Free Wolverine #1 Variants Howdy! As many of you are already aware, Denver got hammered by a snowstorm on Saturday. The storm ended up only delivering about half of the snow that was being trumpeted by the news media on Friday, but it was still enough to cause most of Denver to come to a standstill, at least during the middle of the day on Saturday. The reason why I mention this storm is because it was timed perfectly to force us to postpone our monthly Jason St. non-minimum-bid comics auction. That may not seem important to those of you who shop with us online, but the reality is that the proceeds from the Jason St. auctions help to fund my purchases of even more older comics. The good news is that I had an open weekend coming up, so I moved the auction date to Saturday, March 23rd. That will be too late to help fund my purchases in Orlando, however, so I decided to forego my annual Mega-Con trip this year. Sigh... While not going to Orlando is disappointing, two factors help to sooth this loss. First, I purchased an incredible collection in New York last week containing 5,000 exceptionally high grade Silver Age and Bronze Age comics. I paid the better part of $1,000 to express ship those cool older comics back to Denver, which meant that we were able to sort and grade all of those comics by Friday afternoon. The percentage of VF and NM issues in this one collection was over 80%! Our inventory team is entering them into our online inventory for you right now, and most of those 5,000 high grade comics will be appearing for you in our New-In-Stock listings tomorrow at about noon. Please do note, however, that this collection consists of mostly of scarce early 1980's comics, with an emphasis on secondary titles. Lots of great issues, but not too many "A" list titles. The second positive that I can reflect upon today is that our biggest Orlando comics supplier is going ahead and shipping to us the 7,000 Silver Age and Bronze Age comics that he had been holding for me. That means that, while I cannot actually wander the Mega-Con dealer's room floor and chat with folks, the convention will still help us to enhance our website comics offerings for you. In the meantime, I can work on sorting out even more of the 120,000 older comics that I picked up on the East Coast last month, while also planning for my next East Coast trip. So you know, if all goes well, I will start a swing southward on I-95 from New York in early April, heading for my friends in the comics world doing business in NJ, PA, MD, DE, VA, MD, and DC. During that 10-day swing I should be able to pick up more than enough great back issues to keep our website inventory teams busy through June. I also have some convention trips planned for later in the spring, with the thought that those collections that I purchase on those trips will be the core of our display at this year's San Diego Comic-Con. Suffice it to say, the year is already blazing by... Three Romm Cottage in Goldback All of the above having been said, I want to digress a little, and mention that today is my 58th birthday. After taking are of some important matters at Mile High Comics, I will be celebrating this evening with family and friends. This being a special occasion, I thought I would share with you a photo of the house in which I was born. Built around 1830, this three-room cottage in Goldbach bei Aschaffenburg, Germany had only wood burning stoves for heat, and a single cold water tap on the unheated front porch. We had an outhouse (with no lights or heat...) in the back part of our property, about 200 feet from the house. We did have electricity for lights, but not enough to run a hot water heater or refrigerator. Even though we lived in town, it was like we lived in the 1800's... Long since torn down, this little house was first owned by my great grandfather, and later inherited by my grandfather and grandmother. I lived with them as a small child, speaking only German, after my American father abandoned my mother and me when I was six months old. My life changed completely when I was adopted at age four by yet another American army sergeant, who moved my mother and me to a rundown trailer park near the state prison in Jackson, Michigan. He beat me, a lot. Suffice it to say, my childhood was an unpleasant study in contrasts. As an aside, I have now been selling comics for 43 straight years, having started the company in my parents basement when I was 14, going to my first national comics convention at 17, and opening my first Mile High Comics store in 1974, at the tender age of 19. There were four Mile High Comics stores in operation by the time that I was 21, and while I first started selling by mail through the old ROCKET'S BLAST (RBCC) fanzine when I was 15, the Mile High Comics mail order/website business that exists today was created when I was only 23. Looking back through the lens of now being 58, that all seems