Looking for the page to preorder the Exclusive Cover to have it shipped to you? Click Here!

WHAT TIME IS IT? ADVENTURE TIME!

Adventure Time, the huge Cartoon Network hit, will soon be a comic, published by KABOOM!, and Chapel Hill Comics is having a party to celebrate! We will host a launch party for Adventure Time featuring tasty snacks, an Adventure Time costume contest and an EXCLUSIVE CHAPEL HILL COMICS COVER to Adventure Time #1! The launch party will be Saturday, February 18, from 4pm until 7pm. Mark your calendars now!

The cover features Adventure Time characters Marcelline the Vampire Queen and Princess Bubblegum, and is drawn by Chapel Hill Comics owner Andrew Neal, which means if you want a signed copy (of his cover, anyway), we’ll be able to help you out. He ain’t gonna miss this party. This cover will be limited to just 500 copies, and will be available at the event for $15 ($15 is the in-store exclusive price. If you order online, it’s $20).We will be happy to reserve copies for you!

We’ll also have copies of the regular Adventure Time cover too, which will be priced at $3.99:

If you’re local and want us to hold you a copy of either the Exclusive Chapel Hill Comics cover or the regular cover, let us know! If you are not local and want to preorder the comic, we will be happy to ship! Just call the store at (919) 967-4439 during our business hours with your credit card, or you can PREORDER IT HERE.

Adventure Time Party!
Saturday, February 18
4pm until 7pm

Thanks!

If you’re a local customer, you may pick this up in the store once it arrives (or at our RELEASE PARTY February 18), and we’ll be happy to hold it for you. Just give us a call or come by! Folks in a far away land who may want one of these to complete your Adventure Time collection, we’ve set up a paypal button for you!

ADVENTURE TIME #1
Exclusive Chapel Hill Comics Variant
Cover Art by Andrew Neal
Only 500 Copies Printed
$20 plus shipping
This is a Preorder! Orders will ship after Chapel Hill Comics receives their copies (Approximately Feb 15, 2012)

Want more than one? You may change quantities after you add it to your cart!

Yesterday I posted our 25 best-selling comics of 2011. Today I’m posting our 25 best-selling books and graphic novels of 2011!

1. GO THE F*** TO SLEEP - This kids’ book parody was far and away our best-selling book of the year. Let’s just say that parents thought it was very funny. The audiobook read by Samuel L. Jackson fueled sales, but we all sold a ton to people who saw it, picked it up, read it, and laughed.

2. HARK! A VAGRANT HC - The Drawn and Quarterly release of Kate Beaton’s comic strip was a staff and customer favorite!

Special note: The first two books on this list are physical book versions of content that was free online. There’s a big debate out there about whether putting something out there for free helps or hurts sales of the book, and my take on it is this: If something is really good, having it out there for free helps sales of the book. Go to Sleep and Hark! a Vagrant are really, really good. People bought Hark because they love Kate Beaton’s work. If she were a mediocre cartoonist, having the stuff free online wouldn’t help sales for me. But she’s great. You know what else sells really well? Calvin and Hobbes. And Peanuts. Those have been finished for years, and you can read them in newspapers and for free online. It really is about the quality of the work. If no one wants to own something, having it out there for free will either not move the needle on sales, or will push them down, in my experience. Anyway. Seemed like a good place to mention that.

3. LOEG III: CENTURY #2 1969 - This could have gone on either list (and would have placed high either way), since it’s short for a graphic novel, but long for a comic. It does have a spine, so we left it in the book section. Anyway, it’s the most recent installment in one of the best-selling series we carry, Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

4. BONE COLOR ED SC VOL 01 OUT FROM BONEVILLE
5. SCOTT PILGRIM GN VOL 01 PRECIOUS LITTLE LIFE - Two classic titles from series which are over (that sort of doesn’t apply to Bone, as you’ll see later) which have always done well in the store! Bone is an all-ages series and Scott Pilgrim is aimed at teenagers and older, which is a pretty heavy contrast with, say, Walking Dead, or the first book on our list.

6. WALKING DEAD TP VOL 14 NO WAY OUT - The second most recent book in the Walking Dead series. Volume 15 didn’t place because it came out a little before the end of the year. It’ll sell a lot over time too! We definitely sold a lot of this series due to the TV show, but it was already a huge seller for us.

7. AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER TP VOL 01 LOST ADVENTURES - This has been a big surprise, and has led to the next Avatar graphic novel (due next Wednesday, I think) being one of our highest ordered titles of January!

8. UMBRELLA ACADEMY TP VOL 01 APOCALYPSE SUITE
9. WALKING DEAD TP VOL 01 DAYS GONE BYE - More best-sellers for us. I think Umbrella Academy has been in the top ten for us every year since it came out. Noboday’s surprised we sell a lot of Walking Dead, I assume. It’s placement on this list is definitely higher than it would have been without the show.

10. FABLES TP VOL 15 ROSE RED - Like Walking Dead volume 14, there was another one of these this year, but it came out so close to the end of the year that it didn’t chart as high as this one.

11. CHI’S SWEET HOME GN VOL 01 - Cute kitty cat comics from Japan for young readers! We kept these front and center in the store for a lot of the year because they sold so well for us. There are seven in the series so far, but the first one sells the most.

12. BONE: QUEST FOR THE SPARK SC NOVEL BOOK 01 - This is the newest Bone book. It’s a novel written by Tom Sniegoski with spot illustrations by Jeff Smith (as opposed to a collection of a comic written and drawn by Jeff Smith), but there was still a very high demand for this book!

13. HABIBI GN - Craig Thompson’s follow-up to Blankets moved a very respectable amount of books. Like Blankets, this was all about sex and religion. Unlike Blankets, this was a fantasy, or maybe a fable, rather than a memoir. He sure can draw.

14. AMULET SC VOL 01 STONEKEEPER
15. AMULET SC VOL 03 CLOUD SEARCHERS - Another kids’ series we sell by the boatload. I think Volume three beat volume two for us because we were unable to get volume two for a while.

16. BLACK DYNAMITE: SLAVE ISLAND GN - This is like LOEG: 1969 in that it’s shorter and cheaper than most of the stuff on this list, but it’s still technically a graphic novel rather than a book. It’s the companion piece to the fantastic faux-Blaxploitation movie and upcoming Adult Swim animated series.

17. AXE COP TP VOL 01 - A webcomic cowritten by the artist’s five-year old brother. That’s a recipe for success if ever there was one.

18. YO GABBA GABBA BOARD COMIC: GOOD NIGHT GABBALAND - In addition to the Yo Gabba Gabba plush toys, which were three of our top four-selling plush toys this year, we sold a lot of this kids’ book!

19. CURSED PIRATE GIRL TP - Beautiful, and out of print for most of the year. It’s a good thing we ordered a lot up front. I hope we can get more soon!

20. CHEW TP VOL 01 - This one had a slower build for us than for a lot of shops I know, but the comic about a cibopathic detective (he eats something and knows its history) has developed into a strong seller!

21. YO GABBA GABBA BOARD COMIC GABBA BALL - Here’s the other Yo Gabba Gabba board book!

22. AFRODISIAC HC - Not only is this a fantastic book which we handsell at any opportunity - our signing event with artist and cocreator Jim Rugg in February 2010 was one of our best events ever - but the release of Black Dynamite gave us an opportunity to sell even more of these this year. When folks came looking for Black Dynamite, more often than not, once we pointed it out, they were interested in Afrodisiac as well!

23. SIMON’S CAT - A casual humor book about a cat based on popular animated Youtube videos!

24. AMULET SC VOL 02 STONEKEEPERS CURSE
25. AMULET SC VOL 04 LAST COUNCIL - okay, here’s volume two of Amulet. And volume four! Like I said before, these were big sellers for us this year. They’re the successor to Bone as far as being a great fantasty series for kids!

There you go. I hope you enjoyed reading about what we sold well in 2011!

Thanks,
Andrew Neal, Owner
Chapel Hill Comics

Here are the 25 best-selling comics of 2011 at Chapel Hill Comics by quantity (as opposed to the amount of money made). This list is pretty heavily dominated by DC’s relaunch. In-store events also pushed items up the list, and a comic we’ve been carrying for more than 5 years p[uts in an appearance at number 11!

Tomorrow we’ll list our 25 best-selling books and graphic novels, and that list is very different from this one. While this group is mostly super-heroes, I don’t think there’s a single traditional super-hero book in the batch we’ll show you tomorrow. So here we go:

1. JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 - This was the biggest winner saleswise from the DC New 52 Relaunch. We ordered a boatload and have just now sold out of the first print.

