My Thursday afternoons usually follow a familiar pattern: Off the 73 bus and into Gosh comics for a quick look. Down to Comicana - a poky little place crammed full of overpriced back issues. Into Forbidden Planet where I buy my weekly fix and then onto Orbital where I wade through the 50p boxes and maybe pick up a trade (they're often one or two pounds cheaper than at FP).
Today I went straight to Orbital because it occurred to me that a shop which offers me trades at a cheaper price than Forbidden Planet AND still stocks back issues AND 50p comics really deserves my support more than an impersonal megastore (even if it is a damn fine impersonal megastore).
So anyway, there was nothing of much interest in the 50p bins this week, but I picked up my weekly books (more on those in tomorrow's weekly shop #6) and was interested to hear the guy in front of me expressing surprise that Orbital had any new comics on the shelves at all. Apparently the Easter bank holiday had delayed Diamond's distribution by one day and none of the shops were supposed to be putting stuff up for sale until tomorrow.
"We've had permission from Diamond" said the guy behind the counter. So all well and good. Except that FP, Comicana and Gosh all had notices explaining that comics would be out on Friday this week and NONE of them had any of this week's books on the shelves.
I can only guess that they all received their shipments today, (can't see any reason why a small shop like Orbital would receive its books before a giant like FP) , so unless the guy at Orbital was telling porkies, there's no real reason why any of the other shops couldn't have got this week's comics on the shelves either.
If there was some sort of agreement not to put the books out until Friday though, I imagine Orbital will be very unpopular with the other shops for jumping the gun.
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One book I had tentatively thought about getting but didn't was the Civil War trade paperback. I know I've ranted about not reading Civil War or it's multitude of tie-ins out of principle, but what can I say? I like Marvel comics and now Civil War is out in trade I want to have a look. EXCEPT the crooks at Marvel are charging £16.99 for it! £16.99 for a paperback collecting a seven issue mini-series?! FUCK OFF!
I'll pick it up when it's been reduced to a tenner. Or better still borrow it from the library.
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I was worried to see that FP had already reduced the price of the first Checkmate trade by a few quid. Sales on the monthly issues are in gradual decline and if the trade is being sold cheap after just a couple of weeks on the shelves then I guess this series really doesn't have much longer left. Sad because to my mind it's one of the best monthly comics out there.
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