Elfsar Comics & Toys Blog

Brad Meltzer’s new novel, The Book of Lies, due out next week, was the impetus for a USA Today story this week on the origin of Superman, which Meltzer ties to the death of Mitchell Siegel, Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel’s father, in a Cleveland robbery in 1932.  Although Siegel himself never mentioned in interviews that his father died in a robbery, Meltzer notes the motivation for a character whose first depiction, from 1933, shows him rescuing a man being robbed.  Meltzer also told USA Today of a letter to the editor in the Cleveland Plain Dealer the day after the robbery from A.L. Luther, denouncing the need for vigilantes, which Meltzer thinks may have been the inspiration for Superman villain Lex Luthor. 

The USA Today article does a nice job of tracing the history of the discovery of this piece of Siegel’s history, which first appeared in 2004 in Gerard Jones’ Men of Tomorrow.  Writer David Colton also cites Marc Tyler Nobleman and Ross MacDonald’s Boys of Steel:  The Creators of Superman, which concluded that Siegel’s father died of a heart attack during the robbery. 

Colton concludes his article with the sordid history of Siegel and Shuster’s battle for the rights to their character, including a great anecdote from Jerry Robinson about the star-studded party held to celebrate the settlement in which DC agreed to pay the character’s creators an annuity and credit them for Superman’s creation.  That battle for a share of the immense revenues derived from Superman over the years continues  (see http://www.elfsar.betweenthestaples.com/2008/03/31/great-scott-dc-no-longer-has-the-rights-to-superman/)

Note: This was sent to me from Brock (Elfsar’s trusty Elfbyte collaborator)

Given the recent release of Uncanny X-Men #500, and reading this article on the CBR website http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=17588 made me think about what Marvel titles would be at what issue number.  I’ve listed them in order of lowest (ie, the title that is closer to issue #500) to highest.  Interesting if nothing else (although it also indicates I’ve perhaps got a bit too much time on my hands right now). 

UNCANNY X-MEN 

• Uncanny X-Men #1 - #500 (as of August 2008)

THOR 

• Journey into Mystery #83 - #125 = 42 issues
• Thor (vol. 1 - 1966) #126 - #502 = 378 issues
• Thor (vol. 2 - 1998) #1 - #85 = 85 issues

Total previous series = 505 issues

• Thor (vol. 3 - 2007 - current series) #1 - #10 (as of August 2008) OR #506 - #515

Total = 515 issues

CAPTAIN AMERICA

• Tales of Suspense #59 - #99 = 41 issues
• Captain America (vol. 1 - 1968) #100 - #454 = 355 issues
• Captain America (vol. 2 - 1996) #1 - #13 = 13 issues
• Captain America (vol. 3 - 1998) #1 - #50 = 50 issues
• Captain America (vol. 4 - 2002) #1 - #32 = 32 issues

Total previous series = 491 issues

• Captain America (vol. 5 - 2004 - current series) #1 - #40 (as of August 2008) OR #491 - #531

Total = 531 issues

IRON MAN 

• Tales of Suspense #39 - #99 = 61 issues
• Iron Man (vol. 1 - 1968) #1 - #332 = 332 issues
• Iron Man (vol. 2 - 1996) #1 - #13 = 13 issues
• Iron Man (vol. 3 - 1998) #1 - #89 = 89 issues
• Iron Man: Director of Shield (vol. 4 - ) #1 - #32 = 32 issues [title becomes War Machine as of #33]

Total previous series = 527 issues

• Invincible Iron Man (2008 - current series) #1 - #4 (as of August 2008) OR #528 - #531

Total = 531 issues

HULK

• Incredible Hulk (vol. 1 - 1962) #1 - #6 = 6 issues
• Tales to Astonish #60 - #101 = 42 issues
• Incredible Hulk (vol. 2 - 1968) #102 - #474 = 373 issues
• Incredible Hulk (vol. 3 - 1999) #1 - #112 = 112 issues

