Mail Call For 4.30.26

Last week, I looked over the variant covers for the Spider-Man/Superman crossover, made my selections, finished my comic-buying, came home, and published my Pull List post.

Then I browsed Bluesky and saw that someone had posted a variant cover that I had not seen and would have purchased if I had. I just assumed the shop hadn’t had it, as they don’t always go all in on variants.

I immediately went online to order it and saw another variant that I would have bought if I’d seen it, so I ordered that, too.

Later, I was visiting the shop’s Facebook page and learned that, to no one’s surprise, I simply hadn’t looked closely enough, as both variants were on the bottom shelf of the shop’s display.

I thought about canceling my order and just picking up copies on my next trip, but decided I shouldn’t chance them being sold out.

On yesterday’s trip, I found that I would have been able to pick up this one…

…but not this one:

The lesson, as always, is that I need to be in less of a rush and to more patiently and carefully scan the shelves, or maybe even be prepared in advance and know what I’m looking for before I enter the shop.

The truth, also as always, though, is that I absolutely will not learn this lesson.

And as long as that remains true, you can be sure that there will always be a new Mail Call post in the future.

Born and raised in the sparsely populated Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Jon Maki developed an enduring love for comics at an early age.