The Mike's Comics Presence On LiveJournal

It's amazing so much time has passed here without a post.

Things have happened. Some things have changed. Some have stayed the same.

We celebrated 50 years in business last month!

Doctor Who action figures have gone through turbulent times. Distribution is different, and connecting with it as a retailer has not gone smoothly. It's back to being a work in progress, but we continue to hold some backlist inventory.

Doctor Who Magazine, and related British magazines, have been difficult to carry. We had a distributor relationship, but had the kind of issues that call on decisions. Ours was to wait, as, finally, it seems there's some transition in the North American magazine distribution channel. When last we heard, Panini, the publisher, was working out the relationship with someone new. And we wait. Wait for a licensed and approved source to benefit everyone from customers up to the publishers in the supply chain. We hope for updates soon.

( Read more...Collapse )

We've had our issues in the past with e-mail. But, with a legacy on the prodigy.net domain back to Y2K in 2000, and before that to the prodigy.com domain into the 1990s or so, it's hard to want to switch addresses with the risk of losing people.

However, in the past month, it's been painfully obvious there are current issues with the domain. We'll try to address them, but, right now, it just not working.

So, please take note of mikescomics@mikescomics.com as the preferred e-mail address now. We own the domain, it's paid up for another decade or something like that, e-mail there has worked, and we will try to work with a different interface and whatever else is needed to get things running. Hopefully, we don't lose anyone that way.

But, we're also aware, some e-mail STILL hasn't arrived from people telling us they sent it nearly 30 days ago, and something has to give. If you're among those wondering why you didn't get a reply yet, we're only just getting some messages today that were sent in August. And, others arrived as they should in seconds, so we had no clue, until we were told and investigated.

Our apologies for anyone getting very belated responses, and we will do what we can to get in touch with everyone with all deliberate speed when there are messages received from which we can reply.

As always, thank you for your support!

Michael Salvo (& Patty Cryan)
Mike's Comics
http://www.mikescomics.com

As we've already had three people asking us the same questions on a couple of different product lines, (so, a total of six people,) it seemed best to give an update and answer the various flavor of question being handed to us. When given questions, we should give our best answers, and this time it may add a little information here to anticipate others again asking the same things.

For the Doctor Who audios series by Big Finish, we are in a situation where Big Finish on physical releases does what is called "exclusive windowing," in addition to having "exclusives." The grand impact of this is to delay or deny release of things to its retailers, its partners in the supply chain who give them free promotion and improved sales reach, which, ultimately, delays our customers getting merchandise. We know keenly our customers very definitely do not approve of that treatment, and we hear about it regularly, so the talk it generates is wholly negative, which certainly doesn't assist sales growth. At best, it is continual confusion and overhead for all. We received the Doctor Who main series release #272 earlier in January, by mistake, instead of #270. To be fair, their staff was good enough to get #270 out to us, and it was received today, so we have #272 earlier than they would have chosen (and still await #271, coming, we believe, soon). But, why we all needed the delays of an exclusive window in the first place eludes me, and why they tolerate the drama of that confusion by persisting in the policy is even more baffling. We can't answer that. Perhaps they will give you good answers to direct questions, if you are interested, and they deserve the right to answer for themselves, if you want to ask them directly. Perhaps, as some have said, you've already tried to get an answer and were not satisfied.

For action figures, we're dealing with a recent change in the US distributor who is doing "price support," which is a scheme to set pricing from everyone in the US. It includes the use of a sales strategy that seems to set a sale price on releases at some point, after their best customers have paid their highest prices, and those recently have been prices above what we told them (and will tell them again) we would intend to charge. Because of the devils-in-the-details with their terms, because we feel we couldn't serve our customers well, properly, competitively, or (most importantly) fairly with what was required, we stopped carrying the Character Options Doctor Who action figures line for now, and will wait until a new distributor is named before attempting to resume a relationship, in spite of definitely wanting to provide good products our customers demand, and regardless of how long that may take. Where we've said little about this topic, we've had rather substantial contact from many customers who often will not purchase these figures until the distributor currently licensed is no longer in this supply chain, and we thank the very many loyal customers who so strongly support us as to insist we get a different paradigm. Voting with your wallets as well as your words does matter to Character Group, and in making sound business decisions it will be interesting to see what happens here in the fullness of time. At the very least, Character Group has representatives who have signaled they are aware of the broader situation, and they seem to be studiously cautious in how they proceed from here.