Total previous series = 533 issues

• Hulk (2008 - current series) #1 - #5 (as of August 2008) OR #534 - #538

Total = 538 issues

FANTASTIC FOUR  

• Fantastic Four (vol. 1 - 1961) #1 - #416 = 416 issues
• Fantastic Four (vol. 2 - 1996) #1 - #13 = 13 issues

Total previous series = 429 issues

• Fantastic Four (vol. 3 - 1998 - current series) #1 - #70 OR #430 - #499 / #500 - #558 (as of August 2008)

Total = 558 issues

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 

• Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 1 - 1962) #1 - #441

Total previous series = 441 issues

• Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2 - 1998 - current series) #1 - #58 OR #442 - #499 / #500 - #566 (as of August 2008)

Total = 566 issues  

Well, I had a blast at the SDCC (it was a lot bigger than I remember) and I have a lot of pictures to download but I need to find my connection cord to do so… sigh*  I’ll try to find time to do this soon.

In the meantime, I just found out that I was quoted in the Toronto Star the other day regarding the subject of what fascinates us about Batman.   You can read the article here:  http://www.thestar.com/article/472248 Toronto Star writer Petti Fong came into the store the other day curious about what books she should read about Batman.  I pointed her to a handful of books:  Batman Year One, Batman The Long Halloween, The Killing Joke, Batman The Dark knight Returns…etc and she asked me a few questions why Batman was so popular.

Also I would like to Thank Blogger Ariane Khachatourians for her review of our store.  I don’t know Ariane very well but she gave us some very gracious prase and I thank her for all her kind words and her championing stores that try to spread the love.  You can read her full blog post here: http://spendlocally.ca/vancouver/elfsar  Kudos!

Only great minds can read this
This is weird, but interesting!
fi yuo cna raed tihs, lkie me yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid 
too.

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. 
 
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty 
uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal
pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a
rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t
mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are,
the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and
lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can
be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it
whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the
huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, 
but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I
awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

This is also a technique that speed readers use.  What does this have to do with comics?  Not much really.  But I am willing to bet that a majority of people who read comics can read the above paragraph without any problems.  Not to say that we are used to bad spelling.  More rather we have had a larger exposure to the visual medium combining words and pictures including words that are used for sound effects. 

Note:  This was totally taken from the Canadian Geek Blog.

The point of “Behind The Counter” is to give you an insight as to how a comic shop works, so I thought I would share some more of the process of running the store.  This time around, we’ll deal with the love/hate relationship retailers have with Back Issues.

On several of the industry blogs and forums, there has been recent discussion on the usefulness and profitability of back issues.  As a touched on a dog’s age ago, Chuck Rozanski of Mile High Comics believes that any retailer who does not carry back issues is doomed to fail.  (Easy for him to say as the primary objective of his online company is to supply back issues). But not every store WANTS to carry back issues or NEEDS to carry back issues and the reasons for those would fill another column.  Here, we just want to get into how retailers decide what collections they will buy and why they pay what they do.

Let’s set-up a scenario to help things along.  Mary, after kicking her mousey, insecure, $8/hr Subway working boyfriend to the curb, decides that the best way to get back the money she loaned him for Cirque du Soliel tickets was to sell his comics.  Mary has heard that comics appreciate in value and are good potential retirement assets so she calls around to the local comic shops to see who’s buying.

The first question Mary should reasonably expect to get is “Do you have a list of the books?” It’s not likely that Mary does, nor does she know who many are even in the collection.  She’s got several boxes of varying sizes and the books are in no particular order so, over the phone, there’s little to no chance of moving the collection as the retailer will have no idea what’s s/he’s getting into.

Now Mary will be inclined to say things like, “They’re all in their original wrappings/plastic.” which is a bad thing to say since very few to any comics ever came in “plastic”.  Retailers will know that she means they are in comic bags but even that could be dubious.  I have bought collections where the issues were in their original “plastic” only to see a ton of books wrapped in plastic kitchen wrap.  Also, just because a comic is in a plastic sleeve doesn’t mean it didn’t get read repeatedly before getting there.

