Where is 33?

[GregHyland]

My comic store got in series 35 today (Jim Lee X-Men). But what happened to series 33?

[Nessex]

Not sure buddy.

Lukes Toy Store has had wave 33 in stock for a while now. I'm expecting mine in the mail in the next couple of weeks

You might need to ask you LCS? My LCS is pretty sporadic when it comes to stocking MiniMates.

[karamazov80]

You'll have to ask your comic shop guy, because it was released.

[bsrj22]

Wave 35 is actually the IM2 movie mates. The X-Men are Wave 34.

[Gillbob316]

It's entirely -possible- that your comic book store ordered and pre-sold the whole wave, so you never even saw them. It's happened at my local store. (Dreamland Comics, in Schaumburg IL) a few times, which is more or less why I stopped getting minimates there. I was sick of walking in only to find out the new mates sold out before the store even opened.

With some waves, I could walk in at 10 am Wednesday, the whole set would be on the shelf with a big "NEW" sign, and I'd buy it. I got the X3 wave this way. I got the Spider-Man Movie waves both this way. I got a couple misc waves thsi way. Those were good days.

With other waves however, I'd walk in, again, 10 am, the day the new wave hit... they wouldn't be there... I'd ask "Did a new set of minimates ship today?" (knowing full well that one did) and they's say, "Oh yeah, we got them but they were all reserved to pre-orders. We can order them for you if you'd like." to which I'd respond no thanks, and toddle off.

I don't... mind preorders, per say, but it's just stupid to me, that I can walk into a store the minute they open, on the day a new product is released, 1st person there at the crack of dawn, money in hand, and be told the items have already been sold. I would think that most stores woul be good enough to their consumer to at least keep some stock set aside for shelving. I thought the point of preorders was to give the store an idea of how many they should order above and beyond what they already planned to order. And what they already planned to order, I would think, should be on the shelf.

Frankly I've stopped buying regular wave minimates from stores. I was sick of the unreliability of it all, and eventually I realized it was just cheaper to get them online.

My comic book stores (Most comic book stores) charge $7.99 a set, so that's 23.97 for three sets WITHOUT the variant. Add the variant to that, which will cost you at minimum another $7.99, possibly more if your store gouges you simply BECAUSE it's a variant, up to about $14.99, and you're already paying way more than it costs to order a whole wave online these days. Anywhere from $32 to $38, plus tax.

A whole wave at CornerStoreComics.com costs $32.69 with shipping. WITH shipping, that's the same price. CHEAPER, if your store overprices the variant. And that value only increases if you're ordering multiple waves together, since you're saving on combined shipping. (And I almost always order multiple waves together, since minimate waves almost always ship in pairs.)

Do you have to wait an extra week or two for them to get shipped? Yes. However, when I can't walk into my comic book store on release day and get them... what's the difference? I'd be willing to pay my comic shop a little more, IF THEY'D ACTUALLY SELL THEM TO ME. But no, they sell them to the regulars that pre-ordered, and only offer to order more for me.

They order them for me and I pay more, or I order them myself and pay less? Might as well just order them myself.

So like I said, I've more or less stopped buying regular waves in stores. I buy the TRU waves from TRU. That's about it.

But I'm done now. Forgive my bitter rant. lol...

[BannersID]

(Dreamland Comics, in Schaumburg IL)

I stopped frequenting this store for the very same reasons in your post.