I went to Borders this week to check out their getting-out-of-Dodge sale. I felt my membership card deserved one last scan - though it may not have been needed. I wouldn't know. I didn't buy anything. Here's what happened...
The first thing I noticed was that the same liquidation company that handled the closure of Virgin Megastore and Circuit City here in the U.S. was also handling Borders. They use the same discount signs and the same price guide chart that's convieniently taped all over the store. It's a good time to own a discount stockcard sign company!
How are the sales? On Tuesday, it was 10% off most books (that's about a 1/2 dollar off retail), 30% off romance novels (about $1.50 - $2.00 dollars off), and 40% off magazines. Items I was hoping to find (Doctor Who magazine, some Agatha Christies) were not there...kind of. They had Dame Agatha's worst book - Passenger to Frankfurt. They had a bunch of James Bond novels, including Quantum of Solace, and some Doctor Who novels, plenty of those Twilight/Vampire Diary things, if that's you're cup of tea, only a few Harry Potters, LOTS of Harry Potter wannabes Lemony Snicket, Percy Jackson, that 39 clues/ bar code thing where you're not just buy to read a book (how silly is that ;), but to enter an online contest, lots of manga, lots of dog-earred comic book trades, lots of cookbooks, bios, science,business, westerns, horror, sci-fi, and other books you promise to get around to someday.
The big issue for me was that the sale wasn't so great. I always reserve the right to walk out empty-handed. I imagine all the stuff that went unsold will appear in some new discount bookshop like the DVD stores that have popped up around NYC lately. I'll go cut up my card now - at least that was free. Barnes and Noble charges a processing fee (huh?) for a 10- 20% discount membership. Wouldn't that be covered by the amount I'm paying to get the card?
"Bonk!"
"The blog I always wanted to read." - Joseph Adorno, Creator & Author of Comic Book Rehab
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Comicon on G4 goes "Bonk" - Comic Book Rehab Issue #1D
There's a Calvin and Hobbes book titled "Scientific Progress Goes Bonk!" 'Bonk' is the most unimpressive sound effect used for any attempt at innovation, and Bill Watterson uses it for one of Calvin's cardboard box inventions. 'Bonk' isn't even offered as a ringtone. 'Bonk' is what I use to describe G4's coverage of 2011's San Diego Comicon.
Imagine, you're the only network on television offering 6 hours of live coverage of an event that's usually given 2-3 minutes of airtime everywhere else. You have a chance at offering something new and different - so of course you'll offer more of the same pap we can find anywhere else! Why not?
Why not, indeed? Why not flood your first hour with coverage of video games that you often cover on your regular programming schedule? Why not flood your remaining 5 hours on endless vaccuous celebrity interviews that offer nothing controversial/insightful/interesting? Why not host the show at the dullest camera angles imaginable?
The point is, I've learned more about what went on at the event by checking Twitter and not from what went on the air. Most of the coverage was essentially boring and the little coverage of comics was more perfunctory then informative/interesting. Coverage of this kind would be perfect for a class in Anthropology - we don't learn anything about comics, here - only that "All you really care about" translates into inane brownnosing.
"Bonk!"
Imagine, you're the only network on television offering 6 hours of live coverage of an event that's usually given 2-3 minutes of airtime everywhere else. You have a chance at offering something new and different - so of course you'll offer more of the same pap we can find anywhere else! Why not?
Why not, indeed? Why not flood your first hour with coverage of video games that you often cover on your regular programming schedule? Why not flood your remaining 5 hours on endless vaccuous celebrity interviews that offer nothing controversial/insightful/interesting? Why not host the show at the dullest camera angles imaginable?
The point is, I've learned more about what went on at the event by checking Twitter and not from what went on the air. Most of the coverage was essentially boring and the little coverage of comics was more perfunctory then informative/interesting. Coverage of this kind would be perfect for a class in Anthropology - we don't learn anything about comics, here - only that "All you really care about" translates into inane brownnosing.
"Bonk!"
Friday, July 8, 2011
Comicons with Holy water - Comic Book Rehab 4th #1 issue
By 2013, it will be a decade since attending a comic book show in a church.
I'm not sure why that is - if anyone out there knows of any shows/conventions in NYC set at churches, feel free to chime in. How about Temples? Mosques? Scientology Centers?
The last church show I attended was at 9th street and 9th avenue, at St. Paul Church, on the same block as my college, John Jay College of Criminal Justice (shameless alumni plug). Between 1999 and 2003, there were about 15 Big Apple Con shows held there before Big Apple moved to the Penn Plaza Pavilion across the street from Madison Square Garden - where it stayed until it became Wizard World Big Apple Con in 2009. 1998-2003 were my college years, so the juggling of the Saturday class schedules were the stuff of Blake Edwards movies. Sit in class, class ends, time for 'break', attend show, exit, attend another class, leave, go back to the show. Of course, anyone noticing the stamped hand would know what I was doing...