Why an exercise of power here with this brand and this license is necessary, even desirable, escapes us. We had one senior person at one of our suppliers say they desired to use a more "modern" approach to sales strategy. While the internet is the modern tool, the approach of trying to manipulate markets, set artificial pricing, have different tables for price for each item and each market into which it is released, is something the Brits, especially, should find familiar and ancient and odious from their history books, where the Wardens of the Cinque Ports back to the 11th century would have to interpret and enforce the king's duties and tariffs on items, based on what the item was, where it was coming from or going to, who was buying it, and so on. It's not modern and doesn't even really reach to the middle ages as far as how it works and works so badly for the modern world. A modern tool wasted on an archaic strategy is still a waste.

The BBC should be involved with entertainment. For their licensed products and to make sure they give robust opportunities to their employees and the many, many talents they employ, they deserve fair profits. For merchandise their license holders sell, they are also most certainly entitled to set a wholesale price, and retailers can buy or not buy at that price. As items of entertainment, there is also a level at which business has to occur, and I think that has everyone's understanding and agreement. But, when this comes down to exercise of power rather than pure business, as it might sometimes appear to some these days, where customers literally pay more for being loyal and buying releases immediately upon release in some cases, where discrimination happens based on where in the world you live and which retailer you might choose to give your custom, that is beyond mere business. We have angry customers here over these issues. We're not ignoring that input. We have presented the issues as best we can to the powers-that-be, and hope they will look to their own interests in the long-term and discontinue selected policies rather than hurting themselves, us, and customers. But, we are never ones to withhold or artificially overprice if given any choices in the matter. That will never be us, and for our part that's the best we can do in answering the rightfully upset customers with such questions we've heard lately. We have already told people about such policies we feel they are just wrong. And, businesses and people make the choices they do, and these particular items are not of our making.

To quote another sage from the UK, familiar, I believe, for the use of his estate in an episode or two of Doctor Who, "You can't always get what you want." But, we try sometimes...and will continue in that spirit to stand with our customers, without whom we have no business nor a chance to make things better for all. We appreciate you all. And we'll continue as best we can to work with what we're allowed to carry, in the spirit of competition and quality service.

Michael Salvo (& Patty Cryan)
Mike's Comics
http://www.mikescomics.com

I just received a phone call.

The news was from someone who identified himself as Ken Barr's brother and who told me Ken had died.

I never met Ken in person, but dealt with him frequently by e-mail and phone and mail for more than a decade. He was friendly, smart, gentlemanly in the extreme, articulate, knew the difference between right and wrong, and passionately looked after the interests of the Doctor Who community. He'd call here at the offices to leave a message at a time of day he expected not to find me, then, when I'd pick up the phone, he'd scold me to take care of my health and work less. And then, often starting after midnight here (and 9PM his local time), we'd talk until all hours, seldom only minutes, and together we got to feel good and happy at the end of what were sometimes long days. (To be fair, we also sometimes had calls coming in around dawn from the UK or Australia...Ken knew, and wanted us to be well anyway.) I'm fairly sure our last phone call lasted more than five hours, and welcomed the dawn here before we had finished. There was always something more to want to say to Ken, so much constructive good to do.

Ken was part of what made the Gallifrey conventions in California tick, for a long time. You may have been in one of those conventions, talked with Ken, perhaps purchased things from his dealer tables, or went to him for help in his role as Dealer Liason and the one who "ran" the dealer rooms there.

You probably weren't always aware he was one of a legion of people who also tried to allow and encourage more frequent and more robust import of licensed merchandise to the US market, to please the fans. He also had a say in keeping out the "riff-raff," doing everything he could and everything he should to make the Gallifrey convention all it could be, every year.

If you knew him at all, you also knew he was a friend.

In recent times, I'd heard Ken had continuing health concerns. I don't know anything yet on which to comment, and could well be missing a lot, but I had been concerned for a while, and hadn't recently been able to contact him with information I had handy, even through the convention web site. I'd hoped for the best, but was prepared. And, today, I heard.

We're all diminished by the loss of good people who are good friends. Ken was never less than that to us, and often so very much more.

Michael Salvo (& Patty Cryan)
Mike's Comics
http://www.mikescomics.com

More than likely, you'll want to skim here, then get to the second reply, below, for the last word on this for now. -Michael, 9 August2020

As we go into the weekend celebrating our 44th Anniversary on Saturday and entering our 45th year on Sunday....

Finally! Finally, we had contact today from the licensed representatives for Character Options Doctor Who toys and action figures for the USA market.

We're at the point already of having something in our hands, and we're working through the details of pricing. And, they've already stated they don't do exclusives.

