Contest of Challengers

So cold in Chicago nobody’s coming into the shop. We’ll soon have a new retail neighbor and we have a new security system in place. Little Bird and Assassin Nation are 2 new Image books Patrick reall…

Dal and Patrick were both jurors for CAKE (Chicago Alternative Comics Expo) applicants again this year, and our scores were due today. Image Comics is offering full returnability on some of their upc…

We appreciate the few new ratings and reviews we’ve gotten on iTunes. Please keep ‘em coming! Thank you for the past 10 years, Donovan! An in-depth look at the graphic novel sales of 2018. An even mo…

Do you think the Bears will make it to the Super Bowl? Against the Chargers? (EDIT: Um... no) It’s January, so that means it’s once again time for others to predict the death of the direct market! Gr…

Diamond Comic Distributors catches Patrick’s ire one last time for the year. Some customers only see what they want to see. Some stores got next week’s book’s last Monday. We still don’t have them. S…

It’s a Christmas episode! Just by the fact that it’s recorded in late December. Also, Santa has a cameo, and so does Stan Lee. Another long-running comic shop is calling it quits. Santa came to hang …

Why, as a small, retail business, would you not offer gift cards? Once again, our Peoples Gas account was swiped by a condo resident in our building. The Record Store in Howell, NJ, is going out on t…

I dunno, how do YOU swipe credit cards thru the card reader? An update to a prior subscriber story, and Patrick’s 2 favorite ways to overreact. Sending comics to prison. For inmates; not to punish th…

400 episodes of this? Damn. We “acquired” 2 new back issue cabinets. After days of work, they’re not what we expected. November was not a great sales month and it ended on a really bad week. Construc…

Working Hard vs. Hardest Working This episode was recorded immediately following our 2018 Black Friday sale. We never seem to sell out of the stuff we want to get rid of. Getting burned when subscrib…

Rest in Peace, Stan. Recorded live from the show floor of ChiTaG, the Chicago Toy and Game Fair, the worst we have ever done at a convention. This one almost broke us.

The level of engagement we feel defines Challengers. When trivial information becomes exceedingly useful. “+ Conversation” doesn’t apply to movie theories. Selling some 1978 Marshall Rogers Detective…

The Isola collection available in comic shops doesn’t have the prologue story that the Barnes & Noble edition has. Somehow we missed ordering 3 issues of Die! Die! Die! The 50 Most Favorite Comic Sho…

Patrick talked to Aubrey Sitterson and Chris Moreno about The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling. And the recording turned out to be virtually unlistenable due to technological issues. So… Pa…

Just like episode #177 from 4 years ago, Patrick is recovering from surgery so Dal has to work every day. That leads to asking if time away makes one like comics more or less than being at a store al…

This episode does not contain an interview with Aubrey Sitterson and Chris Moreno from The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling, and we tell you the unfortunate reason why. Hopefully, the end o…

Good news-- we did not get broken into this week! So that's 1 week in a row! The continuing story of Challengers and our (for now) alarm company. Add that to our wonky A/C bent front door and we have…

Dark Matter has a new retail coffee shop right across the street from Challengers. We got broken into and robbed… again. We loved Heroes in Crisis #1 and don’t understand people that are so anti-Tom …

It’s almost time for our health insurance plans to be cancelled! If you complain that comics cost too much, maybe reevaluate your buying choices. What if a creator you love did something you have a s…

The new DC Universe streaming service started today. Did we subscribe? If we did, did it work? The full Batman Day 2018 rundown, and comparisons to past events. Also, looking to 2019 and Batman 80th …