Anyway, back to religion. there was no holy water offered, or conversions. The shows were often held in the Basement - a very large basement. One time the show was rescheduled without anyone knowing and I wound up walking in on a ballroom dancing competition! I did notice that the space provided looked a lot brighter and cleaner when it's not jammed with tables and boxes of comics. I'm sure if this were a Blake Edwards film, I would've had to have made dancing shoes of my sensible sneakers and try a pasa doble wishing it was a quick step instead...
The first church show I attended was near Sullivan St. in the Village (aka NYU) and there was no basement for that one - they cleared out the benches and devoted the main space to just a few tables with only a few dealers and guests. It looked a bit like a Clean House yard sale caught in a dry spell. It was dark and stuffy in there, so the front doors were kept wide open, with the benches stacked on the sides, like the bleachers in the high school gym when they're cranked back in place against the walls. I bought a great copy of Spider-Woman #1 (this was in 1998, before Bendis made her seem like a big deal) for two bucks. I bought it because the idea of having an old comic from before my time in mint condition was cool. I really wanted to get an autograph from an inker (yeah, an inker - any name that appears in your comic collection showing up to a sigining can attract a mob of autograph hounds)...who didn't show up. I also bought some other comics from half-dollar bins - mostly early 90's stuff like Trencher, Next Wave, Troll - all never-read and brand new because they were kept finer than fine china. I was there for about 15 minutes - that record was broken after I attended a show at the Holiday Inn that I spoofed in the last entry.
Church shows are low-risk when it comes to spending for admission and finding/not finding what you're looking for. Are they a thing of the past? Are they being swallowed by a new generation of Big Comicon wannabes? Hard to tell. Are people still getting hand-stamped? Nowadays they use disposable bracelets that are color-coded for each day of the show's duration. When I went to the Brooklyn Lyceum in fall 2010 for King Con, I felt like I was walking into a church, but it turns out it used to be a public bath. Now THAT'S a scene in a Blake Edwards film. :)
Be good everyone.
I'm not sure why that is - if anyone out there knows of any shows/conventions in NYC set at churches, feel free to chime in. How about Temples? Mosques? Scientology Centers?
The last church show I attended was at 9th street and 9th avenue, at St. Paul Church, on the same block as my college, John Jay College of Criminal Justice (shameless alumni plug). Between 1999 and 2003, there were about 15 Big Apple Con shows held there before Big Apple moved to the Penn Plaza Pavilion across the street from Madison Square Garden - where it stayed until it became Wizard World Big Apple Con in 2009. 1998-2003 were my college years, so the juggling of the Saturday class schedules were the stuff of Blake Edwards movies. Sit in class, class ends, time for 'break', attend show, exit, attend another class, leave, go back to the show. Of course, anyone noticing the stamped hand would know what I was doing...
Anyway, back to religion. there was no holy water offered, or conversions. The shows were often held in the Basement - a very large basement. One time the show was rescheduled without anyone knowing and I wound up walking in on a ballroom dancing competition! I did notice that the space provided looked a lot brighter and cleaner when it's not jammed with tables and boxes of comics. I'm sure if this were a Blake Edwards film, I would've had to have made dancing shoes of my sensible sneakers and try a pasa doble wishing it was a quick step instead...
The first church show I attended was near Sullivan St. in the Village (aka NYU) and there was no basement for that one - they cleared out the benches and devoted the main space to just a few tables with only a few dealers and guests. It looked a bit like a Clean House yard sale caught in a dry spell. It was dark and stuffy in there, so the front doors were kept wide open, with the benches stacked on the sides, like the bleachers in the high school gym when they're cranked back in place against the walls. I bought a great copy of Spider-Woman #1 (this was in 1998, before Bendis made her seem like a big deal) for two bucks. I bought it because the idea of having an old comic from before my time in mint condition was cool. I really wanted to get an autograph from an inker (yeah, an inker - any name that appears in your comic collection showing up to a sigining can attract a mob of autograph hounds)...who didn't show up. I also bought some other comics from half-dollar bins - mostly early 90's stuff like Trencher, Next Wave, Troll - all never-read and brand new because they were kept finer than fine china. I was there for about 15 minutes - that record was broken after I attended a show at the Holiday Inn that I spoofed in the last entry.
Church shows are low-risk when it comes to spending for admission and finding/not finding what you're looking for. Are they a thing of the past? Are they being swallowed by a new generation of Big Comicon wannabes? Hard to tell. Are people still getting hand-stamped? Nowadays they use disposable bracelets that are color-coded for each day of the show's duration. When I went to the Brooklyn Lyceum in fall 2010 for King Con, I felt like I was walking into a church, but it turns out it used to be a public bath. Now THAT'S a scene in a Blake Edwards film. :)
Be good everyone.