Badr Milligan: 0:16

And here we go. And a one. And a one. Two, three. Here we go. Yo! Short Box Nation, welcome back. Thanks for pressing play. And if this is your first time tuning in, welcome to the show. My name is Badr. I'm your host. This is the Short Box Podcast, the comic book talk show that brings you the best conversations about comics with the people who put their blood, sweat, and tears into them, or in today's case, with the people who put their blood, sweat, and tears and whole life force into about them, into selling them, and and all that good alright? This is episode 497, and today's guest needs no because this is like his 100th appearance on the show at this point. If you're watching the video version on YouTube, or watching the video version of this episode, uh then uh place that I'm in needs no introduction as well. I'm recording live from Gotham City Limit Comic Shop. It's my local comic shop, but it's also the best damn shop in all of Florida, alright? The awards behind me say it all. Uh, and we're here at Gotham City Limit because we're be talking with Ben Kingsbury. We're doing a mid-year check-in on the state of We're gonna talk about the best comics of the year so and we're gonna talk about what you can expect from free comic book day, okay? Uh Ben's done these episodes so many times. I think he can do this in his sleep, but you know It's a brand new year. It's our first recording of the year, and I'm it. So without further ado, short box nation, let's welcome to the show. Someone that has been patiently sitting as I go through this intro. Our man, Ben Kingsbury. Hey, that's what happened to me.

Ben Kingsbury: 1:57

It was hard not to say anything that whole time. I'm gonna chiming a bunch. Like, I don't want to, I don't want any tears, all Yeah, blood and sweat into selling comics. If I have tears selling comics, hopefully it's tears joy. Well, actually, that's true. Some we'll get into it in a little bit. There, you know, there's something that almost made this year.

Badr Milligan: 2:14

Um, we're recording this on Sunday. You just closed the shop about an hour ago. Yep. And before we hit record, you said that you were gonna home, make some tacos, which sound amazing right I'm starving. And then you said you're going to prepare for the week of your life. Yes. And I'm I'm curious. You know, we're recording Sunday. Uh next Saturday will be Free Comic Book Day. This episode comes out the uh Wednesday. What's the next couple of days look like for you in

Ben Kingsbury: 2:41

So, well, yeah, the you know, last year on Free Comic Day, the best thing that we did was use the uh place door, which I call the Batcave. So we've got to get that in order. So, you know, it's very easy over a year when you have storage unit to let things kind of get a little out of You know, yeah, I'll clean it up next week, you know. So, um, so particularly tomorrow, not only do comic book day, which is Saturday, but we have uh two coming in. So you're gonna get more of your free comic book day We have received a little bit of the merchandise but we got two pallets coming in tomorrow, plus store exclusive coming out this coming Wednesday. We have just been What's the store exclusive? Uh it's the uh Tyler Kirkham's final boss mass vigilante one shot. Elias Chadzoutis, the Greek god of pinups, is uh what his nickname. And he has taken this mass character and done a wonderful job. We have a very limited uh virgin amount of retailer coming out for it. So we've got that to get prepped for. Um, and then we have obviously the standard new comic day this Wednesday, and then free comic book day, which is um not only the busiest day of the year, but the day that you, you know, I had a grand opening, and it still feels like you get a lot of new people, and it really is a celebration of everything that you do all year So I really look forward to it. And but in preparation to make sure that I um as many pieces as I can, um, a great day for everybody. I really uh it takes a lot of work behind the scenes in terms of just putting it all together. So um, I mean, we'll get into what we have going on, but Aaron Barling's coming down to the shop. We have the hello, um, the hello body horror exclusive, the virgin that we're releasing only on free comic book day. That's his uh comic. So he's gonna be down here signing. Uh, Lenny from Spineworks is gonna be here as a CGC And then uh we're introducing the Sky Fox, Kitsu Yes, the official new mascot of the limit and the I mean, I've got some stickers. Um, obviously, you know, we always produce some stuff. So we made stickers. Oh my god. And then here he is, his sidekick, Racer, the Flash. Yeah, here he is introducing Racer. That's actually my new puppy shop dog in training.

Badr Milligan: 5:05

I cannot wait to meet Racer again.

Ben Kingsbury: 5:07

Yeah, well, he can't wait to meet you either. Uh, he came in here, I brought him in twice. The first time I brought him in, I acted like he was be like pacer and I could just have him and work, and it was a total nightmare for me. I had to like try to block him off and he was chewing everything. Second time I came in, he acted like um I could puppy sit him. By the end of the day, he was on all fours, laid out the concrete, five different women rubbing him, feeding him treats. It was like an adjunct. Yeah, bro. I know this guy, he's gonna get used to it. He wants to come back. So you're like, not in my shop, buddy.

Badr Milligan: 5:41

So Ben, what I appreciate about you is that you comic book days so seriously in the production value, I don't think a lot of shops can say they actually apply production value. And you're always talking about how busy the week is be. And I wonder how many times you go home and walk by a and you're like, there's the guy. There's the guy who's who's giving me the busiest hell of the world. There he is right there.

Ben Kingsbury: 6:03

Um I have my conscience. It's called my girlfriend. She reminds me. You know, no, it's funny too, because poor Jonathan, he is amazing. Um, and he, yeah, I could, I don't I really don't know um we would even have this shop without him. He does so much behind the scenes. Um, but even he, we have so much happening this week. And the palettes that sometimes come earlier in the week, of course, they're coming delayed and they're not until um the beginning of the actual week this So he's a little stressed out about it. But without him, without Jonathan kind of um like there to get us ready for free comic book day, I don't I would be able to, but trust me, we both stress about on the constant. Um, I always say, as soon as I get through free comic day, then we're gonna take a break and we're gonna relax and we're gonna do this. And I know I told Vanessa that, like, oh, I just gotta through uh one more week. Just this week I'm gonna work every day, right? And then it'll be touch the truck event with uh, you something. And then it's uh the our, yeah, then it's our Comic-Con event on July 11th here for the First Coast Comic-Con. And then everything else, we have another exclusive for a huge Enter John book coming out in June. So yeah, I mean, the reality is this is the lifestyle I chose, and I really um like the everyday grind. However, um, I'm trying to figure out a way to slow a little because you probably get this. Once you get into a routine, that's why time flies by. For sure. Because you're so used to the next Wednesday. So just kind of like on a Sunday night doing something just uh take your mind off of it, that kind of thing. It really is important.

Badr Milligan: 7:40

Look, it sounds exciting. I mean, like you said, you're unveiling the new uh uh mascot. You got uh uh Aaron Bartley coming down for the signing, obviously the comics, and then everything else that you do in terms of bills.

Ben Kingsbury: 7:51

We have uh um, yeah, we have a popcorn vendor who makes 26 different types, especially popcorn. First hundred, he's gonna be out here selling his stuff at discount. Well, I wanted to I always like to bring unique stuff Obviously, I'll have coffee and donuts early. Um, we'll do some type of lunch in the middle of the probably pizza, something easy that's finger food Free comic book day, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. essentially, it's gonna be a day.

Badr Milligan: 8:16

I want to get back, I want to talk more about free comic book day, specifically the titles coming out, we do that, I do want to take a step back. 2026. What are some words that come to mind when you think this year in comics so far from the retailer side?

