Contest of Challengers

THE CHOICE TO DISENGAGE
•Breaking IDW corporate news! 
•The layout of Previews magazine.
•Thanks, Patrons!
•Sub services (I don’t actually know what that means, but it was in my notes…)
•Challengers Prime.
•Customer View and our new register tablet.
•Comics talked about in this episode:
     Titans #1
     Cyborg #1
     Dark Spaces Good Deeds #1
     Antarctica #1-#3

Contest of Challengers #635

IT’S EASIER THAN IT FEELS
•We’re sad and tired.
•Our plans for this year’s Free Comic Book Day!
•It’s easier than it feels.
•W0RLDTR33 #1.
•The Pre-Order discount is going away as of May 1st. In its place is a NEW Loyalty/Rewards program!
Contest of Challengers #634

NOT PERFECT = A LOT OF GARBAGE
•SO many Point Of Sale choice available for comic shops!
•Expanded hours!
•Our subscriber discount is becoming something else…
•Our Friday Morning Emails.
•Free Comic Book Day with KYLE STARKS and STEPHANIE MIDED!
•Patrick does not like when comics arrive shrink-wrapped in bundles.
•UPS was so late today!!
•Dal is not excited for DC’s 2-month NIGHT TERRORS event.
•Pre-order TITANS #1!!
•Comics discussed in this episode:
GREEN LANTERN #1
BATMAN THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #1
Contest of Challengers #633

PUBLISHER SUPPORT
•Is “graphic novel” the right word for what we sell?
•Night Farters.
•Patrick is okay again.
•Dungeons and Dragons.
•Our 15th Anniversary Party was a swell time!
•Our (separate) C2E2 adventures.
•2023 sales-to-date (spoiler: not good).
•Oversaturation!
•DANGER! And Other Unknown Risks.
•Thanks, Patrons!
Contest of Challengers #632

SWEET CONSTANCY
•Challengers is 15!!
•The Post-Covid Correction Period.
•A deliberate lack of Back Issues.
•The X-Men Timeline.
•We DON’T Like Ike!
•2 new Bios for Patrick!
Contest of Challengers #631

CT-HEY! DON’T PARK THERE!
•Cars engulfed by flame.
•Positive Shopify changes.
•New Sign Holders (that no one will notice, but that’s the point).
•Shelf rearranging and a much larger 25% OFF section!
•When the CTA parked on the sidewalk, blocking our front door.
•Smart Filer and Search.
•Shopify item importing slow down.
•Here are the comics we are excited about from this episode: 
W0RLDTR33
GREAT BRITISH BUMP-OFF (again!!)
TITANS
WONDER WOMAN
UNSTOPPABLE DOOM PATROL
THE NASTY 
PEACEMAKER TRIES HARD!!
Contest of Challengers #630

LACK OF MOMENTUM
•A Challengers business fact: If a comic sells very well for us, it is usually ignored by the mainstream.
•John Allison is very smart.
•The missing “A” cover of Invincible Iron Man #4.
•Checking-in PRH replacement books.
•Patrick is on Episode 825 of Car Con Carne (https://carconcarne.com/2023/03/14/challengers-comics-celebrates-15th-anniversary-at-club-lago-episode-825/) plus other interviews.
•Manage Comics has 2 really great changes this week that make life easier! Thanks, Brian (and team!)!
•Spay Illinois (https://www.spayillinois.org/)
•There’s are the comics we are excited about from this episode: WHERE MONSTERS LIE #4, GREAT BRITISH BUMP-OFF #1, BATMAN ONE BAD DAY RA’S AL GHUL, HAIRBALL #1, NIGHTWING #105.
Contest of Challengers #629

YOU’RE THE WORST PART OF COMIC COLLECTING
•Really good comics: INDIGO CHILDREN; NO/ONE and (hopefully) PARASOCIAL.
•All the Variant Covers for March 15th. Also, the last time we complain about variant covers on this podcast.
•Chargeback BS from a Pumpkin-Headed D!p$#!t with no shame.
•The Fables Wellness Chart.
•The sewer pipe in our trash room is possessed.
•Patrick in Publishers Weekly (and on Car Con Carne)!
•RJ City has some new names for Dal (RJ City does not appear on this podcast)!
Contest of Challengers #628

2 BUGS MAKE A RIGHT
•Removing an item from the Shopify register during the payment phase.
•Extra-large transactions cause large bugs.
•Guns!
•The X-23 Deadly Regenesis solicitation is a large paragraph of nothing.
•2 Kickstarter campaigns of note (yes, we can be bought)!
•Fast food apps.
•Funko woes.
•Upcoming books of note: Neighbors #1 (BOOM!), Indigo Children #1 (Image), Rock Gods of Memphis, Tennessee (Dark Horse).
•Patrons!
•Lonesome Hunters signed bookplates!
Contest of Challengers #627

IN YOUR MIND CALENDAR
No time for notes—we’re already late!
Contest of Challengers #626