With little knowledge of what Mary is selling, the retailer may offer a blind, low amount ($.10 to $0.15 per book) or just not bother, the latter more likely. As in any medium, 90% of everything is crap and in a blind collection, hoping for 10% of anything good enough to get a return on the purchase is slim, especially in such a chaotic collection.

Aside from the gamble of quality in the collection, there are several other factors that play into purchasing a comic collection.  Most sellers only consider the upfront cost of the collection and often get offended when a store owner offers $200 for 1500 comics.  However, from the owner’s side of things, there will be;
1. the amount of time to sort through the collection, culling out the heavily damaged books, removing any outdated or improper storage material and alphabetizing
2. the amount of time to catalogue the books, update inventory both existing and non-existing items to the (POS) point of sale system.
3. the amount of time to grade the books if damaged, which is almost always the case.
4. the amount of time to calculate the values of the books
5. the amount of time and costs to bag, board and tape the books.

So let’s say we bought Mary’s 1500 books at $0.15 each.  Right off the bat, we are out $225.  Now to go through the process above (which we have just done recently with several collections we have bought), a total of about 15 hours of staff time is required for steps 1 and 2, another $150-$275.  Now, steps 3 and 4 are normally done by “the boss” and, depending on the collection, can take from 2 to 10 hours.  (or put aside to be done at a later date) Let’s say Mary’s collection is mostly all newer books so they can graded fairly quickly in under 3 hours, adding another $100 (yes, that’s conservative) to the total.

For the final step of bagging and boarding, we’re going to say that out of the 1500 books, only 1000 were worth converting to back issues and to clean those up, that would take about 4 hours of staff time ($40 to $60) and the cost of supplies ($45 to $60).  So, now the final cost of each of those $0.15 books is an average of $0.72.

On the surface, that still seems pretty good if each book retails on an average if $3 to $4.  But the real question still remains; how many of those comics are sellable?  If we take the “90% of everything is crap” adage, then the retailer is only going to make $300 to $400 from a collection that cost him $720 and there’s no telling how long it will take to recover that money.  A few books may sell right away if they are lucky but in reality, it will take a several years to recover the cost.

There is not a lot of data (if any) on the percentage of sales a typical comic shop does on back issues.  Some stores specialize in them while others won’t go near them.  They require space, time and capital.  They are a long term investment and, increasingly with the competition of high discount/no overhead online sales, more of a good will gesture for a shop’s regular clientele.

Of course, things also change dramatically with smaller collections containing key books, older collections and larger collections, all of which will increase the amount of time involved in grading.  When selling your collection, especially a big bulk one, do not expect a generous offer from your local comic shop guy.  There’s a lot more on the line for him that just cutting a cheque to you.

We at Elfsar Comics & Toys are big believers in being proactive and spreading the word that comics are a truly a unique form of entertainment and that our medium that we love so much is constantly reinventing itself.  Although, the evolution of the comic book art form is changing almost every year, certain elements of what makes up a good story essentially remains the same.  These elements share a common ground with novels, movies and even video games.  We are working everyday to spread our infectious love for comics and we believe nothing seems to spread it more than Free Comic Book Day (FCBD).

It is now one month after FCBD 2008 and I have had time to reflect on the day itself.  FCBD has been the most successful event that Elfsar hosts and 2008 proved to be no different as we greatly exceeded our expectations. On May 3rd, Elfsar Comics & Toys gave away over 8,000 comics to a count of over 800 people within only 8 hours.  But we did not stop there.  We made a large impact on our community by raising food and money for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank. (The result was an overflowing amount of over 3 times of what we generated the previous year).

To get the word out about FCBD we did everything that we had done in previous years by sending out media kits, mailing flyers, posting interior and exterior posters, using bag stuffers, posting on message boards, providing additional info via our website, Myspace & Facebook, and most importantly had staff tell everyone who came into our location about the event (starting roughly 2 months in advance). 