So, if you've waited for us to find a way to carry these again, please keep waiting just a little longer. We're hoping for communication next week to allow us to nail down the facts and the pricing, and to resume carrying the Character Options products here for all releases just as when we started carrying their lines in late 2006, and just as we began carrying Doctor Who merchandise in 1979.

But, with a new USA source, we need to sweat the details and enter a relationship so that all sides think we're on good footing...to let us continue this long into the future.

As always, thank you for your support.

Michael Salvo (& Patty Cryan)
Mike's Comics
http://www.mikescomics.com

A brief note to mention we have confirmation Seven20, aka Underground Toys, is no longer handling the license for Doctor Who action figures. This reply comes direct from a source within their company.

We were led to understand from two different sources within Character Group we would be contacted when US distribution of their lines resumed, and we are aware of offerings elsewhere, but the expected communication hasn't happened so far. To that end, we have left notes in the last few weeks with those two contacts, as we had also left notes earlier in 2020, and we are reaching out actively to find a licensed distribution channel to satisfy our need for supplies, anticipating customer demand.

There is some notion the initial releases are exclusives, especially with involvement of Amazon (as quoted on a Doctor Who merchandise site), or shared exclusives between Amazon and one or two other sources. Even "exclusives" in these lines have really only had "exclusive windows," and later are made generally available into any territory where distribution happened. Time will tell, and we're going to work to find out more.

What we will say is we usually can obtain product and pass along lower total price, unless a license holder decides to act with exclusives to drive up consumer prices. But, it's a matter of time to re-establish a supply chain, especially one that seemed artificially dampened for so long. We are hoping we'll hear soon from Character Group about the licensed distribution channel to the US market, and expect to resume offering their lines when a new relationship with a reputable supplier is available. You'll see those listings on our Doctor Who Toys pages.

In the meantime, it doesn't hurt at all to mention elsewhere your hope Character Group will correct the oversite and contact us soon about sourcing these figures. With the current economic situation, it's also fair to understand there are fewer people doing more work, and sometimes it's the squeaky wheel that gets oiled first. If we can expedite re-establishing a distribution network, then we can re-establish sales to our customers sooner. And that's the goal!

As always, thank you for your support.

Michael Salvo (& Patty Cryan)
Mike's Comics
http://www.mikescomics.com

From the very start, back in the 1990's, we knew we were creating a web site that screamed "update me" and "make me modern"...while very much needing to stay simple, tethered to what seemed to many to be too primitive to be practical. A large part of this is knowing our clientele well, knowing they haven't the money to go buy a new computer every time there's a new browser version, hearing (as we still here frequently today) thanks for keeping our site mostly a group of lists. By not having to load in bells, whistles, graphics, and all sorts of things others insist upon, we've stayed inclusive of everyone. That's important to us, and always has been. And, as a practical matter, it's really silly to exclude some of one's customers...what kind of business thinks that's smart?

But, as technology has marched on, the balance of what any machine hooked up and viewing the internet can do has shifted. Change is the only real status quo, and smart business also understands these things. If you're here and reading this, your machine, by definition, MUST do more than a 1998 or 2005 computer could do. Your browser will handle more. You very probably have more RAM and a faster CPU. (Yes, I worked with companies that made computer chips, and was very much a part of that creation, so as an electrical engineer, I've never been blind to technological progress.)

So, having watched time march on, we're going to start today the gradual process of adding some pictures to some audio listings on our web site, on the very pages showing the lists of items. For the moment, we're using a lot of what we've had in our files since the first picture for The Sirens Of Time came to us from Big Finish. We are already aware not everything lines up perfectly, but we're committed first to try to get things on the page, then to see what's involved in polishing it up.

Our thanks, certainly, to Big Finish Productions, for resuming availability of picture files, letting us start with a quality image.

We're looking still to re-size things so loading isn't a huge issue. 265 releases and counting, that could mean over 300Mb of size for the pictures, just for that page containing the main Doctor Who audio series, and that still will tax some machines for customers we know about. So, part of our slowness in reviewing this is trying to be considerate of loading times.

If you find a loading issue, please tell us!! The sooner we know, the sooner we can correct things or try some other things out. If you can't view the revised pages, they're worthless! For all we're trying to add here, this is about you, the customer.

But, if we do this right, you should still be able to view the page with relatively good speed, still do a text search that many of you have told us is so very important, and the in-page picture references should be an added help to making sure you're making the right purchase choices.