Ben Kingsbury: 8:29

Uh smaller print, smaller publishers, number ones, are Uh, because and I think it's because Diamond comic preview magazines don't exist anymore. And so I think it has had a cascading effect on what shops actually order because when you're taking a risk on or Superman or Amazing Spider-Man, it's a little to take a risk on something like that. Everybody knows the characters, but when it's Mad Cave, when it's even Image to a certain extent, when it's Boom Studios, when it's some of these other publishers that don't just naturally don't just buy 150 copies of a new number one. No one knows anything about the comic, right? Um, so I've you see the return of the number one again, the huge spike. Nectar, dork, white sky. All of a sudden the comic's $80 and it hasn't even come out yet. Or I mean, dork literally was a $40 comic before it out on a Wednesday. I had to sell them in here one per store. Uh White Sky, same thing.$40 comic before it came out. I had to sell them one per store. Every Mad Cave Studio title, number one that I get right now, doesn't matter what it is. I mean, I don't get a ton. You can't really get more than 15 or 20 and gone. Uh the number ones. But it doesn't always translate into a continuing on the series. It definitely does, but the return of the uh buying of uh the number one spec is back. And it's uh, and I think, like I said, it's just people aren't telling comic shops what they want ahead of time. There's no FOC real numbers on it. And so shops in general, I just like look at White Sky. They sent me uh email about it. I read the PDF and I was like, okay, this could be a cool one. It's image number one. We ended up with a hundred copies. Very awesome. Vault, when they did Nectar, okay, that comic blew up away. Vampire Butterflies. Essentially, the story's great, but it blew up one ordered it. But Vault did such an amazing job in doing bundle orders. The writer of that comic, Jeremy, sent me an email me know what was happening with it. We ended up with a bunch of them, and then we could people up. I mean, I don't take that comic and then sell it for $40 in here. Yes, I sell a few on eBay for $40, but the I I have them in here one per person, and I hook people up for$4.99. Try to get them the comic at the comic price while it's out. You know, it's just as hard because I'm guessing, you and so there's a couple that I got burned on. Royals from image number one. Uh, just really was a brand new image. And because every image number one had been selling, like, all right, well, I better get 50 of those at And I got, you know, 30 of them left because it's not every single one. I don't know. It's it's a it's impossible to gauge. It's it really is just a randomness of it all.

Badr Milligan: 11:23

You know, this kind of reminds me of of a similar I was having with Dan Hastings um uh earlier in the year, you know, recorded with him about being a shop owner the f for his first year. And he mentioned, I think, uh a similar thing where it's uh playing that guessing game and you know, like touch with the customer base, like what will they And he spoke of, you know, and in short, he was saying his particular shop, you know, is a little more leaning towards horror and more indie. I guess same question for you. If you had to kind of categorize or what words come to uh in terms of the your customer base, like is there that you're like, oh, this is for sure gonna be a sure maybe a genre, an artist, uh, you know, creative team subject. Is there anything that you look at for like the number

Ben Kingsbury: 12:08

You know, just like in general, I pay attention. So Jonathan and I were talking about it. We don't get a lot of FOC orders anymore compared to like what we used to. We still get some, but basically we have to know since don't I get emails from people telling me what they and then I have to look at what I ordered, see what I and then go from there. See, because the poll it doesn't tell you the whole You know, you might have on certain titles like Absolute Batman, it tells you the whole number because everybody is so worried about missing an A cover, you have 211 pulling it, you know, and you know that that's and you all of them, and you're gonna have other people who in, but everybody but on another title, some people assume because they got one and two here, they'll walk in and number three here. So what we try to do is really just pay attention, read stories, but there isn't one uh genre. We want to do all genres. In fact, the one thing that I want to do or anything we do here is trying to make this a fun, unique when you're here. So um, pollists generally used to um require FOCs, telling people ahead of time. Man, I have taken that out of the equation for people. I am FOC, Jonathan's FOC. We read and connect. I do, you know, retailer calls to try to find out coming out. They send me PDFs of comics coming out in the future. I'm like, okay, that's got an appearance in it. This one is gonna probably be highly wanted.

Badr Milligan: 13:34

Let me jump in here real quick, because we've talked on on these similar episodes about the sheer volume of that you read every morning. I I think at one point you said it was like 20 comics day or something.

Ben Kingsbury: 13:45

I mean, not that many, but like, yeah, I try to I try get in five to eight a day. Seriously.

Badr Milligan: 13:50

How much, how much preview and advanced review stuff you also reading?

Ben Kingsbury: 13:55

Well, I think the first time I'm here and you've got all the time. Oh man, I've already read. Well, I love it. James Tinian is so great. He'll send me like the exquisite corpse early. Oh, nice. Um, David Pepios will send me all of his stuff early. Hey, hey, this is on FOC this week. Here's a PDF of it if you want to read it. They put your lunar account or, you know, the account all over it so you don't share it. Um, but I love doing it. In fact, actually get pissed off when I take comics home to read on a new, and I'm like, oh, I read this a month ago. This is that fucking one, bro. Yeah, oh, it happens all the time. I'm so mad I'm wasting a whole sweet slot for you already read this one.

Badr Milligan: 14:33

Ben, check your privilege at the door. All right, check your privilege out the door, gets hurt. That is the most privilege I've ever done.

Ben Kingsbury: 14:39

I know, but then but it's a hard not to tell everybody happening and ruin the stories for Jonathan. Jonathan is just let me ruin everything for him. Tyler really tries to like uh be like, hey, Ben, don't say another word. I don't want to know, you know, kind of thing. But yeah, anytime they send me a PDF of a comic, I it 100%, especially ahead of time because that really me in determining what I can order and uh what if it's be a good read or not, you know. I mean, I love collecting comics. I'm glad comics are worth money, and I love that like batman is blown up, but I never bought comics um purely just for money, but everybody does something different. I just like to read. And I like the stories and the the comic stories, like to create and do exclusives and we like to make I mean, that's kind of the idea is that we're in the They do 26 different Superman Spider-Man covers. We're gonna have 26 different Superman Spider-Man covers here.

Badr Milligan: 16:40

Hearing you talk about advanced reviews, retailer it makes me think about like the the retailer-friendly that publishers have in place that you know, these that they have. One of the things that happened this year, and I think happens every year around the same time, was the Comics Pro. Um I don't think it's a convention, but it's yeah, it's always on the West Coast, right? I think so. Yes, I think so. I believe so. So uh for those that don't know, Comics Pro is an annual event that's mainly geared towards retailers, comic shop owners, industry insiders. Um so they talk about new releases, they give you a heads up on uh policies and changes and the business side, the retailer side. One of the things that I know came out of this year's Pro event was um I believe it was Boom Studios hey, we will, we are implementing returns again, which I know wasn't hasn't been the case. Um how much of that of that, the ability to return from like a Boom Studios, does that give you a little ammo, a little more reassurance to try out like new, maybe take a risk?

Ben Kingsbury: 17:40

I mean, it's not even without doubt, without a doubt, uh it happens um only sparingly, and sometimes different do it. Boom's doing it, Ignition Press is doing it, which is smart. When you're a new company, um especially a brand new and you're making adult comics that you want, you just I mean, great, amazing art, but really adult to make the first three or four issues returnable for comic shop, changes the game. I am definitely willing to buy a huge stack of them put them out on the table. Uh, one that just came out, this uh extraction. You remember uh what's the main character, the guy Thor? I don't know his name. Chris Hemsworth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hemsworth. He the extraction movie he did. Yeah, yeah. So they have a comic, Tyler Rake Extraction from Ignition Press that just came out.

Badr Milligan: 18:30

I'm gonna grab it.

Ben Kingsbury: 18:31

Yeah, yeah, right over there. Uh, but all the Ignition Press titles are amazing, great. And the uh Beauty is another one of them, and that's a TV show going on right now. Have you seen that? Beauty.

Badr Milligan: 18:41

No, I have not.

Ben Kingsbury: 18:42

Yeah, well, that's another Ignition Press title, but do returnability, and it allows me to bring the stuff in, show people um great titles, and then um if it doesn't out, it doesn't work out. I mean, and you can return it. I mean, I I I don't order them to return them because usually about a two-month window down the line. So the goal is to sell as many as you can. That's the goal isn't to return any, but it definitely DC is doing bundles on some of their new stuff. So they just started their next level, which is Lobo, The Terminator, and Batwoman that's gonna kick off. There's a new um Barbara Gordon story coming out that amazing. The first issue I read it, PDF. Yeah. But yeah, so uh, but no, that one's that's great. And they help with bundles. Um, and then Marvel says, Well, we got Spider-Man, you to buy them? I'm like, Yep.

