels read as two tiers running across both pages. It's the only examples of that technique in the entire book, and they really don't work right because the panel borders are deep within the spine. While you CAN change up the narrative flow from the visual "Z" on a single page, to the wider one on a double page, you have to be super careful about bordering to it is achingly apparent to the reader (POWERS also falls into this trap a lot -- "wait, where is my eye supposed to go?!?"), especially the more "casual" comics reader that Minx is aiming itself at.

But that's all of the complaints I got, and both could probably be pretty easily fixed in later printing.

RE-GIFTERS won't cure cancer, and it isn't anything that you generally haven't read before (there are strains of KARATE KID and BETTY & VERONICA and HEATHERS all in here), but it is done with grace and charm and joy of comics, and even the most minor tertiary character (like, say, Megan's brother Gifford) are really well drawn characters who feel real.

I really really liked this, and I think you'll like it too.

What did YOU think?

-B

(oh, oh, and I forgot to mention: the SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN's "Best of the Bay" readers poll is up on line at this link; if you live in SF, or have visited enough to be familiar with it, go and vote, and consider us for "Best Comics Shop")

POS Follies: Part 2

Rob had to help his sister move this week, so I did two back-to-back full days at the store today (well, "am still doing", technically), which I haven't done in a while. It is really good for me, honestly -- got caught up on buckets of stuff in filing and sorting and making sets or whatever. But I'm now very very tired. James Kochalka came by on his way to his event tonight at Giant Robot, and we chatted for a bit. He's a really terrific guy, and he did some really color nice sketches in two volumes of his books on the shelves. I'm not going to tell you which books they are, in the hopes that they'll end up with some unsuspecting soul whose day is then utterly made.

I've installed all of the POS hardware now at this point, with the sole exception of the "pole display" (will actually be countertop) -- the bit that shows the customer how much is due, etc. Didn't really want it underfoot for the next x weeks it's going to take to get everything finished before POS launch.

I'm not sure I hooked it all up CORRECTLY, however, since I don't really have the software yet to test it all. I have a demo version of MOBY downloaded and installed, but the PDF manual that came with it is a couple of builds out of date, and I can't really piece together what I'm doing on my own. I had sorta hoped I'd've been able to get away without training, but I think now that's a bad idea.

Problem is, that's going to add MORE time to the implementation, since I either need to go to St. Louis, or have them come here. Plus it'll be another, say $500, for travel and lodging that I didn't want to spend. Ah, c'est la guerre.

The next major step is going to be the evil one -- building our initial inventory file. There's something close to 10,000 individual items we carry (not counting single back issues, or sets or quarter books, or whatever), and even if it only took me 1 minute to get each item into a database, that's something like 20 8-hour days, right?

What I'm trying to do is to arrange to get the "pre-populated" database BEFORE I actually get the final version of MOBY, so I can massage it in excel or something -- it's much easier to use Excel to "globally" change 2-3 parameters for all of the, say, ESSENTIAL volumes to be what I want, then it would be to rebuild all that data from scratch. I'm waiting to hear what my real options are here, because I'll cry if I have to build this thing from scratch.

Until then, I'm kinda in limbo -- many people are commenting on the new computer, but it's kind of just an internet-surfing paperweight at the moment, since I can't do any POS with it just yet. I'm sure I'm beginning to inculcate some bad habits (NO SURFING AT WORK, DAMN IT!), but hopefully by Monday I'll know the shape of what my next 2 or so months shall be.

It's really crazy running 2 parallel systems at once -- running stuff through the cash register at the same time I try to set up POS, and I'll be really REALLY glad when the system is fully in and running, and a lot of the stupid time wastes in my week will go away (to be replaced by new ones, I'm sure)

Anywhere, so that's where I'm at.

(in case you cared)

-B

My first thought of the day

I'm doing my cycle sheets (counting the comics we've sold in the last week) [and, God, I can't wait until I never need to do this ever again when POS comes in] {or, at least, being able to spot check inventory at least}, and, jesus, COUNTDOWN is seeing some brutal drops. We lost ANOTHER (nearly) 25% between weeks 3 and 4. This *could* be because it was such a small week o' comics last week, and maybe people are just not coming in, but the other piece of data is that we sold NO copies of week 2 or 3 either this week. That's really really not good.