2. BATMAN #1 - We also recently sold out of the first print of this one. Nice job, DC, on taking the top two spots.

3. FORMIC WARS BURNING EARTH #1 (OF 7) - We hosted Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston for a signing of this one, and had a huge turnout.

4. HELLBOY SLEEPING & DEAD #1 (OF 2) - We hosted artist Scott Hampton for this one, and did very well with it as well!

5. ACTION COMICS #1 - The third DC New 52 book to show up in our top selling comics list! No big surprise since Grant Morrison was the writer, and we always do well with his stuff.

6. FF #1 - There’s the first Marvel. This is the Fantastic Four relaunch/companion book.

7. HELLBOY SLEEPING & DEAD #2 (OF 2) - The second issue from our Scott Hampton signing.

8. DETECTIVE COMICS #1 - More DC New 52!

9. ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #1 - The relaunch with Miles Morales performed really well for us!

10. BATMAN #2 - Interesting that we’ve sold more of Batman #2 than Justice League #2! We just sold out of our initial order of Batman #2 but still have copies of our initial Justice League #2 order.

11. SAD ANIMALS - Eleventh place this year for local artist Adam Meuse! Sales over the last five years are enough for this to be our second-best-selling comic ever, behind Amazing Spider-Man #583, which featured the Barack Obama appearance!

12. JUSTICE LEAGUE #2 - More Justice League.

13. FANTASTIC FOUR #587 - The last issue of Fantastic Four before the relaunch into FF.

14. BATWOMAN #1 - We did great with the Detective issues featuring Batwoman, so this wasn’t a surprise for us.

15. ANIMAL MAN #1 - We knew Animal Man would do well with folks who like weird comics, but didn’t know how well it would go over with our superhero fans!

16. BATGIRL #1 - Folks love Barbara Gordon!

17. BATMAN AND ROBIN #1 - And Damian Wayne!

18. JUSTICE LEAGUE #3 - Even more Justice League!

19. BATMAN #3 - And even more Batman!

20. FEAR ITSELF #1 (OF 7) - Marvel’s 2010 Event barely cracked our top 20, but here it is!

21. DETECTIVE COMICS #2 - Batman.

22. SUPERMAN #1 - Superman. Nowhere near Action #1 sales levels, but that’s because it wasn’t by Morrison.

23. ANIMAL MAN #2 - Wow, Animal Man killed it!

24. BATWOMAN #2 - As did Batwoman!

25. NONPLAYER #1 (OF 6) - Other than Sad Animals, this was our only non DC or Marvel comic in the top 25! We ordered a big stack because the preview art was pretty, and sold them all. Here’s hoping for Nonplayer #2 sometime in 2012!

Art by Andrew Neal, circa 1986.

It’s Time for the Sixth Chapel Hill Comics Kid’s Art Show!

For anyone who wants to participate, our submission guidelines are at the bottom of the page.

The show opens on Saturday, December 17. We will host a reception from 4pm until 7pm, where you’ll be able to meet the artists and talk to them about their art.

Please come out and meet the artists and have some snacks.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Here are our submission guidelines for our Fifth Kids’ Art Show. The opening party for the show will be Saturday, December 17, 2011, from 4pm until 7pm.

* Submissions are due by Thursday, December 15. Please don’t bring them later because we need to hang the show Friday, December 16!
* Submissions must be by kids in middle school or younger!
* Artists are limited to one submission. We want to be able to display work by as wide a range of artists as possible, so we won’t be able to display more than one per artist.
* Submissions may be any media that we can easily hang. This includes paintings, drawings, photographs, collage, and more. Unfortunately this means most sculpture is out. A three dimensional piece which hangs from the wall is fine, as long as it’s not too heavy for us to display, but we will not have the ability to display free-standing sculpture.
* Submissions must be framed and ready for hanging. If the piece is painted on stretched canvas, we can hang that easily without a frame, but anything on paper needs to be framed. You don’t have to spend money at a frame shop; you can use any frame from the drug store, supermarket, or even thrift shop that fits your piece. We hate to turn anything away, but we will have to turn away art that is not easily hangable.
* The art doesn’t have to be comic-related, but it can be if you want it to!
* Art in the show does not have to be for sale, but it can be!
* You will get your art back at the end of the show, unless you decide to sell it and someone buys it.
* Feel free to call or email if you have any questions!
* If the art is for sale, the artist puts a price on the art. We’re not going to take a commission, so you don’t have to figure that in. Just set the price you’re willing to sell it for, or let us know it’s not for sale if it’s not!
* The show will last from Saturday, Dec. 17 through the end of the month.
* Teachers are welcome to present this art show to their students, but we cannot accept mass submissions from teachers. If kids want to participate in the show, they’ll need to have their parents bring them to the shop to drop off the art and fill out a form.
* Have fun!

