Hey, Comic Shop Friends!

First up, big news! Winston, and by default, the shop, is now on the ShopCats app! You can give Winston virtual scritches, log your visits to the shop, and add pictures of Winston!

There’s also a map to help you find other shop cats in the area. My favorite thing is when I open the app, it tells me when there’s a shop cat nearby! Cats!

Now onto the news you actually care about:

It’s Take Your Mom to Work Day at CNJComics on Wednesday, February 14th! John’s going to bring Carol into the shop to hang out for her 80th (!) birthday! She’ll be here when the shop opens at noon and plans to stay until at least 4pm. (Maybe later, depending on how she feels.) Stop by and say hi!

Coming up on Thursday, February 15th, it’s Late Nite Comics! We’ll be bringing out boxes and boxes and boxes of dollar stock, and because it’s the (day after) Valentine’s Day edition, we’ll be doing something special. Pull a valentine out of our bin and win free dollar books! 1, 5, 10, 20, and 50 card pulls! Everyone’s a winner!

If you want to get a jump on it, we’ve been adding dollar books to our new permanent dollar section. John put out a box of Wolverine dollar stock, and two boxes of X-Men dollar stock last week. And we should have the new wood back issue bins for that section at the end of the month!

Make sure to check the new back issues boxes too! They’re labeled with the date, so you know what’s newest, and we’ve been adding more as we process common stock back issues from the back room.

On Wednesday night, the 21st, we’ll be celebrating, with Ben co-hosting, the first anniversary of the Midnight Rental Secret Screenings! Starting at 8pm at the Grog Shop, it’s the anniversary/Valentine’s Day/Rachel from the Grog Shop’s birthday extravaganza show! Lenora also said to bring a wrapped VHS to trade, so I’ll have to dig through mine to find a good one.

MARVEL COMICS

Insert your favorite Samuel L. Jackson quote here! Mace Windu gets his own series from writer Marc Bernardin and artist Georges Jeanty, set years before the Clone Wars. Known for his discipline, determination, and combat skills, Windu is tasked to find Azita Cruuz and the secret she’s carrying, before it falls into the hands of the Hutts, or the Republic.

After The Maker was locked away, The Maker’s Council still works to expand its influence on the world, with Khonshu and Ra, the duo known as Moon Knight, spreading their brutality across Africa. King T’Challa and Queen Okoye want to maintain the peace Wakanda has, while Shuri and the Dora Milaje want to stop the suffering caused by Moon Knight’s hands. But war may be imminent after an attack on the country, and former king, T’Chaka. And there is another duo out to protect the continent that may be either friend or foe to Wakanda. Writer Bryan Hill and artist Stefano Caselli’s new Ultimate Black Panther already has a second print announced, so grab one of the first prints while you can!

Picking up shortly after Uncanny X-Men #268, Chris Claremont, with artist Edgar Salazar, bring Wolverine, Black Widow, and Captain America together again in this all-new tale set in Madripoor. Wolverine, Black Widow, Jubilee, and Psylocke are out on the town celebrating a win, but when the Hand and Cap literally crash the party, it turns into an all-out brawl. And that’s just the start, because the Bacchae need the team’s help, and several unsavory parties are in town for the auction of ultra-secret military tech. Can the trio take them down in this race against time?

DC COMICS

Eight new stories about love in the DC Universe, just in time for Valentine’s Day! Vicki Vale dates Guy Gardner for a story, and it goes about as well as you’d think in “How to Lose a Guy Gardner in 10 Days” written by Kenny Porter with art by Nick Robles. In “Robots are Red, Androids are Blue” by Aaron J. Waltke and Ivan Shavrin, Red Tornado is left alone on Valentine’s Day with a new AI, who helps him get over a past relationship.

Booster Gold’s new dating advice course doesn’t work out well for a blogger, so Booster goes back in time to make things right, in “Golden Pairs” from Danny Lore, and Brandt & Stein. Marguerite Sauvage gives Flash “Too Many First Dates” as he tries to create the perfect first date with Iris.

Little John Constantine and his buddy Gary Lester have some shenanigans while trying to snog in writer Alex Galer and artist Derek Charm’s “Never Been Kissed.” Plastic Man finds it’s hard to date someone, anyone, when the woman of his dreams is wearing a ring, in Dennis Hopeless and Baldemar Rivas’s story “Love’s a Stretch.”

Wonder Woman tries to figure out Valentine’s Day, and fend off suitors, in “Say Yes to the Mess”, written by Brendan Hay with art by M.L. Sanapo. Finally, Nightwing and Batgirl go out for a crime-free “Date Night”, by George Mann and Leonardo Rodrigues, which ends up being not so crime-free.

Pick up DC’s facsimile edition of Young Romance for your Valentine! Full of the beautiful, tumultuous, and tearful world of Young Romance from 1963 with art by John Romita, Jay Scott Pike, and more! With the original ads and advice column (Where the Romance Reporter tells girls to not ask boys out, because “it is usually the practice for a girl to wait for an invitation from a boy, isn’t it?”)! And if you like this, you should check out Tom King’s take on classic romance books, Love Everlasting from Image, one of my recent favorites, issue #12 is out this week, and we still have copies of issue #1 and the first graphic novel.

SMALL PRESS COMICS

We are all disappointed that this is not a story of Godzilla and Mothra and other kaiju monsters falling in love. Missed opportunity. But we do get an amateur kaiju researcher and a global kaiju-response lieutenant, and the cat and mouse game between them as they both follow monsters across the globe! Written by Zoe Tunnell with art by Sebastian Piriz.

Detective Ari Nasser has put away the One Hand Killer, twice, and is about to retire, when a new brutal murder that matches the original exactly is discovered. Nasser opts out of retirement and demands to be put on the case, to see it through to the end. A neo-noir murder thriller, set in the neon and rain-soaked city of Neo Novena, every new detail leads the detective further into the dark heart of the city, and into his own soul. Written by Ram V, with art by Laurence Campbell, this mini-series is one part of the story, with the companion mini-series, The Six Fingers coming later this month from Dan Watters and Sumit Kumar.