I'm going to give it one more week before I totally freak out, but right now? The Great Disaster COUNTDOWN is counting down to appears to be the sales of COUNTDOWN...

-B

POS follies part one

I hate hardware installation -- even with a fresh system... so many wires and stuff to trip over and wind through and trying to make sure that everything is all compatible. I suspect it is even worse when, like me, you're not actually putting in the POS *yet*, so you have to keep the space for the cash register and all of the "analog" systems at the same time you're trying to set up the new stuff.

I'm likely about a month or so before I even try to ACTUALLY put in the POS -- I'm waiting to hear back from MOBY about what I can expect with the database before I start making with the inventory and all of that. I've downloaded the demo of MOBY from Bitter End, but I haven't installed it as of yet, trying to get all of the hardware pieces sorted first.

I picked a cheap Dell computer (it really was a good price, on the catalog sale), and it's working just fine. What's funny is that, except for the video card, it's faster and smarter than my "home" computer, which is mostly a gaming rig from Alienware. And it cost about a fifth of the Alienware (nearing about 4 years old now... got it right before Ben was born)

Dell's peripherals are damn awful, I have to say -- this keyboard and mouse feel like a child's toy, though the monitor seems decent enough. I'll be getting a new POS-oriented keyboard in a week or so (with a touch pad mouse built in), and that can't happen soon enough.

I picked out most of the rest of my hardware based on recommendations from other retailers on the CBIA, the internet-shopped for most of a week before finding the cheapest vendor.

Some of the hardware I can't precisely test yet -- I've hooked up the receipt printer to the cash drawer, but without installing MOBY, I'm not positive they actually work. Next week sometime!

The first thing you have to do with a new computer is scrub off all the useless software crap they come preloaded with. That's why they're so cheap, I guess -- kickbacks from the software companies.

I also got a regular laser printer from Dell, but I was flabbergasted (FLABBERGASTED) that it didn't come with the USB cable it REQUIRES to hook up to the computer. Next week for that I guess, too.

I've also hooked up the barcode printer, but I don't have the right size labels yet, so setting that all up correctly is going to take some time too. Using the starter labels it came with gave me indifferent results, but they're not the same size as the labels I'll end up using, so I don't want to invest a lot of time in programming it until I get the right labels. That could be today's FedEx, but dunno. I'll begin worrying about that for real tomorrow.

I haven't hooked up the barcode scanner yet, either, but that's more from not being sure exactly where it will finally end up more than anything else.

But yeah, the DSL was easy enough to put in (I can't believe how eensy the modem is!)

Spent yesterday and most of the morning downloading and installing virus protection, firewall, Firefox, then all of the websites I'll want to access from the store with the various passwords. I'm at about 9 hours now, and I'm feeling good about all of that stuff.

Still 9 hours, and POS is still a "soon" prospect, if you see what I mean? At least another 2-3 hours of hardware foolin' in front of me, but its lunch time, then I should get to some "actual store business" (not that this isn't, but you know what I mean -- it feels like I'm "fooling around" by blogging from work)

I'll do one review before the end of the (store) day, I think, but I need to cross off at least 5-6 more items off my "to do list" for today...

-B

Shh, something's coming

Yeah, yeah, I suck, you're tired of reading it. But I spent most of today installing (much of) the hardware for our new POS system at Comix Experience, and getting the new DSL up and running at the store. Yes, after 18 years, Comix Experience is actually going to enter the 20th Century.

What's funny is tomorrow will be the first without-Jeff Friday in a loooong time, and Jeff was kind of complaining about not having internet at the store, and tomorrow will also be the first full day of having internet, so, huh. That's more ironic than rain on your wedding day...

I've also been spending a lot of time setting up a Secret Future Plan for the Savage Critic, and, while we're probably a month away from saying anything real, I think it's going to make the place rock. Hard.

So, like, I might be kinda quiet for the next month, because I'm putting like 80% of my brain into Getting POS online (and another 10% to the Secret Future Plan), but I definitely plan on doing at least one post from the store tomorrow, just because I can.

Honestly though, I hope to reward you for your patience (and I don't want Graeme to think he's alone out there, darn it!)

