Found my copies and can confirm all the pictures and pages floating about are legit. It’s also square bound and appears to have double the advertised thickness and weight.
Immortal Hulk 20 has every other copy with Carnage-ized Trade Dress also keeping the streak going.
2 new shows are coming out for a total of 4 shows and then the trilogy of Rick movies to boot. #1 will stay where it’s at. #2, 3, 19 should float around the same. The rest of the series including rare variants may drop time will tell.
I had read TWD from issue #1 (retroactively) up until the time Andrea died. I stopped buying and reading it every month shortly after that. If I had known it was ending, I probably would have seen the series through to the end. I wonder how many others, who have dropped that title in the last 18 months, would have felt the same way and stuck through till the end.
I read up until around Andrea died as well… I don’t feel the same. I was done and happy I saved my money by not buying anymore issues.
I feel like Kirkman let me walk out of his never ending zombie movie, with no warning that there was only 10 minutes left on the run time.
The Walking Dead #193 2nd Ptg. (
I noticed they didn’t double the cover price like DC did. No cover art released yet.
Am I seeing it right? Despite multiple copies for sale in the $30 range there’s a sale for $99.95? That can’t be right.
$99.99 also and that’s on a Preorder for copies I’m guessing he will not get until the 15th if he reordered Monday like the rest of the stores from Diamond.!!!
Luckily I have a copy already pre-ordered with my monthly pulls so I’m hoping it ships considering the same online retailer is now selling them for $9.99 limit 1. However, I went into my LCS yesterday morning at opening and they had #183 already on the wall for $12.99. I even heard the clerk tell his coworker the two on the wall just sold and to get more copies from the back. I’m speculating their asking price would rise throughout the day as more copies sold.
I know there’s arguments to be made on both sides surrounding these business practices but it’s the first time I’ve ever experienced something like this on the first day. Did anyone else have problems finding a copy locally for cover? I just wanted to get a second copy in hand yesterday so I could read the ending as my pulls only ship monthly.
And yes, I reluctantly purchased the book for $12.99 so I could read the story. Crappiest thing is my wife had me work in the garden last night after work so I still haven’t read the book although I paid the higher admission price. lol
That’s where the misconception comes in. It’s NOT the 1ST DAY!!!
The 1st Day was May 1st!!! That was the day you could have begun placing orders for the book.
Day 25 or so was the day the stores had to make an early commitment to how many copies to order. That’s when we decide if we have extra money, what to invest in, what to do without and what to gamble on if we feel we have a little more we can afford to risk.
DAY 35 we knew Rick was Dead. From that point there were only really two choices.
A: The story ends with Rick as had been speculated as being the story of Rick for the last 16 years!!! The question then becomes which issue that’s going to be the last?
B: New players like the sheriff get introduced taking the series in a new direction.
Either option screams buy an extra copy or two just in case and I know I spent time saying as much in person and online as possible to try and encourage just that.
DAY 40 The last day we could order the book for you and be 100% sure to get it being FOC day. ( Even Anthony had it on his FOC highlite list that day so you’d know to get it. " WALKING DEAD #193 – Fall out from death of Rick.")
DAY 61 News breaks and believe it or not, you still had chances for the last 21 days to get extras added. They were still in stock at Diamond at 4 AM on DAY 62.
As for myself, I stayed open LATE on DAY 61, Opened early on DAY 62 and stayed late taking PRESALES for cover price for the extras we purchased. Tons of social media posts that this was happening between Monday and Tuesday close of business.
Day 63 Price increases hit. (Why did you wait 63 days to decide you wanted a copy again?)
DAY 63 also becomes Day 1 of the Second Printing so if it’s just a sticker price thing, you still have the chance to own a copy of the story at Cover Price or less!!! FOC on that one is this Monday!!!
I don’t care for the practice of shops raising prices abov cover the day of release…but it is their book until you buy it (unless it was a pre-order). Its their choice what price to charge…just like its my choice to pay it…or not give them that business…or any future business for that matter.
Based on your relationship with that store it is ok. If I’ve shopped there for 20+ years I would feel disrespected to pay over cover for a new book the day it hits shelves. If it was the first time going to a new store and it was above cover the day it hit the racks it would motivate me to hit their back issue bins for anything mispriced in my favor. I get more upset over jacked price incentive variants. I’m a firm believer in 1:10 for cover, 1:25 for $20, 1:50 $25-$40, 1:100 $50. So if I go in to a store and ask for a day one on the racks 1:25 incentive variant and you tell me $50 I usually won’t go back to that store. My current reality is only one store that is always on the verge of going under and doesn’t order enough of anything anyway. Because they are so small sometimes what they ordered gets allocated elsewhere anyways. When Walking Dead #192 came out they got 6 copies with 13 subscriptions and 25extra copies ordered.
