With all the talk about this weekend’s sale, I wanted to point out another great deal this holiday season: until December 31, advance tickets to HeroesCon 2009 are $25 apiece. After something like 20 years of not raising our prices, we finally had to after the 2008 show (one of our biggest ever). Advance 3-day passes (the only kind of advance ticket available) for HeroesCon 09 are priced at $30 apiece. But convention owner Shelton Drum is a great big softie, and he decided to offer an inbetween rate of $25 until the end of the year. Tons of people have already purchased their tickets, but we suspect that with all the other news going on in the world, this bit of news might have slipped your mind.

So! Ways for you to purchase your tickets include:

1) Call us at 704.375.7462 during business hours (10-9 Mon-Sat, 1-6 Sun, EST) with a credit card, and we’ll take care of you right over the phone.

2) Download the ticket form, fill it out, and fax it to us 704.375.7464. Remember to include all that charge info.

3) Download the ticket form, fill it out, and mail it to
HEROESCON 2009
PO BOX 9181
CHARLOTTE, NC 28299

There you go! For more info, just go to the Tickets page on our website!

1) New comics will ship on THURSDAY, not Wednesday, next week (December 4). As always, we will be here and smiling if you’d like to come on both days. You can see a list of all the sweet books shipping next week on our New Releases page.

2) As mentioned in prior posts and pretty much EVERYWHERE ALL OVER THE WORLD, today is the “official” start of the holiday shopping season. Our giant holiday sale is going on next weekend (December 6-7), with a ridiculous number of items deeply discounted. Not only will pretty much everything in the store be discounted at some level, this is an excellent chance for you, our loyal customer, to (as Shelton says)…

3) “Be An Ambassador.” Comics shops like ours run on the goodwill of our regular customers, AND a fairly steady stream of new customers. We try hard to bring new, especially younger, readers into our store, but this holiday season we’re asking for YOUR help! If you have friends or family members who would appreciate a comics-related gift this holiday season, let us know–we’d love to help! Or even better, bring your friends and family into the store! We have a nationwide reputation as one of the best and best-stocked stores in the country, not to mention being such nice people and all. We appreciate your help in spreading the word about the nation’s best comic book store!

[Pictured: The Honorable Nancy Powell, U.S. Ambassador to Nepal]

4) Finally, to EVEN FURTHER aid your shopping season, we’ve put our good ole Holiday Gift Registry online. This means you can download and print out the form, fill it out at your leisure, and bring it in to us. We’ll hold onto it for you, and then you send your loved ones in: just let them know to ask for your Holiday Gift Registry, and we’ll help them find everything you’re looking for! What could be finer?

Although that’s unfair–Andy Mansell does actually have an education, I believe.

But over on Tom Spurgeon’s Comics Reporter site, he’s posted an excellent group of items for all kinds of different shoppers. While Tom refers often to weird things like “Amazon” and other non-Heroes sites for purchasing, we know that you will replace all these instances in your mind with the sentence “HEROES AREN’T HARD TO FIND IS HAVING A GIANT SALE DECEMBER 6-7“.

In any case, Happy Day-After-Thanksgiving, a day which still feels too festive to call “Black Friday”, regardless of the actual origins of that phrase. We are open for business and ready to accept your money–whether in our store or another, we hope you have a safe and stress-free day!

It’s here! Our yearly post-Thanksgiving/pre-Christmas storewide sale will happen in just two weeks, on Saturday/Sunday, December 6-7! Here’s just a partial list of items that will be discounted:

10% OFF all new comics, trade paperbacks, manga, magazines, and more (15% off for qualifying reserve customers)!

50-75% OFF of select mangas (separate from our regular stock)!

10-70% OFF all statues and toys!

50% OFF regular back issues!

20% OFF “Hot” back issues!

PLUS Seth and Shelton will be unveiling a brand new ENORMOUS stock of dollar comics–nearly 20,000 individual comics, IN ORDER! And all just ONE DOLLAR apiece! This is going to be a great chance to get a lot of holiday shopping out of the way early, both for you AND your loved ones, who are surely wondering what to buy you! More on that later, plus more on the sale as we get closer!

You know, we say it every year, but it’s mainly because each year the HeroesCon Guest List is bigger than the one before. Not the worst problem in the world to have (unless you have to figure out where to put everybody AND all the people that show up to meet them). With a guest list that already–and still more than 7 months out–boasts names like Brian Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Jeff Smith, and more–we just can’t help adding more names. And though it’s still early, the names have been piling up on my desk, as I keep alluding to each week.