-B

This is astonishingly freaky!

Thanks to Dan Shahin to pointing this out to me: You can even zoom in and see the comics on display in the window!

-B

Brube in da house, and more of Hibbs' blabbing

It was a painfully slow day at the ol' CE today -- there were points I expected tumbleweeds to start rolling through. Thankfully, things were deeply enlivened when Evil Ed Brubaker did the surprise pop-in around 3 PM, which nicely helped us kill 3 hours, hooray!

Ed, once a long time ago, lived in San Francisco, and was a CE customer. Back in the days before he became a Corporate Sell-Out, Working For The Man, Ed used to come around and be a Little Black Rain Cloud, always moaning about how much the comics business sucked, and how he got no respect, and yadda yadda. Don't get me wrong, we loved it, because, yeah the comics business can and does suck, and Ed wasn't getting the respect he deserved, and yadda yadda. It's just that if I could cartoon at all, and you held a gun to my head and said "draw Ed Brubaker", I might draw a picture of Eeyore in a Porkpie Hat.

So I was a little surprised (happily so!!) to see Little Miss Sunshine Brubaker, all happy and smiling and filled with joy to all things comic-al. I guess having the nest selling single issue of the last year can do that to a feller, right?

Honestly, it couldn't have happened to a better guy, and we couldn't have possibly be happier for all of his success, and I like the fact that it's made him a Smiling Guy, because while I liked 'ol Dour Ed, I like the Happy Brube better, I think.

So, anyway, yay that!

I've decided that, no matter what he says now, I'm not going to remove Jeff from the "contributors" list. He doesn't actually ever have to post, but he'll always have the ability to, in case he changes his mind.

I'll make no secret of the fact that I think he's (easily!) the best of the three writers here (I'm the worst, pretty clearly), because he is actually edumicated about writin' and stuff. I just know if I like something or not... Jeff knows WHY.

Anyway, I hope he decides that posting a review of something occasionally doesn't violate this new focus. Even if it is only quarterly or something, I don't think he should let that particular set of muscles grow cold (unless he starts doing reviews for pay, in which case, yah forget about us!)

As for me, Jeff told me... uh three weeks ago now? You'll notice that's pretty much when MY volume of posts starting dropping, too. I mean, the Savage Critic as a blog, and as more than just my voice? That's all Jeff's fault, so having Jeff here was one of the things that kept me posting as often as I have -- trying to top him, and all.

(Look, there are worse motivations one can have)

So, I don't know much, but I do know that I won't be doing daily posting "any more" -- I'll shoot for thrice a week, though. Graeme says he enjoys posting daily, so, alright, he can be insane and keep that up (My problem is my boss is CONSTANTLY looking at my work...)

As for the future of the blog, really what I'd like to do is find 2-3 more people who share a similar style or sensibility and who know when to snark, and when not to, and get it so the Critic IS "multiple content daily", but NOT dependent on one person to make it so. I'd also really like it if we could figure out a way to monetize the Critic without selling out TOO badly (or triggering your epilepsy), but everything we've looked at so far seemed like it was too little money involved for the general intrusiveness of ads.

So, if you have any ideas, I'm always glad to hear them.

There's also a new TILTING AT WINDMILLS up on Newsarama. Follow that link to read me talk about late comics and weekly comics both. I think it turned out pretty OK for once!

Muh, one quick review before I go off and decide to have some "time off":

ULTIMATES 2 #13: Maybe, just maybe it is because there was most of a year between issues that this didn't connect to me at all, but I kinda doubt it.

The big problem is, of course, the protagonists are struggling against a faceless horde, and are rescued by another faceless horde, so there's nothing even remotely resembling human stakes through most of the proceedings (this is a common mistake of Millar's, of course)

Big widescreen action is fine enough, but it needs to have something human to anchor it against -- and I don't really care about any of these iterations of these characters enough to do so naturally. There could have been some interesting through line in here via "Sorry for thinking you were a mental patient, Thor", but that's never addressed here at all.

About the only thing I DID like was the Black Widow scene at the end.

And what about the art? I hope it's not me, because I found parts of it to be downright sketchy -- probably the biggest offender is that full page half-shot (? I thought a page was missing) of the explosion. Jinkies!

