Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
There has been so much going on, both in and out of the comics world and more specifically in and out of Comics America, that it's been an age since this blog was updated. Let's ramble a bit about what's going on.
The chief culprit in taking time away from the blog was Google. We've been working daily to improve our visibility on Google and provide as much information as possible to make your job of finding things on the site (and in fact finding the site period!) much easier. It's been very detail oriented and time consuming, and we're working at it every day.
In addition, we've been adding and refining product listings to correct missed errors and try to get as many correct illustrations shown as possible. There are still odd bits and pieces that are needing work, but these are rapidly being caught and fixed.
For example, you can use the site not only as a buying site, but soon as a reference site, especially if you're curious about what some of the covers of your favourite titles look like. The three that we've worked up so far are Action Comics, Detective Comics, and Superman. The last was just added in this evening. You'll also get a kick out of some of the pricing shown. read the description sections to see that these aren't really priced properly until we get the grading finished. But it is nice to see the covers if you haven't seen them before.
Speaking of grading, some people have written asking why we usually show things at or near Guide near mint. It's easy: we try not to send out lower grade copies of books. So when you see a book advertised, you can expect nice condition. What does "nice" mean? It means we wouldn't put it in our collections unless it was suitable, and we won't give it to you either. Soon we will be introducing categorized grading on the site, with pricing to match each grade. For example, if we have an older book in varying conditions, you'll be able to see the individual conditions and prices that match and order accordingly. If we start to list some of the CGC graded books that are going to be available, you'll see separate listings for those books as separate items. For most of the products we sell, grading is not an issue because everything is pretty much "as new". That's the way it should be when you're trying to make your sets as nice as possible, and it applies to the Silver Age and Bronze Age material we have. You won't be disappointed.
What else has happened? DC started its new series of books, and they have been extremely popular. But if you've noticed, there are some things that seem out of whack in more than just a reboot sense. It's almost as if we're seeing things that would happen in the Earth-3 Universe. And remember, at the end of Flashpoint there is still the matter of Thomas Wayne's note to Bruce, which still exists, but which has been conveniently ignored. Something tells me that there will be more to happen than most people think. If you've got an opinion, we'd love to start a dialogue, so please send in your thoughts and we'll monitor them every day.
Europe appears to be going in the wrong direction which has affected the general economic outlooks in North America and has created a great deal of volatility on the stock markets. Despite this, collecting remains strong and collectors continue to seek out and acquire high quality material both for the enjoyment and investment purposes. One way of doing this if you are giving gifts for the holidays is to take advantage of our Gift Certificate system and send an electronic present to your favourite spouse, relative or friend. (Heck, you can even send one to your least favourite spouse if you want to! Just kidding....). The best part about these certificates is that they can be any denomination you want and they can be used on anything on the site.
Speaking of finding things on the site, we've received several inquiries about searching. Near the top right of the home page you can see a link for "Search Tips". We strongly recommend that you use some of them to refine your searches to find things you want. We especially recommend the imaginative use of quotation marks. For example, if you use Superman without quotes as a search word, you're liable to get so many results that it would be daunting to get through them all. However if you try "Superman" and "1939" together both enclosed in quotations, you'll get mainly the first series of Superman. Other uses of quotations will cause the search to really narrow down and make your task easier.
Some people have wondered why we don't set things up using individual titles within alphabetical categories. The main reason is that there are so many titles that it would be prohibitive to do if we were to maintain any kind of sanity with regards to categories. We've tried to keep the categories simple. Otherwise things get just too crazy.
Speaking of crazy, our next focus will be the next set of pre-order items for February, 2012 release, catching up on all the Sideshow goodies we've been slow listing, adding another ton of back issue titles, and especially working on the hundreds of limited edition statues and collectibles we have available! If you don't find the title you want, or if you don't see the statue or collectibles you're searching for, please use the "Wish List" functionality of the site to let us know and we'll see if we can hunt up the goodies you need.
There's more stuff to talk about, some of it not directly to do with comics, and we'll try to do a new entry every day or two. Until the next time, we wish you good health and good cheer!
