Kuronekocon was last weekend. Two days of Anime and Manga madness with over 2,400 of our closest friends! It took me three trips in our mega sized store van to get everything there and only only one and a quarter trips to get the rest of it back out! It was a very busy and good show and everyone looked like they were enjoying it!
Thanks to all the staff that helped us have a great show and to Carly who came back from the world beyond working here to help man the tables.
We had a Pokemon pre-release weekend the weekend before Kuronekocon and it was the largest turnout that we have had so far. One hundred and fifteen people split between two tournaments which from what we can tell looks to be the largest pre-release in the state! There are still several days that events can be run so someone might beat our totals, but its looking pretty good so far! What those numbers mean for us is that we will get enough pre release kits for 168 players in the next set! Pokemon is now running neck and neck with Magic in overall sales for us! Not bad for just starting their events a couple of years ago.
I am putting some new shelves this week to handle back issues at the Division location. We seem to have a lot more comics than room so its time to build upwards. The new shelves will allow us to put in another 30 or so long boxes (about 10,000 comics) which should solve all our space problems for about 8 days…

This weekend is Kuronekocon! Two days of Anime and Manga madness and panels and cosplay unequalled by any other show in Spokane! Two days of dances, merchandise, near heat exhaustion, video games, streaming anime rooms, nerf sword battles, computer and video gaming and live cosplay chess await you.
Please go to https://kuronekocon.com for all the information on this show and we will see you there!
We have started moving a bit into the classic toy market and will be dedicating some room to it near our current toy section. Please check back each week for new stuff! So far we are putting out 30 to 40 ‘new’ old cool toys each week.
We are currently putting out about 1,000 new back issue comics. This week it’s the best of the 90’s! Lady Death, Vampirella, Pitt, Maxx, Aria and more! We also put out about 500 Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck from the 60’s through the 90’s. Most are priced from $1 to $3!
Hopefully all of our shipments will be back on regular schedules! 5 of 6 weeks they have been late for us which means the books don’t hit the stands until about noon which is really annoying for the both of us. Keep your fingers crossed.

The Lilac City Comicon was last weekend and it was by all accounts a success! I don’t know the final attendance numbers but it was crowded from the beginning of Saturday morning nearly to close on Sunday afternoon.
Generally the second day of a show is rather slow which is why I was so much against it but I was wrong about this one. I think there was probably 2/3 as many people the second day and nearly as many costumes as day one. It was a really good day business wise as well which was the biggest surprise of all. I think most dealers were pretty happy compared with other shows.
The next show up is Kuronekocon which is the Anime/Manga show! If you thought there were lots of costumes at Lilac City, you aint seen nothing yet….. Where 20% of the attendees were in costume this last weekend, probably 60% or more will be dressed up for this one. We have six or so tables at that show and have an insane amount of costumes and plush figures and stuff and we bring in lots of new stuff from Hong Kong just for the event! That will be July 29th and 30th.
We sell passes for Kuronekucon at the Mall store only.
We just got in two Spawn collections 1-40 and 50-200! If you are missing any now is your chance. The first 20 are pretty common but after that its really spotty and they don’t show up that often in large groups.
Life lesson of the week. I just had the oil changed in my van and requested the cheapest service as it’s a new van and really doesn’t need special treatment etc. I was informed that the computer at the oil change place recommends synthetic oil as that’s what was in the vehicle and was only $79.99. I told them I wanted the $30 service and was informed with lots of hand gestures that you cant just switch oils, it has to be a step down process or it will adversely affect the engine. My ‘huh, I have never heard that one before’ mixed with my natural look of ‘do you have to have your mother help you with your shoelaces each morning?’ had him backpedaling pretty quick and he offered the basic service. The lesson is you can switch at any time as many times as you want and unless your car requires it or is really high miles, save the $40. Synthetic oil is regular oil with extra additives and is not a magical brew. The more you know! -Craig!

