Stress Distribution

Just trying to get things out of my head.

A friend of mine asked what the new situation was with how comics, specifically DC Comics, are distributed to the retailers. I have been under a ton of stress and other problems, that I ignored giving an answer. I am writing this now to get some of it down. I will inevitably forget some aspect of it that grates my nerves.

When this global pandemic hit, it rocked all aspects of life. Literally everyone was effected by its spread. It forced people to stay home, not go to work, close schools, ban shopping and dining. Life was, and still is to a great degree, upended.

When it comes to comic books, this hit globally.

All comic book stores deal with Diamond Comics Distributors. Well, all of them do if they want to carry almost anything popular. Diamond has exclusivity deals with Marvel, Image, Dark Horse, IDW, BOOM, and probably many others. When the shutdowns started, all levels were impacted. Stores had to close their doors. Warehouses had to stop shipments because of both the stores closing and not being able to receive as well as for the sake of their employees too. Since the warehouses couldn't get new stock, that caused the printers to stop making things. When the printers stopped, the comic companies started to pull back on what they were producing. Everything was thrown into chaos. No new comics.

Diamond used to have DC Comics, but the pandemic hit. DC saw an opportunity.

Seeing how Diamond couldn't, nay wouldn't, distribute comics broke a contract of exclusivity. I think DC was looking for an out. DC wanted to get comics in the hands of readers and Diamond wasn't making that happen, so they had to go figure out alternative methods. DC hooked up with a couple smaller distribution companies (that just happen to be two of the bigger comic retailers online). Being a comic seller online doesn't effect how I thought of them as distributors. If someone was buying their stuff online, then they probably weren't coming in my store to get the same thing. So, DC was determined to get comics in stores regardless and especially if they were the only ones. It didn't matter that most stores couldn't open. They could still mail order and curbside pick up and a number of other new was of trying to make a living if you can't go inside a store.

At first, it was portrayed to me that DC was making efforts to get comics in stores. The best way to get the first release is to go with the new distributors. DC claimed at the time that they were working with Diamond to get those promised books to their stores too. They would just be delayed until Diamond started shipping. I didn't mind this because my store wasn't allowed to be open yet. Sure there were customers that wanted new comics, but the world already gave plenty of other distractions to worry about. There wasn't mush pressure to start with a new distributor if I could just stay with my current one-stop-shop for my comics. Who wants a new bill every month?

Turns out, this was a lot of smoke and mirrors. DC Comics and Diamond couldn't come to an agreement and DC pulled out. Now, DC exclusively goes through new distributors that are not Diamond. Also, all of their comics are scheduled to be put on sale on Tuesday. (Tuesday is the typical new on sale date for most books and other media.) Comic books on sale date has been Wednesday for a very long time. DC wants to be different. Oh, and DC doesn't want to produce a print catalog anymore of their upcoming products. They recently had a separate book that had just their stuff that was "free". (They only provided enough free copies to go along with the Diamond Previews catalog that contains all the other comics. Except Marvel, they have their own book too, but they give extras free of charge.)

Anyway, the stress now started with having to deal with a new distributor of a product that makes up a significant portion of our comic sales. I can't really sell new comics if one of them isn't Batman. There was about a two week window to set-up and get approved to be a client for the new distributor.

All in all, this has added a ton of new work for me. It doesn't help that it is just my boss and me as the sole people that work in the store for the moment. It more than doubled what I would normally do for ordering comics. That doesn't even account for the later changes that just keep happening with it as well.

For our account, it is shared between the two stores. This saves on shipping, which can quickly lead to loss of profit when shipping fees eat most of could be made from an order. I have to keep track of all the comics that are ordered. My book-keeping went up because instead of just keeping track of the comic inventory, I now have to keep track separately of what specific DC stuff I am getting. Add to this deciphering what stuff I ordered compared to the whole order. These are separate tasks that I have binders and folders full of paper to try and account for everything.

So, money is tight. I have to watch what I am ordering so as to not go overboard with extras, but still ride a line of taking care of customers. For most of the titles that come out, I am now getting either just for subscribers, subs plus one, or even a couple extra for the shelf if it is a bigger title, like Batman. When it is sold, it is effectively gone forever now. Supposedly, I can reorder stuff I sold out of from the new distributor. It would help if there was any overstock to order. It would be nice if reorders were sent with the weekly order to save on shipping. So, I just don't reorder. What we get in initially is about it.

