Happy New Year! It's my 1,000 th Post!

Due to luck more than anything, it worked out that my New Year's post would also be my 1,000th post on this blog. I noticed around early November that if I averaged about 1 post per day that it would line up pretty well, and sure enough, here we are: January 1, 2008 and post #1000.

I started the blog back in early February of 2005, so it's been nearly 3 years. Back when I began posting Astonishing X-Men #8 was coming out. That makes it seem like a LONG time ago, doesn't it?

My first retailing rant was in mid-late March and discussed stores selling Star Wars products too early and people deciding to buy via subscription instead of supporting a quality local retailer. This was also the post where I received my first comment.

In early April of 2005 I had Jim Krueger, writer of comics like the recent Justice for DC and the upcoming Super Powers for Dynamite Comics, came into the store unannounced, just to check out the place while he was in town. That was definitely something to blog about!

In late October of 2005 I posted about the recent renovations in the store like new comic book racks. There are some great pictures there of the old and new versions of the store. We have changed more since then too! Then in the summer of 2006 we expanded the store by knocking down the wall for the back room. I have some photos of that and blogged a few times about the construction. Those posts start with this one. The remodel wasn't without problems, like our contractor arriving late and one of our new, $450 shelving units cracking in half.

One of my favorite posts was the one where I shared our encyclopedia of irritation in which I revealed some of the code names retailers give to different types of store visitors.

I remember this one. Some crazy guy on Newsarama was insisting that new comics cost retailers pennies because he was getting his comics for 75% off from some mail-order guy. Of course it wasn't every comic book and there were bits of his story that he'd simply created to fit his incorrect point. By the way, a $2.99 comic book costs me about $1.40 before shipping.

And how about the kid who insisted that another store offered him $75 for an embossed Cable #1 comic book. That was one of those days when I had to take a deep breath!

In January of 2007 we had a new store web site and no heat in the store.

Way back when I first started this blog I think I had 5 readers and they were mainly customers. Then one day another store in the area discovered it. More and more people found it and I began to find more and more blogs that I enjoyed as well. What was just a way to promote store events and good comics became something more, something fun for me, and a way for me to participate more in the comic book community. I've gotten to write for Sequart because of my blog, I've met some great people via blogging, and I have been able to get people to try some new things and think about things from a different perspective because of this little part of my world. And I too have gotten a different perspective, learned some things, and received great advice from people who have visited here and either commented or emailed me.

Thanks to everyone who has commented here, and to those that just visit. I would enjoy it even if only five people a week read it, because it's fun for me to do! But knowing that people actually come here every few days to find out my thoughts, well that's just amazing to me, and it makes me work that much harder while blogging. Here's to the next 1,000 posts!