Most perplexing of all is the final scene. Why is this here? Did I forget some opening sequence from a year and a half back this is meant to link to? Even if there is, I can't see what possible resonance that scene could have to the events of this issue, or those leading up to it.

All in all, not worth the wait, and while it may tighten up in paperback, for this, as a single entertainment experience, I have to go with AWFUL.

What did YOU think?

-B

Jeff Gives Notice...

I've been putting this off for a couple of days now, hoping to at least piggy-back it on some genuine content, but things have been harried this month and if I don't do this now, I may not ever. My last day at Comix Experience is Friday, May 25th, and this month is going to be my last contribution to the store newsletter as well. My first column for the newsletter was issue #37--exactly a hundred issues ago--so that and the big signing last month seemed like perfect high notes to go out on. This also means I won't be contributing to this blog after the end of the month as well.

Now, comics bloggers retire in the same way that Marvel characters die--it seems more likely than not they'll be back just as you start to miss them--and I can't say for certain that won't be the case here; not only do I enjoy shooting my mouth off about comics, but the work of Graeme and Hibbs always inspires me. However, I have some other things I want to do, and it was getting harder and harder to find the time and energy to devote to them when I was either trying to stay on top of the tremendous amounts of work being done in this medium, or concretize my opinions about that work.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to read my posts, as well as contribute feedback. The rewards for being a critic aren't numerous, but learning that someone else has found a new favorite book or author thanks to a review I wrote--or simply found amusement in the wisecracks--is priceless.

If you get a chance to stop by the store this Friday or the next, and feel like saying "hi," please do so. I'm looking forward to ending my tenure as Comix Experience counterguy with as much fun, noise and chit-chat as I experienced for the vast majority of my run there.

There. That wasn't so hard, was it? So let's return you now to your regular run of savage criticism...

Yikes, count me out: Hibbs dabbles with 5/16

Just one real fast while it's fresh in my mind: COUNTDOWN #50: Forget everything I said last week, I really didn't like this one. At all. There's five scenes in here, and I'll leave the bookenders for last. There's a (very quick) Mary Marvel bit which is unobjectionable; there's a sequence with Batman and Karate Kid that doesn't (on the surface) appear to have anything directly to do with COUNTDOWN, and seems a bit more like an ad for the JLA/JSA crossover... unless that doesn't resolve in any significant fashion in which case, wtf; and there's a Rogue's sequence which is adequate, but a bit overlong for the information it needs to unfurl.

Then there's the Jimmy bookending stuff.

Uh... what?

Obvious question, first: Jimmy knows Batman's secret identity? And the entire history of his legacy? And that Jason impersonated Dick for a little while? Even if I accepted #1 & 2, how is #3 even possible? Kal that much of a blabbermouth?

But there's a writerly sin here, too, page 4, last caption, totally highlighted as the end of narration, boom end on "he's willing to kill". With this in mind, why the hell is Superman sending Jimmy in alone? For that matter, why isn't Superman apprehending him for his crimes? Hell, for THAT matter, why is Bruce sparring with Karate Kid a few pages later? His now rogue partner is involved with a meta-human death, and Bruce isn't man-on-the-scene? Really?

(this is actually why you probably don't WANT the Big Three in play in these things -- they're so overly competent, you have to write around them to get anything done)

But the bigger sin is in the end Jimmy scene, even more specifically on that last page. First off, the clumsy fake-cliffhanger of the last two panels (!) comes exactly out of nowhere, and has nothing to do with the rest of the scene, and since we can be relatively assured that Jimmy Olsen isn't going to die (at least this early in the game, and, frankly, probably ever), it's a wholly false cliffhanger. But even worse is that the whole thrust of the Joker scene concludes with information THE READER ALREADY KNOWS (well, or at least, and reader who actually knows who Duella Dent was in the first place... but they're the only ones who might possibly care, all 52 of us) (Heh)

Actually, back to the "cliffhanger" -- I just flashed that it made me think of DC CHALLENGE, a really horrible DC mini-series, where round-robin writers took turns trying to top themselves ("Bwah-ha-ha, how will [Adam or Sean, I don't recall who is next in rotation], get out of this?")

