Free Walking Dead #100 Variants Howdy! I would have written this last 2012 San Diego Comic-Con report for you yesterday, but quite frankly, I was working too hard. We started off by packing up our huge 70' booth full of comics, books, and fixtures in just under 7 hours on Sunday evening, completing our task around midnight. After six hours of sleep, I then spent three hours yesterday morning driving our two 28' Ryder rental vans to the FedEx Freight center north of San Diego, where our 53' over-the-road truck was waiting. After transferring our 2 smaller loads into the semi-trailer, I then spent another three hours returning the two rentals to Ryder. We finally left San Diego at 3 PM, and then drove 450 miles to Beaver, Utah, where we collapsed from exhaustion at 1 AM. Booth at 5 PM Before you get the wrong impression, I want you to know that while we are all very weary this morning, we also have that happy afterglow that comes from having achieved great success. Simply put, we were blessed to guess correctly about purchasing trends at this year's convention, with the 50,000+ inexpensive back issue comics that we brought with us from Denver selling extremely well. The net result of those thousands of comics selling for us was that we experienced our best overall gross sales at the convention in four years, with all-time record operating earnings! All other considerations aside, seeing that remarkably strong revival in back issue comics demand was very, very gratifying. Booth at 10 PM One disappointment for us at the convention was that we were completely unable to put on sale any of the remarkably high grade comics from that huge private collection that we purchased near San Diego on Monday evening. We did our best to price the couple of long boxes (out of 100+) from the collection that we hand-carried into our booth, but it was a hopeless task. We would arrive at the convention at 9:15 in the morning, and find dozens of eager fans already waiting to shop with us. This is in marked contrast to many prior years in San Diego, where we would not get busy until about 10:30. With no morning prep time at all, we finally just had to give up on pricing our wonderful new collection. Just imagine how well we might have done this year if we had managed to get even a few thousand of those comics priced and available. Sigh... The other disaster that we experienced at the show was that our usually incredibly reliable FedEx staff in Denver lost our two boxes of WALKING DEAD #100 restock that we were having sent to the con by express. They were eventually found in the Denver FedEx warehouse on Monday, but that one blunder cost us at least $5,000 in lost sales at the con, as we completely sold out on Friday of the chromium variant at $25 each, plus we also sold out of our entire original convention shipment of the A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H "regular" editions of #100 at $10 each. It was bad enough that we completely sold out of all of our copies of the #100 Comic-Con variants by Friday morning, but to also be out of our regular editions, was a joke. We did manage to buy a few regular editions from some other comics dealers, but the chromium #100's were totally gone. The reason that I am telling you about our WALKING DEAD #100 frustration is that our not receiving our restock for the con leaves us with just about the only unallocated copies in the nation. Both Image Comics, and Diamond Distributing, are totally sold out of these incredibly popular #100 variants, so our website is just about the last place that you can obtain them. That having been said, we did so well at this year's convention that I want to offer a special gift to those of you who shop with us on a regular basis. Effective immediately, if you place any $50 back issue order with us, you can choose any one of the WALKING DEAD A-H variants completely for free. Place a $125 order and you can request your choice of any three regular editions, or one chromium edition. Just place your order as usual, and then ask for your free WALKING DEAD #100 in the "Notes" section of our online order form. Supplies are very limited! My final topic for today is a quick reminder that you can purchase almost all eight million of the back issue comics and magazines listed on our website right now at 60% off when you utilize our current SANDIEGO steep discount codeword. Only our new comics, books, CGC-graded comics, and non-comics items are excluded from the 60% off sale. Most of our trade paperbacks, graphic novels, and hardback books are on sale for you right now at 30%-50% off right on our website, however, so there are also some incredible book deals waiting for you. Free shipping is also still available to you on all back issue orders over $30 shipping within the 48 contiguous states, and $60 for International destinations. Our free shipping minimums will be rising a little next month, so right now would be a great time for you to place that order with us. 'Nuff said. Happy Collecting! Chuck Rozanski, President - Mile High Comics, Inc. July 17, 2012 Advance Previews of next weeks comics from Archie Comics Aleta with Lego Hulk! P.S. Like any proud dad, I am happy to pass on cool photos of my kids: here is my wonderful daughter, Aleta, posing with an exceptionally cool Hulk built entirely from Legos. Aleta also ran a cash register for us at the con for over two days, which really saved us... Click here to view all of the Premium New-In-Stock Click here to view all of the New In Stock Click here to view all of the recently added Trade Paperbacks and HardCovers Current Newsletter