I’ve got a bunch of additions lined up, but I promised myself that TODAY, by gum, I would get at least two of them done. And so it is with great glee and a small sense of accomplishment that I announce the addition of two real sweet guys: Ivan Brandon and Joe Staton.

Young, scrappy, and multilingual, Ivan Brandon is the writer behind Secret Invasion: Home Invasion, Machine Man, and The Cross Bronx, among others. AND he most recently was the translator of the much-talked about Mesmo Delivery Service from AdHouse Books.

No stranger to HeroesCon, our old chum Joe Staton has worked all over the comics industry on a multitude of different books (and in a multitude of styles), including E-Man, Green Lantern, and Scooby Doo. Joe is one of the nicest guys you could meet–that’s not saying a lot at HeroesCon, but Joe is a prince among nice guys, trust us. If you’ve never met Joe or Ivan, we will charge you a nominal fee to meet them–and a few hundred others–this June at HeroesCon! More updates on the way!

Apparently you guys are more interested in Forgetting Sarah Marshall than the Incredible Hulk–what does this mean? I haven’t seen either one, so I have no real opinion, although I remember that the former had a bunch of pretty girls in it, and the latter had a bunch of big green CGI guys, so maybe that’s part of it.

NONETHELESS–I’m going to extend this contest until this Friday morning, just to give any late arrivals a chance to spin their own web: Do me a favor and post your comments at the original blog-post, just to keep everything in one place. You can find the rules there as well, which are BASICALLY: no swearing, mainly fisticuffs, etc.

Okay, get out there and SMASH!

As is often remarked upon online, we are in an incredible golden age of comic book publishing in actual “book” form, from high end reprints of classic material, to brand new graphic novels from the U.S. and abroad, to aggressive reprinting of never-seen-in-English Japanese and Chinese comics. It’s great, although it can be pricey for those of us who prefer our comics in book form, not to mention presenting challenges as to where to PUT everything. There are worse problems to have.

Another not-so-bad problem is visibility: back around 1998 or 2000, there might be 4 or 5 really GREAT graphic novels published in a year’s time, and as such each was fairly momentous. Things like Jimmy Corrigan or Ghost World were on top of a very small pile of releases, and were highly visible. These days there are often 4 or 5 great books coming out in the space of a WEEK, and it’s easy to miss them as newer things appear on the racks.

Being helpful ABOVE ALL ELSE, I thought I’d point out a couple of things that you may have missed recently, at least judging by how many copies we still have on the rack. And would these books make excellent Christmas gifts for you or your loved ones? Well, sure they would:

JAMILTI
by Rutu Modan :: HC :: $19.95

Rutu Modan is an Israeli cartoonist that is (or was, I’m never sure) a part of the esteemed Actus Tragicus comics collective. Last year’s Exit Wounds was widely hailed as the best book of the year on many critics’ list. But even if you don’t think it was the “best” (I don’t), it was still great. She has a singular style and approach to storytelling, and her stories combine societal and political issues gracefully with more quotidian elements like family, romance, and so forth.

Jamilti is her new book, a hardcover collection of short stories, and is still just a few weeks old. I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t say much about how incredible it is, but it’s receiving great reviews so far, and is certainly a pretty little book, and at $19.95 is a cheap one to boot.

DOGS & WATER
by Anders Nilsen :: FC :: $19.95

I love this book, which is a hardcover edition of a previously released (and quickly sold-out–zip!) softcover a couple of years ago. Anders Nilsen’s work is hard to sum up, which is maybe my favorite facet of it. His drawings are beautiful, and the stories they tell are airy and open-ended, dreamlike to the point of being hallucinatory, and surreal without being overly esoteric. I’m not sure about that last one; I needed another “this but not that” to make three. At any rate, you may be familiar with the books he did related to the premature death of his then-fiance, including Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow and The End. Dogs and Water is fictional and self-contained, although it’s hard to say that it’s lighter fare, it’s somewhat easier to jump into, lacking some of the heartbreaking qualities of the autobiographical works.

Dogs and Water is a great read for pretty much anyone interested in comics-as-art, but I’d especially recommend this one for the “My Artsy Buddy/Girlfriend/Boyfriend/Spouse/College-Student” category for gift-giving.

OR ELSE
by Kevin Huizenga :: pamphlet :: $4.95

Oh man, Kevin Huizenga. I could go on all day about the guy. It’s easy to say that his comics are smart, or smartly written, or smartly conceived, or smart smarty smarty-pants. But the more I think of it, it’s not that his comics are so well thought out (though they are) that makes them good, it’s that they PROMOTE thinking, both on the part of the reader AND the author. Reading a Kevin H. comic feels like you’re inside his thought process; almost as if you and he were mulling the problem over together.