If it had just been the middle bits, I wouldn't have been enthusiastic, but, y'know, it was all OK, but those bookends just soured me on the whole deal. AWFUL.

Parenthetically, COUNTDOWN #51 had pretty poor first-week sales at CE; LAUNCHING at only 75% of 52 typical first-week sales. This concerns me especially, because I had thought the first issue at least would attract more eyes, and I ordered in the 133% range (the first three months are returnable, however... albeit costing us 29 cents a copy. I FOC'ed Week 47 (my first chance) right down to the minimum required for returnability (100% of 52), but I'm still going to be returning chunks. There's a mathematical point where eating the cost of returns isn't worth the tradeoff of not having to eat unsold product (call it like 4:1), but the problem is determining what the bottom is on this. If I look to COUNTDOWN #51 as analogous to 52 #1, in terms of ratios of preorders to rack sales, then project forward, COUNTDOWN will end up well below half of 52; the only question is will it "hit bottom"? By 52 #12, I pretty much had the right number, will history repeat itself here, or will I know by, say, #4 this time? (God, I hope so)

I felt liberated by the returnable experiment of 52 -- I ordered more copies than I thought I could sell, and it paid off handsomely. Here, I feel shackled by it -- in order to cover my bet, I can't bet below a minimum that I *know* is way way too high.

Wow, I typed way more than I wanted to. More... maybe Thursday? I still have to finish this @#$% TILTING, and we've got a visit to a prospective school for Ben tomorrow, too, which will swallow most of the afternoon, so, unless I feel itchy, maybe I should shoot for every other day (ha, again)

What did YOU think, anyway?

-B

PS: Bionic Woman trailer? Ugh.

Is there a natural "Countdown" joke for the title? Hibbs starts 5/9 off.

52 was special in a way because it was the "first of its kind" -- I think a pretty significant percentage of the comics buying population "bought into the experiment"' that is to say, once you reached, say, Week 12 or so, you decided whether you were "in for the year" or not. That's pretty much what my sales charts say -- there's peaks and valleys (and some absolutely unexplainable dips, but wait for those until I have all 13 weeks I'm capturing on 52, before I present the data, probably in a Tilting), but the through-line of week-to-week sales is really remarkably strong. I really really thought we'd lose half of the readership between #12 and #30, and that simply didn't happen.

I think I made the comparison here, earlier, between 52 and COUNTDOWN, and LOST and HEROES -- HEROES upped the ante for what a long-form drama (on Network TV, because, of course, THE SOPRANOS, or THE WIRE, or even, really, THE SHIELD and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA showed what the promise actually was) could be. That's pretty much the expectation of the audience, that each thing will be better and stronger that what proceeded it.

LOST really needed to step up its game (and, yeah, it pretty much has with the last few episodes -- I'd personally put the turning point back at the Tales From The Crypt one), but who knows if, because of the downtime, the audience it once had will come back?

So, I've thought, since the moment they announced this book, that COUNTDOWN needed to launch really really strong, in order to overcome the innate suspicion of the audience.

And yeah "#51" is a pretty good first issue.

There's action, there's mystery, there's a lot of universe building, and I like a fair amount of the initial characters, and/or underlying continuity enough to be happy.

I had problems, though, of course. First, I thought it was pretty left-field to have Duela Dent and Jason Todd be the main players in this first issue, particularly with the whole casual "I may be from a neighboring earth, but..." comment. I was ready to chalk that up to "well, yeah, she's claimed 20 different identities since her first appearance" (and there's never really been any real resolution to who she really IS, for the 428 of us who actually CARE), but then there was the whole Monitors-with-guns thing (which is, really, stranger than strange.... I already want them to go away!), and they cack her, and, WTF, THERE'S STILL NO CLARITY ON WHO SHE EVEN WAS IN THE FIRST PLACE?

I mean, doubleyou-tee-eff, to the extreme.

The Mary Marvel scenes were nice, but, huh? when was she in a coma? Did I skip over some stray line in 52 Week 50? She was in that, right? I don't remember her getting hurt that bad?

Dramatically, I'm not sure if the plot works. The Countdown is to the Great Disaster, and only Ray Palmer can stop it. Well, OK. So he will. Certainly, we're not going to end up with a post-Great Disaster DCU. Who would want to read that? So, there's not a lot of underlying tension to this.

