norby ela

Hi,

Hey, guys. This week is an okay week for me. I’ve spent all of my energy from my regular Monday-Friday; 5AM-9PM work. Now, it’s the weekend, I’m just gonna chill at the pad. Tomorrow, Monday, I’ll go to Manila and hang out. At Tuesday, I have to go to the dentist.

Also, this week, I made a DeviantART account. And so from now on, all of my future artworks will be displayed there. click here!

Hello,

Today, I signed up for a Deviant account. You guys can check my artwork if you want. Have a nice day. Thank you:

http://norbyela.deviantart.com/

Phenomenon? Obamanon!

January 14th, 2009
Author Troy Brownfield
As you know, Amazing Spider-Man #583 streets today. And how is the nation reacting to their President-Elect appearing with the Wall-Crawler? If Indianapolis is any indication, with wallets open, apparently. I talked to one of my boys at the west-side Comic Carnival location in Indy, and it’s defnitely been busy.

“We had a line outside before we even opened this morning,” he explained. More than that, they received “20 calls” before opening time, all asking about the Spidey-Obama book. We expect this scene to be mirrored across the country today as shops continue to open out to the West Coast.

The question now: with LCSs getting a nice boost of attention and a likely boost in sales this week, how does the industry continue to capitalize on this moment?

Update, New York City, 11:42am EST: Blog@Newsarama’s own David Pepose just dropped us this bit: “I just made it to Midtown Comics… and the line is a block long.” David shot the photo below from his location in line.
Via David, 11:56am EST: Overheard in crowd: “Either Obama or Spider-Man or both better be signing this.”

eBay, 12:08pm EST: Checking in on eBay, there are nearly 800 listings for the issue. After you wade through horrifically priced “Buy it Now” listings for as high as $500, and a couple of CGC-grade pre-sells, you find variant covers from sellers already netting bids in the $90 region.

Update 12:30pm EST - Winston-Salem, NC: (via Matt Brady) The local shop here in Winston, Ssalefish Comics and Toys was sold out by the time I hit the store at 11:45, or rather, was able to get in the store at 11:45 (it opened at 11:30). According to the staff, there were people waiting outside at 9:30 am, and by 11:30 am, a line of twenty or so folks stretched down the sidewalk, waiting. As folks came in after the copies were gone, names were placed on a list for second print copies, due in stores next week.

Update 1:11pm EST - College Park, GA and Chicago, IL: (via Newsarama contributor Lan Pitts) I woke up today with a cold, so after a cup of tea I check my usual websites and email. Though today a very special issue of Amazing Spider-Man came out feature President-Elect Barack Obama came out. I had completely forgotten! Rushing to my phone, I call my usual comic dealer Chuck, over at Titan Comics in College Park, GA. “All sold out”. While he did mention he will be receiving a second printing of the book NEXT week. So I thank him and call my local dealer, which really isn’t a “comic shop”, more like a book store with a comic section. So I call the Book Nook, and gentleman by the name of Ron answers the phone and explains that they just order 20 copies, as per usual. They didn’t know it was going to be such a huge deal and have been dealing with over 200 calls this morning about it. Once again, I am out of luck, though inform me that another local store is already selling them for almost $40.

Ridiculous. So, at this point in time I call a dealer in Chicago I know: Keith Anderson, from Keith’s Comics. And once again I am told they are sold out. To out there who got your copies, you are some lucky, LUCKY, people.

Update: 1:24pm EST - New York, NY: David Pepose here! I’m looking at eBay right now, and it’s getting pretty crazy on here. Prices for the Obama variant are running from $7.90 to $73.00.

Update: 4:45pm EST, via Atomic Comics’ Mike Malve: Well like we all expected there where small crowds of people waiting for us to open today… It was new ComicBook Day.. So that was not too unusual. But everybody was talking about the book and most picked up a copy even though they did not pick up the Spidey book. We had already pre-sold our copies of the alt cover( we had just under100 copies) at $10 a pop. We started a pre-pay of the new second print and those are flying to all the customers coming in at this point. Seem to have to open the standard first print book and show Obama inside to help sell the book.

From Comic Book Ink’s John Munn:

People started lining up at 5:50am this morning for an opportunity to get a copy of the rare AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #583 (Barack Obama Issue).

An hour before delivery time we walked the line giving out numbered coupons for the number of Regular and Variant covers we were receiving of this special issue.

We told folks that they could only purchase one of either the Regular Cover or the Variant Cover, but please not both.  That way there would be more opportunities for others later in the day!

While the final variant (of over 30) sold out at 1:15pm, we still have copies of the regular cover in stock.

We are also reminding everyone that a second printing of the Barack Obama cover is coming soon and they can even use their coupon to help purchase that equally collectible issue!

We are going to continue to give out coupons all day, with an OB symbol on them to track folks that might visit us again.  This has been an incredible event and we are proud to be part of the excitement of this Historic Event!!

We’re looking to keep this update rolling - so what’s your story at your shop today?

REF: www.newsarama.com;http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/01/14/phenomenon-obamanon/