I know it is the beginning of the year and people are looking forward to the new books that are coming out during the year. You know what I am excited for this year? Naperville’s back issue displays for the whole year. If you do not shop in the Naperville store, you will not understand. In our store we have 2 rolling racks that we use for display purpose. We also try to use the two ends of our Top 50 Graphic Novels rack. If you have read any of my blog entries, you know that I absolutely love back issues. In the Naperville store we have quite the stock of them. So we like to do themed displays with them. We did such displays as:
-90s Image Comics for their 30TH anniversary
-Death of Superman for that 30TH anniversary
-Sadly when an artist from the industry passes we try to set up the books they have worked on. The George Perez rack stayed the longest because that was a big blow to a few employees.
-The history or heritage month displays (i.e. Black history, AAPI heritage, and Native American Heritage)
-Pride month
You get the Idea. Yet now since we have started doing this we have to top ourselves now. The rest of this will delve into the minds of my employees and I. Some of these will be good ideas and some maybe not so much. Yet these displays are for both our amusement and yours. So let’s get to it!
We actually started the month of with a few already. One rack is a Spider-Man Dark Web display. The only thing is that the books on there are clone related since the idea of the crossover is peeved clones. The other is celebrating the 40th anniversary of First Comics. We have a bunch of First Comics for their original cover price up there. One of the side racks has last issues on it spotlighting the end of 2022. It will change to first issues soon for the beginning of 2023. Lastly our crazy one called Jacket January. It is issues with heroes and villains that wear jackets. Yet here are some of the ideas we kicking around for the rest of the year.
The serious ones:
-Westerns. Which are pretty self-evident. Western books throughout the decades
–Barbarians. I did not succeed on the last one but I am going to try again with the help of Gary & Nolan.
-Alternate Earths. Marvel and DC have plenty of them but we might look for the weird ones. This one could be a lot of fun
-Detectives. The non-superhero sleuths that solve the mysteries in comics
-May the 4th. A Star Wars display. We might call back an employee to help because she wanted to do one and she will be gone by that time.
Those are some of the straightforward ones that make sense to the average person. Now here are the wackier ones that have popped into our heads. Usually these are spur of the moment ideas so they will just appear on a whim.
-The Wall of Metal. All foil or chromium covers.
-Humans as pets. We are still spit-balling this one but we are getting close.
-Lunar New Year. Rabbits in comics
-April Fool’s Day. Foolish characters throughout comics
-Various other themes like apes in comics or Superman as a jerk on covers.
-My birthday display. Who knows what it could be. It all depends on my mood that month. It might be cats in comics.
We will always have returning ones.
-Holidays. Halloween and Christmas are always my favorite. Yet keep an eye out we might do something crazy like Arbor Day.
-Crazy Crossovers will return. We have been finding more and more as we have been filing.
-The usual displays that correspond with new movies or TV shows.
This little writing gives you an idea of one of the joys of working in the Naperville store. Gary, Nolan and I enjoy our back issues and we try to make displays the customers hopefully enjoy. Don’t get me wrong some of the displays are for our amusement and we hope someone else is amused by it as well. Please feel free to let us know what you think of our various displays. Input is always welcome as long as it is constructive. Lastly I would like to personally thank Gary and Nolan for their hard work and ideas with all of these displays, Again, thank you for listening to my ramblings.