Lilac City Comicon is this weekend! We will be there both days selling…. T-shirts! T-shirts and hoodies are the winners this year and we will have somewhere over 1,500 of them all on super sale! The more we sell the more new ones we can get in at the mall location so we want to sell a lot!

If you still need tickets we have a few left at both stores. The VIP tickets are gone but we still have day passes. You can save a few dollars by buying in store rather than online.

I think we will also be selling fidget spinners at the show as well. We just got in a massive order from one of our vendors so what better venue than a group of 5,000 happy people that need something shiny and spinny.

I have decided to start bringing in more collector toys to the Division location which should start in the next month or so. It takes a bit of time before everything arrives.

The Division location is now buying Magic singles Monday through Thursday 11-4! Adam will be your point of contact. Please call first to make sure he is here just to be safe.

Free Comic Book Day is only a week and a half away!

Batman has been confirmed as a special guest for the morning so bring your camera!

Andy Owens will be on hand signing copies of his new series IT from Black Box comics! We have the first two issues available on the new comic stands!

Andy will also be selling original art from some of the hundreds of books he has worked on for DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse!

Here is a near complete list of his credits:

http://www.comicbookdb.com/creator.php?ID=1552

Andy will be signing from 11:00 to 2:00.

The Division Location will be open from 11:00 to 7:00 and the Mall Location will be open from 10:00 to 9:00.

Secret Empire #1 came with an interior panel that was unreadable so Marvel is supposedly going to replace all the bad copies. As they shorted us 50 copies anyway, that means they will actually fill our original order!

We have another massive Gundam order on the way with some of the Perfect Grade included which will primarily go to the mall store which has been selling a ton more since we moved a few weeks ago.

Posters are on the way too! Something like 300 posters have shipped from New York and should be arriving in the next few days!

We just got a huge shipment of Anime and Pokemon merchandise from China Wednesday! I am still shocked at how much faster we can get 300lbs of stuff shipped direct from Hong Kong than the same quantity shipped from Salt Lake.

We need to say good bye to a couple of our people this week – Josh who had been our in-house Pokemon expert and who had been running our tournaments for the past year or so has moved on to a full time position with the school system. JW will be leaving us in several weeks also for the school systems. Hmmmm looks like a trend.

At the Division location, Kevin is also heading off into the sunset as he moves over to UPS!

I would like to thank each of them for all the hard work and attention to the shop over the past few years and each one contributed immeasurably to the position they had and replacing the experience and knowledge of each one is going to be difficult.

With that in mind we would like to welcome and have started the arduous task of training their successors: Liam at Northtown and Adam at Division.

Liam brings a broad knowledge of strategy and RPG games to the mall store and a solid background in Magic play and singles. We hope to get him up to speed on Pokemon current rules and singles pretty quick.

Adam who also has a solid background in Magic and some games and reads comics and has been one of our baggers for the past year or so will be bringing all that expertise to the Division store where I hope to increase our Magic singles buying and selling to somewhere near what the mall store does.

Last but not least is the Lilac City Comicon! We still have a few of the VIP passes left but they are running out quick and when they are gone, they are gone for good. There were only 500 initially available and they are disappearing fast.

-Craig!

I spent several days in Boise last week visiting family and checking out the local comic and gaming stores. It was interesting.
The store that I bought comics from in the late 70’s announced last week that they were shutting down. It was a bookstore that sold back issues and I dont know if they ever did sell new comics. They are one of the reasons that I am actually in this business. When I was a kid they charged me so much for some books when I was 15 or so that when I opened my first store 15 year later, the books still hadnt reached those values. I have never forgotten that and I vowed my stores would never do that to anyone else.
It was an interesting trip through the past in the their store though. They had actually moved next door from where they were when I shopped there but I think they kept the exact same setup as the layout seemed to match my memory from 1977. They owners son who sold me the the back issues all those years ago was actually the guy behind the counter when I went in.
I found that out when I asked whatever happened to the red headed kid who worked there and he said it was him and commented on how he still had his red hair. I really didnt want to offend him by noting that not only did he not have red hair but his hair was whiter and grayer than mine…..
Anyway we had a about a 10 minute conversation about the state of the book and comic world and my need for nostalgia was filled.
Next time I go back they will be a 2nd hand store or a craft brewery and I will try and remember exactly which storefront was theirs and I will remember the DC 100 page books I bought there for 5 and 6 dollars each when the cover price of comics was .25 cents.

