Looking for a way to get your classic comics reading scheduled – with a few nifty extras thrown in? Comix Experience has you covered.
For the last few years we’ve been partnered with the Comix Experiences graphic novel book club to repost their video interviews. In addition to the New Release Graphic Novel Club and the Kids Graphic Novel Club, the store is now adding the Comics Masterpiece Graphic Novel Club.
Run by store owner (and Beat columnist) Brian Hibbs, the new club, like the previous two, will involve selecting a classic graphic novel, to be shipped directly to member’s doors, with an added exclusive bookplate signed by the creators. As a bonus, members get access to a live-streamed interview and question-and-answer session.
The new club kicks off in June with Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, and Ennis to participate in a livestream chat soon after.
(BTW you can see the latest episode of the Graphic Novel Club with Mark Russell right here.)
The membership in all the clubs works like this: You can sign up on a monthly or yearly basis, but you get the monthly selected graphic novels with bonuses shipped to your home and then can participate in the exclusive live streams. You can sign up for the Masterpieces club here.
“For more than a half-decade, we’ve been bringing the best new releases every month to our membership: great books by great creators to great readers,” said Hibbs in a statement, “but the structure of the current clubs is focused on graphic novels that were solely released in the last month. This allows us to focus on an exciting swath of amazing books, but it also keeps us from presenting superb work from the multi-decade storied history of comics – many of which readers only know by reputation, not because they have them on their bookshelves. By opening up the entire history of comics, we aim to make our membership the widest-read comics readers as possible!”
The new program comes as Comix Experience is undergoing its well-publicized economic difficulties during the Pandemic. Hibbs acknowledges that the Comics Masterpieces Graphic Novel Club is partly a reaction to that, but gives added value – and mostly importantly, it will enable him to keep paying his staff during the downturn.
“I’ve always been uncomfortable asking for money in a crowdfunder; my preference is to give people something of value in exchange for their support,” he said. “We started the original clubs as a reaction to the ever-increasing wage requirements that San Franciscans voted for in 2015, and the clubs have allowed us to have a staff that is among the best-paid in the nation. Despite suffering a nearly two-thirds downturn in store sales due to being closed to walk-in business during COVID-19, we’ve been able to fully pay our excellent staff for all of the hours they would have normally been scheduled, with absolutely no reduction, and that’s entirely thanks to the Graphic Novel Clubs. We’re hopeful that this third offering will allow us to do the same with our rents, and keep comic book retail fully viable in San Francisco going well into the future.”
Other confirmed titles for the club include Kurt Busiek (for MARVELS), Mark Waid (for KINGDOM COME), Scott McCloud (for UNDERSTANDING COMICS), Klaus Janson (For BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS), and Neil Gaiman (For SANDMAN), with many more being added weekly.
For more information about the Comix Experience Comics Masterpieces Graphic Novel Club, please visit www.graphicnovelclub.com/classic. You can also find more about the New Releases GNC at www.graphicnovelclub.com/start and about the Kid’s Club (for Middle Readers) at www.graphicnovelclub.com/kids
hmm. another mail order endeavor from someone who DOESNT WANT TO DO MAIL ORDER!
If an LCS picks the GN for the month, chances are many will already have it. That said, at least a couple thousand comic book stores are in a similar leaking boat.
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