Issue 1

[Lew Stringer]

Your suspicion that Richard's review wasn't genuine and "has all the hallmarks of a propaganda piece, written in all probability by someone close to the editorial team" sounded pretty cynical and poorly reasoned to me!

As I said once before, In the absence of facts, conjecture is all we have. In any case most of what I wrote is not in dispute.

There's a difference between conjecture and shooting your mouth off to doubt someone's sincerity.

[Phoenix]

I'm finding this constant squabbling, backbiting and the increasing level of personal criticism really quite depressing, especially as it's over so very little. There is still fun to be had here but nothing like as much as there used to be. I think that Kashgar's recent return from his time out is an opportune moment for me to take a break and still leave the site with a resident DCT story comics specialist. My knowledge of Thomsons' pre-war text story comics will still be available to him if he needs it, as indeed it always has been. He knows that he only needs to ask. I may well be back sometime, but it certainly won't be before 2013.

[Lew Stringer]

I'm finding this constant squabbling, backbiting and the increasing level of personal criticism really quite depressing, especially as it's over so very little. There is still fun to be had here but nothing like as much as there used to be. I think that Kashgar's recent return from his time out is an opportune moment for me to take a break and still leave the site with a resident DCT story comics specialist. My knowledge of Thomsons' pre-war text story comics will still be available to him if he needs it, as indeed it always has been. He knows that he only needs to ask. I may well be back sometime, but it certainly won't be before 2013.

The only things I've noticed that might be considered nearing "personal criticism" were when you doubted the reviewer's integrity and then nitpicked Matt's grammar, so you can hardly complain when someone responds to that.

Stick around. It's I who will be taking my leave, as I promised to do a while ago. You said earlier that "in the absence of facts, conjecture is all we have", but when conjecture continues after the facts have been stated - as happens numerous times on the forum, - there's no point in debate.

[stevezodiac]

Bloomin' Ada.

[Peter Gray]

[swirlythingy]

Just got an email from Waitrose and they say.....

I have been in contact with our buyers regarding your query and they have advised us that the Phoenix Comic will be available from today in all of our branches that stock magazines.

Not in Wimbledon, it wasn't.

I did, however, learn that apparently the email which was sent to the head office with my query as to the comic's whereabouts was never replied to, which explains why they never forwarded the reply to me.

This time, I got a phone number which I can use to save the sub-zero trudge down the railway line. Despite giving up this weekly bracing stroll, rest assured that I do not intend to deprive myself of oxygen where the Phoenix's availability is concerned.

[PaulTwist]

So, has anyone seen a copy of The Phoenix on Waitrose's shelves yet? I might have a look after work, but I don't really fancy wasting another hour of my life on a wild goose chase.

[PaulTwist]

Never mind. This weekend! From Twitter:

ANNOUNCEMENT: Our perky fiery bird will be roosting in @WaitroseUK stores this weekend! Sorry for the delay!

[swirlythingy]

Never mind. This weekend! From Twitter:

ANNOUNCEMENT: Our perky fiery bird will be roosting in @WaitroseUK stores this weekend! Sorry for the delay!

Just like they were two days ago, then.

I'll have another look next week, but my breath remains unheld.

There's been a massive cock-up in both PR and practice, and I imagine at least one person is going to be joining the lengthening dole queue shortly. Whether it is an employee of Waitrose or the Phoenix, I do not know, but the publisher cannot escape responsibility entirely for the information blackout we have had to suffer for some weeks before such things became fashionable.

[Matt_Baxter]

Good luck with the Phoenix hunting today, those intent on finding a copy in store! Waitrose says all branches have copies, even the little ones. Your challenge is going to be to find one before they're all snaffled by eager children. There are plans to make make back issues available on the Phoenix site later this year, so you should be able to find any you've missed.

You'll also be pleased to hear that no one is getting sacked for the Waitrose hitch, depite the dour predictions above! We're a small team of dedicated comic professionals, not bloomin' Newscorp. Waitrose are committed but, as a very large organisation, some of their internal processes can take time. A bit of a hiccup, but not the disaster suggested above: we're ahead of the plan in terms of initial subs and we're getting new independent booksellers signing up every day. It's tough, but progress is happening.