And my big worry is, like 52, they don't actually have fifty-two comic books worth of story for this. Again, to go back to the (wrong-headed) Television analogy, I don't think that BATTLESTAR GALACTICA or LOST actually has 22 episodes worth of "story" any given "year" -- 12-16 episodes seems like the much smarter way to go. 52 maybe had twice that range of actually interesting-within-themselves issue. And the other third was "filler".

I won't pay $3 for plate-spinning (not that I pay full retail, but you know what I mean), so I'm not willing to embrace COUNTDOWN the way I embraced 52 -- I decided I was ON the ride real early. COUNTDOWN I will be taking week-by-week.

And based on week 1, I'll be getting week 2. A tentative (and low) GOOD.

-B

Free Comic Book Day 2007: Rockin'!

We've participated in every Free Comic Book Day held so far, because its just a DAMN FINE idea. "The first taste is free" and all that. Typically, we're pretty mellow about promoting it, preferring the national press to do the heavy lifting. This year was no exception -- zero advertising, no in-store promotion to our regulars, no press releases, heck I don't even put the FCBD window cling up until the week before, and even that's up on the high part of our windows which probably makes it harder to spot.

All of that lack of effort, and yet there were still definitely periods during the day where we had so many people in the store it was difficult to move around without bumping someone's ass.

Lots of kids, too. Lots and lots of kids. Many many many kids. Maybe more kids in 8 hours than we get in a whole month combined. So that rocked.

We were doing OK on FCBD stock until about 3 pm or so -- then we started running out of titles. We started with 35 or so different books, and ended the day with perhaps eight left available.

We don't set limits on what people can take -- we have a "don't be greedy" rule, or "take what you want to eat, eat everything that you take", or perhaps, "don't just take something because it is free"

90%+ of people adhered to this rule without even being told. Even the "leeches" (and most every retailer can tell you about leeches who only come in for whatever is "free", and are, y'know, rude about it) pretty much adhered to the Rule. Which was nice.

90%+ of attendees bought something (counting "a family" as "attendee"), and we had an EXCELLENT sales day. Not a record (that still lies with the Neil Gaiman signing for SEASON OF MISTS HC -- hard to beat selling a $25 hardcover to each and every person who walks through your door, really), but in the top five of all time, and beating last year's FCBD by around 20%.

All in all, a great day, a great event, and we made a WHOLE lot of people really very very happy.

-B

Why I suck (part #48765 in a series)

Had some knocking-the-wind-out news on Friday, but mostly I had forgotten it was order form/sub form weekend. I should have comics related content posts on MOnday and Tuesday... Meanwhile, here's the Top 20 of what Comix Experience ordered for June shipping (no specific numbers this time)...

1. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #4 2. ALL STAR SUPERMAN #8 3. COUNTDOWN #47 (I fell for the returnability offer here) COUNTDOWN #46 COUNTDOWN #45 COUNTDOWN #44 7. JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #10 DARK TOWN GUNSLINGER BORN #5 9. JUSTICE #12 (Both covers combined) 10. NEW AVENGERS #31 (taking Marvel on it's word...) 11. HELLBOY DARKNESS CALLS #3 FLASH FASTEST MAN ALIVE #13 (also returnability offer) BRAVE AND THE BOLD #4 14. BATMAN #667 15. RUNAWAYS #27 MIGHTY AVENGERS #4 BOYS #7 (Shame that DC let a top 20 book go away) 18. X-MEN FINCH GATEFOLD VARIANT #200 X-MEN ENDANGERED SPECIES ONE-SHOT WORLD WAR HULK #1

And here's the Top 20 by the I-think-more-important dollars

1. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #4 2. ALL STAR SUPERMAN #8 3. DARK TOWN GUNSLINGER BORN #5 4. JUSTICE #12 (Both covers combined) 5. SHAZAM MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL #4 6. COUNTDOWN #47 COUNTDOWN #46 COUNTDOWN #45 COUNTDOWN #44 10. EC ARCHIVES TALES FROM THE CRYPT VOL 2 HC 11. JACK KIRBYS FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS VOL 2 HC 12. ULTIMATES 2 VOL 2 GRAND THEFT AMERICA TP 13. JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #10 14. FRENCH KISS #20 (A) 15. NEW AVENGERS #31 16. WILL EISNERS SPIRIT ARCHIVES V22 HC 17. GRENDEL ART OF MATT WAGNERS GRENDEL HC 18. X-MEN FINCH GATEFOLD VARIANT #200 X-MEN ENDANGERED SPECIES ONE-SHOT WORLD WAR HULK #1

Dunno if any of that's interesting to anyone...

