Back to Preordering or "Damn you John Jakala!"

I didn't think I'd ever preorder comics again. The local comic shops really suck in terms of customer service, and I don't normally order enough to make the online sites like Westfield worth my time.

Plus I'll admit that the idea of having to preorder my comics sight unseen bothered me. Why should I have to be the one to take the risk? Especially when with any other medium I can find anything I want when I want it.

For the past year I've been perfectly happy just making a weekly trip to my local book chain stores, picking up the trades and manga books that interest me. Occasionally picking up a single issue comic off the racks that looked interesting.

Then I read this post by John Jakala at his blog talking about the great bargains he's seen at a site call Discount Comic Book Service.

I check it out as a curiosity and was amazed to see the following:

MY FAITH IN FRANKIE TP - I loved this wonderful series DC did last year so much, that I actually had friends buy me the issues to send me at their comic shop clear across the country. When I see this manga size trade of it at a price of $4.52 I was amazed.

Still I wasn't wowed by just one book, but then I see that DC's new CPM manga books were being offered as well, at a price of $3.48 each! Now this price just amazed me so much, that I thought "Hmm well maybe if I can find enough to fill out one order..."

I was then startled to see that DC is collecting their Sandman Mystery Theater series in trade form. I got into this at the tail end, but it seemed like a very intriguing series. When I see the first trade is discounted for $6.47 it just seems like something too good to pass up.

I then see that the Teen Titans Go! manga digests are also being offered for the $3.48 price and before I know it I have all of the above in a shopping cart. Still I know with shipping that I'll want a decent number of books to try to make it worth it.

One drawback is that they don't have any series descriptions, and their non-big name comic companiess are lumped together in very tedious pages. Yet then I remember that Johanna Draper Carlson had just done her Previews Rundown not too long back.

So I pop that open in another window, and check out the prices on some of the smaller but interesting series she recommends there. From it I pull STYX TAXI A LITTLE TWILIGHT MUSIC for only $2.10, MARGES LITTLE LULU VOL 1 for $4.97, SUPERNATURALISTS GN for $6.96 and J. Torres LOVE AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE for $3.87.

I then place my order very happily, as these are things I want to try at a great price, that I won't feel like I'm missing out on by not reading right when they come out.

So thank you John Jakala, though curse you as well!:)