Badr Milligan: 19:34

On the on the topic of Comics Pro, and you brought up I think one of the announcements that uh uh came out of that event was DC announcing, hey, this is the year we're going to do our first absolute crossover, I think, uh, between the Trinity, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Uh, and you know, absolute was a topic that we talked ad nauseum last time.

Ben Kingsbury: 19:54

And everybody knows it's still as crazy as it was that time.

Badr Milligan: 19:57

I was just about to ask, how has the foot traffic been like Absolute Batman?

Ben Kingsbury: 20:01

I mean, I I started the last like four, three or four since Joker um took his whole form for the first time in Absolute Batman 15. I order so many copies just to have some in the shop people. And then we got first Scarecrow, and you see all the exclusives going down for it, and then you've got the Robins coming on the next one. So Absolute World still crushes. Uh, DCKO actually was the best. The ending of DCKO, I can spoil it now, right? It's been two months since DK DCKO number five came out. If you don't want to know what happened at the end of number five, skip for two minutes. That's it. Anyway, at the end, it's dark side, just a ton of They all have the Omega symbol, and he's talking about absolute crisis of Infinite Earth. Oh, wow. So that's a hundred percent coming in DC comics, and be awesome because the best-selling DC KO comics were they had the absolute characters in it fighting. Um, and then uh absolute stuff just crushes. DC continues to rule that hen house in terms of comic and I mean, rightfully so. They they write stuff that people want, and it's So okay.

Badr Milligan: 21:13

Ben, you're wearing an amazing Superman Roosevelt shirt. Yes.

Ben Kingsbury: 21:18

First one, Jonathan got me this actually.

Badr Milligan: 21:20

I bring up your shirt because I see Superman and it makes me think about the Supergirl. I'm sorry, the Super Woman movie. Oh, yeah, the Supergirl. Sorry, Supergirl movie coming out in June. Uh, I think DC is pushing the the marketing as you the summer of Supergirl. How is that? Have you seen any increased foot traffic, any How are you getting ready for, you know, we got a ton of movies come out here?

Ben Kingsbury: 21:41

Yeah, well, the Woman of Tomorrow comic itself, um, once they announced it, basically people came in and bought the issues that we had. So there wasn't a lot of like back issues, individual of it. But selling um DC does those amazing compact comics. So so many Supergirl Women of Tomorrow's you were uh skimpy. I know. I gotta get it. I can't they're out of stock. They're so awesome. Then they did a limited edition hardcover and a so huge amount of sales on that. And then you have the new Supergirl line that's going on. Uh Lobo has his own comic. So DCD is doing a good job of kind of trying to tie those proper characters together. So I mean, people are definitely looking forward to it, even though I just want to see He-Man.

Badr Milligan: 22:27

You brought up He-Man. We're talking about Supergirl, we're talking about the of movies we're about to have Supergirl, Doomsday, um, uh Avengers Doomsday, Mortal Kombat Street Fighter, come They just announced Valiant versus Street Fighter. They did, they're doing a crossover.

Ben Kingsbury: 22:53

No matter what company. I mean, I guess people are just like the blood good. Uh, but I guess it's just hard or people are just over it or they've tried it. It's like Young Blood. I mean, I love Youngblood, you know, but the same People. I can't, it's hard to get new people to try to read it.

Badr Milligan: 23:08

I guess, Ben, what's been the most exciting announcement or like comic news that has come out this year that seen had a direct impact to foot traffic, sales, it may be, or maybe a personal one.

Ben Kingsbury: 23:20

Well, no, I mean, you know, the um the the actual movies that are coming Mortal Kombat, uh, Street Fighter, Supergirl, uh Avengers, Doomsday. You had Mario Brothers, Sonic. It really is um for most of the people my age kind of because they're making like a Mortal Kombat movie like the video game where they're really gonna like go in. Same thing with the Street Fighter. It looks like, hey, we can make these kind of style People are looking to be entertained. That's the whole point of the genre in general. Um, I think what I've seen um is that people still love Invincible more than anything. No matter what. Invincible season coming out has been um, you know, gets people in. And I still have a lot of like 13-year-old kids who in with their mother and like, do you have any invincible comics? And I'm like, well, I got uh issue 89 for $55. If you you know what I mean? Like that's unfortunately that's all invincible$20 to $140 a piece. And so then the compendiums are collectible kind of stuff.

Badr Milligan: 24:25

What are you selling that case? What when uh like that instance of a 13-year-old that the show comes over to mom, she's like, hey, help me something for the kid. Obviously, the back issues are.

Ben Kingsbury: 24:32

Yeah, I mean all you can do is find um individual. So they're reprinting stuff like individual, so like six to seven issues a piece. You try to stock those. And then they just did collectible hardcovers. So I try to sell it as a collectible on top of they can read it, but it's something cool to own because all are only basically essentially printed once and they go up in value as well or can. Um, so that's really the only way to read Invincible uh without just you know having it fun being on the hunt. Jonathan's been bringing some invincible in people, know, bringing into the shop. They uh for the first time in the history that I know, shops because of Robert Kirkman, shout out, he's Um, but because of him, um, Comic Shops this Thursday, 30th, I believe. Oh, thank you. We get to sell the Invincible video game versus three. It's unbelievable. In fact, there's a collector's edition with all kinds bonus stuff, including a comic. Uh, and we're gonna have a bunch of that here. We can't sell it on New Comic Wednesday. They literally threatened us. You can't sell it till Thursday because that's when drop is everywhere. Yeah, you can't break the they don't want me to put out of business yet. I'll fuck coming for you, GameStop!

Badr Milligan: 25:48

Man, I'm gonna be here Thursday for that. I already told you save me one. I cannot win.

Ben Kingsbury: 25:52

No, but that's really kind of cool. No, and you know, because Invincible, still to this it deserves to be known because people don't realize because they see the TV show and they just think it's been popular. It's the greatest rags to riches story in the history American comics. Uh, when Robert Kirkman was writing it, he talks all the time. If you've heard him um talk about Invincible, they were selling, okay, so Absolute Badman just sold 380,000 something like that approximately, before retailer and some other things. And um, Invincible was selling approximately 12,000 in the middle of its run. Uh, literally nobody was buying it. It was kind of right after the crash of the comic market. And it's a great comic, but nobody was into one, and no one really thought that they should be that stuff. And uh because of that, uh, the TV show came out. That's why all these comics are hard to find and why expensive. But uh, he really, because of Robert Kirkman's name, he says the only reason they let him and Ryan Otley just doing it because he had already created Walking Dead, he had carte blanche essentially, and so it didn't matter many sales they sold or how many uh comics they had sold because they loved doing it and they were just allowed free markets to do it, and that's awesome. That's like the coolest thing ever. You know what else that makes sense? Because that doesn't happen often. Most of the time you get canceled and you never ever get it.

Badr Milligan: 27:16

That kind of reminds me of the uh the Family Guy thing, too. You know, Family Guy, uh I I think what whatever, I think maybe of season five, it stopped airing, and then the DVD sales were so good they it helped bring it back. And I think that kind of speaks, and I've heard Ryan Otley and uh Kirkman talk about that too, where they're like, yeah, I mean, uh, we didn't really think you know anyone was reading this, but you know, we still did it, we still put our heart and soul into it. You know, hearing like Ryan Otley talk about certain arcs that he was drawing and how you know how that helped like push him to get better. I I think it also speaks to you know, as long as you your heart and soul into it, you know, you never know something might come back. Maybe right now isn't like your time. And I think I'm speaking to like artists and in and creators. Maybe right now isn't your time. But you know, like what they say about like the like at some point we'll come back. Yeah, you know, it might be.

