We are less than a week away now from our NEW LOCATION, a full ten steps away from our current location.  Got the whole thing painted, and now we’re just trying to figure out how we’re going to lay everything out.  We’re excited about the better lighting (you’re not gonna believe what a big difference that can make!), we’re excited about some more uniformity with the colors that we use throughout the store, we’re excited about having a bar right next door (er, I guess that won’t really be different). 

I’m putting the call out now, and I’ll probably put it out again next week too – WE WILL NEED HELP.  If you have an hour or two next Wednesday night, we close at 9pm, and for the next few hours after that (and probably before it, too), we need as many able bodies as we can to move everything down to our new shop.  Our goal is to open the new spot at 10am the next morning and NOT have it look like a yard sale, but an actual store.  Please let us know you can come by commenting to this post, emailing the store, whatever!

Now, some other more fun information:

Exciting stuff coming out next week, Part 1:  Magic: Zendikar!  The first set in a n ew block of Magic following the MONSTROUS success of the new annual core set, M10 (the three-set Zendikar block will be followed by, presumably, M11).  249-card set, and available in all the standard fashions:  booster packs, intro packs, and fat packs.  Not sure yet if our Thursday night Magic sessions will focus on this set or just continue to be standard constructed… have to check with Arlo.  We do know, though, that we will have Zendikar available for sale on Friday, October 2nd, and that we’ll crack some singles to sell also.  We’ll try and have our singles buy/sell list updated as soon as possible to reflect the new set.

Buffy fan?  Have you enjoyed the Season Eight comic book?  The bad news here is that it’s only going to run 40 issues, and then Buffy Season Eight is at an end.  This might be a true bummer for fans of the show if not for this news that just surfaced:  In an exclusive interview for Complex.com, Whedon confirmed that after a short break when Season Eight finishes up, he will return to begin writing the comic-book series for Buffy Season Nine.  The interview is heavily about the TV show Dollhouse, but if you scroll toward the bottom, you’ll find that nugget.

Mayfair announced another couple of new board games this week, “Atlantis”, due on November 19th, and then, due to release on November 23rd:  “World Without End”, bas ed on the best-selling novel by Ken Follett.  Is this the new trend?  Games based on books?  Looking forward to the tabletop adaptation of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.  Oh, and an update on that “Campaign 2008” game that I mentioned last week… the one I said wouldn’t see the light of day until 2010.  Um – how does November suit you?  Christmas gifts!!

Exciting stuff coming out next week, Part 2:  Yes, I AM serious about this:  Die Hard Year One #1 !!  First argument to pick up this book:  It’s Die Hard.  Not only that, it’s the Origin Story of John McClane, the central character.  And it takes place in New York, during the Summer of Sam… perfect!  Second argument to pick up this book:  Howard Chaykin writes, Stephen Thompson draws, and Jock does the covers.  Pretty nice lineup.

Now that Disney owns Marvel, a lot of movie studios are starting to freak out about losing their rights to Marvel characters under the “use it or lose it” policy that is included in the rights distributions of those characters.  An example – the Fantastic Four contract with Fox came with the caveat that without a new movie made every 5 years, the FF rights would fall back to Marvel.   Now, in the hands of Marvel Studios, you might be willing to gamble that they won’t be able to make any more money off of the Fantastic Four than you were able to manage, so you don’t really lose any pride.  But with the Disney cash behind Marvel now, any character at all can potentially become a huge hit with the right marketing – and egg on the face of whatever studio allowed those character rights to lapse.  So here we go – the “new movie” news is starting to spill quickly with all the characters whose rights are still optioned anywhere other than Marvel.  Daredevil.  Fantastic Four.  Ghost Rider.  Spider-Man.  Venom.  Etc.