Andy Wood

Am I bummed that I have to work on this holiday?

Not one bit! :)  I get a 1/2 off today and get to sleep in tomorrow.  Awesome!

I feeling a little Left 4 Dead-ish and/or Fall Out 3-ish

Now – many people got this day off and I for one was one of them.  I pretty much work 7 days a week.  Some may say, “Working at a Comic Book store, isn’t really work".  However; there are those days , but yes I have much less stress from my former occupation.

What does one do for their day off when they work 7 days a week?

Slept in, started on my liquid breakfast (Snapple and diet Mt. Dew) and started to play City of Villains’.

I had made arrangements with my normal COH/COV group to start new toons where we all would create Master Minds and play for like 4-5 hours.  Starting around 8.30a, they all slowly started to show up and soon we have about 7 people with all little minions to boss around.  (it was so awesome!)

After playing a little of City of Villains, it was time to watch some Tivo that was saved up and get in a couple more SG-1 Episodes. (currently on Season 6)

Had an awesome lunch, watched more Tivo and SG-1 and then around 6pm, it was back to COV for a Strike Force.

I have a very relaxing day off eating, playing games and watching great stuff on TV.

About once a month, someone will come into the shop and ask if we carry a certain comic book title.

Customer: Do you carry Trinity?

Me: Sure do!  You can find that title in the “New Comics” section under “T” for Trinity or if you are looking for the past couple of weeks, it will be on the wall to the right which is last weeks/months issues and they are alphabetical as well.
 

Then usually what happens, is that they will dash over to the new comic section .. and then they will frantically start looking from left to right for a couple of minutes.

Me: Did you find it?

Customer: Nope, are they listed in alphabetical order or something?

Me: Did you find the “T"’s”?

Customer: Nope

As I start to walk over, I always see them staring at Action, Amazing Spider-man, picking them up and putting them down and I always wonder to myself.  “Did they stop teaching the ABC’s and 123’s in school?”

Eventually, I show them Thor, Thunderbolts and .. Trinity.

Laughed so hard, I almost needed plastic shorts.

Green Lantern Corps #36 – To get a glimpse of Sinestro and Daughter dearest, yikes!  I am pretty sure that this book is going to be part of a pretty good story.

Secret Warriors #4 – The jury is still out on this one, but for me.  Any chance to have a good story with Nick Fury, I am a sucker for it.  All and all, this book has had a pretty good start, but last issue was a little slow for me.

Just a small sample of what I am looking forward to this week.

Last night Geoff and I went to see the Wolverine movie.  This was a good flick, humor, action, cameos up the Wahoo.

I have been buying and reading comics since I was about 14, loved the Uncanny X-men and yes Wolverine was the one that I was usually pulling for. (it was a toss between wolverine and colossus sometimes)

I remember reading somewhere that a Marvel executive said that from Iron Man and going forward, that the movie will be more of the “Ultimate” time-line that the classic as there was many liberties taken in the “origin”.  (from what I remember anyways)

Don’t get me wrong, I liked it, but would this movie be the movie that makes me run out and get a Blu Ray player?  I think the 2009 block buster is going to be Star Trek and yes, this movie would be the one that gets me to buy a Blu Ray player.

Attendance was up a whopping 40% from last Free Comic Book Day.  The most popular comic this year for us came from Boom Comics: Cars with a close runner up for Sonic.

I was so darn busy, that I didn’t have time or didn’t think about snapping pictures of Matt Maxwell who is a local writer.  Matt has one published book on the shelf; Strangeways: Murder Moon a Thrice weekly graphic novel on the web Strangeways: The Thirsty and another book on the way.  It was great to have Matt here, he was extremely approachable and knows his stuff.

Ciro’s Pizza had their presence as well.  They donated large pizza’ as part of the Free Comic Book Day celebration.  If you donated a canned good or bought something at the store during the vent, you got a free slice of pizza.

It was a great success and I want to thank all of those repeat customer and pass welcome to the new faces.

Okay.. just a couple of quick pictures.

Batman and Hulk cookies…. yum

Superman logo shield

And a yummy chocolate Superman Shield cake.

Matt Maxwell posted a little something about his new book and also mentioned that he will be at GamersCircle Comics for Free Comic Book day.

Strangeways: Murder Moon -

Seth Collins, a bitter Civil War veteran, is drawn to the small Western town of Silver Branch by a letter from his estranged sister. But as his coach approaches the town, it is attacked by a giant wolf that slaughters the other passengers, leaving only him and the driver, Webster, alive. When they reach the town, they learn that this is not the first time the mysterious wolf has struck. With the town on the verge of a panic or a riot, the sheriff is intent on maintaining peace, regardless of the price…

thanks Matt for the plug

There were 121,798 insider voters in the 2009 contest, of which we got 3rd place!

We can only hope for a higher slot next year.