The Previews Magazine is a monthly catalog of everything that I can order each month. It’s provided by my wonderful distributor, Diamond Comics, who pretty much has a stranglehold on all the goods that every comic store in the world can get…not that I’m really complaining as they do a great job and, in general, are wonderful to deal with. When you open up one of these full colored phonebook-sized volumes you have to realize that the stuff you’re looking at won’t be out for a couple months.

Here’s how the industry works:
1. A publisher cranks out a comic
2. Diamond puts the comic in Previews
3. Juett, Jake, and Charlie try to convince people that this comic is super awesome
4. Tony and Juett order what we think is the right amount of that comic
5. Diamond gives that number to the publisher
6. Publisher prints that number plus some extras to cover damages and if they think it will sell well
7. Publisher has the finished mountain of books sent to Diamond
8. Diamond sends it to me
9. I sell it to you

That’s it…the whole retail end of the comic industry in a nutshell and it takes about 90 days to go from step 2 to step 8. An astute reader will notice that in this lengthy chain of events the only person who can really get burned is the sad sad comic store owner as Diamond and the publisher print to order and there’s very little, if any, waste on their end but I can talk about this later.

So yeah, this is the greatest book ever for comic shops. It has everything all laid out in full color with little blurbs about each item covering the creators, what it’s all about, and how much it’s going to cost all for about 4 bucks. Or heck, if you don’t want to buy it, just sit down in my nice comfy sitting area in the front of the store and pop our display copy open and jot down the things you want. I don’t mind because it’s important for me to have you guys look at this stuff each month.

Have you ever missed something that got hot and we sold out? Ever see something cool on Big Bang Theory and go, “Man, I wish I had that.” and then find out it sells for eleventy billion dollars on eBay? Go to a convention and see someone drinking coffee out of his limited edition Doctor Who mug while wearing an awesome Adventure Time shirt THAT YOU DON’T HAVE??!? Prevent this madness by browsing through a Previews each month and letting me know what you want. I need your input so I can more accurately order the good stuff. We need you!!!