Ben Kingsbury: 28:06

Well, I mean, comic shops uh ex exemplify that all the in so many different situations. Okay, who's the hot comic artist right now? Quintana, or you know, I mean, you go around looking saying who's overpaying for specific artists, just losing their mind trying to buy stuff, right? You see that pendulum swing. Oh, it's Peach Momoko stuff, oh, it's Scotty Young stuff. You see that all the time. You see it. Um, the idea that uh what Robert Kirkman and Ryan Odley, the key to what they did was they just wanted to create because you just don't know what the future holds. And if you believe in what you're doing, who cares what everybody else says around you because it's your vision. You know, I this is a cool way. You ever get mad in a car at somebody? As soon as I do, I say, you know what, I don't care. They're an NPC to me. Because they are. They're just some non-playable character I can't do with. I'm never gonna run into again. It's totally inconsequential. Get mad about being cut off, and I move on with my life. Comic world, it happens all the time. Um, and I'll give you an example. Uh, Justice League, Worlds Without a Justice League, Lantern. I don't even know if I have any on the wall up there. The first appearance, it was Green Lantern, first of Red Hood. Jason Todd has a Green Lantern. Uh, we did it at Trade Dress with Tyler Kirkham. I think we sold them for $14.99 when they first came out. It was a big print run about $3,000. And then we sold a decent amount when it first came And then I don't know, maybe for like three years, I could. I had a marked at like seven, eight bucks in here and wasn't selling too many of them. Now it is on fire online, and we sell, I mean, we must sold probably 150 copies over the last month and a at $30 a piece on eBay. And it's just because people have found it now, and it a little while for them to see something, and then all a sudden, boom, now it's worth it. And you know, I had to sit on the stuff for a little Obviously, you never know if if something is gonna get or blow up, but that's not the point. The point is if you can obviously make enough money to create. I mean, just make something, and then if it becomes if it doesn't, the creation, the process was your life. So that's awesome. You're doing something you really wanted to do.

Badr Milligan: 30:22

Amen. Well said. I think uh hearing you talk about all these sales I want I want to get into something with you and talk the sales chart for the first quarter. I don't know if you visit uh icv2.com, but every I think every month they'll post uh like the top 50 comic books of you know the month.

Ben Kingsbury: 30:41

Like top sales. Yeah, yeah.

Badr Milligan: 30:43

And these sales are measured by uh the Comics Hub. I think it's a program that a lot of essentially. Yeah. So I guess uh over a hundred different comic shops across the world use Comics Hub uh and they uh pop get this data from that. So it's not like representative of every comic shop.

Ben Kingsbury: 31:01

Probably about a third. Yeah, yeah, a little over a third, but yeah, still good. But it gives you a good picture, right? Absolutely nice sample size.

Badr Milligan: 31:06

Yeah, so I want to talk about, I want to go ahead and what were the top 50 comics, not obviously all 50, but the top 10. Uh top 50 comic books by units of March 2026. Um, I'm going to just name some of these lit uh titles. You just tell me what comes to mind. How did they do here at the shop? What was the reception from the customers, et Okay. Uh okay, so it says here that the top, the number one book of March 2026, you know, by units, uh, no surprise here was the DC Marvel Superman Spider-Man one-shot Um, I don't have the unit information, so but it's

Ben Kingsbury: 31:42

It doesn't matter, it's the coolest event of my entire okay? Yeah, hands down. Uh, I mean, I love Superman and Spider-Man, regardless. I got my Superman shirt on for this, and Spider-Man is probably my favorite Marvel character. Uh, they the last time they teamed up together was in Treasury edition in this late 70s. So that alone is cool. On top of it, uh, story literally inside Superman is named Ben and Jonathan and Ben. It's Jonathan Kent and Ben Parker. So Jonathan and I are having the best thing ever. Jonathan, true story. Jonathan tried to buy that original art from me from that page because I loved it so much. You say Jonathan, uh, Ben and Jonathan, or at least see how much the artists wanted, but they drew it digitally and they did not have it for sale, which sucked. And then um, the other reason it was such a big deal we got to be one of only 15 places in the entire world do a retailer exclusive with Gerard Peral on the Spider-Man comic, the uh trade dress and virgin foil to a thousand. And that, again, for me is like the greatest thing ever. I don't never care about the money of that. That exists for ever. Yeah, it's got our logo on it.

Badr Milligan: 32:55

And do you think would you want Marvel and DC to do of these, or do you prefer that, you know, there's these years apart between these big would you do you want the more scarce, or do you want the more regular?

Ben Kingsbury: 33:06

If they're gonna do 26 covers, then scarce. Okay. Uh if you want to do uh Death Stroke versus uh somebody, Thor or something, just make up a thing. You want to do like a one-shot just those characters, one or two covers in a variant or in an incentive, then I it could be popular and beneficial to both. But if they do 20 covers every single time, it'll just people out. That's fine. Uh, and I mean, we've I've learned my lesson. There was one major flaw from this um whole rollout. Spider-Man Superman just came out for Marvel, you know, obviously in April. We're talking about March now. They just named them so similar. People still just don't understand. They're like, wait, did I buy those already? Is that a second print, different cover? I'm like, no, those are all new stories. Which is, you know, at least they flopped it because got the benefit of being first on the Deadpool Batman. So, you know, Superman on the DC side. Uh, but if they had just they should have maybe made it number two or swapped the name to something else, and that probably would have helped them a little bit. But no, really cool. Great idea, huge sales, um, as big a sales as you're get, crossing those two over. But if they were gonna do it in the future, it would to, they'd have to make it a little scarce. Like make it like one cover, you know? You always run out of something and there's only one Marvel. It's like number four of a series. Everybody's like, Do you have that? I'm like, no, man, they only made one cover, bro.

Badr Milligan: 34:31

Okay, all right. So that was the number one uh top comic of March. Number two, Daredevil number one.

Ben Kingsbury: 34:36

How did Daredevil number one do for well? Great, a very good story, but it was because of the bags. Yeah, that's why the sales were the number two, because um, you know, I got 780, 68 blind bags or something. I would I would have never got Daredevil would have been way not that it wasn't great, great first story, of a brand new villain, very well drawn and very Seven Phillips, love it, but um it was it would have been uh the blind bags definitely whoop.

Badr Milligan: 35:05

Ben, I'm thinking about uh I think one year ago, not but I think a year ago when we were recording uh this to prep for free comic day 2025, it was shortly after Battle Beast blind bag, which I think it's safe to say kind of kicked off the resurgence of blind bag mania. Yep. Um, I'm sure you could probably list all of the blind bags that have come out in a since you know a year ago. Do you feel like it's it's too much now, or is it kind of like yeah, it's not really bothering.

Ben Kingsbury: 35:33

No, I think you uh I think we've learned our lesson, and I think some publishers uh uh decided that like quite figured out because to sell a blind bag, you to have a golden ticket. You have to have an item, whether it's a one in a incentive variant, it is very rare, something like that, or hand sketches drawn in there, or just something uh when Battle Beast came out, they put a number two in there. You could get an advanced copy, or you could get it. Remember, they did the Marvel team up, the reproduction with Marvel Spider-Man made it super popular, So you have to put something in there. I love Dynamite, and we've done a number of Dynamite including Thunderhawks is the coolest thing However, um the blind bags they make, while they're cool, they're kind of like only things you can get in there, there's not there's no golden ticket, essentially. So there's no reason to keep buying. You know, when you do the blind bag with Daredevil, the idea was you could get a blank sketch cover done by or a high-end one in a thousand, or there were a couple of Daniel Warren Johnson and Dan Penossian versions. So you could just keep buying and buying, buying it didn't matter because you were still you could get you gotta the blind bag has to have a uh golden ticket, or it's not effective. Let me ask you this.

Badr Milligan: 36:50

Uh, who do you think has done the best blind bag?

Ben Kingsbury: 36:53

Yeah, well, uh Battle Beast was the best because it was the best price point. So um I loved what they did and they did a great job. Marvel um unfortunately messed up with the bag that they were doing on Endgame One. Uh, they learned their lessons. Stuff happens in life, man. You know, until you do something, you don't know that it didn't work out. So they tried to do a blind bag. They we had to return all of ours essentially. Because they were all damaged. Yeah, because they damage. So we return those. Uh, but Marvel's done a great job on their blind bags. They do very, very well. And then I'm looking forward to um, you know, there's a huge comic coming out for the Energon Universe this summer called Mask. It is, uh, I could sing the song to you right now, but not going to because I don't I'm tone deaf. But Mask is coming out and they're doing blind bags for that. And then the Queen in Black. I gotta say, I um I give Marvel a hard time. And while some of their stuff still, I wish that they pivot and go in a little bit different direction. This year's been pretty good over the last six They've really done well. I mean, the null storyline, King and Light, has been good. Him coming back, the Queen in Black stuff with Hella is about to kick off their whole summer. They're doing blind bags for that. I got a bunch of those coming in. I'm very excited about that. And then as good as Spider-Man has been written in a time is this Death Spiral storyline going on currently ASM. I mean, listen, we're only nine issues away from ASM 1000. That's bonkers. And really, no one even talks about it. That's like four months for Marvel. They'll put out Spider-Man six times a week.