We hope to receive submissions from lots of kids for the art show. The receptions for the kids’ art shows we’ve hosted in the past have been among the biggest we’ve done; they’re a lot of fun!

Thanks,
Andrew Neal
Chapel Hill Comics
316 W Franklin St
Chapel Hill, NC 27516

Chapel Hill Comics is pleased to announce our 2011 Day After Thanksgiving Sale!

We’ll be open regular hours Friday, November 25, the Day After Thanksgiving, for a big sale! Everything in the store will be on sale! That’s right, EVERYTHING, from comics to graphic novels to toys to art books to whatever you can think of! The EVERYTHING part of the sale will run from 11am until 2pm, and there will be selected items on sale all day!

Here’s how it will work:

* 11-12PM: EVERYTHING IS 20% OFF!
* 12-1PM: EVERYTHING IS 15% OFF!
* 1-2PM: EVERYTHING IS 10% OFF!
* 2-7PM: NO STANDARD SALE DISCOUNT

We will also have an excellent selection of items available at sale prices all day in our event room!

* ALL USED GRAPHIC NOVELS BUY ONE GET ONE FREE ALL DAY!

* ALL BACK ISSUES 50% OFF ALL DAY! This includes, individual back issues like the selections of golden and silver age stuff, as well as BACK ISSUE SETS!

* LIQUIDATION BOOKS (normally 50% off) 65% OFF ALL DAY!

* CHAPEL HILL COMICS ASGARD CALLING T-SHIRTS 50% OFF ALL DAY!

* SCOTT PILGRIM T-SHIRTS 50% OFF ALL DAY!

* NEW DISCOUNT: ALL DVDS 40% OFF ALL DAY!

We got Batman Beyond, Batman: Brave and the Bold, Family Guy, Futurama, Justice League: New Frontier, Peanuts Holiday Specials, Persepolis, Space Ghost, and Venture Bros DVDs. We’ve also got 4 different digital art tutorial DVDs! They’ll all be 40% off on Friday, and we’ve just got one each, so get here early if you want to load up!

* NEW: GREEN LANTERN STANDEE GIVEAWAY!

We’ve got this gigantic Green Lantern standee, which we’ll be giving away to someone who comes to Chapel Hill Comics on Black Friday! All you have to do is show up, stick your name and contact info in a box, and we’ll pick a name at the end of the day!

It’s got all your favorite characters: Al Jordan, Drill Sergeant R. Lee Ermey, Pinky, and Johnny Parrotfish!*

Perfect for any dorm room, kids’ room, laundry room, that room where you keep all your comics, or frankly, it would probably look fantastic right in the middle of your living room. How frequently do you use that coffee table anyway?

All you gotta do is show up on Friday and register to win. No purchase required!

Hope to see you there!

Chapel Hill Comics is proud to announce that we will host a signing party for The Zombie Hunters Book One on Saturday, October 22nd from 5pm until 7pm. Come by and pick up the first collection of this zombieriffic webcomic and get in the mood for a spooky Halloween! Have your book or poster signed by creator Jenny Romanchuk and talk to her about creating, publishing, and marketing a successful webcomic!

Jenny Romanchuk is a writer and illustrator imported from the frozen wastelands of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. She has a ‘girly girl’ nature that belies her works, and can be distracted by pretty clothes and sparkling objects. Jenny spends most of the day working on the comic, surfing the net, and being cold. If it wasn’t for her husband and partner in crime Greg, she would probably forget to feed herself. Jenny is under the belief that if zombies were to invade, she would be the first to die.

Her webcomic, The Zombie Hunters, began in 2004 as a gag autobiography strip for Jenny and her friends and soon became a project that outgrew its origins. Interest in The Zombie Hunters blossomed once it was posted online, and Jenny quickly realized that a plot was necessary. She sat down in early 2005 to begin a long-running storyline that draws in tens of thousands of readers each week. The gradual transition from humor to a serious feel is often remarked upon, but the change has so far been well-received by her fans.