Thanks also for the above comments from those whose kids have enjoyed the comic so far: that's the real barometer of it's success. My five year old is genuinely thrilled when his copy arrives, as issue 3 did yesterday. (Yes, despite being a contributor, I subscribed via the site so that we could receive a Royal Mail-delivered copy with my sons name on the envelope every week.)

Cheers
Matt

[nottinghamian]

No sign of it in the small Nottingham Waitrose. In fact, very few magazines/newspapers were stocked there.

[ogtec]

Nothing in the large(ish) one in Westfield, Stratford either. I think I'll give up trying in store as it is costing me a fortune - every time I visit I end up buying something anyway!

On the good news front, my subscription copy of issue 1 turned up on Thursday - just a day before issue 3, which makes for a nice double-header.

And to focus on the content rather than its distribution, I don't have much to add that's not already been said elsewhere, but I'll speak up for a few strips that have had mixed reception: I think 'Corpse Talk', as a concept and in execution, is fantastic. Just the right length and a good way to dig up (pun intended) historical figures and introduce them to children. And 'What Will Happen Next?' has absorbed me for much longer than I thought it would. Initially a two-page spread seemed a waste of space but I think I've spent more time trying to find those bloody items than I have on the rest of the comic!

Thumbs up also for the book extracts and the one off special features. The latter seems to be in place for creators who can't commit to a continuing series but who still fit the overall remit, which is a great way of getting the contributor base expanded.

[DaveWhit.]

I made a trip to my local Waitrose today; a large store with a large selection of magazines for sale, to see if any Phoenix comics had arrived.

I spent a couple of minutes rooting through the bagged nursery comics and copies of Dandy and Beano, but sadly found nothing. I wasn't that surprised, as I kind of already decided they wouldn't be there. I then checked every magazine on the racks and was then about to join the queue for the information desk. Then, I glanced at the newspaper section some thirty feet away from the mags/comics section and thought I could see the back cover of a Phoenix through one of those transparent plastic magazine stands at either end of the newspaper racks. Sure enough issues 1, 2 and 3 were on sale in pristine condition. There were five copies of each issue available, but this was at midday, so others may have sold already.

One downside I've noticed when subscribing is that the comics received so far have arrived damaged in the post, perhaps due to the attractive soft and shiny paper used on the comic . Issues 2 and especially 3 of my subscription copies had a dozen thumb indentations on the covers and numerous bends on spine corners. Perhaps this could be due to a combination of over-zealous envelope stuffing, rough handling by the postal service and of course the soft paper used in the production of the comic. I certainly didn't find this problem with most of the DFC issues, which used a thicker matt art-type paper.

I'm going to see how things go with my three-month subscription and may then switch to buying from Waitrose. I just hope Waitrose continues to have these on sale....and displays them with the other comics where the children will be looking!!. Whatever happens I will be continuing to support this new title.

Congrats to the Phoenix team for sorting out the distribution glitch (at least here in Southend).

[swirlythingy]

Congrats to the Phoenix team for sorting out the distribution glitch (at least here in Southend).

Pics so it happened:

You have no idea what it took to get that picture.

First, I went (misguidedly hopefully) to the Little Waitrose, which was closest. They didn't even stock the Beano in their tiny magazine rack, and although I tried the very back, I found nothing.

So off I went to the much bigger Waitrose up on the ex-railway land, a location with which I have become intimately familiar over the last two weeks. I looked at their magazine stand, which seems to get more moribund every time I look at it, but apart from a large number of unsold Beanos, nothing to suggest that the Phoenix had ever come within a hundred paces of the thing.

I turned round and, for the third time in my life and the last two weeks, addressed the assistant at the nearby customer service desk. This time I didn't even bother asking if they knew when the Phoenix was coming in, since it evidently wasn't, so I simply asked where the nearest Waitrose to the one in which I was standing was, excluding the outpost opposite the station. They may have thought this a distinctly odd request, but nevertheless advised me to go to Raynes Park.

Thankfully, due to a previous, unrelated, equally fruitless search for an unfindable product in that general area, I had recently coincidentally discovered the location of this particular monstrous flogging-shed for myself, and so I resolved to walk there immediately (the sort of decision it's easier to make on a Saturday afternoon when you don't have a social life). Getting the bus would undoubtedly have been quicker, but I'm sure the endless concrete footpath by the side of the four-track railway embankment did me the power of good.