Badr Milligan: 38:31

Yeah. All right, Ben, back to this list at number three, which is just bonkers to say this. The 18th issue of a comic, absolute Batman number 18 was the uh number three uh top comic book of March 2026.

Ben Kingsbury: 38:45

Every time it's new characters, if there's a new and they know a new character is going to be introduced in the absolute universe, everybody buys it because uh they sell out otherwise. And so they continue to crush. It doesn't matter what I get in, what covers I get. Um I get a lot of it, so I still have 18, I still have 17, 18, and 19. You got poison ivy, you got scarecrow, you got all these characters, Deathstroke, the Robins being cetera, et cetera. So yeah, absolute continues to crush, no doubt about

Badr Milligan: 39:14

Okay. I'm gonna jump around this list real quick so we can get onto another topic. But at number six, this is kind of interesting because brought it up, but uh a facsimile made its way onto this list. At number six, Marvel team up number 14, the facsimile put out by Image Comics, uh, was one of the top comic of last month. A facsimile.

Ben Kingsbury: 39:34

Yeah, well, so they did a foil version of it, so which great, and obviously Spider-Man, and then they did they got Todd McFarland involved. So they got him to draw Spider-Man again for the first in 35 years. So there you go. That's pretty much your answer. Invincible, the popularity of Invincible, so you can sell facsimile because if you want to read an comic, the facsimile is the best way. They did returns, they did Invincible Tima 14, they Invincible number one. So they've they've done some of those, and then they McFarland to draw Spider-Man for the first time in 35 super collectible.

Badr Milligan: 40:06

No, that's pretty cool.

Ben Kingsbury: 40:07

And then did a couple other covers. So you do four different variants, facsimile, and I I know I bought a bunch because we still have people in looking for it, and we um and it's it's good to to have in your shop. Anything invincible.

Badr Milligan: 40:19

You know what I like about uh the facsimile facsimile's feels like it's it's also gotten like a new sense of like a resurgence as well. And I I really like how I think it's DC for sure, that's reprinting all of the old school treasury edition size Oh, yes, you know, from like uh, you know, I think last year I ended up buying like the they did a facsimile the Superman Wonder Woman crossover. The I think in the back right now you got like the Superman and Spider-Man crossover. It's cool that they're reprinting.

Ben Kingsbury: 40:49

They did that Muhammad Ali, remember Superman. Which I mean, some of these books, you know, fetch a penny. Um but even now trying to get that one is is a now because that does happen. I tell people all the time if action comics gets printed, you should buy it. For $6.99, there's no reason to never buy a copy of because if you go back and look for an action comics that came out six years ago, it's $25 already. You know, I mean, that's uh it literally is never a time to buy a facsimile of either amazing fantasy, they never do, but action comics they do on Superman And then facsimiles are great, um great comics to check out. But like you were saying, even stories that DC has and collected editions, they reprinted the entire facsimile editions, the original. They just did, they're in the middle of doing Frank uh Dark Knight run returns run. So they're doing all of those with new covers. They got Jim Lee to do a cover, they got Frank Miller to do another cover, and then they did a regular in a foil version of it. And most of the time they do a foil facsimile. So Silver Surfer number one, the original Silver number one in a foil. I don't care if it's a facsimile. You never had one in foil before. So that's cool to me, just in general, no matter what, collectibility.

Badr Milligan: 42:07

Yeah, I I guess it's cool to see that uh these publishers are utilizing and pumping out more facsimiles. Now, granted, I do miss when they were like a dollar, Like when they first.

Ben Kingsbury: 42:16

Well, I mean, that would be nice.

Badr Milligan: 42:17

They are $6.99, but I mean, you know, but it beats paying a hundred bucks for this issue on eBay. And it got me thinking about what you said about with his mom looking for an issue in Invincible. You know, like a facsimile is a great solution for I'm surprised that, you know, they haven't hopped on every issue of Invincible as a facsimile. That would be I don't know.

Ben Kingsbury: 42:40

No, I'll tell you one thing that is snuck under the radars in terms of uh reprinting, and it's still to this to me, but it's Walking Dead Deluxe. Oh that's right. And because, and this is the reason, I have long boxes in here, and I want people to come buy them. No, but the real reason that uh you should Walking Deluxe is because they didn't do it in color. So they're doing it in color now, which is cool. I've never read Walking Dead from the very I read it every two weeks when it comes out in color, they already said they're not gonna print it in color. So the only thing, the only time you could ever own Dead, like a huge, huge giant hit in American culture full color, is in the Walking Deluxe Dead Deluxe comics. So person, I mean, there's 22 of us essentially about that get um all the covers. We've got a couple short box listeners. I won't call them out by name, but they get every cover of every issue. So they got, you know, nice stack of them. Um, but that is a huge one, and I I highly recommend still go back and try to get some of those because that there's nothing cooler. Walking dead in full color, and it's just an amazing, it really is a great comic. I mean, Kirkman's amazing.

Badr Milligan: 43:52

All right. I'm gonna uh obviously I've got a ton more I still want to get back to Free Comic Book Day, but you know what, man? I want to switch. I want to turn the tables on you today.

Ben Kingsbury: 44:01

All right, that'll be when I don't know any of the stuff ahead of time here, this is when I freeze up.

Badr Milligan: 44:07

As most listeners know, one of my favorite segments to on the show anytime I have a great interview lined up is the short box friends and family segment. You sponsor that segment. You are uh also a participant in that segment. You have been so amazing, uh uh you know, submitting for the likes of like uh Joshua Williamson and all the guests that I've had like this year. I bring up Joshua Williamson because he really and we just did it.

Ben Kingsbury: 44:30

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. When's that drop?

Badr Milligan: 44:32

Uh actually, it'll be uh like two weeks after this Okay, so everyone now knows I got a Joshua Williamson in the show. Oh, yeah, I guess we have that to the so Ben, I decided to turn the tables on you, and I've got some voicemails for you. All right, all right. I gotta, oh man, put me on the spot. Let's do this. So this first one, I'm gonna leave this one as I'm leave both of these as a surprise, but they're both names. Um and let's just take it away with this first

Dan Hastings: 44:57

Hey, Ben, it's your friend Daniel from Black Cat Comics. First and foremost, let me just say I thank you so much sending. In your question from my episode of the short box. It was super sick, had a good time thinking about that and finding a good way to answer it and having that So really appreciated. I'm going to go ahead and get to my question because what I'm here for. So, kind of what I would like to know is a little peek the curtain. You know, I was a customer of yours whenever the pandemic, you know, started and we had the shutdown here in Jacksonville and Florida and all of that. And uh there was a lot going on with comic book deliveries and so much uncertainty and everything at that And I'd really love to hear, as a comic shop owner, as a business owner, how you dealt with that level of and kind of what that did to you, how you persevered that and figured it out and everything. Um, if it was a really challenging time for you, I'd just like you to know as a customer, I had no clue. You always seemed in good spirits about it and So yeah, I'd love to hear your perspective on what that and how you made it through that. So thanks so much again. I really appreciate all the support and uh knowledge and everything that you've given to me. And thanks so much, dude. Talk to you later.