The Zombie Hunters is a new look at an old theme. It is inspired by a post-apocalyptic vision of the future as well as past human history. This story follows a group of people as they go though life as survivors of the undead outbreak. The characters reside on an artificial island–the former site of the Argus Research Campus. The hunters, like so many others on the island, are infected: they carry a dormant strain of the virus, which will turn them into one of several different types of undead when they die. The infected are marked and segregated from the rest of the inhabitants on the island, making a living by working offshore in the wastes, hunting zombies and collecting salvage; by trading their freedom for safety. The ongoing story reveals more about the characters and their sordid pasts and uncovers hidden secrets about them, their world, and the people that surround them.

We have copies of The Zombie Hunters in the store right now! Come get one and see what you think! We also have some great posters (KEEP CALM AND AIM FOR THE BRAIN) designed by Jenny–perfect for your zombie panic room/office. If you really get into the comic, pick up an Infected patch for your body or its related accessories. At the event, Jenny will also have original artwork for sale!

Saturday, October 22, 5-7pm
The Zombie Hunters Signing!
Jenny Romanchuk will sign Zombie Hunters: Book One
Chapel Hill Comics
316 W Franklin St
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
(919) 967-4439
chapelhillcomics.com

OCT. 16: We received an email at 4am that the performers will be getting here late today. They’ll be here around 2pm and will need to set up, but will get them going as soon as possible. If you get here early, we’re running a great sale this weekend on back issues, used graphic novels, and liquidation books!

Chapel Hill Comics is proud to announce that our pal Adam WarRock is coming back to the store, and this time, he’s bringing Mega Ran!

Do you like rap? Do you like comics and video games? Do you like dudes who rap a lot about comics and video games? Then come out on the 16th! These guys were hand-picked to be a part of the Race Wars tour, headlined by mc chris, and they’ll all be appearing at the Cat’s Cradle (click to get your tickets) later that day.

Already coming to town for the show? Why not come into town a little early, pick up some comics, and meet some of the performers! It’ll be fun!

Adam WarRock: Official Website
Mega Ran: Official Website

Sunday, Oct 16, 1pm
Adam WarRock & Mega Ran
Chapel Hill Comics
316 W Franklin St
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
(919) 967-4439
chapelhillcomics.com

Chapel Hill Comics is proud to announce a signing with CreatureBox. We’ll have copies of Spider Island: I ♥ New York, which features an 8-page Spider-Kitty story with art by CreatureBox. It’s got fantastic art, and it’s just four bucks!

We’ll also have copies of the Ratchet and Clank paperback collection, since CreatureBox illustrated the covers for the series! At this point, you’d be forgiven for asking, “Just who or what is CreatureBox?”

At its core, CreatureBox is for anyone who enjoys bizarre monster design, comics of spacemen, and illustrations of everything in between. For the past several years, Dave Guertin and Greg Baldwin have spent most of their time digging deep into what makes characters tick while trying to tell a few stories along the way.

They’ve had influential childhoods filled with cartoons, robots, aliens, and creatures of all shapes and sizes.

Yet through it all they’ve found collaboration to be the most critical ingredient. Together this has allowed them to expand their sensibilities while challenging each other to become better designers. Through Creaturebox.com, visitors are invited along for the ride as Dave and Greg dive into the deep end.

Saturday, October 1, 2-4pm
CreatureBox Signing!
CreatureBox will sign Spider-Kitty and Ratchet & Clank!
Chapel Hill Comics
316 W Franklin St
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
(919) 967-4439
chapelhillcomics.com

Chapel Hill Comics is proud to be a part of the Elephant Eater Summer 2011 Southeastern United States Signing Tour!

Wednesday, August 3, from 5pm until 7pm, you will be able to meet Ryan Claytor, the mastermind behind Elephant Eater Comics!  Come pick up some great comics, get them signed, and Elephant Eater Comics is the comic book self-publishing venture of United States comics artist Ryan Claytor. Elephant Eater Comics, established in 2004, is committed to producing intelligent and entertaining comics for an all-ages audience. Want to learn more about Ryan and Elephant eater? Click here for his website!

RYAN CLAYTOR ELEPHANT EATER SIGNING
Wednesday, August 3, from 5pm-7pm
Chapel Hill Comics
316 W Franklin St
Chapel Hill, NC 27516

Thanks,
Andrew Neal
Chapel Hill Comics
316 W Franklin St
Chapel Hill, NC 27516