like a lifetime ago, which I guess that it actually was. During the many intervening years, I have been blessed to be able to help thousands of comics fans build their collections, having shipped millions of comics to pretty much every part of the globe. What I value the most from those many years of service are the incredible number of wonderful people whom I have been blessed to meet. Even with all the trials and challenges that have sometimes arisen, my life in the comics world has been filled with incredible number of joyful experiences and delightful friendships. As a case in point, my very first customer, Bob Conway, came by Jason St. yesterday to wish me a happy birthday. Bob and I have been friends since March of 1970, when we were both only 14 years old. We've aged a little since then, but our friendship remains as strong as ever. As a reader of this newsletter, it is most probable that you have also supported me in my in my life's work by placing at least a few orders through Mile High Comics. For that kind assistance, I sincerely thank you. In all honesty, I have thought about this a lot, and I want nothing more for my birthday than the privilege to just be able to keep serving you in the future. So you know, my being here to help you in the future is not as much of a given as you might think, as keeping enough working capital in place on a daily basis to support the costs of our infrastructure at Mile High Comics is sometimes far more of a challenge than anyone outside the company realizes. We do eke out a small operating profit each year, but in simplest terms, almost all of our yearly earnings are spent on stocking our website with current releases. That means that we help the publishers a great deal, and we do manage to keep expanding our website offerings for you, but at the cost of our always being cash-poor. After 43 years of effort, that is sometimes quite discouraging. Returning full circle to the snowstorm that I mentioned at the beginning of this newsletter, our having limited working capital is precisely why losing our revenues from the Saturday Jason auction meant canceling my trip to Orlando. I tell you this not to elicit sympathy, but rather to clearly illustrate why every single order that we receive from you is not only important to us financially, but also as an encouragement for us to keep going. Simply put, your orders help to validate our efforts, even when not all goes well. I will close today's newsletter with a reprinting of the bullet points from the minimal newsletter that I mailed out earlier today. Once again, I apologize for my e-mail newsletters having to now be so truncated and marketing oriented, but with all the major ISP's throwing most mass e-mailing into "junk" folders these days, we had no choice but to cut out all the personal aspects of our mailings. I promise you, however, that I will keep right on writing these very personal newsletters for you, as long as you keep taking the time to read them. Happy Collecting! Chuck Rozanski, President - Mile High Comics, Inc. March 11, 2013 Advance Previews of next weeks comics from Archie Comics Free Wolverine #1 Regular, Young Baby, and Blank Cover Editions * We have a limited supply of free Copies of the #1 issues of the new WOLVERINE series from Marvel. You can receive a free copy of the regular edition of WOLVERINE (2013) #1 as a Bonus for placing any minimum $30 order with us, a free copy of the YOUNG BABY VARIANT as a bonus for placing any $40 order with us, and a free copy of the BLANK COVER VARIANT as a bonus for any $50 order. Place a $100 order, and you can request all three. Just ask for your selection in the "notes" section of our online order form. Regular Blank Cover Young Baby * Our exclusive Mile High Comics WOLVERINE (2013) #1 Variant, featuring a cover by Humberto Ramos, will also release on Wednesday. We still have a few copies left that we had allocated to offer at $9.95, but place your order soon as the price will be rising to $14.95 next week. Our SHRUGGED #1 Mile High Comics Variant Edition releases the same day, also at $9.95. Mile High Shrugged * We still have about 20 copies each left to give away of the variant editions of ALL-NEW X-MEN #7 and ALL-NEW X-MEN #8. They can also be chosen to be received as a free bonus at $30 for one, or $50 for both. Separate minimums must be met when requesting both the giveaway offers. * Our 30% off SUNSHINE codeword is still in effect on all of our back issue comics and magazines. We will be adding some exceptionally nice older comics into our New-In-Stock listings all this week .... That's it for today summary e-mail. To read my entire traditional e-mail, in which I also discuss the effects of last weekend's Denver snowstorm, my travel plans, and my personal birthday celebrations, click here Click here to view all of the Premium New-In-Stock Click here to view all of the New In Stock Current Newsletter