2010, the Year in Review at CBH
This month, Captain Blue Hen starts celebrating having been on Main Street, Newark for 30 years! That has to makes us one of the oldest continuous comic shops in the nation!
Believe it or not, we still have some customers who have been with us since the beginning – a couple even before there was a Captain Blue Hen Comics. Back in 1980, I opened a shop called The Stale Gum Trading Company with a good friend, Robert Welch. The name? Oh yeah, we were drinking a few brews, talking about teaming up and starting a collectibles shop together and tearing open new packs of baseball cards. Back then, they still had bubble gum in them, and, as they say, the rest is history. We were not “partners” per se, but shared the space and overhead. Bob was the “card guy” and I was the “comic guy” who also happened to have cards. We had separate inventories. We expanded fairly quickly and needed more space. In January, 1980, I decided to leave our spot on Market Street, Newport and opened Captain Blue Hen Comics at 286 E. Main St with my friend and co-teacher, Bob Horn (I credit Bob with actually getting me into the comic “biz” some years earlier). 286 is right in front of this site and is now occupied by First Light Barber Shop. Quickly outgrowing this spot, we were the first tenants to sign a lease in what is now known as Market East Shops. Two moves to accomodate the expanding Newark Co-op, as it was called then, and here we are!
So what happened last year?
January From past experience, it is not wise to schedule any special events this month. The weather is too unpredictable, and if you remember, we got hit hard last winter! Naturally, Dave and Kita were working on the website and even during white-outs, one could log on and get updates, reviews and find out what was new in the shop.
February As noted above, trying to ever improve the site, Dave and Kita (Joe and I should take no credit for the site) got our forum up and running. The big news in the comic world was a copy (8.0) of Action Comics #1 was the first comic to have a documented sale of ONE MILLION DOLLARS! Less than one week 
later, a couple of Batman geeks, eh, RICH Batman geeks, bid a copy of Detective 27 up to $1,000,750 to set the new record for a comic. (Of course, Superman assumes his rightful position just a few short months later when another copy of Action #1 sells for a million and a half!) And more snow!
March Better weather, but not for our neighbors at The East End Cafe, which closed without warning on a Monday night. If they could have counted on the standing-room only crowd they had just two night earlier when my favorite original band, CUBANE, played, they would still be in business. This month also saw the last decent sized golden age collection to come into the shop – the “Jeff and Dale” collection, named after the two brothers who just had to write their names on the covers of most of the comics! Grrr!. Other 
significant events include Dave pushing Walking Dead (he’s always ahead of the curve); my potential law suit against Stephen King; Chuck Norris‘ birthday; and the passing of Dick Giordano, a good friend of a pair of Newark connection fan favorites David Michelinie (writer/creator of Venom and many, many others) and Bob Layton (Iron Man: Demon In a Bottle and many, many others). Mr. Giordano helped Dave and Bob launch their Future Comics line.
April Other than filing our taxes, waiting to see who Archie finally marries (he married both?) and 
gearing up for Free Comic Book Day, this month was fairly quiet.
May As EVERYBODY knows by now, the first Saturday in May IS Free Comic Book Day! Again, another huge crowd (not our biggest, but still around 1,400) enjoyed the day with our guest artists and characters. The Newark Arts Alliance joined in again. Within two weeks, I picked up 3 decent sized silver age collections and CUBANE was affected by the Gulf oil spill – drummer, Matt, left for what amounted to be about 8 months to help in the clean-up effort. We starting offering special deals, “unadvertised specials” if you will, only to those who read the stuff we put up here on the website. Look for them!
June We and our customers had a great time as all around nice guy and artist extradionaire, Dan Parent, of Archie fame, did a store signing. The comic world unfortunately saw the loss of Al Williamson, probably best known for his classic work on Flash Gordon.
July Another successful 4th of July Flea Market, although we had to cut back on the number of tables we could have due to the Natural Foods store deciding to be open and host their Sunday Farmers’ Market. Still, it was a good day, but VERY warm. On a sad note, Harvey Pekar, author of American Splendor and with a Wilmington, Delaware tie (his wife, Joyce, was associated with the old Xanadu shop at the end of 
Market Street passed away. Superman walks the streets of Philly, and…ta da, the new and improved CBH tee-shirts arrive!
August Superman saves the day! Again! Yep. I know I keep bringing him up, but right after his record setting sales, a family facing foreclosure of their home finds a copy of Action #1 in a box in the basement! The Blue Rocks hold a special event, Heroes Night, and CBH is the sponsor. Hundreds of copies of a special comic featuring CBH on the cover and a really neat story ad created by Dave, Joe, David Michelinie, and John Gallagher were given away. We have a few left at the shop for the asking. We had two store signings this month. Ryan Clayton, a professor at Michigan State, made 
a stop at CBH promoting his comic under Elephant Eater Comics and did a video interview of Joe and the store. Chrissie Zullo, cover artist of Cinderella: Fabletown, visited just before her appearance at this year’s Baltimore Con. Speaking of which, a contingent of CBHers were present at the con and helped make the shop’s presence as they sported our new spiffy tee-shirts.
September Originally, I had wanted for us to sponsor a local comic book show during this month, but plans fell through. In addition, a local promoter was having collectible shows on almost a weekly basis at that time.
October Kita adds more features to our online presence—Facebook and Twitter. Mensa starts their own Heroes Bracket Challenge, similar to the NCAA March Madness Pools. A fair number of our customers try to match them. DC announces that they plan on cutting back almost all of their titles to the old $2.99 price point. Halloween saw the start of one of the best shows on air – “Walking Dead” Hey, isn’t that the book Dave was pushing months ago?
November The election took everyone’s attention – especially our senate race,
which became the top story on all of the news and talk shows and constant fodder for comedians. The website added another feature – podcasts. Joe appeared on TV. By the way, all of the podcasts, movie trailers, reviews, etc. can still be seen if you go to the archives section found on the right side of this page.
December If YOU haven’t been reading our site, MENSA has! We were contacted by the “High IQ” organization about our use of their Heroes Bracket Challenge. They were happy to see the publicity, mentioned us on their website, and sent us promo information, brochures, and bookmarks that are available right now at the shop. The final “battle” pitted Superman versus Einstein. We will not know that outcome until the March issue of their magazine, The Bulletin. Diamond Comics, our distributor, has agreed to ship comics on such a schedule that we should always get them for Wednesday release (unless there is a severe storm or what-not). Gearing up for the holiday season, we sponsored another annual showing of “A Christmas Story” on the biggest screen in the area – The Cinema Center in the Newark Shopping Center and hosted several artist signings in conjunction of our sketch cards promotion. What’s a sketch card? It’s a normal trading card sized piece of art. Our guests would draw any character on it that a customer wanted. These are then put in a plastic screw-down frame and are suitable for gifts or to keep as one’s own collectible. There are a number still available at the shop as we commissioned the artists to do extras for us. Kita ran another VERY successful toy drive which even received coverage on the Diamond Comics website. And, finally, the top event of the year happened right at the end – Joe and Dani added a new staff member to the CBH family! Master Nicholas came on board on Tuesday, December 28th at a healthy 8 pounds 10 ounces!! Mom and baby are doing well. What a way to start the new year and here’s hoping that the rest of 2011 is good to all of us!
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