STAR WARS #2 Releasing Wednesday

Howdy!

Next Saturday will mark the 45th anniversary of my setting up my first comics booth in a public venue. The date was February 7th, 1970, and I was an eager (but clueless) 14-year-old high school student with 5,000 back issues, and a grand ambition to be a comic book dealer. I rented half of an eight-foot booth space, which I shared with a ditzy older lady who sold collectible Avon bottles. I was in heaven!


Chuck's 1970 High School ID

Getting started was not easy for me, however, as mother had to personally guarantee that I would behave. Simply put, the owners of the Colorado Springs Antiques Fair doubted that someone so young as myself would actually man a booth for eight hours. That is why they made me share a booth. As it turned out, I did exceptionally well that first weekend, both buying comics and comics-related collectibles from other dealers, and then reselling some of what I had purchased to show attendees.

As a result of my success, I was invited to become a permanent member of that antiques dealer community, and was given a full booth of my own. I ran that comics booth every first weekend of the month all through high school. I remember that time in my life with great fondness, as that booth is where I gradually built up my starting inventory of comics for the very first Mile High Comics retail store, which opened four years later, in September of 1974. It is also important to note that several of the dealers at the antiques fair voluntarily took it upon themselves to educate me. I learned a great deal from them about both business, and the importance of ethics. Without their generous help, Mile High Comics would never have come to be...


Chuck with Ocean of Comics

Fast forward 45 years, and I am going to be 60 years old in just a few weeks. How in the heck did all that time pass so quickly? Even though I am now much older and grayer, however, I am definitely not complaining. I have been incredibly blessed in life to find a calling that has not only allowed me to use my talents to good purpose, but one which has allowed me to bring some small degree of joy into the lives of hundreds of thousands of comics fans, all around the world. Mine has been an exceptionally good life, and I sincerely hope that my health allows me to continue to serve my fellow comics fans for years to come.

Moving on, I have to revisit the same topics that I have entitled during my past couple of newsletters. First, our annual 60% off GROUNDHOG! codeword sale will need to end on Thursday, at noon. The 60% off discount applies to all ten million of our back issue comics and magazines, but not to books, new comics, a few variants, and our CGC-graded comics. You should really consider placing an order with us while the 60% off discount is still in effect, as I may be curtailing codewords with such high discounts in the future. You have just four days left to fill in holes in your collection at near giveaway prices.


Star Wars #1 Mile High

The other overriding topic at the company right now remains STAR WARS (2015) #1. Rather than my last couple of price bumps slowing down our sales on the various incarnations, all of the STAR WARS (2015) #1 variants are continuing to sell very rapidly for us. While that is good for our short term cash flow, it really is harmful to us in the longer term, as we still have over ten months to go until the new Star Wars movie releases. Since we have no way to restock any of the variants that have already released, and our existing supplies are dwindling away to next to nothing.

Remarkably, the same is now true of the standard edition of #1, of which over one million copies were printed. Reports that I am hearing are that STAR WARS (2015) #1 first printings are starting to sell out everywhere, even though there was that huge initial print run. That tells me that STAR WARS (2015) #2 (which releases this Wednesday), may experience an instant sellout at many comics shops, as it's print run was considerably smaller than #1. I do know for certain that we have far too few #2's ordered via our four Mile High Comics retail store accounts, and only have a couple hundred copies for our worldwide clientele of 100,000+ comics fans. If you shop with us in Denver, I highly recommend that you try to stop by our stores as early as you can on Wednesday to pick up your copy of STAR WARS (2015) #2.


Star Wars #1 2nd Print

The other STAR WARS (2015) title releasing on Wednesday will be the second printing of #1, with a special variant cover. As you may have noticed from browsing our website listings, we oftentimes list second printing variant of back issue comics at much higher asking prices than first printings. That is because it is usually the case that publishers print second edition variants only to the extent that they have unfilled orders for first printings. Typically, that means the print run on the second edition is 10%-30% of the original. This scarcity leads directly to the higher pricing as a backissue.

In the case of STAR WARS (2015) #1, however, Marvel only allowed retailers three days (!) in which to place their orders for the second printing variant. With most comics retailers having ordered so excessively on the initial printing of #1, a great many did not order any second printings, at all. Our four Mile High Comics retail stores, for example, will be receiving no copies of the #1 second printing, and neither will our new comics subscription service. It is only because I was determined to be able to offer second editions variants through our website, that we have two cases (260 copies) on order. That may seem like a lot of comics, but based on what has been happening in this crazy market for all STAR WARS (2015) #1 variants, I am predicting those few copies we have on order of the second print variant may not even last us a month. Suffice it to say, Wednesday is going to be a crazy day.


Star Wars #2 Mile High

At this point in time, I also have to put a final deadline on pre-ordering our Mile High Comics variant edition of STAR WARS (2015) #2. We have 60 copies left on our website that you can pre-order at $24.95. For those of you who already have them on order with us, we'll begin shipping our variants of #2 on this Wednesday afternoon. I'll also quickly mention that Greg and Mario in our new comics subscription department are still accepting reservations for guaranteed copies of our Mile High Comics exclusive variant editions of STAR WARS (2015) #3-#6. You can call them at 303-455-2659 (weekdays 9-5) or write to them at nice@milehighcomics.com. Copies of our #3-#6 exclusive variants can be reserved (for now) at $24.95 each, with a limit of 3 copies of each issue per client, please. FYI, over 20% of our print runs on #3-#6 are now already pre-committed...


Darth Vader #1 Investment Pack

I will close today's newsletter with a final offer on investment packs of ten copies of DARTH VADER (2015) #1 for $40. DARTH VADER (2015) #1 had an advance order from comics retailers of just 30% of STAR WARS (2015) #1. As a result, I am of the opinion that it will be an instant sellout when it releases in ten days (a week from Wednesday...). We actually bumped our Mile High Comics order up by another couple hundred copies on Friday to over 1,600 copies), and will see if we can place another last-minute reorder tomorrow morning. In my 45 years in the comics world, I have never seen anything like this ever occur.

Happy Collecting!

Chuck Rozanski,
February 1, 2015


Star Wars #1 - #6 Mile High Variants



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