Jacking up prices of new releases is short sighted of the store owner. There is no better way to turn off almost every customer, regular or walk in, than to jack up prices on release day. I believe they should be sold at cover, at least until the following Saturday. Limit hot books to 1 per, and stash a copy or two to sell at a later date, if the shopkeeper truly believes in said hot book.
I was at a shop today, were the customer in front of me had a pull for TMNT. His pull box had issues #82 - #94 (it may not be those specific issues, it may have been some Batman/Tmnt books in it to, point being that he read all TMNT books). The shop keep didnt give him his #95, as I suspect the owner was trying to make a few extra bucks selling #95 on the secondary market. The regular customer was extremely pissed off and walked out having bought none of his pulls and left empty handed. Bad, bad, bad business practices.
The other point being which gets demonstrated so frequently here is that if the price wasn’t raised, then the book wouldn’t have been there for you in the 1st place since the 1st person in the door would now be selling them on E-Bay. I’m sure the raiders don’t like the thought but think how many people you don’t get to see that make special trips in just to get a copy and wouldn’t be able to. They’d waste their time and gas getting to a store that’s out while the stores made very little and one person is living high on the E-bay roller coaster. WD193 in particular was solicited at half the size. That means next week we’re paying higher than expected shipping charges, double actually or more if extra boxes were need to get the book in the door than was expected for those issues. Don’t make excuses, make a commitment by subscribing or at least preordering.
If you’re continually selling, then you’re a business. A store isn’t in business to stock your store. Any chance they can get to make a little or a lot extra on a comic, it offsets the loses from the one’s you aren’t going to take home at any price still sitting on the shelf or in cheap boxes at LESS than cost.
You should always CHU your books on FOC so you don’t find yourself in that situation often. I don’t think Anthony misses a lot. ( A little heads up on that zombie Cover E would have been nice 
)
Don’t forget, you can always put your money where your mouth is and get a Diamond account, start working 70-80 weeks, max out a half dozen credit cards and lines of credit, give up holiday plans to open the store for people to have a chance to buy a copy before the price gets any worse, skip movies, ruin relationships and then see how many copies you feel like handing out to people you’ve never seen or only show up to grab books you could get double or more for if you marked them up and kept them around. Threatening to never come cherry pick the underpriced stuff a store hasn’t identified yet isn’t a loss of business that’s going to be missed. It’s funny how if you gambled and bought 10 extra copies you wouldn’t think of giving people a window to take them from you at cover but others making the same choice are looked down on for doing the same thing you’d do.
I likely would have done the same. A loyal customer who has a pull and the store orders based on their pull should honor that pull at cover price.
Couldn’t agree more.
If retailers want to play the secondary market game on release day/week like the rest of us, they should shut down their store, close their diamond account and stand in line like the rest of us.
Before Capstone closed, if I knew a book was hot on release day, I’d bring up a few extras and tell the owner to stash a few for himself. To me, stashing a few off the shelf for the sale a week or two later at secondary is “A” Okay to me but don’t pull them all and jack up the prices on release day. It’s fair game after most of your customers get a chance to pick up their copy. Some tend to forget, there are some out there that don’t give a rat’s ass about value, they’re in it to read them.
@BJ…i spend anywhere from $500-$1000 per month at my LCS’. I had jumped around trying to find a shop that I could trust. During my search, several stores gained, and lost my business due too, what I perceive as poor business practice, ie: jacking up open order books on release day. I have found a good shop, who has been in business for over 25 years, and he will always have a copy of any open order book for me on release day, regardless of what its doing on eBay. He sells his ratios at ratio and is approx 25% cheaper (in Canada, most shops mark up cover price books by 25% - 50% to make up for currency exchange, ie $3.99 US cover is $4.99-$$6.00 CDN cover price) any other shop around, including the one across the street. His cover is 10% over US price, ie $3.99 = $4.40. So, he gets my annual business. I still visit the other shops, but I only buy what I know I can make money from. Im sure my monthly spending isn’t keeping any one shop open, but im also sure that these other shops have turned off lots of customers like me, leaving lots of money on the table. These disgruntled readers will add up eventually. M2c.
A store isnt in business to help speculators, but there a majority of comic readers who do not speculate. Some of the joy of collecting, for non speculators, is the fun of having a key book that you got for cover on release day. If a shop never lets it regulars have that enjoyment, Im sure it is detrimental l, long term, to the shop. Imo
Anytime I walk in on a Wednesday at the one store here they know, they ask me what’s hot? I tell them and they tell me how many I can have. Sometimes they let me have the whole stack some times it’s 1 copy. Funny thing is they had 6 copies of Thanos #13 a week after and they knew what was in it and were like sure take them all same thing with TT #12.
I feel bad for store owners, a lot to compete with in the digital age. I find many sell there amazing personal collection over the years to keep their store a float, and still end up going out of business later, with nothing much of value left but some bulk to sell to the comic store down the way.
@Alana… Diversify your selling platforms and product lines. There are lots of shops doing well. It is a tougher market, but there are also countless more opportunities for business owners if they embrace the changing demographics et al. Imo.