Ben Kingsbury: 46:24

All right, that's awesome. Well, I love Daniel. Daniel loves comics, so that's why I love Daniel because that's the whole point of being. I love comic shop owners that love comics, that want create, that wanna be a part of this. So great question. It's uh it's funny to go back and think about that because there is um it's there's a distinct month where we closed. One solid month, basically the month of April. Uh comics stopped getting distributed at the end of and then there were new new comics. Uh, I wasn't sure they said non-essential businesses be open. I actually felt an insane amount of pressure from members around the country. Uh shut down. Uh, don't worry about it. If you need if you lose money, we'll help you. Re you can always restart a business. You don't, because there was a lot of uncertainty about COVID at the time. No one really knew if if the last thing I wanted to do was be the guy with ABC News outside where I like killed two people trying to sell them comic books, and then like I'm the story across the nation.

Badr Milligan: 47:33

We take it to the limit here, but not that. Yeah, yeah.

Ben Kingsbury: 47:35

And it was so it was a super real uh no one knew So we all just that was the the hard part about that We just wanted to do what was best for everybody. So uh there were new new comics, um, and I decided I had just been open for about three and a half years or years or so far, leading up to that moment. And you know, the first couple years I was open, I was just learning the business. I didn't know much. Um, so I that month of April, I went home and I'll tell you what I did. I I did Lego sets. So many Lego sets. And I don't know what other people did when they were up in their house essentially, because you know, then didn't go out to eat, you didn't do anything, you really were locked up. You, you know, you were trying to do what was best for especially the first two, two and a half weeks, three Yeah, yeah. So I did a shit ton of Lego sets. And then money-wise, yeah, it sucked not making any The good news was uh there were no new products coming Um, so I didn't have to continuously buy product because comic book um stores are cash flow. And uh if I had to keep buying new product while not open, I would have gone bankrupt and out of business we wouldn't have existed anymore. Uh but the fact that there wasn't any and all I had to do was pay overhead. Um, I'm sure my landlords probably would have helped in one way or another, but I just kept paying my um, though those bills that I owed, but not having really helped. And I basically just weathered the storm, but it was a little iffy. So at the end of April, you know, you start looking bank accounts and you're like, well, I need to start out a way to make money. So at the end of April, I was gonna be open at the of May no matter what. They hadn't announced that comic books were coming back, but Florida had started talking about, hey, regular need to get open again. We need to try to get this economy going. Not everybody can stay at home. Um, so at the end of April, I started planning to be and I was going to either uh sell things on our Live, right? Um, sell things um online and then have people come it up essentially, drop it off. We were doing that. People drive up, bring it to their car for them, uh, for your order online, that thing. Then um, they announced that May 1st you could businesses essentially open in Florida. So that opened the door that I'm gonna be open, and smokes, was it crazy busy, which was the best thing ever for us because we really needed it. But people were so desperate. There were no new TV shows, no movies. No one had gotten new comics. They needed some escape. They came in and got every comic and anything they could find in here, and we were super busy. Middle May, uh, they started distributing comics again, and then we got a huge influx of new um a wave of like kind of coming out to check out. Oh, uh COVID reinvigorated the comic market. You saw the prices then, they went insane. People were overspending because they had money So they're overspending on old comics. It reinvigorated the comic market, it reinvigorated the card market, it reinvigorated the hobby market really had to find hobbies again. Like I said, I was building giant, you know, um 30-hour plus Lego sets, you know, and um so um it was great, even though I got, I mean, I'll be honest with you, I was down to my last like$5,000 that was in my account for shop. In fact, uh a couple here, Preston Scott and his wife uh, they went at the end of March online, filmed the sent it into T-Mobile's small business program, that they should award us a $5,000 small business because of COVID. Um, and it said they come here all the time. It was like a minute-long video, and T Mobile a $5,000 award after that because of the Scots.

Badr Milligan: 51:26

This is the first time I've ever used it.

Ben Kingsbury: 51:28

Yeah, so I mean, I was down to my last like couple dollars here trying to figure out I can pay rent again but like we need to start selling some product. And then um, they get me that $5,000 grant that came in. Obviously, I had to pay taxes on it, but um still was so amazing when I first got it. Really, it was like right when this place needed it. It was kind of like an angel. And to this day, I thank them every single day. I see them, but that was amazing. And then um, we were able to just get back into the and kind of pick up again where we left off and then add a bunch of people because the, like I said, the hobby again. So, yeah, no, it was it was tough uh sliding. You didn't know what was gonna happen, but um, I didn't know what was gonna happen in general. We didn't even know if the country was gonna reopen. You didn't know if like a strain of like illness was go through and kill everybody. Like, I forgot all about that kind of era of it because it's so much stuff happens in life. We really do block all this out, don't we?

Badr Milligan: 52:23

I was I think having a conversation either with with uh my wife or someone else, and we were talking about how feels that you know there's you know, uh PC pre-COVID and then you know, after COVID life. And hearing you say how uh COVID, the pandemic, all of reinvigorated, you know, the the resale market, the I mean card market's never been the same.

Ben Kingsbury: 52:47

You it's still.

Badr Milligan: 52:50

Obviously, it is not as fri it's not a frenzy like it but that momentum has I think st it has pushed it along so you know, I think we're still seeing I mean you tell me if I'm wrong, but you know, you're doing whatnot shows every Sunday, you know, like the rise of whatnot, and know, we got eBay live. It does feel like that vintage we selling.

Ben Kingsbury: 53:07

It's a real rise of live selling. I don't know. I know Jack DeMaio and like some of the guys who whatnot, but I don't know the ideas that they got to whatnot. But my guess is the Facebook Live, Instagram Live, live. People uh around the COVID time were like, and I know I did that for a while with my Facebook page. I was selling stuff. We have a Facebook claim page now. You sell stuff on every platform. Um, and live selling is the future of everything. I was online this morning, absolutely I get I get lost these uh Chanel bag sales of these people spending on a whim. It's a 10-second countdown, and people are fighting of dollars, like no problem about to draw 2,600 bucks on this bag. And the bag might be worth seven grand in a normal So I understand it's still uh, I mean, and I buy comics all the time, but rarely, even if I was gonna buy a comic, it probably is not gonna be on a swipe on whatnot, but that's gonna be reality. Nordstrom's isn't gonna exist anymore except to hold product and to send the drone with the product to the house to draw. Yeah, wait till um like big corporate retail start online sales because right now it's kind of like the market, uh right. Um comics have gotten into it. So Boom's got their thing going, all of them. I mean, Scotty Young's got his own retail, he me to sell us, Kyle McKee sells it. J. Scott Campbell sells it.

Badr Milligan: 54:50

They, you know, so they're kind of like a little bit of this new direct to consumer.

Ben Kingsbury: 54:54

Right. Where it's like, oh, uh, but that hasn't happened in and it's going to. It's going to, no matter the market that you can think it's going to be you buy it online right now, and it's to be brought to you by a drone to your house. All right. Big shout outs to Dan over at Black Cat Comics.

Badr Milligan: 55:11

He's great. If you haven't seen his interview, um, check that out because that was a fantastic conversation. All right, Ben, I got one more surprise voicemail from and I am so excited for you to hear this one. All right, let's play it.

Tyler Kirkham: 55:23

Ben Kingsbury. Ben freaking Kingsbury's the man. I love this guy. Um Tyler Kirkham. Dude, he's always been an amazing supporter of mine. This is Tyler Kirgham, by the way. Um he was a huge supporter of Final Boss from back in day. Uh he backed the Kickstarter. He did it all sort of in Final Boss. He gets killed in Final Boss. Um, he's one of my favorite retailers, of my favorite My family loves him. Um, I'm excited to come back and do another signing. Also beach, man, when I come back.

Ben Kingsbury: 56:01

Yeah, 100%.

Tyler Kirkham: 56:02

Alright. Later.

Ben Kingsbury: 56:05

That's awesome. Oh, that's so awesome. That's the best thing I ever found. That's so good. Wait a minute.

Badr Milligan: 56:10

He was excited to descend it as you.