There is one really nice gaming store in Boise but it is located well off the beaten path and even if you lived there it is a bit out of the way. And just to make things more interesting, the guy in charge of renting space in GGP malls in the western half of the US texted me and told me he would make me an insanely great deal on space in the Boise Towne Square Mall. Its a pretty upscale mall with an Apple store, a Dillards (like Nortstroms)and a bunch of other higher end stores and about 3 times the size of Northtown.

I really wish I knew how to manage a store long distance. I could fly down and back the same day once a week for about $115 per trip so it would just be like going to work in the morning like usual…. Unfortunately I dont have any kind of support staff down there or framework to start with. They do have several Hastings with all those great abandoned fixtures still in them though…. I could get a skeleton of a store set up in about a week or less….

One of the things that is really stopping me right now is we suddenly need someone who has a broad knowledge of games current and upcoming, the ability to sell them and a great personality. A knowledge of Magic and Pokemon cards buying and selling is needed too. If you fit all those categories we would love to get a resume from you for the mall location.

Somehow it looks like the newsletter didnt get uploaded to the site for the past couple of weeks. Paper copies are available in the shop but I cant find any digital version to put up here. But really, what have you missed other than my ramblings?

This is the week the mall store moves to the new location! Actually this is the day that the store moves so I have to get up there and see all the work everyone has done. I think this is one of the first moves that I didn’t actually help a lot with the heavy lifting. Its kind of nice.
The only really difficult part I have to do is get the computers and POS up and running and pull down some of the old slotwall and put it up at the new store. I think the slotwall is the worst part of this entire job. This one is even more difficult as one of the previous tenants built a second interior reinforced wall to attach their shelving to and the aluminum studs don’t always seem to be in the correct place. And then, when you actually find one, getting a good solid mounting screw into it is a pain in the butt. It takes a long time for minimal payoff and reused slotwall never looks that great anyway. Oh well, its better than working for a living.
We are hoping to be able to get 90% or more of the shop moved today and be open for business Thursday morning or in the worst case scenario, Thursday afternoon. Its possible. I hope. They really don’t stop charging us rent if we close for a day or so, so we cant afford to not be open.
Sorry for another short newsletter but its time to go up and start getting set up. -Craig!

The setup of the new store went really well. We were open through Tuesday night and we moved a few of the heavier items then and at 7 in the morning Gabe and Jen showed up and started the mega move quickly joined by 22 people from the KuroNekoCon Anime staff and more of our people.

For as huge a move as this was, there were very few problems until we got to the point of merchandise being moved much quicker than we could put it away and things just started getting stacked.

On thing that worked really well was that since I bought so many new bookcases we had the store skeleton pretty well set up and just had to fill shelves with merchandise. Even so though, we had to close the entire next day while the store was put in order and made presentable. By the time we left Thursday night at some ungodly hour the store looked pretty good.

Friday morning the store opened normally and everyone seemed to really like it with most commenting on how much larger it was and how much more stuff we had than at the last location. I think our sleight of hand worked pretty well as its about 600sf smaller and we still have tons of merchandise in the back that we cant figure out a way of putting out yet without making the store too crowded and look like a Spencers.

Free Comic Book Day is coming up really really fast again. Saturday May 6th at both Comic Book Shop locations. http://www.freecomicbookday.com/ has a complete list of all the books we will be giving away that day! We also have some of the exclusive POP! figures and the Special Edition Heroclix available for sale that day.

http://lilaccitycomicon.webs.com/ is the other huge event that is approaching rather quickly. Check out this link for the list of guests! We still have VIP tickets available!