I won’t say anything else. Just buy the darn thing–heck, it’s only five bucks.

MOOMIN
by Tove Jansson :: HC (3 volumes available) :: $19.95

This has been one of Drawn & Quarterly‘s fastest selling items (at least according to their website), but it hasn’t really taken off around here. Moomin is a 50’s era strip that’s suitable for all ages, especially that daughter or son (I think young girls would especially like it) with a creative side you’re looking to tickle. To call Moomin whimsical is a gross understatement, but it’s about as close as I can get to describing it in just one word. Hey whaddaya want, I’m a high school dropout–don’t let this be you, kids!

Moomin is an often nearly abstract, highly visually stylized story, with all the hipness of 50’s era ANYthing, but never snide, never superior. It’s an immersive and strange world, the kind of thing you would have loved when YOU were a kid, but would find difficult to explain to anyone who’d never read it before. As I am finding myself.

POPEYE VOLUME 3
by E.C. Segar :: HC (3 volumes available) :: $29.95

Oh man. This one just came out. Anyone who’s ever heard me expound on my love of Popeye in the store can tell you how glassy-eyed and fevered I become. Reading Popeye as an adult has been one of the singular comics-reading experiences of my life. Seriously. If I were to put together an all-time top-five RIGHT NOW, at gunpoint, TO SAVE AN ORPHAN’S LIFE!!!, Popeye might be the first thing that came to mind.

It’s not that Popeye is such a compelling story, or represents the zenith of all that is possible with comics, or whatever. Popeye is just good. Period. Segar’s art is pretty much the standard for all “big foot” comedy strips that would follow, not to mention highly visible in the work of Chester Brown, Sammy Harkham, and dozens of other modern cartoonists. But it’s his writing, his constant, apparently effortless barrage of wit and language and visual gags, that makes the strip so enjoyable. Simply put, Popeye is a great book to sit back with on a Sunday afternoon and just enjoy, turning the giant pages slowly, and taking in the whole rollicking, violent (so violent!), boisterous strip a week at a time. Check out this little promo video Fantagraphics put together:

Oh, and for you shoppers: Popeye is suitable for ANY reader. Only crazy people will not like it.

But let’s talk about it–what do YOU think is an overlooked book you haven’t heard enough about?

I’m reposting my original exhortation regarding the forthcoming Kramer’s Ergot #7, which is contained below the “—” underneath this top portion. There was a pretty shocking number of you who said you’d like me to order this book for you at the original post, but I wanted to give everyone a second chance to confirm. These are pricey books, and by offering them to you at a discount, we’re increasing our risk on them, so we want to make sure everyone actually wants one.

So, to paraphrase what’s below: Kramer’s Ergot #7 is a 96-page anthology that’s a mammoth 16″ x 21″ inches, which is massive. The roster is a who’s who of the best cartoonists working today, including Chris Ware, Jaime Hernandez, Dan Clowes, Matt Groening, Sammy Harkham, and a bunch of others. I saw the pages at SPX, and holy mackerel does it look better than I even dreamed. The retail price is $125, but we’ll sell them to you for $100 IF YOU PRE-ORDER THEM through us. We’ll have one or two on hand for you to eyeball, but the $100 price is only good for those that contact me by this Thursday, November 6. I’ll be ordering these direct from Buenaventura Press the next day.

Remember, you MUST e-mail me in order to get on this list. Please don’t be shy about not pre-ordering one if you aren’t sure you want it. Also I would point out that the book will show up some time in November or early December, which will make it an excellent Christmas gift. So feel free to have your loved ones e-mail me. As long as we know you, we’ll put you on the list. For those of you who don’t normally shop in the store, this book is too massive to mail order, so I would point you respectfully at Buenaventura itself.

Chris Ware’s double-page spread. Homina!

Tim Hensley and Dan Clowes.

Tom Gauld.

———-

OKAY, so one of my favorite cartoonists right now is Sammy Harkham, who you may or may not have met at this year’s HeroesCon. I met him, and might as well have been meeting Farrah Fawcett, considering how nervous I was the whole time. I LOVE HIM! But besides being a studly cartoonist, Sammy also edits the preeminent anthology KRAMER’S ERGOT, six volumes of which have come out over the last 8-10 years or so.