The DC books come in earlier than the rest of the comics. The first week was right after July 4th, so they showed up on a Tuesday and it was a bit hectic. I didn't have to deal with the bulk of the problems that day, because I was at my day job. My boss and the other guy at the other store figured it out. The next week was fine and showed up on Monday when I could handle it. The third week had problems and showed more problems with the new distributor. We were missing entire titles. No issues of things were ordered. Usually, if it was Diamond, I could call or shoot off an email and the problem would have been resolved. Either the books would show up in a later shipment, or the account would get credited. Typically, the comics just show. There are supposed to be several copies of each title set aside for when things like this happen. The new distributor doesn't answer their phone. There is no real email to contact. I reported my problems to a strange contact screen. I don't think it actually worked.

Thankfully, all of our orders since have been fine. Some of the orders even show up on Friday to give me extra time to work on them. I just feel I have to do everything twice.

Oh, when we submit orders, I order week by week. Normally, I order all of the month's comics at once. A few weeks before they come out, I can do an FOC (Final Order Cutoff). This just allows me to make some changes if I need to, like adding issues to popular titles or removing some from poorer selling ones. DC is just done during FOC now. There really isn't an initial order to put in. This is upsetting, but not too much of a problem. The problem is that FOC is typically on Monday. DC is now on Sunday night, when I am not there. I don't even get an entire weekend of sales to judge how a title is performing. I also doesn't help that I have no real idea what I am ordering other than issue numbers and titles. It is all guess work and hope that I don't upset too many people.

And now it is constant event season for the comic industry. Companies are playing catch up and it is very difficult to guess what stuff people will buy. The speculators are on the rise too, which is its own headache.

I just want to like comics again.

Something to do....

I haven't looked at this in years.

I have been feeling anxious lately. The whole world is in actual chaos. People are unsure about how life works now. For me, I just don't know what to do with myself.

I fill my time. I still work two jobs, which is better than some people. I never applied for unemployment, so no bonus cash from the feds. Money isn't too important to me right now. I have that going for me. Thankfully, I have few expenses.

I decided to started writing this in an effort to do something. I spend a good bit of time trying to figure out what to do with myself. I sometimes get stressed at work from just having seemingly everything happen at once. Work can give me focus, though. At least when I go to work, I have something to do. I have something to work towards, even if it is the end of the day.

I am the only employee working at my "night" comic book job. The boss stepped up and is still finding his feet getting back to actual work and not just delegating. I just have to step up my usual tasks. It doesn't help that the comic book industry used everything going on as a springboard to screw more things up for me. I know it wasn't a personal attack. It is mainly poor timing at a terrible time to throw more chaos and stress on an already near mentally breaking time.

This is just a bit of stress relief. I have more hobbies than I can handle. I like too many things, but am not a true fan of any of them. Nothing is really "my thing". I still have a terrible habit of attempting to throw money at a thing in the hope that I'll enjoy it. I have bought video games and played them once. I buy books to flip through and pretend I may read them some day. I have models to build and paint and no desire to choose which ones to do first. An excuse of not wanting to screw it up is fleeting. I could always just buy a new one to attempt to get that desire feeling again.

Who knows? Maybe this will trigger something in me. Maybe I will start writing a bit here again. Even it if is just something to do. At least it feels like a slight sense of accomplishment. That is all work is now, a sense of accomplishment when I struggle to get started. Still, I didn't have to get back on here to write, Luckily, it was automatically logged in because this site is owned and run by Google. Saves some time.

All right. I think that is enough for now. We'll see how long this lasts. One step at a time...

Sound of Silence

See, the weird thing is that I had plenty of time and topics to write abut over the last week. I just didn't have a functioning computer with internet access to actually compose my thoughts. It's kind of sad that I resort my self to technology as a crutch to write.

In any case, I guess it's time for an update.

It is solidly in the Christmas season at work. Hours officially changed with Black Friday, but now are staring to effect me. See, for the first few weeks, only weekends were really effected, with opening early and staying open late. Now, this week, the whole week has early openings and late closings. My Wednesday is going to suck, since it is then that I both open and close. In fact I have to go in before open to get work done then. I'm going to need some Red Bulls or something.