SOMEWHERE BTW SKEPTICAL & AMBIVALENT
•”You look like you work in a comic shop!”
•3 Shopify support tickets at one time.
•What Shopify considers a “discount”.
•”The trick was… sort of pedantic.”
•UPS BS
•Our website is now a webstore.
•Sale aftermath.
•Marvel releases for May 2023.
•Challengers’ social media audit.
Contest of Challengers #625

SCREAMING INTO THE DARK with TIM SEELEY
• It's a full-on comic industry takedown with Tim Seeley! Join 2 grizzled comic industry veterans as they talk about the state of things today while remembering all the wonderful nonsense they’ve been a part of these past 21 years.
•Why are we doing this if it benefits no one?
•The death of experience.
•Screaming into the dark.
•Too early or too dumb.
Colt Noble TV commercial: https://vimeo.com/8249958
LOCAL MAN #1 is out Febryary 22nd!!
Contest of Challengers #624

WE’RE NOT GETTING IN YOUR WAY
•A Mystery Project is coming together…
•Working with Creators on store projects.
•It’s SALE time!!!!!!
•Manage Comics, ever improving.
•Thanks, Patrons!
•The WINGER Analogy.
•Placing Final Orders during the Holidays causes problems in February.
•Weekly comic book release schedules are horribly unbalanced.
•Net Pricing is NOT Retail Pricing!
•Lunar vs Diamond when it comes to Overages. 
Contest of Challengers #623

HUMMUS YOUR TIME
•When T-Shirts went mainstream.
•Our self-made day-to-day accountant.
•”All Ego” Ethan Page vs Karate Man.
•The confusion behind the collected release of Wonder Woman Historia The Amazons.
•Pre-Ordering thru our vendors.
•We do not ship internationally.
•Last-minute event changes.
•PR companies wanting events at the shop that we don’t think will work for them.
•Finding new artists (@jettilalewis) is always exciting!
•TITANS by Tom Taylor and Nicola Scott is going to be huge for us!! 
Contest of Challengers #622

ABDICATION OF VALUES
•Would you want text messages from Challengers? How much contact is too much?
•Finding a good Filtering/Sorting tool for our new website.
•Building ‘Collections’ for the new site.
•comiXology no more! It’s so weird to have been a store for the entirety of their digital comics platform.
•Ordering DC Comics during the Dawn of DC.
•The Great British Bump Off!
•Prices for Bags and Boards are rising again.
•There are still too many covers per issue per week.
•Problems with this week’s Instagram video.
•Buy EVERYTHING Kyle Starks creates!!
•Stephanie Phillips will be signing on Wednesday, January 25th!!
Contest of Challengers #621

PIG 8008
•Comics and Comics Retail is like a broken exercise bike.
•Patrick was on Off Panel with David Harper! It was… dark…?
•UPS deliveries, all day, every day!
•Are you caught up with all your comics?
•A ¢hange for $aga.
•Why customers can’t pre-order ratio variants from Challengers.
•Helping creators help retailers.
Contest of Challengers #620

ISBN13+5
•New Challengers Website—Coming Soon! Like, after the Sale, soon.
     •Commerce-focused
     •Advanced filtering/searching!
•How many Holiday cards did not get picked up in December?
•Searching “Marvel TP” in inventory is like just searching for “a”.
•Dal’s dream version of Manage Comics.
•Aside from this one, Patrick recorded 2 other podcasts this week! That guy LOVES hearing himself talk!!
Contest of Challengers #619

5/90/2/2/2
•Instagram videos vs Instagram reels.
•2022, a full year without ComicSuite.
•Entering 2023 WITH Manage Comics.
•Thanks, Patrons!
•Answering questions for a Sorbonne Nouvelle University student.
•Mission Statement (which should have been at the start of this episode)!
•What we’re looking forward to in the 1st quarter of 2023!
•So many events already planned!
Contest of Challengers #618

WEIRDO HEADWINDS
•March solicitations from DC and Marvel. But mainly DC.
•What the cold has done to the store and Patrick’s car.
•Next week is HUGE, but not as huge as we originally thought…
•Will Final Order Cutoffs ever get easier/quicker to do?
•Fun with the shop printer.
•Santa came to Challengers!
•The aftershocks of Aftershock.
•Rumiko Takahashi.
•When promotions don’t land.
Contest of Challengers #617

THE HAMMOCK GETS DEEPER
•Holiday sales have yet to really be a thing. Thanks, crappy weather!!
•IT TOOK LUKE is on a bunch of 2022 “Best Of” lists!
•There’s no news at the end of the year.
•Boxing up out Variant Covers.
•Too much off-the-sales-floor overstock!!
•Manga volume sales are hot or cold, rarely warm.
•Taking the wheels off the Drama shelves.
•”Christmas x3” by The Divorce Gun!! (You've been warned...)
Contest of Challengers #616