Frequently-Asked Questions
How much does it cost to special order something?
It will not cost anything extra to special order a product. Only the price of the item in question.
Do I need to pay up front when I special order product?
Very rarely. Usually this is only true of product that is extremely limited.
How does a subscription work?
Comics come out regularly. They can be published weekly, twice monthly, monthly, every two months, and so on. When you sign up for a subscription, we simply “pull” a copy of the comic for you from our monthly order and put it into your subscription box every time they come in. We ask that you pick up your books once monthly, and that if you cannot do so you let us know.
What’s a pull box and is it different from a subscription?
It’s the same thing, just another name. We know it’s confusing.
Mike says a lot of words when I talk to him about my subscription/pulls – what do they mean?
We’ll try to hit the highlights here!
- Hook – When we tell our computer system that you want a book pulled for you, it generates a digital “hook” for each issue. This digital code is how we know to pull the book for you every time it comes in. If a book does not “hook” correctly, it means we have no way of knowing to pull it. This is the most common error our software encounters and thus is the most common problem you, as a customer, are likely to hear about.
- Orphan – Sometimes when an item generates a hook (see above) it will lose the information regarding the person it was generated for. This means the order has been orphaned in the system. We know we’re supposed to pull it for someone, but we don’t know who.
- Specialty Order – This is a specific way of ordering a title for someone. Rather than placing a book on subscription order (see below), a single issue (or more) can be ordered as specialty items so they are only ever pulled one time. Most often this is done for much older issues or for graphic novels.
- Subscription Order – This kind of order is how we generate hooks (see above) for your pulls. It’s the most common way we order product for you.
- Post – When we place any order of any kind, we have to tell the system to post the order. Essentially, this is forcing the software to send the order through to the distributor. If the posting process is somehow disrupted, you won’t get your books because the distributor won’t know you ordered them.
- Final Order Cutoff – Two weeks before a book ships, retailers are given an opportunity to raise or lower their order numbers on a title. After this point, we can no longer adjust our orders. If you wish to add a title to your pull after this point and we have run out of issues which we can pull for you, we won’t be able to order more unless the publisher has printed enough. Most of the time, Marvel and DC print only enough copies of books to cover the numbers that come in via the Final Order Cutoffs. It is very important to tell us you want to order a book before FOC!
- Solicitation – This is the word we use for when the distributor allows us to order a book. When they solicit to us, it means they’re ready to take orders. Many times, customers will hear about a title from a news article several months before the book is planned to be released. Solicitations for books don’t usually happen until three months before their planned shipment date. We have no way of tracking orders until they’re solicited to us because they don’t exist anywhere in our systems until that point.
- Backordered – This means an item is out of stock, but not out of print. The distributor is waiting on another print run.
- Voided – A voided order is an order that the distributor has said they cannot fulfill. This is usually due to a lack of product on their end.