My Thanksgiving was all right. It was vastly different than past years. Instead of my home playing host to my immediate family, I joined my mom in center city Philadelphia for an extended family Thanksgiving. My brother was married on the next day, so with his wife's family in from another state, they had Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel were the wedding was to be held. It's strange having such a classic meal with menu options. Don't worry, I had the turkey choice. It was good, but nothing like a home cooked meal. I am also surprised how many people actually go out to eat for Thanksgiving. There was over 100 reservations for the hotel restaurant. Granted our party was most of it, but it still seems like a lot.

My brother, Chris, was married on Black Friday. This was significant because it gave me the greatest excuse (aside from a death) to not have to be at work. An added bonus was the extended days off, my first 4 day weekend/vacation since I was sick in January 2008. It was a good ceremony. It seemed non-denominational. They aren't actively practicing anything that I know of. Still, it was good to see all of my family. It is an extremely rare occasion when even my immediate family is all in one place. I talked with cousins, and generally had a good time. I drank and danced and tried my best to ignore my coming sickness. It never fails that I get sick to some degree whenever I am away from work for extended time.

Saturday started day one of house sitting. Since my brother was recently married and heading to a honeymoon in Belize, I was drafted to house sit and watch his cat, Blue. To describe it in a word, I would use "lonely". I didn't have a computer to connect with he outside world, so I settled for ondemand television and seasons of old TV on DVD. I finished up Generation Kill, Fear Itself and The Adventures of Brisco County Junior. I also brought my Xbox 360 to hook up to the HD television... Well, I hoped to at least.

The cords I had were for standard definition. I thought they may work in some capacity anyway. even if I didn't have the ful HD experience, I could at least connect it to the the internet and play some Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 online. Hell, with the new Xbox updates, I could even check my twitter and Facebook accounts. I held out for a day and headed to Gamestop the following afternoon. There I broke down and bought the HDMI cables needed for full High def experience. That was a good $50 right there. Then I headed to RadioShack and grabbed a 3ft ethernet cord for $10. I was in a good mood. I was going to waste away the rest of my solitude filled nights with mass killing of virtual people. I opend the packaging for the HDMI cable and set to connect it to the TV. Were the cable now connected to the TV, it didn't connect to the Xbox. Apparently, I have an early model that didn't support HDMI. Well, there's wasted money. Instead of getting too annoyed, I opted to attach the Xbox to the TV that was in the bedroom I was staying in. It didn' have internet access, but at least I could get some use out of it. I resorted to played a couple nights of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.

Now, if you read this blog with any frequency, you may have perused the one written about the date I had. It was fun. We went out a couple times over the next few weeks. We talked nearly everyday. Then Thanksgiving came, and there was silence. With attempted phone calls and text messages left unanswered, I am just assuming the worst. I just have no idea what the hell happened. I'm not going to try calling again until I hear something back. There are other things I should be focusing on, like Christmas.

Additions to Myspace, laziness, & work

I am tired. Go figure.

It's 3 in the morning, and I just finished doing stuff for work in my free time. I am an idiot. I scrolled through a list of comics from an independent distributor and narrowed down the items to what I think the store should actually carry. About 95% of the stuff didn't make the cut. I added a couple CDs I found on there for good measure. I already have the Space Ghost: Musical BBQ, but I think I could deal with having the 2 Power Puff Girls cds. I know, I am a dork. I like cartoons though. Sometimes the music is good for inspiration.

Also, I added an RSS reader to my Myspace page so it would seem easier to notice when I post something here. I don't really have any followers through this, at least not many that are non-anonomyous. I know a few people do occasionally read the words I throw-up here. It seems that more people would be more inclined to check out the Myspace profile first though, seeing as they would already be on Myspace. I don't have a Facebook profile yet. I haven't decided if it is worth it or not. I know may people are making a change to it. It seems to be the new trend. Many older, read not kids, are switching to create a seeming more mature social netork. I guess hiding behind avatars and fake names can only do so much.

I have been lazy lately. I haven't been very good with keeping in contact with friends. I just think a call out of the blue from me isn't worthwhile. I don't find myself interesting, so I don't want to subject people to my annoying work stories. I need to go out more. I work too much, too often. It gets to the point where if I am not working during the week, I tend to nod off and nap for a bit. I don't think I have a wide enough window to do something constructive. Maybe, I am just making up excuses. If only I had a webcam, I could make some shitty video blog for Youtube like some emo kid.

I should go to sleep now. I hope everyone is having a good day.