Please do understand, we're carrying more titles actually in stock in the physical audios range than anyone else in retail. Coding here is still done by hand, without someone special hired to be a webmaster. We've written and developed our site, and we've also been the ones to do the ordering, balance inventory to keep items in stock in healthy quantities after others sell through, take your orders by phone and e-mail, pack the boxes, and even say hello to postal carriers as they daily take your parcels around the globe. So, if this is not an instant upgrade, it also isn't forgotten, and it will be done with the same care as we aim for in all we do, now coming up on our 44th anniversary in business, and our 41st full year carrying Doctor Who merchandise.

Again, we know already there are things we need to correct later. Images already don't line up perfectly, one to the next. For now. First things first.

As for e-commerce, we're still not going there soon. Security of customer information is simply too important, and we're very well aware of some persistent people looking to our site to provide them information they should never get from us. Aware as we are of other specialty retail sites being abused in the past, regardless of our interests, it's not in your interests for us to take chances with security. For every security enhancement, there's eventually always a hack. The amount of customer info compromised from our web site is zero. We're intent on keeping it that way. And we have enough technical expertise to understand if a truly bulletproof e-commerce option at an affordable price comes along. So far, nothing is even close, in spite of what may be believed.

Yes, we're still here. Yes, we're still taking care of business and helping customers and providing value and quality. Yes, the web site is still updated often, reviewed daily, and the primitive look and feel will still probably remain a while longer. But, as we review a chunk of what we've listed, with pics from The Source available again, and with the progress of technology that is the internet, it's time to tweak things a bit. And, we decided it was better to let you know that's started than to have you wondering what might be going on.

As always, thank you for your support.

Michael Salvo (& Patty Cryan)
Mike's Comics
http://www.mikescomics.com

Well, change happens.

Roads where we live, roads where we keep these offices and warehouse, the parking lot for the storefront of our other business (see anniesbooksworcester.com) and soon (we're told) its facade, and a major thoroughfare (Route 9) that goes length-wise across the whole state of Massachusetts, are all undergoing major repairs and, we have to hope, upgrades. Some of these roads, we've heard, haven't been so much as repaved since at least 1953, perhaps earlier, and the need to have this work done was rather pressing and important...and it had to happen sometime.

What that sometimes will mean is roads and lots are literally impassible to traffic, and anything near it will be shunted quite far out of its way.

In the long run...perhaps very soon...this will give us much-needed enhancement to our area. With the Boston Red Sox AAA farm team moving just a couple of miles down the road to a new stadium (currently under construction) in just a few years, this is entirely timely.

For now, there are days where we're literally stopped in a jumble of cars for thirty minutes while people directing traffic make it safe to go forward again...or go backward. Things take our busy days and may make us slower to respond.

But, as you know, if you're already our customer, we do respond and with complete answers for you. For now, we hope you'll understand if we're kept out of the office for extended amounts of time, simply where the road surfaces for the next three weeks or so (we hope it's limited to that!) undergo the transformation they need!

As always, thank you for your support.

Michael Salvo & Patty Cryan
Mike's Comics
http://www.mikescomics.com

'Tis again the season....

We're hearing there's a new 13th Doctor figure available.

We are actually aware the US distributor expects to receive such things at some point in time.

We've been given some reason to expect we will actually be receiving those figures on release, though there's nothing in writing, and, with this line of products, we continue to tell people nothing is definite until it's in our hands. (But, we're still taking Advance Orders, and any enhanced pricing discounts will go to those who get us advance orders before the figures arrive here.)

We're expecting to hear something soon. Please keep an eye on our web site, as we'll give an update there if we're aware of new items becoming available.

As always, thank you for your support.

Michael Salvo & Patty Cryan
Mike's Comics
http://www.mikescomics.com

A relatively short note here to let people be aware, if you've tried us by one of our e-mail addresses in the past 44 hours or so, an apparent hacking attempt had security at our Provider for that address shut access temporarily, after 5+ failed login attempts.

So, you may have received a bounceback.

That e-mail address is expected to be back in service and available within the hour, so, after 4:20PM Eastern Time today, please feel free to re-send.

Or, better still, try the e-mail attached to our web domain, mikescomics@mikescomics.com, which doesn't appear to have any issues, and shouldn't.

We didn't go away. But, one explanation is that some special someone, needing to give special treatment nobody else wanted, tried to hack our e-mail account. (Or, the Provider's password server went down, so nothing could match a password that, for their purposes, didn't exist...and they created the issue.) Whatever it is, we're still here, as we expect to be for a long time to come.

As always, thank you for your support.

Michael Salvo & Patty Cryan
Mike's Comics
http://www.mikescomics.com
(508)756-9836