TF Views

At this point, I am keeping them out of habit and the tremendous goodwill they have built up until the last year or so.


This is the same store that used to get me incentive covers w/o mark-ups.

On the other hand, they are now the place where the ower tries to force me to buy comics from my sub in the order he wants them sold, rather than letting me buy them as I plan to read them. (I am a regular customer, and buy my books regularly.) This is the store that makes me order individual issues in advance, despite me having a sub. (Any discount is over-written by the annoyance on weeks like this when I have to go to a back-up store in the damned rain to get a book I made a point of ordering before hand.) This is the store where they give me trouble for being a fair-weather fan because I drop books that go bad. This is the store where they consider it unreasonable for people to want complete runs of old books, or to want complete action figures when the toys are priced like they are complete. This is the store where they now charge a premium for the opportunity to look through and purchase their back-issues. (No lie.)

(Wow. I have not gone off like that in a long time.)

2 of the books I subscribe to are 6 month commitments, the "Archie" wedding issues and "Spiderman: Clone Saga". When Clone saga ends, (Feb of 2010), I will make a decision. If the store gives me any more trouble at all this calendar year, I will give notice in December that I am jumping ship. (In theory, pre-ordering obligates me for about 2 months.)

There are enough other stores that I do not need to stick with just one. Newbury at Haymarket is more conveniently located for me. Every place I have gone to school or worked in the last 9 years has brought me through that area a few times a week. For the last 4 years, I have always had at least one thing bring me through that area consistently. Harrison's is my back-up store, though geography keeps them from being my regular store.

(Given that my regular store has been the only reason I regularly go out that way for about 7 years now, dropping them might just be a good move anyway. I initially started going there because they were near a job I had at the time.)


Dom
-fully expects AHM volume 4 to be the point of failure here.

Damn, you're more patient than I am. I dropped a comic shop once solely on the basis of location. The service was always great and they had never missed an issue. The new place (relatively speaking since I've been going there for around 5 years) has missed issues here and there but is always good about resolving things. Both places offer discount and the old place even still gives me the discount when I go there for things my new place misses (which isn't often).

Habit and good will go a long way.

I worked down the street from this place from 2000 (when they opened) to mid-'02 (when DW got the "Transformers" license). I started an in-store subscription shortly after that. In '03, I was finishing my undergrad, and a long-ish train-ride was a chance to catch up no reading.

By '04, it was just habit, and a comforting bit of routine.

It has only been the last year or so when the store has been actively trying my patience. I got AHM volume III at Harrisons yesterday, (after going over an hour out of my way, thank you very much). My current store has to be *flawless* for the rest of the year. For me to consider keeping them. Any more trouble, I give my notice in December.


Dom
-the economy does not make this decision any harder.

Once again, the AHM thread has spawned another discussion on comics as a whole.


In response to Shockwave's question about "Crisis on Infinite Earths":


CoIE changed the way comics were published. The regular event model we see today has its roots in "Crisis". The promise, delivered or not, of "big huge changes to everything" has its roots in "Crisis". Crisis involved retcons of all sizes to *every* book published in context by DC in the mid-80s. Editorial directives and rules changed for everybody involved. Reading about the editorial chaos at the time is educational. Basic rules for how certain stories involving things like time-travel and dimension hopping were changed. (Granted, some writers ignored them either buy mistake or self-indulgence. But, the rules were clear.)

For a time, Marvel even defined themselves in opposition to CoIE, (still making it directive for them in a sense), by saying that their context was unchanging and fixed.


Dom
-appreciates "Crisis on Infinite Earths" more for what DC attempted than for what it accomplished.

Hey, you're the one that brought up Barry Allen!

I thought I recalled you mentioning this before, but I thought I'd ask just to be sure. I certainly saw that impact in Marvel's books when I was getting them. It seems like every year they have an event happen that spans every book they put out. I was in for Civil War and left with Secret Invasion. I really wished I had skipped World War Hulk. I only read that hoping they were going to kill off the Hulk at the end of it.

Fair point about Barry Allen. Marvel's events go back to the 80s. But, they have gotten bigger and more intrusive over the years. "Acts of Vengeance" would be positively benign by today's standards.

Dom
-remembers Doctor Doom v/s the Punisher.

I suppose one could say that TF comics run the same way. AHM could be seen as an "event" type book. But it hasn't been anything on the level of the big two. Buffy is done completely differently. Joss Whedon is basically producing season 8 of the series in comic form (it's even called Joss Whedon's Season 8). Some issues are episodic and others address a larger plot for the season. Same formula as the show and it works. Frankly I wish more comics would do things this way.

Update:

I stopped in this past Friday. I got a *very* generous discount on 2 weeks worth of comics, plus a few items of curiosity.

I guess the guy figured out I was annoyed.


Dom-and, lets see what happens with AHM volume 4.

To answer Sparky's question from the other thread:

"Blackest Night" annoys me for a number of reasons.

First, it is yet more of DC using the bad-guy of the week, (Blackhand), as the editorial straw-man who voices the stuff that is against the company's party line. (The fact that Hal Jordan in this role was spouting off what is now DC's current line is perhaps the only justification for bringing him back.)

Second: it is a big loud, obnoxious and stupidly intrusive event. It has nothing to say or add. I doubt much, if any of "Blackest Night" will stick beyond the stuff that it undoes from the other big stupid events.

Given that DC's current stance is that "comics have no meaning", I have to wonder why the hell we are supposed to care about them.

Dom

Dominic wrote:First, it is yet more of DC using the bad-guy of the week, (Blackhand), as the editorial straw-man who voices the stuff that is against the company's party line. (The fact that Hal Jordan in this role was spouting off what is now DC's current line is perhaps the only justification for bringing him back.)

How so? Black Hand hasn't really done all that much in the story as of yet. He's not even the main villain of this story.

Second: it is a big loud, obnoxious and stupidly intrusive event. It has nothing to say or add. I doubt much, if any of "Blackest Night" will stick beyond the stuff that it undoes from the other big stupid events.

You couldn't be more wrong here. This story has been saying volumes with each and every issue. Your not seeing the depth bringing dead loved ones back and using them against the living has in this story. These aren't just zombies after all. And it has already added so much to the DC universe, particularly to Green Lantern given we're seeing and learning so much about the Emotional Spectrum. With how popular that aspect alone has been with fans, I don't see that going away anytime soon.

Given that DC's current stance is that "comics have no meaning", I have to wonder why the hell we are supposed to care about them.

I hardly think DC's stance is "comics have no meaning". If it were, I doubt they'd still be publishing comics, because they don't have meaning, right? No, they care about these stories.