As you can probably guess, after having scoured the many aisles of the industrial-scale retail unit for their well-hidden magazine rack, the number of issues of the Phoenix I found was zero. Determined not to give up the search, I went round to the local customer desk and, again, asked where the nearest branch was that wasn't in Raynes Park or Wimbledon. This time, since I wasn't so well known as a nutcase around those parts, I mentioned that I was looking for the Phoenix, a comic supposedly exclusively available in Waitrose, and apparently still pretty damn exclusive even after limiting one's search to branches of Waitrose.

Like her counterpart at Wimbledon, the woman behind the monitor offered to phone round and ask some other branches if they stocked it. Well, I say she 'offered' - in actual fact she went away and got someone else to take her place, presumably because she was incapable of operating the phone for herself. Anyway, woman number 2 wrote down a list of branches local to the immediate vicinity, each taking me further and further away from home, and, since I could not possibly visit all of them before closing time, I requested that she eliminated as many as possible by phone first.

New Malden was closest. She dialled, she held, she waited for several nail-biting minutes, before finally relaying the inevitable 'no'.

Kingston was easily accessible by bus. She dialled some more, she held, she received exactly the same answer.

Surbiton didn't even bother to answer the phone.

That just left Worcester Park. She dialled yet again, she chatted, and then suddenly the local half of the conversation took a noticeable swing for the hopeful. Finally, she put the phone down, smiled, and announced that, yes, Worcester Park had taken delivery of not one, but three issues of the Phoenix - with the caveat that they hadn't even put them on the shelf yet, so I'd have to speak to a representative of my third welcome desk of the day.

I've never even been to Worcester Park before, and it's fortunate she was able to print off a map. I travelled two stops on the local branch line, I got rather lost on the high street, I realised that the map really wasn't quite as accurate as it might have been, and eventually I stumbled across a narrow turn-off between two shops, which turned out to be the entrance to the Waitrose car park.

And so to the island in the entrance area, which, for lack of any more plausible candidates, I had to assume was the welcome desk. Queueing for some minutes behind an extremely chatty mother and her young child in the trolley, I casually glanced over the barriers... and saw, lurking underneath one corner of the desk, a small pile of cardboard boxes, and, resting on top of one of them, a purple cover bearing a distinctive bird-shaped logo.

The conversation, when it finally started, went something like this:

Me: "Hello, I'm here to pick up a copy of the Phoenix?"

Her: "Do you have the coupon?"

Me: "The... coupon?"

Her: "Yes, you can't get it without the coupon."

Me: "Well, I was just in Raynes Park, and they phoned -"

Her: "Are you talking about the book in the Telegraph?"

Me: "Er... no, I'm talking about that comic behind you."

Her: "Ohh, you must be the young man who phoned earlier!"

Me: "That's right."

Her: "We've only just taken delivery of them, so we haven't put them out yet. Say, which issue did you want? Only I've got three here, and Raynes Park said they didn't know which one you -"

Me: "I'll have them all!"

And so, after a ten pound note changed hands, I finally came into posession of this rarest of prizes.

Bloody hell, and I thought the Dandy had problems...

[felneymike]

Hahah, that's a bit of an oddysey!

The Little Waitrose in central Cambridge (not to be confused with the apparently huge one apparently on the southern outskirts) didn't have it (but then they didn't have any comics apart from Peppa Pig). Ely didn't either, but I didn't ask anybody about it so maybe they haven't put them out yet. I wanted to buy a copy of issue 1 in a shop to read, and then when my ordered copy turns up keep it with the envelope in pristine condition for 75 years before flogging it for a retirement nest egg.

Still I did find a late 80's Hawk Books reprint book of random IPC adventure stories for it's original price (of £2.99) and get the latest 4 Commando's and 3 Japanese "Doujins" (self-published copyright-infringing fan comics, it's a huge cottage industry over there, the main convention goes on for 3 days and gets over a million people through the door) for £1.99 each. Usually if you see them at conventions like MCM they are in the £20-30 range. Sooo not a totally wasted trip. Oh and if there's a U Sushi near you it's far nicer than Yo Sushi.