Ben Kingsbury: 56:11

Yeah, yeah. Tyler's so awesome. Uh um, I've been fortunate enough, like I said, in business um to interact with some awesome people Tyler is so amazing. Not only is he just a badass comic book artist, um, but you know, obviously he has his own comic that he's Final Boss, but he, but he he has always been an artist for the for the comic retailer. And what I mean by that is if you need something from I mean the talent level in 48 hours, he will have an comic uh cover drawn for you. You're like, bro, they need art by Monday. Boom, knocking it out. You're like, you're a wizard. It doesn't even make sense. And then he started writing uh Final Boss and having printed with image. And I think he started to uh realize because he going to people and being like, hey, you want to do a And they're like, Yeah, I can do it in like three And they're like, no, bro, I need it in like two weeks. You know, this comic is coming out next month. We don't even know what we're doing in the future yet. So he is very much a um uh comic shop artist. He has always done everything. He travels to all these cons to visit fans. He's awesome. And I know he was talking about his family. I'll tell you one of the best things that I have in this comic shop is that his kids, Indy and his daughter, uh, they drew characters and I have them hanging on the wall. So Indy Kirkham's first TMNT is hanging on the wall at limit, bro. It's so cool while they were here uh during his So um I uh Tyler is amazing. He's like as good as it gets. His final boss, his Mass Vigilante, comes out this week. Um, but the first thing we ever did was Moon Knoget, Marvel comic, and uh I would consider Tyler a friend now, and he's definitely a friend of the the comic book uh Um I'm lucky we just did a Transformer cover with him uh recently, and then like I said, his mass uh his Mass final boss needs to become a video game.

Badr Milligan: 58:12

Yes, uh co-sign on that idea, but hearing you mention his Moon Knight cover that he did, which when was that? ASM 2020, yeah, before COVID.

Ben Kingsbury: 58:24

This is like, yeah, this is before that all that stuff nine 2019.

Badr Milligan: 58:28

It got me thinking, I think that was maybe the first exclusive I had ever seen. Or or the first time I had been like, oh, whoa, wait, you can get a retailer can get their own special cover, and it's one of my comic shops. I I remember that being such a big moment because I like, huh, I guess, well, why can't a retailer get their own cover? So, and of course it was Tyler Kirkham, which put him on my radar. I had been a fan, and then I wasn't really sure where he had been, and then he ends up doing the cover for you, and then he ends up doing like the next five, six covers. I like to call Tyler Kirkham the unofficial like fifth Man, it's if I count the comments.

Ben Kingsbury: 59:04

Well, and I'm so spoiled because I'll be like, Hey you want to do a transformer cover? He's like, What do you want to do? And I'm like, I want to do this. And then like a day later, he sends me the cover. I'm like, this guy's awesome.

Badr Milligan: 59:14

Man, how many I know you could fill a short box with all the retailer uh uh variants that you've done, but about how many? What's the number on that? How many exclusives?

Ben Kingsbury: 59:22

Oh, I'm over 30 now, um, like in general of what we've Um, and like I said, it goes all the way back, but I will give credit to where credit is due. Uh, Kevin Eastman's TMT Last Ronin uh was uh I decided do an exclusive and it was the very first exclusive that the shop ever did on anything, and that comic was Remember the hype on that coming out? A line down the door out uh when we opened, and that was the first one we did, and we sold so many of them, and I was like, okay, this is something cool. And then I remember getting an email from Marvel and offering a specific, these are the titles that you could do. And I'm like, man, these are big print runs, but ASM is literally, I remember um, so they offered me a bunch of artists. I didn't even know Tyler at the time. So this is pre-final boss. So then they offered me a bunch of artists, and with you are not to contact artists. Marvel contacts artists, so you just tell Marvel want, and then they tell the artist. I said, Hey, can Tyler Kirkham do a cover? They said, um, sure. He sent me, um, they said, Do you have any kind of like what you want it to look like? And I said, Well, you know, honestly, my favorite comic of my entire life is probably ASM 238, the first of Hobgoblin. I love goblins in uh Spider-Man. I was like, could we have him ripping maybe um concho or something? You know, that was my first thought, and they were like, well, that doesn't work, but we can have him ripping an old suit. And then we did the ASM homage. Tyler reached out to me about getting some comics signed. Then we did Final Boss together uh during his uh run. It wasn't technically Kickstarter, but his great thing. And then all the way down from Ordain to Transformers, to spy I mean, he really is amazing, and uh, we're lucky we had him out here, and I can't wait to have him out again for sure, man.

Badr Milligan: 1:01:13

Hell yeah. Tyler Rocks. All right. I guess speaking about uh uh, you know, you mentioned his kids' artwork is hanging here. He mentions like his family loves you. Uh he's got me thinking about you know family and I'm just gonna go ahead and uh horseshoe this uh in. Let's get back to talking about free comic book days, will bring a bunch of families out. It's a very family-friendly event. I was taking a look at the comics coming out for free book day. I think at the moment, only 24 titles has been from what I can tell on the official site, which feels a little short.

Ben Kingsbury: 1:01:43

Well, it was a little weird because it's two different this year. So you have Free Comic Book Day, which Universal essentially bought from Diamond Distribution during and then Penguin Random House doing their comic day. Okay, so maybe I only found one list. And then, and it's it's yeah, and so there isn't uh still a decent amount of titles, and then there's some Dark Horse where they jammed all their titles into one, like He-Man, Avatar, Minecraft, that kind of thing. Um, but there is a decent amount and some really cool I know one that you're gonna love, dude. They're doing, they're giving you the double Conan and the Sumerian, dude. Two different kinds of titles.

Badr Milligan: 1:02:22

I thought you were gonna say there's a Street Fighter comic title. Oh, yeah, well, obviously that's well, Ben, let's it. Yeah. What's looking like the early contenders for most must-have free comic book day titles? And maybe what are some sleeper free comic book titles?

Ben Kingsbury: 1:02:36

Okay, well, the most the I'll tell you here's the one I have to practice over and over and over again. Dungeon Crawler Carl. Looks like it'll probably be the most popular free book day comic that comes out, uh, in my opinion so far. I don't know, there might be another one. It's usually a smaller title that you haven't of. Uh, luckily, a lot of people have asked me about that already, so we got a decent amount of them in. But I think that one is going to be a huge, huge one. Um, and then I obviously um DC and Sonic is so fun. It was so good, and they're doing another one called DC Sonic Metal, and so they've got a new one coming out, and that's brought a lot of uh younger people in to read, you know, kind of the crossover event. So I'm I'm looking forward to that as well. The Energon Universe, uh first appearance of a new in this one, and you're first gonna get your first of mask. That is uh the uh the characters from an old 80s TV show that they are bringing Matt Tracker and everything the Energon universe. Um, shout out to the last chat Zudus for doing an That's not even up online yet. It comes out in June. So that's gonna be awesome. Um, they you know, they have the next DC next level coming out. So if you are interested in seeing if you like The Terminator or Batwoman or Barbara Gordon or any of titles, that'll be coming out. Something's killing the children, Power Rangers is all over again. Obviously, Marvel's got uh their couple of events going on. So the Armageddon X-Men crossover and then an ASM in Black. Um, and then um if you've been reading any Marvel, seen Paramount a lot of the stuff. So you're gonna get some more predator, some more alien, and some more um what's the third one that always with those? Alien Predator and uh Planet of the Planet of the Yes. There you go. Yep. So that so those are all gonna be awesome titles. I mean, there's even you know, there's adult ones, Gun um, Coney and the Barbarian, um, Nice House by the on lake. You know, I try so hard to get into Nice House on by lake and Nice House by the Sea by James Tinney and Tiny and the story seems cool when I read the premise. For some reason, I struggle to get into that story. I don't know why.

Badr Milligan: 1:04:48

I love the first one, and I meant to go uh catch up with the second one. Maybe I'll use this opportunity.

Ben Kingsbury: 1:04:53

Yeah, we'll have to do that. But for the first time.

Badr Milligan: 1:04:54

But Ben, I I think I'm looking at like my I've maybe one more question for you, and I'm looking at your list. I'm like, I wonder what he's got on there that I don't So, Ben, let me ask you this one one uh one last and then uh if you want to uh I got a few little I okay, no big deal. How about this? How about this? Because I always ask this every year. What would you say is the the biggest sleeper comic of the first quarter of 2026? That you feel like not enough people are putting uh are checking out or or you know has gone under the radar.