THIS FALL WILL SEE the release of Kramer’s Ergot #7, which will be published as a 16″ x 21″ massive tome for $125, filled with a laundry list of great creators, including Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Adrian Tomine, Seth, Kevin Huizenga, Matt Groening, Jaime Hernandez, and a bajillion others. It’s crazy. While the book will only be 96 pages–I know, I know, let me FINISH–it’s all material created SPECIFICALLY to see print at this size, comparable to the size of old Sundays like Gasoline Alley, etc. This has NEVER BEEN DONE in comics before, and from all accounts some of the work is breathtaking. Imagine what someone with the graphic sense and careful pacing of Dan Clowes could do with a page over 4 times larger than a standard comic page. I’m getting sweaty just thinking about it, and I’m not even that big a Clowes fan. But I AM a big fan of comics, and the thought of pushing into this kind of territory is really exciting to me.

BUT NOT to everybody. A lot of people–maybe even YOU–are put off by the high price point and relatively low page count. Which is totally fine. There are a lot of books that are too expensive to buy at ANY price for some people. But the strange thing is that a lot of people have decided that they need to COMMENT on how expensive the book is, regardless of whether they care of not about what’s in the book, whether they’d have EVER bought it, etc. Boring, I know; but on the Internet people have to talk-talk-talk, especially bloggers, even when they pretend to be objective and journalisty. Imagine needing to say something EVERY DAY to an audience you can’t see. You can almost forgive these guys for their digital demagoguery.

ALMOST.

I have been more vocal in this dumb debate than I normally would be, half because I find it childish for people to complain about art–ignoring art is the best defense against art you don’t like. And half because I REALLY AM excited about this book, and want to stick up for it like you would for anything you like. And my excitement was only quadrupled a few days ago when Tom Spurgeon posted this excellent interview with Sammy Harkham about the book, the creators involved, et cetera, rather than flinging opinions out all willy-nilly with little more information than the size and cost of the book. But I’m a fan of Tom Spurgeon too, so maybe I’m just playing favorites.

SO, I say all this NOT to bring this cacophonous kerfuffle into our blog. I am uninterested in hearing what everyone thinks about expensive artsy books–I like the folksy neighborly vibe we have on this blog, and would prefer not to enter into some rejoinder war with anyone. So, if you’d like to be heard, please feel free to post on any of the threads I’ve linked to above.

THE REAL PROBLEM WITH THIS BOOK for me is all about the retail risk. Kramer’s Ergot #7 will be available for much less than $125 on Amazon, possibly as low as $80–how in the world can we compete with that? While I intend to support the book by purchasing it here, I get a fat employee discount, so it’s a wash. And while I’d love to order a bajillion, just to shut up the people who say that comic shops will never order such a pricey book, I’d have to defend to Shelton why I spent so much of his money (which is never in surplus anyway) on even a few of such a pricey book.

SO LET’S SAY (pending confirmation from the publisher of what our cost will be) that we offer the book to anyone who special orders it for an even $100. That’s 20% off the retail price; a little more than it costs on Amazon, but we throw in the satisfaction of supporting your locally owned and operated comic shop for no additional charge. This will ONLY apply to people who special order the book by posting here or e-mailing me directly–other copies purchased in the store will be at regular price, although stuff like your reserve discount, etc., would still apply. If I don’t know you, I may ask for some sort of confirmation, just so we don’t end up with a stack of these things unsold if you change your mind later. If you’re from out of town and would be mail-ordering the book, it’s probably better if you order it directly from the publisher (Buenaventura Press), as it’s an oversized package and would add too many weird costs for us.

ANY TAKERS? I really do think this is going to be one of the most talked-about and influential books of the DECADE, a historical event in comic book publishing. I CANNOT STOP USING CAPITAL LETTERS when talking about it.

I’M SORRY.

Happy Halloween from all of us at Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find, INCLUDING our own in-house superhero team, Blue Falcon and his trusty sidekick Dynomutt! Or maybe Blue Falcon is the sidekick–either way, Happy Halloween!

Now, if Dynomutt were to fight Scooby-Doo underwater…

Okay, you guys seemed to enjoy the contest we had a few weeks ago for a copy of the Forgetting Sarah Marshall DVD, so you’ll surely FLIP for this one, which actually has something to do with comics. Which is what we sell. Not DVD’s though, but the production company was kind enough to send us a free copy of the new Incredible Hulk DVD, which we have kindly decided to give to one of you.

But which one of you? Well, therein lies a fight! Tell us, in less than 100 or so words, who wins the oft-discussed hypothetical fight between the Hulk and Superman. Two twists: the fight takes place ON THE MOON (!!!) and has to be hand-to-hand. Flying, giant jumping, et cetera okay, but no freeze breath, heat vision, etc. Non-violent abilities (super-hearing) are also okay. This is just to keep Superman from vaporizing Hulk in outer space over and over.

Spin your (short!) tale in the comments section below. Remember: BE NICE! No rudeness, no swearing, et cetera. You know how we roll. Okay, let the fight…

…begin!