ELFSAR BLOG

I am sitting here in my usual spot behind the till (obviously my computer is still set up) soaking up what will be my last day here in the store.  It is a weird feeling being able to walk through spaces that were usually blocked by display cases or walls of trade paperbacks but oddly not as weird as seeing all the walls blank white.

As I look around and see that scattered paper, cardboard, dust and debris I reflect on what many customers have been quoted saying upon their last visit to the shop “An end of an era” one after the other would say.  A statement I would have to agree.  But one customer took it a bit further as I had heard rumours and rumblings of one who wrote and performed a reading at the “Comic Strip Cabaret” held at the Rio Theatre this last weekend.  He kindly sent me what he wrote this morning and after reading it, I was blown away.

So without further ado here is a poem by Duncan Shields:

I remember it like it was thirty two years, 9 months, 25 days, eight hours, thirty-two minutes and 3,4,5 seconds ago. I was seven years old.

I grew up in Nelson. It was a wedding in the Valley, a friend of my parents. I remember that the day was beautiful, the cake was way too sugary for my earth-mother palette raised on carob and licorice root.

I had been in school for two years. The carefree days of 0-5 were far behind me and the harshness of real life assaulted me daily in the form of other kid’s lunches made with white bread and bologna and the torture of the playground. I understood that sometimes boys chase the girls and sometimes girls chase the boys. Six months earlier, I had broken my wrist chasing a girl. You’d think I would have learned my lesson.

For now, I should have been enjoying the unending summer of childhood but even then, under a beautiful sun on acres of perfect lawn at a 1976 hippie wedding, I was bummed out, dreading school, and feeling the weight of the world.

“Hey, do you like comics?” said a voice. It was the groom.

Now that he was getting married, he felt it was time to put away childish things. He said that he’d given my father his collection of comics to give to me. It was the passing of the torch. It was a generational relay race of the imagination. That’s how the first three boxes of my other life got started.

A year later, Star Wars came out.

And all was well with the universe. I may still have escaped the clutches of what I was to become if it wasn’t for the summer of 1982.

May – Conan the Barbarian and the Road Warrior.

June – Poltergeist, Star Trek 2 The Wrath of Khan, E.T, The Thing and Blade Runner

July – Tron

And let’s not forget that in December, the Dark Crystal came out to finish off a year the likes of which has never been seen before or since.

I am not the only one whose head was split open by
that year.

I think wistfully back to my first computer. A Radio Shack TRS 80 with a tape drive. I wrote programs in BASIC. I remember it the same way that I remember my grandmother’s foot-pedal driven sewing machine.

I think back to my first couple of Dungeon and Dragons games. I remember after Gary Gygax’s death last year, people realized that they wouldn’t even have a circle of friends if it weren’t for role-playing games. I know married couples that never would have met if it wasn’t for D and D.

And now here we are. The richest man on the planet makes computer operating systems and looks like an extra from Revenge of the Nerds. They say that one in 8 marriages today are between people that met on the internet.

There are over 75 movies in production right now based on comic books and video games.

We are no longer a sub culture. We are dominating. I’m glad I lived long enough to see it.

I have trouble lifting heavy objects because of all my back issues. I hit the nail on the head with the hammer of Thor. Every butter knife, to me, is missing a Silver Surfer. Gwen Stacy taught me about loss. And I’m Galactose intolerant.

Box 100, that was me. It had the binary ring of destiny to it. Every two or three weeks, I’d go in and clean it out.

In comics, more often that not, the good guys prevail. Like in Superman. In real life, with Elfsar shutting down, I feel like the bad guys have won. Like in Wanted.

I want Hulk fists wrapped in TWO Infinity Gauntlets to smash the tidal wave of commerce that takes away the small businesses but all I can do is stare at my Bruce Banner hands and feel helpless.
Less like Iron Man, more like the tin man.
Less like Batman, more like the scarecrow
Less like Kraven the Hunter, more like the cowardly lion
Less like Superman being given strength by the yellow sun and more like Dorothy lost on the yellow brick road, both of them far from Kansas.
I feel the loss of Elfsar.
I feel like I’m fighting Dark Phoenix, Galactus, Thanos and Darkseid. I feel like Commisionner Gordon’s daughter with her broken back after she was shot by the Joker. I feel like the impurity in Green Lantern’s ring. I feel like Lexcorp owns Yaletown.

If I was Wolverine, I’d give them all the middle claw.

Comics are a central building block of who I am. And who am I? I am a geek. A geek is both a noun and a verb. As Shakespeare said,

To geek, or not to geek: that is the question:
Whether ’tis wiser in this life to purchase
The toys and comics and models and robots,
and to program a mound of video games,
And by creating play them? To geek: escape;
This life; and by ‘to geek’ to say we dodge
The small talk and the thousand boring days
That “normal’s” heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To geek, to nerd;
To nerd: perchance to love: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that nerdy state few lovers come
When we have shuffled off this ‘normal’ coil,
That gives us pause: there’s the problem
That makes treacherous the nerdy life;
For who would bear the fit and weave of fashion,
The majority’s heart, society’s affection,
The camouflage of sheep, the brain’s decay,
Homogenized opinion and the thoughts
That reality television does erode
When he himself might his quietus make
With a 2d6? who would fill those gyms,
To grunt and sweat under fluorescent lights,
But that the dread of never having love,
The undiscover’d country from whose legs
No traveler returns, de-nerds the will
And makes us want to bear comformity
For outer beauty that we know not of.
Thus magazines make cowards of us all;
And thus the nerdy hue of resolution
Is sicklied over with a borg cast of thought,
And enterprises of great crew and captain
With this fear have their warp cores turned awry,
And lose their name of action. – Hark you now!
You geek Ophelias! Nerds, in thy Deloreans
Are all my friends remember’d.