Ben Kingsbury: 1:05:24

Yes, okay, there's two. Um DC's Vertigo line are very, very good. I literally have a question about how is the relaunch Vertigo? Okay, yeah, End of Life, Kyle Starks and Steve Pug um amazing. Is End of Life is amazing, but um even The Perilous, Dark is a great one, Bleeding Hearts, Dennis Camp is a is a great story. Dennis Camp writes great comic book stories, so those great. So I really do enjoy the the DC um vertigo line that they have going on. Um the other one that I I I tell everybody for purposes that uh maybe it's just because I'm 46 years but Thundercats Times, Silverhawks, it's gonna be a series. Declan Shelvy, Ed Brisson are doing it together. Declan is amazing. Not only is he an awesome dude, but he writes and the whole Thunder Cat story. Yeah, so I mean, and he's doing that. So they just did it for the first time ever, Thunder So I think in the future that that stuff um has a huge you want a spec buy, spec buy on Thundercats and the crossover, because if they ever make like an animated or TV show in the invincible style universe, I could that being huge. And I think people are sleeping on those properties. I think Thundercats was popular for a reason in the 80s, and I think it can be super popular again if they do it correctly, sort of like Sonic got a good relaunch, got a good relaunch, that kind of thing. And then speaking of TV shows, still not enough people collecting. The Transformers, Void Rivals, and G.I. Joe stuff. I mean, we still have a huge number, don't get me wrong. I mean, we used to sell 17 copies of Transformers. Now we sell hundreds of copy, uh, hot hundreds of copies of Transformers. So it's still, but it's going, they've already that there's going to be an Energon Universe animated like in the style of Invincible. So if you just look at Invincible and look at the it would be a no-brainer in terms of the stories, awesome and great, great reads. They've never done a better job uh reinvigorating the for a modern time. But on top of it, it is huge collectability purposes as soon as that animated show drops, everybody's be looking for those comics. So kind of like a random one. And then if you just want two independent publishers to read, if you love to read comics and you want to collect, then you should be reading Bad Idea Comics and Ignition Press comics, the number ones of all of their titles. And then if you like it, continue to get that stuff. But but all of them are awesome.

Badr Milligan: 1:08:05

Now, Ben, in terms of uh we've we've been talking about, you know, the the privilege you have of reading like reviews, you get all these advanced copies. Looking into the future, you know, over the summer, usually when we get like the big summer events for uh and and whatnot. What are you excited for in terms of uh future releases?

Ben Kingsbury: 1:08:24

Well, I'm I one of them was Mask. I'm obviously very hyped on that. Anything added to the Energon universe is gonna just to be great. Uh Terminal. I don't know if you've heard of it, the Robert story terminal that is coming out. Uh that is gonna be a huge, huge smash hit. Um so I'm very excited about that. Um, we are lucky enough to do an incredibly small of a retailer exclusive for a brand new Zach coming out in June called Only the Savager Left. And I he I was lucky enough to read an advanced uh PDF of that, and it is awesome. It is like Fallout mixed with Walking Dead. Uh Zach Kaplan's stories are amazing anyway. Yeah, he's amazing. So this is really so I really looking forward to that. He has another one coming out called Smart Division as So anything Zach Kaplan, you know, I love been fantastic. So that's what I'm really looking forward to. And then um IDW has kind of rebranded a little bit, you know, their new logo, the ID. And then um they're doing a new crime um genre of So they have their regular IDW stuff, and then we're have a IDW dark, right? Yeah, exactly. And uh the one I'm most looking forward to is Killer It looks to be like uh some kind of professional Siri Golfer, essentially, but it looks great. It's dark. They have a new um murder mystery one, Seven Wives, I is a title. I might be wrong off the top of my head. Uh, but that's the first one that's gonna kick off um crime wave. But the killer influences title this summer, I for. All right, here is my Mad Cave Studio pick of the year. It is called the New Space Age. Um, the writer is let me see who I got going on. Kenny Porter, an art by uh Mike Becker. Uh it is a uh disgraced astronaut whose uh brother by aliens and wants to get back into outer space, but well thought out um strategic comic. So if you're looking for a cool one, uh Mad Cave Studios New Space Age, couldn't recommend it more. Uh He-Man sort of flaws, the movie's coming out, so gotta crush it with that. Skeletor gets a new sword, Tim Seely's reading it, and he's writing like everything else. Okay, Freddie Williams doesn't get enough love. Okay, he's amazing, he does the interiors of so much T M T He-Man. He's crushing all the time, doing so many covers. I think he might be 10 different people, but he's doing the art of He-Man, so we're so fortunate and lucky. It's as good as it gets. So the He-Man storyline was awesome. And then uh Tony Fleeks and uh um Dean Menkenno DMont Menico. Minico? How do I say that name? G. Dominico?

Badr Milligan: 1:11:15

Gian Domenico. Yeah, something like that.

Ben Kingsbury: 1:11:17

He's doing the artwork. Death Stroke the Terminator is back, and uh, it's Stroke that we all wanted in our lives. You need a good Terminator. By the way, Tyler Kirkham loves Death Stroke. That's a little psychic.

Badr Milligan: 1:11:27

And I think no more, man. No more. Okay, that's all I got for you. I think because I'm sitting here thinking about all the times that I have tried to add or list out every title mentioned in an episode, and I literally run out of limits for the episode up to.

Ben Kingsbury: 1:11:42

Oh, yeah, because I'm just spitting about. You need to check this one out, guys. I think I think we've got plenty of characters. I think we crushed it.

Badr Milligan: 1:11:48

Yeah. Uh and I I guess in closing, uh, if you are in the Northeast Florida area on Saturday, May 2nd, free book day. It's mandatory here at the limit, all right? It's all we do.

Ben Kingsbury: 1:12:00

Uh, you know, I don't, I'm not a well-rounded right? I uh I uh I'm not good at anything else. I uh want to make free comic book day the best everybody can have. And uh we're lucky and fortunate to do it. We're gonna open at 9 a.m. if you are close enough. 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. till the sun sets. Let's take free comic book day to the limit, baby.

Badr Milligan: 1:12:20

There we go. I'm gonna have links in the show notes if you want to out some more information on uh this year's free day event. I'm also gonna have links to uh the Gotham City Limit uh online store, by the way, which uh I saw you guys got a facelift on the website. Oh, yeah.

Ben Kingsbury: 1:12:34

Well, you know, it really has. Not only do we have retailer exclusives up there that can get, but the goal is in 2026, like I told you in the last time, being online and exposing Gotham City the nation and the world. We just sold our first comic ever to Hong Kong right our website. I know that's not a big deal, but that's cool as shit to me. And then we sold one to Brazil for the first time ever of Gerard Peral, he is Brazilian. Um, so you know, um, this is uh an amazing thing. We're gonna get more and more of our regular comics up. So you can get like regular comics on our on now. Taking over the wall. And so, I mean, that's the next positive step, Nothing will ever um sacrifice, will never sacrifice the shop here. But being online, gothamcitylimit.com, baby, let's it to the limit. That's what I'm talking about. Ben, first episode of the year. Thanks so much, man. So glad you didn't let me come.

Badr Milligan: 1:13:22

Listeners, thank you so much for checking this out. I got my intro coming in. Check out the show notes for helpful links uh to a of the things we talked about. That being said, this is the Short Box Podcast. We just finished talking to the owner of Gotham City Ben Kingsbury, about free comic book day. We talked about the best comics of the year, the top comics. We talked about Tyler Kirkham. Uh we talked about COVID.

Ben Kingsbury: 1:13:45

All right, we got everything covered a lot.

Badr Milligan: 1:13:48

So thank you so much for tuning in, and I'll catch you uh next week. All right. Hey, look, I spoiled it. Joshua Williams said coming on the podcast soon. Stay tuned for more. Peace, y'all. Bye.