But just like last year there was a missed opportunity with the “Marvel Marketing Machine” and the traditional superhero movie that has annually been linked to FCBD.  It is disappointing that one of our industries top publishers still made no attempt to link the premiere of Iron Man to FCBD, even if just for the one day before (May 3^rd).  Unlike the premiere of Spider-Man 3, this time we were better prepared and took on the responsibility ourselves to get the word out about our annual international geek holiday.

We felt compelled to reach out to our local theatre in downtown Vancouver where two things stood out to provide a fantastic amount of exposure for our store and FCBD/fundraiser. First, Elfsar participated with the pre-screening event that was held on Wednesday, April 30^th where we set up multiple signs and a table promoting the FCBD event. (These signs and table were up until the end of day May 3^rd) We donated prizes to be given away and had a crew there on the night of the prescreening telling the public about what FCBD was and what we were doing for the fundraiser for the Greater Vancouver Foodbank.  We provided flyers telling the public the same information and organized the theater hand them out after each screening of “Iron Man” up until late afternoon on May 3^rd. 

Second, we also created a coupon that was given out on FCBD from our store location that was for a free draw to win a $250.00 Shopping Spree at Elfsar Comics & Toys.  All the public had to do was drop off the coupon at the Scotiabank theatre, thus providing an effective bounceback promotion that the theatre was very pleased with.  Although we were disappointed in Marvel for the lack of any mention of FCBD, It did not hurt that “Iron Man” was truly a fantastic film and that Marvel had released two new well written Iron Man comics (Invincible Iron Man & Iron Man Viva Las Vegas) that the newly inspired public could jump onto.

The FCBD day itself was not only a celebration of comics or to shine the spotlight on what we do; it was also an opportunity to throw a mini in-store-convention for the public.  This year, we had artist Steven Sadowski (Avengers/Invaders, Project Superpowers) doing free sketches and giving fans a sneak peek at some of his future work. We also had donations from Team Epic (a Toronto based free webisodes site) and the Vancouver based Zeroes 2 Heroes also known as the Peoples Publisher.  What convention would be complete without costumes?  We had several costumed Superheroes & Villains who were on hand all day,  we had a store-wide Buy 2 get 1 free sale, Heroclix gaming demos & tournaments, raffles, charity food drive…etc. All of this, made it more than about just giving a free comic away.  FCBD at Elfsar was an experience.  I personally can not fathom or understand how a few other stores seem to participate year after year simply out of a sense of obligation and not embrace the fact that this is the best time to shine. 

Anyone who came to visit Elfsar on May 3^rd got to select from five different comics and for those who also donated to the Vancouver Food bank were allowed to select an extra 5 plus have access to our selected private backstock which consisted of selected books that we felt truly represented good comics.

The number of new faces and the amount of children that came out to this year’s event made it all worthwhile. It is a month later and we are still seeing the benefits from FCBD as we continue to see the number of returning faces grow.  I still don’t understand how anyone would purposely choose to skip this event.  Whether you are a creator, publisher, retailer, collector, reader or fan, we feel everyone should love comics and as an event it is an especially momentous experience.  Speaking as a retailer, just the amount of return visits and the number of people who have recently joined our monthly file saver program alone has been staggering. Equally surprising was the amount of web traffic this event has generated for us.  In the future, I would like to see more product tie-ins jump on board FCBD. It would be nice to see more toys, novelties, games, posters…etc.

My only complaint was with the 2008 FCBD promotional bags.  Don’t get me wrong, the bags themselves are great and the advertising of FCBD on them is highly effective. But this year’s bags only promoted the event on only one side.  (The 2007 FCBD bags had promoted on both sides) Instead, this year’s bags had advertising for the New York Comic Con & New York Anime Festival. Being on the west coast; this was something that I feel we did not benefit from, yet paid for.  Promoting the San Diego Comic Con I guess I could understand, however I still feel a little cheated.  As a retailer, I paid for the bags in full with the intention of promoting FCBD and not the NYCC. If the price was being slightly covered by the New York City Comic Con than I could understand, however the FCBD bags were never solicited as such and the price was not less than the ones offered for the 2007 event.  So I feel that I only got a little more than half the value of what I paid for.  Mind you, a bag is still a bag and my disappointment is not with the function of them.