For more from Elfsar’s file saver customer #100… go visit: www.365tomorrows.com

I would like to publically Thank Duncan for sending me this literary treat.  As well I need to Thank all the customers who out of the kindness of their hearts helped both Sareina and I with the immense task of closing the shop, boxing things up loading the trucks and traveling to what will be the new headquarters for www.elfsar.com.

There will be more news coming from Elfsar soon… (including the long awaited FCBD photos).

-Big Elf

FCBD UPDATE:

Congratulations to the winners of the FCBD Vancouver Food Bank raffle!  Thank you for all your help to make our community stronger.

ARTWORK FROM ARTIST CAMILLA D’ERRICO

CONGRATS TO THE WINNERS:
JENNIFER NEWMAN
& ERIC WHITE

STAR WARS POWER FX DARTH VADER LIGHTSABER

CONGRATS TO THE WINNER:
RICHARD S. CHILTON

T2 T-800 ENDOSKELETON DIE CAST FIGURE SILVER VERSION

CONGRATS TO THE WINNER:
JACK YEE LIU

IRON MAN MOVIE DISPLAY STANDEE & IRON MAN 2 OFFICIAL DOUBLE-SIDED MOVIE POSTER

CONGRATS TO THE WINNER:
SHANNON STEVENSON

Next update… The FREE COMIC BOOK DAY COSPLAY PICS!

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EVEN BIGGER SALE AT ELFSAR!!! (We are closing May 23rd, forever.)
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Now our sale is a Buy 1 and get an additional 2 free for equal or lesser value. This is for Graphic Novels, Comic Sets, Art Books and Magazines.   It is a Mix and Match sale! Get exactly what you want for 1/3rd the price.

Plus our Manga and Manga art books are marked already at 50% off.  Now on top of the 50% off price you can enjoy a buy 1 get 1 free sale as well!

On top of all that we now have a 30% to 90% off deal on all other non-reading material. This includes T-shirts, Posters, Toys, statues, novelties ..etc

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A BACK ISSUE CLEARANCE SALE THAT GEEKS DREAM ABOUT
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SAVE 55% OFF – on any single comic.
Or BUY 10 comics for only $10
Or BUY 30 comics for only $25
Or BUY a short box (approx 150 comics) for only $75 and fill it up with as many comics from the back issue bins as you can.*
Or BUY a long box (approx 300 comics) for only $100 and fill it up with as many comics from the back issue bins as you can.*

*Note: To be fair to everyone, you may not select more than 1 copy per comic of the same cover. In other words you can not grab all 50 copies of Wolverine #1 to fill a box. However, you can buy as many times as you like (if your goal is to get more of the same comic with the same cover). Comics placed in boxes must be stacked vertically and the cashier must be able to insert one hand in on both ends to qualify. Boxes must be able to close with a lid.

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This is for everyone to be informed that Elfsar will close early today (Wednesday May 5th) at 5pm as we are hosting the pre-screening of IRON MAN 2 at the Scotiabank Theatre.

We will re-open at 10:30 on Thursday May 6th and we will still be offering our FCBD sale!

The biggest sale we have ever had in our 7 year history is on!

SAVE 20 to 80% OFF -  Toys, Statues, Models, Novelties, T-Shirts & Posters!

SAVE up to 50% OFF -  Graphic Novels, Art Books, Comic Sets & Magazines
(with our new and improved Buy 1 get another 1 FREE sale!)

A BACK ISSUE CLEARANCE SALE THAT GEEKS DREAM ABOUT

SAVE 55% OFF -  on any single comic.
Or BUY 10 comics for only $10
Or BUY 30 comics for only $25
Or BUY a short box (approx 150 comics) for $75 and fill it up with as many comics from the back issue bins as you can.*
Or BUY a long box (approx 300 comics) for $100 and fill it up with as many comics from the back issue bins as you can.*

*Note: To be fair to everyone, you may not select more than 1 copy per comic of the same cover.  In other words you can not grab all 50 copies of Wolverine #1 to fill a box.  However, you can buy as many times as you like (if your goal is to get more of the same comic with the same cover).  Comics placed in boxes must be stacked vertically and the cashier must be able to insert one finger in on both ends to qualify.  Boxes must be able to close with a lid.

Elfsar Comics gave away over 20,000 comics on May 1st (Free Comic Book Day) A total of 12 full boxes of food and a total of $1,711.54 was raised for the Vancouver Food Bank! 

We had a head count of approx 2,000 people!  FCBD 2010 was an overwhelming success.

I do want to thank everyone who puts a great effort into FCBD, from the Elfsar staff to all the volunteers and costumed guests to the many artists, writers and publishers who made this day happen.  We retailers are in the frontlines of this industry.  Sadly this was the last FCBD for Elfsar, but it was a no-less a special one.

We encourage you to  share your thoughts on the FCBD festivities by sending us your photos and/or videos that you took on May 1st to elfsar@shaw.ca 

We will be posting the many pictures on our website soon along with the ones that I get them from the talented photographers

Congratulations to HENRY WONG who won the Create you own Superhero Contest!  He and a guest of his choosing will see IRON MAN 2 on MAY 5th!

The other raffles winners will be announced soon…