Howdy!

A very quick summary this morning, as we're preparing to drive the 1,050 miles back to Colorado in just a few moments. First, Sunday at the convention rocked! After a dismal Saturday of sales, everyone came back to the show on Sunday, and spent money on trade paperbacks and hardbacks with a vengeance. We had our best day ever at the convention, which allowed us to (finally...) earn a small profit. Whew! It feels really, really good to have pulled it out at the very end!

While we sold well over $100,000.00 in books at the show, the three huge cargo vans we are driving back to Denver are loaded to complete capacity. Our tailpipes are not quite touching the ground, but pretty close. That means that we are bringing back a wonderful haul of new trades and hardbacks for our online inventory. While that's great, shelving space in the warehouse does become an issue. We need to make some room very quickly on the Denver bookshelves or we'll be having to store boxes of trade books in the aisles. That's good news for you, as we just dropped the prices on all of our trades on our website to at least 20% off, with a slew at 30% off, or even better. The 40% off SANDIEGO07 codeword for back issues is also still in effect, so you can mix comics and books to meet the free shipping minimums (no express carriers).

My only other bit of important news is that the benefit auction for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund that we held on Saturday evening raised over $36,000.00 in three hours! The old record was $28,000.00 (set just last year...), so it is clearly evident that the fans who come to San Diego are wonderfully supportive of the cause of free speech. The staff of the CBLDF also did a great job of collecting donations, and the creative community was incredibly generous in donating artwork and scripts that I could auction off for big bucks. As per usual, a special thanks goes out to Jim Lee and Neil Gaiman, who provided the top-selling items of the evening. It makes my job as auctioneer a lot easier when I have wonderful items to put up for bid...

That's it. The vans are all gassed up, and the suitcases packed. We should be in Denver by tomorrow afternoon. I'll try and provide you with a complete wrap-up to this year's convention on Thursday.

Happy collecting!

Chuck Rozanski,
President - Mile High Comics, Inc.