Regardless, FCBD 2008 was the biggest success for us to date and we look forward to FCBD 2009!

If you would like to see more pictures from our 2008 FCBD event CLICK HERE. Or Join our Facebook Group HERE. To See our short FCBD video CLICK HERE.

-Ethan Peacock

ELFSAR COLLECTION LTD.

I opened the store on Friday morning to find that there was a thick musty smell in the air.  Upon looking at the floor I saw a rather large brownish puddle near the mini Coke fridge and I first thought the fridge was either leaking or the pop had strangely exploded.  It didn’t take me long to realize that there was far too much water for that.

Apparently, someone had broken a pipe on the 2nd floor (either moving or bumping into their air conditioning unit) and it had been left running all night.   It came down thru Shoppers Drug Mart (located above us) who suffered an unknown loss of vitamins due to the moisture and then traveled past the large wood beams and  finally pooled to the floor of Elfsar.  Now it dose not take genius to figure out that water and comic books do not agree we each other.  We were fortunate that a majority of the products lost were not that of our saver file customers, however a lot of our product near the wood beams were hit hard.  Anything that was made of cardboard or paper was in some cases mushy to the touch and not restorable.

The store was closed on Friday until around 2:00pm so that we could get the water off the floor and customers could walk through without the danger of anyone slipping.  We reacted fast to minimize as much of the damage as possible.  The total loss is still being tallied but we roughly calculate that the water damaged around 10K (cost) worth of goods. 

Not to worry, we have insurance.

So if you come in to the store during the next week and see the big noisy dehumidifier machines, this was the reason why. Yes, combined with what happened to me on Tuesday, I have had better weeks.

Well today was like any other day here at Elfsar.  I was greeted by customers and helped a few people find that perfect gift for that special loved one or final issue that completes their collection.  Except for around 3:30 pm whereby a rather suspicious individual came into the store.  He came to the counter and asked if we buy Baseball cards to which I replied, “Sorry, no.  We don’t carry sports cards.”

Now Tuesdays are generally slow and I am usually able to handle the traffic we get while prepping for the Wednesday’s new shipment delivery.

The next thing I know, this dirty and desperate individual has an uncapped syringe pointed at me and shouts, “Give me all your ****ing comics or I am going to stick you!”  Now really, he said money and more particularly he meant the limited amount of money in the till on a Tuesday, mid-day.  My first reaction was this guy must be joking as I was twice his size.  It only took a moment of looking in his ice cold pale blue eyes to know this turkey was playing for keeps.

Now, first and foremost I must state that if this happened to any of my staff the proper procedure is to comply and not put themselves or others in danger.  However, I am maybe not as smart as my employee’s and being the owner of the store, (basically money stolen from Elfsar is in other words stealing money from my livelihood) I made the instinctive decision not to bend to his demands.

The advantage I have by spending the most time at Elfsar, is knowing the exact layout and whereabouts of everything within (Including my weapons of defense).  It was all too easy for me to take a simple Jedi-like step back out of range of a syringe knowing that if he attempted to move forward he would be blocked by our mountain of merchandise crowding our front till display.  There was even a moment where he made a tiny motion forward and I could tell that he quickly realized there was nowhere to go as he as blocked by our mountain of World of Warcraft Starter sets.  The only logical option was to either go up and over or around the front counter, but there was not enough room to get over quickly as he would have to navigate through our Wizard and Toyfare Magazines.  This allowed me with more than enough time to choose which weapon to defend myself with.  My choices were to shoot him with the Elfsar pepper spray, pick up the Elfsar baseball bat or my last resort which was to attempt to sell him a Liefeld comic.  Logically, I choose the weapon with trustworthy distance.  The Elfsar baseball bat.