-B

Back From Vacation.

Yeah, after the signing, I pretty much zoned out for a week solid. (Hopefully, you noticed.) After a whirlwind 72 hours consisting of the signing, APE, catching four movies with Robson, and getting my car broken into, my brain was little more than a piece of dry, unbuttered toast. So brain-dead was I that I couldn't even find the new comics I bought from CE for five or six days. (The new Golgo and Drifting Classroom are tucked away in my bag for store reading today.) Anyway, I--oh, hey look! Comic book superstars!

This is the best picture I took of our four signers from Friday, in part because it was a hard angle to catch all of them in on one shot, and in part because I kept having to go breathe into a paper bag to keep from hyperventilating and that probably kept my camera hands shaky. All of the signers were incredibly generous and kind, and put up with my nattering and/or lousy directions which in the case of poor Gene Yang meant that he showed up 45 minutes late to his signing (and in case you're wondering Kevin Huizenga, from what I can tell, always has some variation of a "they never built a prison that could break me" look on his face).

The signers said they had a good time, we sold a ton of books that day, and I think it'd be safe to call the signing a success. And yet, I spent most of the day feeling like Artie ("Do me a favor. Just kick my ass, okay?") Fufkin in Spinal Tap because there weren't lines out the door and down the street and helicopters circling around trying to figure out why traffic on Divisadero stopped. Because that's what these four people deserve, if you ask me, and that we didn't get that makes me feel like I didn't do my job correctly and do me a favor, just kick my ass, okay? I'm not asking. I'm telling.

Anyway, I--hey, look! There they are again!

(I'm very happy that New Comix is shining above their heads; I just wish it was little bit more centered.)

Oh, and as a bonus, here's a picture of Graeme and Hibbs plotting to overthrow the world:

Anyway, those are the signing pix (I've actually got a pretty good crowd shot with Matt Silady talking to Ian Brill, and Kiel Phegley (who not only was a very nice and funny guy but also did a kick-ass job of covering APE for Wizard's website) chatting with Bill Roundy but couldn't quite figure out a way to work it into the post). My thanks to Kevin Huizenga, Hope Larson, Bryan Lee O'Malley and Gene Yang for their kindness, generosity and awesomeness. Having them at the store was a tremendous honor for me.

Still catching up

I actually thought about changing the name of the blog to Graeme McMillan's Savage Critic for the week, since he's been carrying all of our asses this week... Anyway, about 60% of my ComicsPRO emails and calls have been made, I completed ONOMATOPOEIA this morning (gonna be amusing to photocopy it "while" we have a major signing going on), and the new TILTING AT WINDMILLS is up at Newsarama, wherein I talking about the ComicsPRO meeting.

Reviewish stuff...soon. BUt probably not before Sunday, honestly.

Also, one thing I didn't get into my column (it didn't seem to fit the tone), but I pasted it off into Notepad so I wouldn't lose it:

Let’s end this with the third weirdest thing about the trip: The Orleans hotel has a check cashing service these days. If you haven’t been to one of these old-school Vegas hotels, you need to understand that the hotel lobby is the casino. In order to get anywhere in the hotel, you have to pass through the casino. So, five to ten times a day I’m walking through the casino, and past the check cashing line, and during normal 9-5 business hours that line is the longest line in the whole joint – usually 40+ people deep.

Like any check cashing service, it’s pretty clear that the people using it are generally poor – that’s why most of them are using such a service in the first place. (and let me say that using these services is a really bad financial deal, and should really be avoided in anything except the most desperate of times) It’s really pretty evil to set up a checking cashing deal in the middle of a casino – way to stack the house against the poor twice over – but what astounded me even more was that the casino had waitresses serving booze to the people in line.

Only in Vegas, I guess.

-B