A pull list is the single best free service a comic shop offers. What's crazy is that half the people who'd love one have never heard the term. It takes two minutes to set up and it fixes the most annoying part of reading monthly comics: missing an issue. This is the whole system, including the reason (FOC) that explains why preordering matters more than you might realize.
What a pull list is
A pull list (or "subscription," or "file") is a standing order: you tell us which series you read, and every week, when new issues arrive, we pull your books off the shipment and set them aside with your name on them. You come in (New Comic Book Day is Wednesday for all shops) and your comics are waiting. That's all it is. There's no cost, you just pay for the comics when you pick them up. In fact, most stores will offer discounts or perks for using their pull list system.
Why readers love it
- You never miss an issue. Hot books sell out Wednesday morning. Pull list customers don't care because their copy is safely stashed away. It eliminates the need to track a reprint or pay aftermarket prices for a series you planned on reading. cough Absolute Batman cough.
- No wasted trips. The worst feeling ever is getting to your Local Comic Shop (LCS) and not finding any books you were looking forward to reading. Now you have to head to the nearest shop that's 20 minutes away and cross your fingers that they didn't sell out too.
- It's flexible. Add a series when the first issue intrigues you. If you love it, great, you'll always have a copy. If you didn't like it, no problem, just drop the series at any time.
- Better recommendations. Once we know what you read, "you'd probably like this new book" stops being a guess. The more we see your books, the more we know your taste.
What FOC is, and why it secretly runs the industry
FOC, short for Final Order Cutoff, is the deadline (typically a few weeks before an issue ships) when shops must lock in their order quantities with distributors. After FOC, our numbers are final: that's how many copies of each book will ever arrive at our door. Most of the time there are no restocks.
Why should a reader care about distributor deadlines? Because of what they mean in practice:
- Shops order to their pull lists. Your standing order is a guaranteed sale, so it's counted first and directly increases what we order. A book on 20 pull lists gets ordered deeper than a book on 2, every time.
- For small and indie books, preorders are life support. Publishers look at FOC numbers to decide whether a series continues. When you add an indie series to your pull list before FOC, you are, no exaggeration, casting a vote that keeps it alive. Waiting to "see if it's good" from the shelf sometimes means there's no shelf copy, and eventually no series.
- It explains sellouts. When a book blows up on release day, we can't just get more that week; the order was locked weeks ago. The fix, forever and always: pull list.
How to set one up (it's two minutes)
- Tell us the series you're reading, in the shop or through our online pull list signup.
- Tell us your preferences: regular covers only? Variants too? Should we grab #1s of new series we think you'll like? (Only if you want that. Some people do, some don't.)
- We hold books for a week. If you need more time, just let us know. Once we know you, we're happy to hold books as long as you'd like.
You can manage everything online (add series, drop series, see what's coming) through the subscriptions page. If a book you're curious about is close to FOC, we'll flag it so you can decide in time. And if you're pre-ordering bigger items (omnibuses, box sets, statues), our pre-orders explainer covers how that side works.
The fine print (there's barely any)
A pull list works on simple mutual trust: we order your books because you've said you'll take them. Drop a series whenever you want. Just tell us so we stop ordering it, ideally before FOC. That's the whole arrangement. Two books or forty, your pull is welcome here.
Is a pull list right for you?
If you read even two or three ongoing series in single issues: yes, unambiguously. If you're a trades-only reader, you don't need one, though we can note your favorite series and flag new volumes when they land, which is the same idea in book form. Not sure which kind of reader you are yet? Our getting started guide and format guide will sort you out.
Ready? Start your pull list here, see what's landing this week in this week's drop, or just walk in and ask us. Setting up pull lists is the most satisfying two minutes of our day.