Now, you have no idea how much I want to say that I said something snappy, cool or right out of the comics.  “IT’S CLOBBERIN’ TIME!” would have been so soooooo perfect.  But to be honest what came out of my mouth was more along the lines of “**** YOU *******!  NOW GOING TO KICK YOUR MOTHER****ING ASS!  Now I am sure you can picture this hilarious stand off which seems to be taken right out of a Tarantino movie… a Desperate Man with a Hypodermic Needle verses an Angry Man with a Hard Aluminum Bat. 

Bets on how this went down? Anyone?

Well, it was actually ruled a no contest, as this poor chap new he was outgunned.  In fact he instantly turned a shade whiter than his already pasty complexion as it became crystal clear that I was not joking either.  I moved around a side that I am not sure he even realized existed.  The last thing I wanted was to give him the chance to pull out any other type of weapon.  He turned, and ran for the door as I came around the corner with ill intent.  He moved like the flash as he jumped off the loading dock outside our storefront and into a White Malibu to speed off.  Allowing me enough time to record his license plate number and watch which direction he went. 

I immediately called the Vancouver Police and gave a full detailed description.  I was very impressed at how fast the Police arrived. (around two minutes) I guess it helps to have so many coffee bars in Yaletown.  I filled out the statement and made the police report while we waited for them to dust for prints at the till and did my best to continue to serve customers on our other till.  

I honestly think my heart returned to a normal speed after we closed at 6:00pm.  I am very pleased that the robber had enough smarts to run.  To be honest, the last thing I want to do is hit someone with a bat.  But if I am cornered, I am not afraid to protect myself.  The sick part is that if I actually did hit him, I could have been charged with assault.  (Yes, even though he was robbing me) The robber would have the right to file a lawsuit.  How messed up is that?  It’s sad that the situation came to this.  He obviously was desperate for money to get his next fix and it is sad that crime seemed like the only alternative.

 Later that night I participated in a police line-up (Not the kind you see in the movies but rather seeing a series of mug shots) and correctly identifying the robber to the best of my ability.  Hopefully he will get the help he needs to ween himself off the drugs.

Elfsar has been open for over 5 years and this is the first attempted crime of this nature.  Sure there is an occasional shoplifter we have had to bust and the occasional fake counterfeiter.  All in all, I have always referred to it as “it’s the cost of doing business”. 

To be honest, I was debating if I should actually blog about what happened today or not as most store owners want to keep these kind of things quiet.  In the end, I felt it was important to share what happened.  This was the extent of my day.  I want to ensure everyone that aside from this unusual incident, Yaletown is still a very safe neighborhood and Elfsar is still a safe heaven for getting in touch with your inner geek.  So not to worry, your comics are still safe at Elfsar.
 

WINNER OF THE ELFSAR $250.00 SHOPPING SPREE WAS:

Thomas Tan!

- Here is a list of what he bought with his winnings:

GREEN LANTERN NO FEAR TP,
GREEN LANTERN REBIRTH TP,
GREEN LANTERN CORPS VOL 1 TO BE A LANTERN TP,
GREEN LANTERN CORPS RECHARGE TP,
GREEN LANTERN CORPS VOL 2 THE DARK SIDE OF GREEN TP,
WONDER WOMAN PLASTIC BUST BANK,
SPIDER-MAN VOL 5 SPIDEY STRIKES BACK DIGEST TP,
QEE 2.5 INCH SERIES 3 OXOP VINYL FIGURE,
CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS TP,
DETECTIVE COMICS #844,
DETECTIVE COMICS #843,
BATMAN FACE THE FACE TP,
SUPERMAN BIRTHRIGHT TP,
MOUSE GUARD FALL 1152 TP,
HELLBOY ANIMATED MAGNET LOBSTER JOHNSON,
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #21,
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #20,All that & he had enough left over for even a pack of JUICY FRUIT GUM!

 CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FCBD 2008 RAFFLE WINNERS!

See more updates from the day here: http://www.elfsar.com/FCBD/FCBD_2008.htm